Building & Exiting Global Brand - 10 Year Hairburst Story - Jimmy Hill | Midnight Podcast Episode 27

Right then back with episode 27 of the Midnight Pod, arguably my most anticipated guess. We've been trying to fucking sort this big claim a few months, but the man's too busy living life. Post exit, we have Jimmy Hill, who I guess most famously has built and recently exited from Hair Burst, which is, well, basically a fucking hair care brand. Gummies, shampoos, all that good shit from up north as well. So I'm definitely fucking biased towards. You done a few other things as well, haven't you? Like Mr. Blank Teeth and shit, which maybe we can get into. But I guess first question, as always, and there's probably like, actually there's like, this is an interesting episode because certainly I think for a lot of people in EECOM watching, like younger guys, including myself, not select your ass, but you've probably done what a lot of people want to do, which is start a brand from scratch, scale it, make it a proper business, which we can talk about, and then made a shitload of money selling it to a big fucking strategic buyer, basically. And then beyond that. So, yeah, I think an interesting episode. There's like, probably three key areas that we're going to, but yeah, I guess fairly chronologically and like, first question is just how did you get started, really? Like way, way back.

Way, way back diving. So probably quite a stereotypical startup journey, really. Depends how far I want to go back. I mean, we. When we started.

When you literally started in the brand? Yeah, like right at the start, Ecom.

Because E Comm. I was an ebay seller for a bit, so I was selling used phones on ebay for like a long period of time, which is a long story. But in terms of, like, when Hairbirth started, we. I just did it with two friends. We had 4k in savings. We just pulled together and we bought our first load of products from a manufacturer for like 3K and then scaled up from there, which is obviously a long journey. But just to give people context, Hair Burst now is it's an ecom brand, but it's also a retail brand as well. So we've got. I mean we're stocked in 20,000 stores worldwide. So we've got. Obviously in the UK was our first market. So we've got like Boots, Superdrug, Holland and Barrett. And then in Europe we've got like Sephora America, we've got CVS in Asia with A.S. watson. So it's 20,000 stores globally, which is like half the business. And the other half is the E Comm, which is where it all started, which is what we're going to talk about today. But yeah, started with 4K1SKU and yeah. Grew over nine years.

Yeah, that is a long time going back to the phone stuff because I know you put. I saw this on your Instagram. So I actually followed you on Instagram like three years ago, which is kind of niche, I suppose, because you don't have like a personal brand or at least maybe then less so of one because I saw you bought. You bought a car from Redline and I'd bought a car from Redline. Just follow fucking everyone in the ecom space. But yeah, I saw you worked a car from warehouse or some shit.

Thanks. For you. Yeah, she's gone bus now. Yeah.

So what's the story there? Like you mentioned you're selling on ebay. I think it was related.

So I was pre hair burst, but yeah, that's pre hair burst. But I. So I had. I wanted to do E Com for probably like after uni. It was like. It kind of became a thing. So I used to play poker online. So I used to play mainly heads up because I had a few friends that used to play poker and made like quite good money from that. So I used to play mostly heads up on various different poker sites and my whole ambition was just to make a living doing something on my own. Didn't at the time when I started to play poker, the idea was I'd just play poker. I'd be able to go to Thailand, work from a laptop, all that kind of vibe.

Yeah.

And then after doing that for like four or five years, it became. It's very hard to scale that because it's. Unless you invest like, which is like staking other players, you can't really do it passively. So I was never going to be. You have to always be the horse, basically. So yeah, realized I wanted to ecom, read loads of Ecom books and that was the path I wanted to go to. But in between poker and starting a brand, I had no money. So it was back to work. So I got a job at phones for you.

Did you go to union?

Yeah, I did sport at uni because I was always in sport. Leeds Met.

Proper university.

But I was from Scunthorpe originally, which is about an hour away.

Yeah.

And went to Leeds Met three years. But again like when I was at uni I just played poker all the time. I didn't actually do my degree.

Did you finish the degree though?

Yeah. I didn't even get. What's that under a two, two a third. Is it? Don't know basically means it doesn't count.

Yeah.

Because I did want to be a PE teacher. That was like my initial plan. But if you get a third, you can't be a P. T. Shirt. But by the time I was. I think it was probably maybe two months into uni is when I found poker. And then that kind of absorbed my life for like four or five years. But interestingly, when we get. We can get into it later. But poker's a game. People think poker's gambling, but it's actually a game of skill. It's almost like a. It's like chess with luck involved. You have to be quite analytically minded. And you. I think I learned a lot from that when it came into ecom in terms of like looking at analytics, looking at data, looking at like your brain performance, analyzing your performance, looking at other players performance, all that kind of stuff. So that I think that definitely helped me. Even though it wasn't my end result. It did definitely help. What was your question? Leeds. Yeah. Went to uni. Yeah.

So starting hair burst, are you. Were you in uni or did you finish uni?

I finished. So I finished. Did poker for a bit, went traveling, did the Thailand thing, which is like the best time my life still.

Yeah.

Because I had. Didn't even have a phone then. It was just like I had 7k in savings, booked my flights, went there for like Thailand, Australia for like six to eight months. And two of the guys that I went with, they were co founders in Hairburst when we first started.

Yeah.

So that was. That was kind of where I guess the hairbird story started because that's when I was really getting into e comm and learning about it. But in between then was I got a job at phones for you. I was selling, I think it was 16 grand a year with bit of commission.

So that was after uni working phones for you. Yeah. So. Right, yeah. And then you decided just point blank, let's just start a fucking ecom brand. Well, I thought about it for a while.

Didn't think about. At that point I wasn't. I was. I was conscious of it, but I also probably didn't have the. I knew that I wanted to sell online, but I didn't have anything to sell and I wanted to have my own brand, but I didn't know what it was going to be at that point in time. So I was literally at phones for you. And I just started buying phones off customers and like bagging them up in my car and then taking them, sell them on ebay. So that was like. And I can remember writing I'd have, like, a blue diary. And I used to write in the diary, like, being quite honest with myself. And I used to write things like, you don't know what you're gonna end up selling, but, you know, you want to do ecom to just, like, find things to sell. And it was like, just like a development thing. And it was just like, got to the point where I was getting quite desperate. I was like, I'll just sell anything. So I started by just like, yeah, literally buying used phones and going through that process of having a product and taking to the post office. So that was like, got me. Got me brain going in terms of how. How that would work. Roll on. I was only there for, like, eight months, and then I had a job at a search marketing agency in Leeds as well. So I was just in the sales team, but I was speaking to those different brand owners. It was quite interesting. So I'd speak to a. A brand owner that had. I mean, it could sell anything. Like, one did sheds, one did, like, bedding, Another one was selling, like, sports supplements and other, like, you know, and you speak to the founder and understand, like, the agency mostly focused on SEO and, like, more traditional forms of marketing. And I was seeing how many. How much these companies were spending on this, like, per month. And it was like, okay, that's like a big investment. Like, how do I get my own off the ground? And then social media came around, which is a big blessing for me. And that's where we launched our brand.

And what was the logic to, like. Because obviously you don't strike me as a customer of hair burst, because for me, like, I always think, I don't know, like, when I started brands, I was like, building for me. And then I guess there was other customers. But was it like, analytical? Was it just like, it, let's do this and see what happens? And it worked.

Or so I. Because I had an interest in sport, I always used to be like, I was on my protein. I think how much I spent when I was younger on my protein.

Yeah.

And that was the brand I always looked up to. Now, by the time it was like, this is like 2013, the brand was already huge. Bulk powders is a great brand. There's all these other cool brands, and, I mean, guys were on Instagram, but in terms of, like, influencers or, like, influential pages was mostly targeted towards females. So it was like, I understood nutrition, I understood social media at this point. And I was trying to find the right brand and product to fit that, as opposed to think about either way. So I was like, just imagine, just like, understood nutrition, understood that it was mostly girls at the time on Instagram, like, what do I. What do I find? So the long way around it, to me felt quite logical to do a hair supplement, which was the first product.

Yeah. All right. So how will be then when you decided, let's do hair. But she would have been, What, I guess nine years younger than you are now, which is 24?

Yeah, I think I was 23.

And did I assume there was like. Was there like a crossover between, like, jobs and. Or did you literally all, well, the two of you put some money in and then just say, let's go all in. How did that.

So I was working at the agency. We'd started the brand aside from that. So we were. So I was doing my job, getting back from work, packing the orders. My business partner was working, like, heavily on getting different influences, like posts about the brand and then like morning, afternoon, night, just like packing the different orders when we had a chance. And then when we sort of hit like a point where we could start to do some potential profitability, that's when I decided to quit work and go full time and pile in. And I can remember it was like. It was dead simple, right? We had like one sku. We were getting traffic in. Traffic was cheap because it was coming from Instagram pages that no one knew was even, like an advertising platform at the time. There's probably like, gymshark and a few other, like, core brands that were doing it, but not in our sector. And yeah, we were just dead early with that. But anyway, we're driving traffic to the site for cheap and conversion rates. We're just watching that like a hawk because I knew if I could get a conversion rate of like, two plus the. That I'd make enough money to cover my day job wage that I was getting now. So, I mean, we're going to get into this. But my approach then was like, just cover my wage and get paid. Whereas, like a lot of brands now it's like. Which I agree with, is raise money, find investment and then push on from there. Whereas I was like, just make enough money to then pay myself to then focus full time. Which is actually counterintuitive because really, it should go back in. But when. When you've got. Yeah, when you've still got a job, you have to take some salary.

Right. What was the first product?

Capsule? Hair Burst. The Hair Burst original formula, which still is one of our best sellers today. So it was, it was like 16 ingredient, 26 ingredients for all. Focus on hair.

Yeah. And how were you sourcing that at the time? Because obviously, like I've recently gone into like consumable and it's a minefield. So like as a first project in E Comm, seems pretty, pretty complex.

We didn't, I mean we, we just worked directly as a manufacturer in the uk, but we probably spoke to.

Yo, fellas, quick one, first bit of promo for the pod. You may or may not have heard I released a fucking E Commerce a few months ago. Basically spent like six months making it because I was in between businesses, as you probably know, if you follow my shit, I must say, 12 hours long. It's fucking quality content. I was gonna drop it like 1500 quid with some guru y webinar and all that rubbish, but as you know, it's not my main thing. I'm working on a new brand right now, very, very fucking much in the trenches, which is why I think it's actually a better course than everything else out there because it's built on real experience of my brands in the past and my current one. I think it's super, super valuable. If you're interested in E Comm, you're already in E Comm and you wanted to get into e comm. 0 to 1 starting a brand from scratch, then definitely worth investing in. Link is in the bio of this video or podcast. Spotify, Apple Music, wherever the fuck you're listening or watching and enjoy the rest of the podcast.

20, maybe different. Like they want to take, they want people like my protein to, to work with them and go, okay, we want to try this new SKU. Let's have like 50, 000 products or like big chunks. Whereas I was, I was going for meetings talking about building out this hair brand that's going to be big. But I've only got three grand to buy products.

Yeah.

So they, yeah, it took me a while to get a manufacturer, but we did eventually get one and I'm still in touch with the guy who was a sales guy at the time on there. And yeah, yeah, it was a factory in the uk.

Nice, nice. And was this all on Shopify even back then?

Yep. Shopify store.

Yeah.

I mean it looks horrendous back then, looking back, but it was all through Shopify.

Yeah, yeah. And then where the sales come from, is it literally organic?

Because obviously now it wouldn't be influencers and influencer pages. So we were like, yeah, pretty much. I mean we set, we had Google Live. Fairly soon we were doing some Facebook ads, but actually unsuccessfully at the start. And then at the very, very start it was one even. It wasn't even like Instagram influences, it was pages. Okay. What was called nails for you because I used to work at phones for you and I thought it was quite funny. But it was just a page that had like 100,000 followers. Posted loads of like new nail designs or whatever, but they would take payment. So you'd be like 50 quid, 100 quid, whatever to post the brand. And that would drive traffic to the site. Yeah, and there was hundreds of them. Like there was loads in America, loads in the uk, loads internationally. Like, well, tens of thousands of these pages that existed. They're probably still around today, but I don't know if they're a viable marketing channel.

Yeah, shit's definitely changed.

Do you know anybody had any pages or did you ever build a page?

No, I didn't, to be fair. I know like, who's it Social chain that started with all that apparently all that early sort of shit. Yeah, this is a bit before my time actually. Like 2013, 14, I would have been still in buddy six form.

And one of our co founders, he, he had a page called Beards and Tats. Yeah, I just found it was a bit weird. I felt a bit weird at the time. Like he was just, he had this Instagram page and a Twitter page and he just posted like cool looking guys with like beards and like tires. And it was like that was the page, but people followed it for like tattoo ideas or whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

And that caught my attention because it was like, I think he got to like 50, 60,000 followers on these page and I was like, well, there's a page for that, but is there a page for this or a page for this?

But back in the day when people got Facebook famous rather than like Instagram famous and.

Yeah, Facebook pages, massive organic reach. Massive. Yeah, yeah.

So first year of the business then, like what sort of numbers we talking? And was it literally one SKU for the first year or did that quickly expand?

It quickly expanded, but we went too quick with that. So by. We didn't do a million in our first year. I think we, we went past a million in our second year. But we were super profitable because we were paying, we're paying these pages and it didn't cost much to get traffic. So when it was actually figured out and it was like we started to really get the pages going and we were making good money. At that point. So within like the first year, I'd quit my job. I was working on it full time. My. One of my two or two co founders, they were then on it full time as well.

Yeah.

So we didn't have an office. We were just working out. We had all lived together, so we had the same house. We were packing the garage. But I think probably somewhere like mid through the second year, it was like, okay, this is working. We're making. We're now making some good money. But it's. It's a huge opportunity to build a proper brand because I knew how much traffic, like traditional companies in any sector. Like, like I said, like bedding and like garden materials and all this. Like, I see the traffic. So it was like, I knew our traffic was strong and I knew we were paying much less than the competition.

Yeah.

So it was a case of attacking it quite hard from there.

Yeah. And at what point did you start running, like, Facebook ads and shit? Was that quite a way after that or. Because obviously would have been pretty early for those platforms.

So I even now, like, our Facebook ads strategy isn't as good as other brands. I mean, I know you've got a big background in that and you were really successful with it, but I think because we were so successful with like the influencer side and the retail side, it kind of took like a second holding. Yeah. So, I mean, we started Facebook ads pretty, pretty much straight away, but we didn't have. What I have now and what like, we speak about is like having a data driven approach to the marketing. Like, when we first started, we didn't understand any of that. So we kind of. We kind of grew into that over time.

Yeah. Yeah. And at this point, is it literally just you and did you have staff or was it literally the founders?

Yeah. Probably say halfway through the second year, it was. We started to invest in stuff. But again, like, we were. I always say, like, if I did it again, I would probably. I'd go much harder. But because it was the first proper money we were making, we were taking a lot out and yeah, we were. So again, like, I mean, we did invest in staff, but we were. We were really profitable compared to other brands. And I always kept everything super lean. Like, when we got our first office, it was £350 for a month.

Yeah. Up north.

Yeah. So it's like nothing, you know?

Yeah. So it's interesting that this was literally. This was your first ecom thing you'd ever done. Right. Because, I mean, obviously you kind of dabbled around in like selling phones and I looked at.

I actually looked at doing some Amazon stuff as well. I was trying to find something but it was, it was. I was just like playing around. I didn't really. This is the first one I took like really seriously, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah. Cuz I feel like now, I mean like starting a brand now if you don't have any experience, I feel it would be fucking difficult, I think. I know you've mentioned that before on Instagram or something. Unless. Yeah, like you need money. More money than you did in the past for sure. I mean I even know that and more experience, I think. I think with experience you can, you can raise money like I've done. But you know, if you don't have experience on money, I think now pretty impossible. Not impossible, but like probably, I don't know, a lot harder than even for me. It was a few years ago with like some. My earlier brands and shit because I originally started with drop shipping. Did that ever cross your mind?

Yeah.

Because you went straight into buying stock.

Yeah.

Which is a pretty ballsy move.

Yeah. We were playing around with like. I was on Alibaba, like trying to find some interesting stuff.

Yeah.

I looked at. This is random as hell. I was looking at doing like heated or like cooling blankets for beds. Like I could literally remember like one night I was like. Don't know. In like English summer. You know, like when you're away and like on holiday, whatever you have air come. You don't have that home then. I just used to like look at random stuff but I never really committed to anything apart from when we did hair burst.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I was always looking. But it does take. And when you talk about like starting I think you do need to. You're always better off to commit and just go for something and learn along the way as opposed to like. Because I had a good year where I'm just like looking around trying to find something to do but it's quite hard to get started. Once you have the momentum, it starts to fill itself and it's. You like set a fire and it just goes. But yeah, yeah, making that call because just from like your history, like you did that around a bit, didn't you? Like you've done so much stuff adhd.

But yes, it's only.

Which is a skill set in itself.

But yeah, it is. It's like a high risk skill set because yeah, like, I mean, yeah, I've got one particular mate who's definitely like the most successful don I know for that age and yeah, he's only ever done like the one thing and similar to kind of what you're saying. Whereas my problem, maybe it's like a blessing and a curse, but like, yeah, I feel like I could start a brand in any category, but then that means it's like fucking which one do I choose? I mean, I was, I was a lot more analytical with my new brands actually for the first time ever, sat down, was like, okay, let's not just start something randomly. I was literally like, kind of what you said before, I was like, well, I know this, this and this now, like, this didn't work, this didn't work. You know what ticks this, this and this box potentially, you know, like, what am I interested in enough to work on as well and, and what is like a market, you know, all this sort of thing. And then, yeah, came to the new shit I'm working on. But yeah, now I need to stick with one and fucking like iterate rather than change.

Was there any, any ones that you did in the past that you thought you wish you stuck around a bit longer?

Yeah, so I had a clothing brand, but actually before I got into drop shipping back in like 2016 when I was at uni, we had an office and shit and that was do I think we did like a few hundred grand a month. Not a few hundred grand a month, sorry, no, like a few hundred grand over about six months. And I was like, we were 20 in uni. Like that was good. And we were like designing clothes and holding it in a 3PO was. And then it. We just. Me and my mate who'd started it, we just fell out basically and it just disintegrated. But yeah, I spoke about that on episode 23 with him, Ollie, who's now running an agency. But yeah, it just chops and changed that much. And then I was like, well, I just want to travel and make money. And then I got into drop shipping and yeah, this whole episode that's gone out about this now by now, but because, yeah, like, I don't know if I had a specific goal when I got started. Like, did you. I mean, obviously travel. Just to travel.

Literally just travel. I know it's like become like a, a thing now with online brands. But yeah, for me it was read the four Hour Work Week and that pretty much that changed my life, I would say. And I'm going to say the four Hour Work Week and everyone's going to think maybe I'll read that book. But I mean it's not the best book. I've ever read for sure. But in terms of like the time I was in this is like. I mean it was fairly outdated then in terms of like actual strategies. But what he used to do is he would test various different concepts using Google Ads. The way we did it was through social and the way you do it is through social. So it has gone on. But in terms of like the core principles of building E Comm brand I think there's a lot still in there that's useful for people. But basically I read that and it was like well I think he said he was doing 30k a month or something in sales. I can remember at the time reading that thinking wow, that's like amazing. Like I'd love to do something that did that and but in terms of like just like basic margins, understanding the way that any. Com brand works, that was, that was really useful for me at the time because that was like my first one of my first like real looks into it. I read business books and stuff. Like I read Richard Branson and all those like classics. But that was like the first sort of E Comm thing that I really read. Yeah, I think it really stuck with me. Yeah. Sorry. And he was to get answer your point, it was what was the goal? It was. That was the travel because that's what he was doing.

And how quickly did that change? Like so like I know you said two years in you reached like seven figures in sales. Did you start to think maybe there's like. Were you even thinking about the potential scale or was it just like oh this is better than when we started. Let's keep trotting along. Is it just getting on with things.

Like the buzz of.

And even a lot of people now just speak about starting a brand to sell rather than start.

We did not do that. I mean we did not do that. Even though that's what we've done it. That wasn't the plan.

I mean it's the irony like I'm.

Trying to think when those, when he actually changed but I mean the buzz of like you'll know but from like working a job to having like a life ambition just for like work for myself, earning enough money to travel to Thailand which costs absolutely nothing. Like you can stay in a hotel for a tenner and it's half decent.

Yeah.

To have that as an ambition to then within like a year like fulfilling my dream like that buzz was like unbelievable. I can be like obviously when you're working job you have like four weeks holiday so to then go to a Point where I had, like, obviously I was accountable to my business partners and I wanted to do the best I could possibly be for them. But it was a case of, yeah, we kind of, like, achieved it. So I kind of. I think when people talk about the exit and they talk about, like, when they get exit, and it's like you have this, like, gold medal syndrome and all this, like, kind of stuff. For me, that happened then, like, literally, like seven years ago, because my actual goal was just to be able to travel and be free, basically, and freedom. And that's. Even now, it's like, freedom's my number one thing. So the goal was that that was achieved within the first two years, let's say. And then it was a case of, we're now, we've achieved what we're going to achieve. We can. We can travel, we can do all this cool stuff. But it was. I think we was like, surrounded by the opportunity of building a real brand. She kind of go through, because I came from almost like, similar background, where it's like, it's not like I really want to build this particular brand. It was, I want to find something that's like my thing that I do, and it gives you money and freedom. Right. That's like the overall goal. So then it kind of. We realized how quickly we're growing. It was like, well, wow, if we can. And I started to see if, like, a competitor sold, like, my protein sold to the Hook group, another competitor sold for, like, a big money. And I was like, okay, so you're looking at potentially five, six, seven years worth of hard work to be free for the rest of my life. And I thought it's probably time to get my head down and, like, really knuckle down.

Yeah. And how far into the business do you think? Because we spoke about this before, and I feel like it's the stage that a lot of people struggle with. I mean, I've certainly struggled with it and not really got there, I feel like, is like turning it from, like, I don't know, kind of a bedroom brand that's doing pretty well, which a lot of guests I've had on here are kind of at. And I've been out in the past to, like, I guess, a real business. And. And it's. I guess it's different now maybe, because, like, you can have a real business and still be, like, fully remote and. But was there a point where I guess you noticed the opportunity, like you said, head down? What actually changed? Was it gradual? And what were those?

I understand the Real business thing. Because, like, looking back at kind of, there's, like. There's no difference from a consumer's point of view, from. From like a founder's point of view. You see it quite clearly. Like, let's say you set up a. I don't know, like a. A trainer brand. Say there's like. From your point of view, you'd think, okay, I've got a training brand, I'm doing a few million sales and. But it's not a real brand because Nike's a giant. That's like a real trainer brand. Yeah, but from a consumer's point of view, like, a lot of consumers don't understand where the brand came from. And everything starts from. From a low point. And I think you can build a real brand in any category. I think there's a book on it. I think I brief. I didn't actually read it fully, but I think it's called Category of Killers. I don't know if you've seen that one. No, but it talks about, like, each individual category, like nearly nine. A category which we've talked about before, that we obviously nailed down the hair category, and that's what we focused on. But there's basically every aspect of business and like, all these brands like that, like PNG or Unilever Own, like, don't know, like, I don't know, like detergent or whatever. It's just another brand. Right. And it's also not even. It's not exactly my face. Like, it doesn't have a founder story, so everything can be disrupted and become like a real brand. But it's just. I guess it's a case of, like, scale. And I think for us, we got quite quickly into retail as well. So that was. Makes you realize, like, okay, so there's this real brand that's, like, there, and then there's us next to it, and then they're selling more than us. But, yeah, we're quite close behind, you know, so you can't. There's not really a difference. I think you kind of. Yeah. What. Does that answer your question? Yes, I know what you're saying, because there is, like, a distinct difference, but at the same time, there isn't really.

Yeah, because, I mean, I guess the one thing I've always thought about is, is how do you. How do you, like, how do you become appealing for someone to actually buy it? And I know this is like, we can talk about that later on, but even though with the new thing I'm starting, I very much don't want to fall into the category of, oh, it's just another fucking copycat brand. Like, it does a few million in sales like every other fucking brand that started by anyone with like a half decent brain. Because I feel like it's quite easy to get to like two, three. Well, not easy, but very doable to get to sort of a few million in revenue. Now with E Comm, if you know what you're doing, you've got a bit of money behind you.

So this is interesting, right? I would categorically say that from your side you're saying that, but from what I've seen, I'd say that's the hardest bit. So you can actually do the hardest.

Bit potentially well done it twice. Well. But then just it with the last one, which took everything down.

That literally is the hardest bit. Like, if you could take a concept, get it to a few million in sales and then I think what you're saying is like, then where's the next stage?

Yeah, because. Well, yeah, so that's the first I was. Was getting to the point where I was trying to do very consciously, but it was terrible timing because, yeah, in 2020, ended up having two brands and then if I hadn't had the fucking Neon one, you know, whatever, the other one could have been that one, but whatever. And then I was very consciously trying to like, I was actually dealing with a advisory firm that was kind of like friend of a friend sort of thing and whatever. But like, they were trying to help me make it more corporate. Was like the terms they'd use. Because ultimately, like, I was just a lad on a laptop in a kitchen doing like a million a month in sales at one point.

Yeah.

And granted, half of that was like drop shipping with the Neon stuff. But yeah, like you don't. That's. That's actually quite a big scale. Do you know what I mean? But. But I didn't have any employees. I had no, like, no one of any experience actually guarding me to do anything. And I was a bit like, I think. And I was like, fuck. Well, I know something's got to change. I was kind of aware of that. Probably even more aware of that now. But I didn't even know where to start because I was like. And I guess it comes from hiring, I think. And that's why I never quite got right.

Yeah.

Because I always had a massive element of imposter syndrome.

You can you say hiring, but like.

Hire a COO, that's 40. I was like, well, why would they listen to me?

Yeah, I mean, we we started like my Sierra. Now who's like. He's like, he's gonna kill me if I say the wrong number. I reckon he's 42 now, so he probably joined us. He was like 39, 40. And I was like in my own 20s. But hiring is a massive key. But more important than that, like, you don't need to have full time staff. You could do it with freelancers. Like, I know some brands that have spoke to a brand today that's like doing amazing, but it's only got like six freelancers behind it, you know?

Yeah.

And it's because people are just time and if times used correctly in the right areas, then that's how you can scale. But what's most important is, especially if ecom is like, how are you driving traffic? What's it costing and what are they buying and what's the lifetime value of that customer? And that's increased by like repeat purchase or more product. That's the tree. And you can go from. There's no, there's no. If you can build on that, there's no way. It wouldn't scale.

Yeah.

Because it's not. I understand like hiring, that's only just you just when you hire, you just acquire time. If you can. If you can learn to like manage people and use their time most effectively then. Because you can't do it on your own. And like, I was dead lucky because I had my two best mates, right. And like, the more time that goes, it's like I was so lucky with that. And even now, like one of my co founders has left the business, but the one who's still at the moment, Gwil, is like, we're just a perfect match. Because I'm not very good at detail, I quite like the big picture stuff. But he's very happy to get his head down and like he grabs his ass off so that we kind of have this like, approach where like, I'll probably have like six or seven ideas and together we'll like nail down like two. But he's like really good at like hammering things through to the end, whereas I'm like quiet all over the shop. So we. I was lucky with that because we didn't need to hire staff because we had three of us at the time. Like Matty, who left early, he was like dead creative as well. So especially for you, like being a solo founder, I know you've got great advisors around you and like people this time around.

Yeah.

You can have to hire it on your own.

Right. I want to pick up that point you said you reckon zero to a million or whatever is harder. Hardest bit then, I don't know, 1 to 30 million. Do you actually think that 100%? I mean. Yeah, evidence otherwise it's interesting.

So by that time you've, you've created a brand, you've got the concept people are buying into the product that you have customers. So if you can have a thousand customers, why can't you have 5,000? You have 5,000, why can't you have 10,000? If you have 10,000, why can't you have a hundred thousand? And before you know it you're a global brand. So it's like if you can prove that concepts, I mean especially nowadays you can, that can still be wrong because you can, you can raise money, you can acquire customers for too much money. So you can artificially acquire customers at a big loss and you still achieve scale. But is it going to be, is it going to become a big brand or is it just pure money is going to force it through? Whereas what you've done, which is before with no financial backing and done it yourself, you've built something to a certain size and it's just a case of like doing more of the same if you like or like adding more products or increasing the ad budget, you know, so, so why would what's happened with other brands that you've seen that get to a certain size, what stops them from growing, would you say?

Well, yeah, I mean that's what I was going to say because like, if that's the easiest part, why is it that you see so many brands do a few million in revenue, you don't see that many do 10 plus and you certainly don't see that many do like 30 plus million in revenue. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I've never got to that level yet.

I guess it depends on the concept.

I feel like it's. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I think a lot of brands could get to like 10 mil plus. Like I feel anything could if you do it well. But doing it well is the hard part. I think that's probably, I mean I learned the hard way they're not having a proper team and having more like having proper experience on board. Whether that's just even from a financial perspective, which is probably the area that I up the most to be honest, you know, having management accounts that three months late from an overpriced old school account and they don't understand the business model, all that sort of. And then you know, Having, having an Amex that runs up a large number, that was definitely why I got it most wrong. So yeah, I think, I mean that's why. Annoying dog. That's why I have gone down the investment route primarily because like, I don't think, I don't think you even need 250 grand to start a brand. Like you don't at all like you can start a brand. I could have started that brand for probably ten grand, which most people can get together, you know, I certainly had ten grand. I wasn't completely fucked. But the main logic was actually by getting people to invest money, then I've got invested interests and intentions from smart people. So three of the people that invested in my mates, all of which are fucking smart cons. I'm fortunate to have a good network in that respect. And they all run ecom brands, like 10 million pound plus econ brands.

Yeah.

And then two of the other guys aren't in E Commerce specifically, but they've, they've been down the whole, they've both made a shitload of money in other areas by like raising money and more like the corporate side. You kind of add that like, like financial perspective. I suppose. So it seems like a pretty good deal. Almost feels like I'm getting paid to get told what they helped. Kind of. Yeah. I mean, yeah. But yes, it's taken me fucking seven years of trying a bunch of different things to realize that actually I can't do it all myself. Even though I think I probably still ignorantly think that, you know, I could because I'm pretty good at a lot of stuff when it comes to ecom. Not so much like the finances for sure, but on the front end at least. And obviously, yeah, when you, when you start something yourself, you have to be good at everything. I'll be decent. Yeah. But then my problem has been not letting go to let someone else do it.

Delegation.

Yeah. But then it's like by definition, can't fucking scale.

Mm.

So yeah, that's what I think. But why do you think most brands can't get to get, get past that initial like maybe a few million in revenue?

I mean it does depend on what category you're playing in. So like how is it like, is it a business or is it a Facebook ad business? It's like a different thing. Yeah. So like say, say if you sell, I don't know, say if you have a generic products, like, I don't know, let's just say T shirts for example. And you can, you know, you can drive across A visitor or you know, you can drive a purchase for like 30 quid and you use Facebook ads and your T shirts. 40 quid and it costs a fiver. So you know you've got like a fiver margin on per product. So you just ramp the ads up and like sell as much as possible. But what is that customer actually getting and are they going to repurchase? So like if you don't have any more products than that, then they're not going to come back. Is it actually a good quality product? So if it's a good quality product, they'll probably come back and use the same brand. Yeah, all the, all the other things that go into it are important. But yeah, it comes down to the fundamentals I think like, say like, I mean I don't actually know that much about it. You know the neon beach stuff that you did, is it called Neon Beach?

Yeah.

So horror story, like how many? So you obviously scaled that to a good size. How many people buy neon signs like Lowe's? You've got about eight in here I think. But like at some point, at some point like especially a buyer is gonna look at that and go okay, well how big is this market and is it like a trend driven thing?

I still think there can be, there can be a billion pound revenue Neon business. Yeah, I honestly do. It's not, it's not been made yet. I'm not gonna do it unfortunately. But.

But that's like another one is like if you buy one, do you need two?

If you buy it's very high aov which is great. But it's yeah. Problematic in a lot of areas.

Yeah. And like what's the, and what's the, what was the cost margin for those?

60. It's a decent margin.

Yeah. She's like with the bedding industry like there's all these DTC like betting companies.

Came out which did absolutely like amazing eve everyone's name.

So like the revenue goes through the roof because every order is like 600 quid. But then.

And they can spend 500 to get a customer.

It's gonna find customer. But how many beds do you need?

Yeah, exactly.

So.

Exactly.

So everyone dives in it. Great lasers, loads of money. They do amazingly successful. But I don't know.

Money forever until they get acquired or ipo.

So to answer your question about why don't other scale. I think it is just down to the category. It's in like the skill of the founder. Like if you can. I had a conversation with a lady today who's Got like a really cool idea for a new brand and she was like asking me like what do I need to focus on? And I think and she's in the process of raising a lot of money.

Yeah.

My concern is when someone raises a lot of money is like you go, okay, so I've got my product and as a founder it's like I'll use agency for ads, I use an agency for manufacturing, I use an agency for branding, I use an agency for web development. And that's definitely not going to work because what you need to understand is if you're building a brand like hair burst or like what you're going to do in the future, which is a consumer brand, you're not the manufacturer. Like web design is like a one off like thing you need to do. But really what you are is a marketer, but that's it. Like you drive, you drive revenue for that brand. So that's the main focus. So I said to her today, I was like, you need to get into the detail of whether it's through influencer marketing, Facebook ads, TikTok ads, TikTok content, whatever. Like the job of a founder for these types of businesses is to market. So if they don't understand that, they're going to struggle to scale or teach other people in team to do the same skill. And that's why you can launch like five or six different brands because you understand Facebook ads which you can apply to TikTok ads. So you just apply that to anything.

Yeah. One thing I think I realized, be careful not to call anyone out. But I feel like you can, I don't know, you can have all the degrees and MBAs and XYZ on paper in the world, but if you don't have that like entrepreneurial creative initiative, it's maybe one way putting it like it just ain't going to work. I feel like you can hire those roles way easier than you can hire as in like I don't think like an accountant who's wants to start a brand as a founder is going to work. Whereas your fellas, quick one, you may or may not have noticed there's been a bit of merch, so to speak in recent episodes. We've got two different things. We've got some of the retro style OG neon beach posters that designed like four years ago you may have seen on my Instagram. And then we've got some, some of the best selling OG viral style neon signs that basically did start that entire craze about two years ago now. So yeah, if you want to add something to your home, office, your living room, just anywhere. Sick. Basically that you want to add that extra thing to and support the channel, then you can check that out. Link is in the bio Midnight Co shop. And yeah, just an aesthetic item to complement the process, I suppose. Cheers for watching and enjoy the rest of the pod. You know, every founder I know in an E commerce perspective started because they had like a genuine interest in the products or broadly marketing and then then you kind of figure out the other bits later. But I feel like it's the, the founders that don't figure and the businesses and brands that don't figure out the other bits. I like the logistics like, like you were saying, I know the finances like the less glamorous shit because everyone goes on YouTube and teaches themselves e commanding. Like you're 18 or whatever. You Google how to make money online E commerce.

So how did you. What brought you to learn how to do Facebook ads.

Was literally just a natural progression. I was in a Facebook group and then literally self taught back in like 2015 and this is back when it was so cheap. And then you, yeah, you build up and then it's like experience breeds confidence because. Do you know what I mean? I think part of the problem compound.

Interest of confidence almost because once you start to get the sales through, it's a drug and then it takes you. It's like, you know.

Yeah, because like even now it's been really frustrating because I've not woken up looking at Shopify dashboard for like the past nine months now. And that was my life before. Like first thing in the morning, last thing at night. But because I know I've been to that scale before, it's like, of course I could do it again. It's the same principles apply. I'll just do it better now and hopefully more sustainably.

But something drove you because I had this conversation with Lewis from Gymshark who I did his podcast just after the deal and we was having a conversation around like, because he, he's quite. You can tell from like how he speaks. He just like dives in.

Yeah.

And I think you're a bit like that. You'll just like dive in.

Yeah.

Whereas I, I don't. Well, for whatever reason, I like to really like learn loads before I try something, which is probably. It's like a bit of a slower way. But it's maybe why I've also just like happy to stay with like one brand for a period of time maybe because like you're probably looking around seeing like, 10 different things that you could do and apply that skill set, whereas it's a bit different for us. But, yeah, I think because his point was you just need to dive in and you have to be, like, able to do that. But I was always. I always thought that you need. I needed to see something or learn something before I did it. But something obviously drove you to learn the Facebook ads, because that going back to reason why I'm saying it is, like, there's a lot of founders that don't know that. So, like, they will get a Facebook ads agency. And me. And you know that if you just have a product and go to an agency, it's very unlikely to work. One, because you got to pay the agency, which is probably your whole margin. And two, they probably don't. They definitely can't do it as good as you can.

Yeah, I think. Well, I've worked with so many agencies and, like, I definitely won't be running my own Facebook ads from my new brand, but having done it and I can, like, smell you can manage the agency. Got the context.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, I think it's super important. That's why I would always say, like, do. I will definitely do the customer service myself for at least a month, because I need to know it better than anyone. I need to know every little thing better than everyone, which is what I've tried to do in the past. And yeah, if it wasn't for Neon, it would have been fine. But even, like, finances, like I say, I'm not good at finances. I mean, have a basic understanding of a P. L obviously. Like, yeah, maybe less so on, like, cash flows and. But yeah, I think people seem to forget, like. I mean, like, even comments like, the sort of DMS I get from this podcast, which is, you know, the oldest is genuinely younger. Like, younger than Maven, like, like early 20s, whatever. And people will be like, you know, how do I do this? How do I do this? I think there's just, like, people forget the. You have to have skills to start a business. An E. Comm business of any type. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think a lot of people. And I was gonna ask you this because a lot of people now, I think get into, like, E Commerce and Shopify because it's like the new buzz thing.

Yeah.

Especially, like, since COVID it's like, online, but let's make online money. And driver Lambo, but obviously it's not that. And like, when you started, it was before. That was all, like, cool on, like, Instagram and Shit. Whereas now it's like everyone in the dog has got an econ brand or a store of some sort. I mean, so, yeah, so I think now maybe a lot of people are getting into it that don't actually have a genuine passion for, like, the fundamentals, like marketing products, branding. Because I used to draw logos that I used to design logos that was legit and that became a website, which became my first econ brand. And it was like a gradual progression. So, like, even now I do all my own branding and shit, because that's the bit. That's where I started. Whereas people now feel like not everyone, but potentially they're starting with, oh, I want a fucking urus, so I should figure out how to make this online thing work. And then. Then that's probably not a sustainable interest. Um, whereas for me, yeah, I've not been sustainable on one thing, but it's always been ecom. That's just the one thing I've always wanted to do. I have done. But, yeah, I don't even know where I'm going with that question, but I guess to bring it back to Hairburst. What, like, was there a period when you notice it, like, you intentionally made it more formal, like, I don't know, maybe brought in like a CRO, an FD or whatever. And like. And how deep into the business was that and what was the sort of scale up and what was the impact of that?

He started to become. So I always sort of go back to start with literally like three guys, like 23, 24. It was so much fun. Like, we lived together, we worked together and we started to bring stuff in and it was like I had to just take on, like the serious guy role because I was like, otherwise everyone's just like loads of mates just having a great time. And it was that to start with and it was like, we're buzzing because everyone love working there. We're all very engaged with the staff and we were, like, growing the team. Like, now we've got, I think it's close to 50 people now and we're still the same, but you do have to put a level of like, I don't know, steadiness in there. So we. Our first senior hire was Matt, so he came in as our chief Commercial officer and he was, like, quite good because he was a bit older, had more experience working, like, corporate cultures and stuff. And we kind of did go through that phase. So when you're talking about real brand, I think it was a few senior hires do sort of make you Realize a bit, especially when you're in young twenties. But the. When you talk about the imposter thing, I don't think I ever had that.

Interesting.

I don't think I ever had that. I was like, you kind of just. After a few years, you just don't know. See a few other young, successful people. And I was going back to. When I work in an agency, you kind of meet these business owners. And I was. I had the reverse thing. So I'd, like, meet a business owner, the business might be doing, like 10 mil or whatever, selling sheds or, like, bedding, like, and I'd be sat there thinking, like, why are you not marketing through social media? Like, why have you not got an Instagram page? And I kind of. I always just started to get confidence from that and think I could do it better.

So if I can do it, you can do it.

So I kind of had the reverse thing where I had, like, a lot of confidence from. From that, as opposed to, like, thinking I couldn't. I don't know, maybe that was. Your journey takes, like, different stages and that was, like, a big thing for me. So maybe that's what stopped that from happening. Maybe. Because I know that's quite common, especially for, like, young founders. But. Yeah, to answer your question, when did it get more serious? I think just a few more senior hires. Like, when I say we went through the stage of, like, wanting to make a bit of money to travel and all that kind of stuff, when. When we realized we're onto something, it was. That was. It kind of, like, changed your mindset a little bit.

Yeah.

Like, imagine if you had a brand that was doing like you said, you get to, like, 2 or 3 mil rev, and it's just you and a few freelance whatever. But then you can see how to get to, like, 10.

Yeah.

Because you'd probably, like, think, oh, that's.

Exactly what I'm thinking now. So I used to. Yeah, I guess I did the whole barley thing and all that. And that's sick. And then, yes. Spend too much money on, like, stupid cars, whatever. But now, yeah, it's very. I don't know, I feel like I'm running out of time almost, which is probably toxic, but also motivating. It's like, if I actually want to do it big, gotta, like, focus properly, get this next one right. Because if I don't get the next one right, like, who's gonna get it right?

So what do you mean by running out of time? Because that's bollocks.

Well, yeah, because. Because I'd always told myself, you know, like, be retired by 30, you know, whatever, like. But I guess retired in my head was like 100 million quid. When now I realize it's not that, but I don't know. Yeah, it's probably just like, it's a bit of a chip in my shot. It's always a bit of a chip in my shoulder, I think, like, yeah, I don't know, I just wanted to get rich doing something I like in it. And it was never about the money either. Like, kind of like you were saying. For me, I've always. I mean, you definitely have that. I don't at this stage, but, like, the freedom. Because, yeah, even when I was younger, I just, like, then I just wanted to go to cool places and do interesting shit which requires a monetary fucking form. Do you know what I mean? It was never like, I want to make money so I can be a cunt. Like, just like freedom and excitement and money is the vehicle that allows that.

But when you talk about time, like, I've got friends who are like my age, like, I'm 32 now, and they've like, just from having conversations, like, maybe they've worked in a job for like five or six years and they. They might something. Sometimes people say things like, oh, like, I wish I. When I was younger I did like a business and I'm like, so young man. And like, I think probably it's probably partly due to like, Instagram and.

Yeah.

And things like that where. But I'm sure there's. I read this stupid stat and it's going to be completely wrong. But I'm sure, like, the average age of a successful business startup is like the founder's like 37 or something.

Yeah, I think literally.

And then, like, if you just look at things like that, you'll probably look back in like 10 years time and be like, I was so young. And I was thinking those things because I say it to my friends now. I'm like, you could literally spend. I mean, you do have to allocate time. That's the thing. And as you get older, you get. Obviously people get married, have kids, whatever. And it takes your time and then you get more involved in the job that you do in a way of a bit. If you can find like an hour a day just to like, develop yourself and learn things that we've been discussing, like Facebook ads, influencers, whatever anyone can do at any age, like literally anyone. So if you think you've run out of time. Yeah. And even if it's not this one, it's the next one. Like you're probably a bit.

Yeah, yeah, well, I guess, yeah. No, it's definitely like social pressures. It's also because, I mean, yeah, like I've definitely got an unusually successful friend group, like especially given like, like certain people younger than me, like some older, which is good. But I guess, yeah, like I'd rather be like small fish in a big pond than a big fish in a small pond, you know, I mean, which is like why I very intentionally like moved to London a few years ago. All that sort of.

I did the same thing pretty much for that reason.

Yeah, I think it's. Well, I think if you're dying to Self development and you don't want to be everyone telling you you've made it, but you've only made it in Scunthorpe or your qualities, I mean, whether it's a different. It's just a different culture and different pool of people. But yeah.

Time wise, how does that affects you? So does it make you feel more pressure because you. Some of your friends are doing that really well or does it motivate you to think shit?

It's definitely net. Net beneficial for sure. Like there's some on Twitter I was reading and started using Twitter loads. It's like I'd rather all my mates made more money than me because not that it's all about money but like in a business sense. Because then it's like I'm the one that needs to keep up rather than being.

I don't know.

Yeah. In circles where that's not the case, I suppose. Yeah, I think it's a net benefit for sure. Also, like if they're genuine friends, like which the friends I'm referring to mentally are like, it's not about the money. Like if they're, you know, they've had a good year, they'll pay for something and vice versa. Which has kind of gone on now recently. But I'm not gonna name names. But yeah, I think it's a net benefit for sure. Like so many people message me on the pod actually saying, how have you got such a good network? I'm like, fuck, I don't know. Just be honest with people and have a few drinks with them in a relevant scenario. Is usually how it goes. Yeah. Like even meeting you before this, I think I just DM'd you, didn't I? If you don't ask, you don't get sort of thing. Same with people.

Yeah.

Like girls, guys, business, whatever.

Yeah.

I don't know. I Think I've always been just quite friendly in that respect.

Yeah.

But anyway. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a good thing, but I'm probably not running out of time, but I do put pressure on myself because of certain circles and I.

I did have the same thing where I didn't think I was running out of time, but I had, like, almost like an element of, like, restless discontent in, like, my current situation. And I was. But that's like a. That's the driving force behind learning how to make it work. She definitely need a bit of that, I think if you're. If you're. And you have that now. So, like, whether it's because when. What's happened in the past or, like, you know, you can do it, but you just haven't found the right thing, or this, like, next thing's like, really got you up for it and you're, like, really excited. Whatever it is. You need to be driven. Right. You can't just.

Yeah.

You have to have some element of, like, a bit of a chip on your shoulder or something to, like, drive you.

Yeah.

And I think I feel like I've.

Got an even bigger chip on my shoulder recently, to be honest.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a driver, like, a lot some people. It's always, like, hard to figure out, like, where does drive come from? It always comes from something, whether it's a drive to, like, win at sport, learn something, like, learn how to do business or whatever. You have to have it from somewhere. You've obviously got that from 10 to your past, or like you said, being surrounded by great people and it gives you confidence or whatever, you know, so. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think that. I'm kind of going off tangent, but we'll come back. Do you think, like, that entrepreneurialism is genetic? Like, do you think it's nature on nurture, basically?

So I don't think I was a natural entrepreneur, if you, like. Like, I never sold, like, sweets at school or did like the lemonade stand or anything like that. Like, I just wanted to play football and have a laugh with my mates.

Yeah.

I think I like winning at stuff and I like being competitive about stuff. So I would. I'm almost like I manufactured it in my life. Like, I realized at like, 18, right. If you want to live like a full life, you don't need like 100 million or whatever. You just need enough money to be able to cover freedom, basically. And then that was. That became like my ambition. It wasn't like I was. I don't know, you know, Like a lot of people, especially probably you come people have that story like, I don't know if you had that story where he was like one of my co founders. He was like that. He used to sell like Mars bars at school or whatever and used to make like enough money to buy his new football boots and stuff like that. He was like quite a traditional entrepreneur. I never had that. Yeah, I realized that you have to have some element of money to live a full life. So that's. That became like my plan and then I figured that out, which is part of my personality when.

Yeah, yeah.

So to answer your question, I'd nurture for sure.

Yeah, probably is to make sense. Probably. I guess there's exceptions every rule in there and there's probably so many different cases either way.

But I wouldn't say I'm like, it's like again, like the current business partner who's still in the business now, he's. He probably is more of a natural entrepreneur than I am. But like where most businesses I see it now is like, it's almost like baking a cake. So you have like what you need. You need like time and energy, funds and an idea and like to be able to see that from like a view. Like I said before, like, I'm kind of all over the place, but I've got quite an analytical personality, so I could almost like see that. So like time and energy, idea capital and like just putting the right things together as like almost like baking a cake to get it into the position where it can grow. Whereas like a lot of entrepreneurs are just like, it's just like day after day, just like proper grinders. I don't know if, if I'm that type, but like I said, I think I've manufactured myself to be an entrepreneur. Maybe you might even be more natural. The way you jump around is like quite an entrepreneurial trait, I would say. Yeah, yeah.

Overthinker. So on that as well. Then there's a few things we want to go into. You mentioned what to me before the podcast, when we've met before, like, you'd taken quite a bit of money out of the business before you'd ever exited, which again we'll come on to. So I suppose two parts there. Like, at what point did the business get to a stage where you thought like actually making some serious dollar here? And, and like, secondly, why did you take it out rather than reinvest it? Like, was it a de Risk thing? Like, was it to do with like the kind of the financial plan you sort of just mentioned.

So we had no external found external investors. It was all like our own capital, which is like good and bad. So one, we had no money, but two, when we managed to get money, it was ours. So from like year two onwards, if we did like, I don't know, 5,600K EBITDA was probably something that happened in like the second year, let's say.

That's insane for the second year for a start.

Yeah. It was so lean, man. We had like by this point probably had like three or four different products but we had like no staff office was 300 quid a month. There's like a lot of profit there. So again, like, if I did it again, I'd pile that back into growth because now I've like made my money. But back then you've got like, you've gone from having a phone to your job to running this brand that's making like a lot of money. It was like, well, we were kind of could do both. We could grow it and also take the capital away.

Yeah.

But it was also like from an early stage business, you're like, this is amazing. Like the buzz was like insane, like how well it was going and like just like the excitement of it was just so good. It's still the best. Best times are always the start, I think. But yeah, we just take it. We just took it out and I wouldn't spend it. It was like straight into index funds. Like everything like literally we were like printing money but it's like bang, bang, bang into savings. So then that was kind of like again like, because my goal was travel, that wasn't expensive. So if you have like and this is like super safe investments as well, like I'm talking like 7% a year, like super broad index funds. If you can get to like a million quid in that, in this index fund, you're making 70 grand a year. I only really needed like 40 or 50 to live my lifestyle. So then you just like. I was like, you're passive from then on. Yeah. So I mean, later in the story obviously made a lot more money and built that even higher and became even more free. But you don't like there's only a certain amount that one person needs to live like a fulfilled life and I don't think it's that much.

Yeah, I mean, anyway, I will come back to the actual business side in a second. There's a few things I want to go into, but just on that because like maybe it's just my personality again, like the second I made any decent money. I just bought a fucking car. I didn't even think like, honestly, I think I said on a previous pod, like the money I was making dropshipping when I was 22, if I put that in Ethereum, I'd be sorted. I'd have like 30 mil. Like literally coulda woulda shoulder, whatever. But like, I don't know, like did that. Were you getting like advice or was that just the logical thing in your brain to do at the time? Because it definitely wasn't mine the first time.

I had this like fear of like it going away. It was like a fear of like we're making all this money but what's to say that it's going to continue? Like maybe one of like the big conglomerates that you can leave or something, make like a similar product or brand or whatever or like I don't know. So I just like, I mean it's not imposter syndrome because I was like, it was going really well, but I was like, what if like something bad happened and I had this like that, that was like a few years of that. So it was always just save, save, save, save, save and like bang it in the fund and then that's mine, you know. So it's like safety first approach.

Yeah.

And then yeah, as I got older you start to get a bit silly. So it was like I got to a point where I was like, I've saved so much money, it was like. So I started to spend a little bit. But even now, like my life's not that different to when like even back to like second year, third year of hair burst. Really.

Yeah.

What was your question again?

But it's kind of that, I mean.

Approach to the money.

Yeah. I mean like do you think as well a brand can be that profitable in this day and age at that age? Or do you think that was, you know, I get. Well earlier on in like the E Com gold rush.

I mean it definitely can. I would say it was so. It was so early in Instagram, like E Comm was around before, like I said, like my protein. I think that was founded in 2004 or something like that and exit as we got started. But I would say that was a unique. It was very early in Insta. It wasn't early in E Comm because ecom's like I said, been going about. But Instagram and influencers and pages and Facebook and all that was like very early. So I think it was probably that you always need a bit of luck and I'd Say we had that because we were early, but we spotted it as well. So, yeah, it's a mixture of both, really. Like, you find opportunities from being curious, and that's always been part of my character. But I do think it's. Do I think it's possible now? Yeah. I see brands. Like, I'm quite an active angel investor now, and what I'm doing now is also buying brands as well. And I see super young brands being, like, super successful early still. Was it easier back then? Yeah. Is it still possible now? Yeah, I'd say yes.

Yeah. I want to come into wholesale shit because I feel like that's an element of business no one in, like, social media and Twitter and stuff talks about, because that's all ecom, economic. So you mentioned, like, 20,000 stores and shit. Like, how soon did wholesale become part of the business? And why was there, like, logic behind it?

Yeah. So let's say so again, it's like when I said about, like, I was scared that it was going to go away, so I was, like, hemorrhaging the cash. It was all about diversification. So I was, like, building. We relied heavily on, like, Facebook ads and influencers. So for me it was like, how else can we generate revenue?

Yeah.

And those brands that I looked up to, they're in stores now. They'd what you classes, like real brands. And we was at the eco brand, but I basically compiled, like, loads of loads of using Google Trends. I used to compile, like, a lot of, like, visits to websites for other brands, and I used to track ours against competitors, but not like, econ competitors, like real competitors. Like, if you go into Holland and Barrett, that was our first retailer, there's probably eight brands in that store. And I used to look at their Google Trends and, like, how their traffic maps from, like, 10 years ago to now, however far back Google Trends went. And I could see our brand, like, doing really well in terms of, like, searches. I was like, well, if that brand's in there and we're. At one point we started to get, like, more search than some of the brands that are on shelf. And I was like, why can't we be on shelf? So I've literally printed out this full, like, map of, like, how different brands from, like, a traditional market and mapping against, like, oz is an econ brand and why we're gonna surpass. And, like, made a story, sent it to holding the Barrett buyer, went for a meeting, got in, like, just went on sales mode.

So it came from you rather than them to start with.

Yeah. But I think they were in particular, like I've spoke to. It took us ages to get into the US ages. And I think those particular buyers at that particular time were taking interest into social media brands. And now it's like, I mean I actually spoke to a guy today, launched in 2019, which is not long ago. Literally met him today. Really cool brand.

Yeah.

He had a fairly unique concept with no social media, didn't even launch and he managed to get straight into retail because it was a cool idea. Yeah, because what I would have said if I didn't meet him, I'd have said to you, like brands, they're like, retailers want econ brands. So build a good social following on any platform, whether it's like tick tock, Instagram, whatever, build some revenue, like show you getting traffic, take it to a retail and they'll be interested. But then met that guy today, which is probably a one off. But he did it the old fashioned way where it's like take an idea to a retailer, maybe they stock it and you just fly.

Yeah.

So to answer your question, why the retail and wholesale? It was just diversification and we used to get emails from like proper wholesalers from like all over. Like we had one in particular was from Slovakia.

Yeah.

Just like some random guy messages saying like, can we take, can we buy like 100 units and we're selling our product for like 25 quid. 100 units is like, do you know what I mean? Two and a half grand. So we, we just used to listen to like any wholesale offers at the time. Yeah.

And how much of a percentage then? I don't know if you can actually say this but like back then and now was wholesale because of sales. Yeah, sales.

So they actually snuck up on me and then again, like if I did it again, I'd do it differently, but we would. This is like probably well into like year three now with like smashing ecom going to retail because you get like big pos again. I was like, I was so worried that was it going to last. It was like if you get a big PO from a retailer, yeah. Have like a few hundred grand or whatever. It's like you just, you just like, you just got to take it right. Then what happened is they, what a lot of retailers do is they'll stock your product, they'll put an ad on your brand term. So like before you have any other sailors, someone searches for hair burst.

Yeah.

It's where the only seller.

Right.

So you come straight to our website or you get resellers On Amazon, but that wasn't a problem back then. But then the retailer will put a ad on your brand term and obviously try and generate the sale. Now, now that's like a mixture between that, but also then you get the shelf space. So if they have 750 stores, you get a shelf space. And what I noticed quite quickly was we're going to address a new market. So a customer who might be 23 years old on Instagram follows a particular influencer, buys hair burst. You've got shelf space, maybe someone a bit older who's looking for that type of product and chooses hair burst for a completely different reason. So it was a way to generate new customers. Yeah, but they take margin. So what happened was we grew revenue but our EBITDA in the middle stages didn't grow as much as the, the top line because we're selling more products but they're taking more margin.

Yeah. And how about payment terms as well? Because I did a tiny little bit of wholesale with, with the jewelry stuff to Culture Kings back in the day, but then they didn't pay me for like 100 days and I was like, what's up point in this?

Yeah, 90 days. Yeah.

And they did their own pictures and. And it looked crap. I was just like, ah, psych that.

So we were, we were okay because we would. Because our business was still at the very. When we started whole wholesale. It took a while. That's now half the business. But then it was a small amount of the business. It was still generate. That's why Ecom. So good because you get paid straight away.

Yeah.

Most retail is probably 90 days payment terms. But you can do something called invoice financing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

So you'll basically sell that debt, which is a good debt because it's from a reputable retailer, hopefully to the bank and they'll take a cut and you can get the cash. So that's like something you can do. So.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting, interesting. I definitely think wholesale. I'd like to try a bit more of it. I mean. Well, I've done very, very, very little of it. But I guess on the flip side you. I've read about brands that were like fully wholesale and then Covid hits and the fucked up like that. So.

So that was. We were like. My whole thing was like be safety like defensive first. Like get revenue from multiple different countries and multiple different retailers, different channels, whatever. So what happened when like we've, when covert hit like our online sales picked up a little bit, but then our retail dropped so we didn't really benefit. It was like a 5050 thing where like new retailers that were on board and like stopped but then econ picked up a little bit. So it kind of just like balanced it out.

Yeah.

Whereas now it's like been quite good for us because loads of new retailers have started to onboard again. So yeah, you're right. Like if you go that's just a classic case of not being diversified in terms of channel and you could say that across like how important that is across like supply of products. Like you need to have multiple suppliers for your one particular product in case one manufacturer goes bust. Or you need to have like if you only had one retailer, you're at mercy of one retailer. So you will kind of want to diversify your revenue, your supply, like everything.

Yeah. Cause like I know you mentioned before like a brand that relies on Facebook or whatever isn't necessarily that valuable and all that shit. And that was definitely something that was true of like probably both my brands but definitely neon. So just spending like 15 grand a day on Instagram. If your ad account gets disabled, you don't have a business. Do you reckon if you obviously hair base being like nine years old. So on the E comm side if you turned off all paid media you reckon you'd still obviously not to maybe to the exact same level but it would still be much more consistent than you know, one year old brand. That's just throttling Facebook ads.

Yeah, if we turned Facebook ads off tomorrow we'd still generate. I actually don't think our business would. It wouldn't grow as quick but it'd stay flat for sure. Because that the Facebook ads now don't really impact the retail. Like people know it's nine years old, you know.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. So like is that like people coming back to buy again primarily?

Yeah.

Top of mind awareness and shit.

Yeah, 100%. And like when you can hit a critical mass like I actually I should probably know. But if I was to think across like retail all the different countries are selling to and the how many customers actually bought our product would be insane.

Right.

And then we make really good products which is like super important. So word of mouth is obviously a large part of growth as well. Which is like you can't really measure it but you can usually see in numbers when something's growing like at a good rate you can spend all the money you want. But if you've got good products it will, you'll start to see that kick on effect so yeah, if we turned ads off or any marketing tomorrow, we'd continue to sell. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. I think that that's definitely where obviously just age comes into. In it and having a good price.

Yeah.

Because there's so many people as well in like the drop shipping space and I've been there in the past. You can throttle something to like hundreds of thousands a month, but then your ad account gets disabled because your feedback's crap and you're gone. Your payment processor gets screwed.

But we sell on. We sell on Amazon as well. But it's probably only 7, 8% of our overall sales. But Amazon just shut our countdown like last week.

Oh, really?

It's like, it's not a huge issue because like it's not. I mean, 8% for one month, it's not ideal. Right. And I'm trying to sort that out now. But it's not ideal. But it's. It's because we've got all the other channels that it's not. I don't. Well, don't sleep over it.

Not much sleep anyway.

Maybe next week if it's not sorted. I might. Yeah.

So obviously, yeah, nine years old. I want to come on to a big topic in a minute, but like the past few years, how has the business looked then? Like, obviously in terms of like team setup, like general scale across shit. Like, did Covid change a lot? I know you've got an office in Leeds. I think my mate's agency said they've actually got an office below you.

Oh, really?

In one. Wherever the building is.

Yorkshire House.

Yeah. He messaged me saying, is it? Is, is it? You should ask that hair burst guy. That's the office. Because there's loads of fit girls walking around. That's what he said.

His words.

No comment. Yes.

How.

How has it looked like the past few years as a general operation and your involvement prior to the next step.

So we've got. How did Covid. You said, how did covert impact that.

Yeah. I'm probably asking like seven questions.

So I made, I made a. How did Covid impact it? Which is really important actually. So like I said, sales didn't necessarily get a benefit or a deduction, so we kind of like stayed level from a staffing point of view. I made the mistake of thinking like, we've got. We've got a great office in Leeds. We've got like staff in London. Music co. Working space down here too. But we made the decision to hire people in region. So we're selling to 12 different countries now. And because Our central functions in the north of England. We kind of wanted people to be based there, but we just opened the floodgates and was like, forget this, like we can't use the office anyway. So we started to hire people in markets like in the us in France, in Germany and the different markets to resell into. So that changed, which was a, a net benefit for sure. For sure. In terms of my involvement. Was that a question?

Yeah, I guess just like how does, how does it look running a business of that scale as a founder at that point pre exit, which we'll get on to.

So you kind of. So again like everyone's different. Like I kind of have this, I just went like tunnel vision a bit. So you kind of, it's growing around you. You get like more and more people but you're so fixed on like the numbers and the growth that you kind of just like I always just stayed like quite tunnel vision. And sometimes you look around and think this is like sick. We've got an unreal office, it's like 50 people here or whatever. You kind of learn that, which is something I learned quite quick is you can't, like I said, you probably can't do it all on your own. So you have to almost learn. And again like once we got to that stage it was like I really committed to learning about how to actually manage a business because you can, if you've got an issue, you can't sort it because you have to trust in other people to sort the issues. So you kind of just become, you're almost like steering a ship but you can't row because if you start rowing then no one's, you know, I mean it's like there's like so many people involved so you have to be very patient. So say if I decide tomorrow we're going to change this, that could be like a two month thing and I'm not involved in it and I might be itching to get something sorted because that's like quite a natural thing for some for business owner to be like. But it's almost like a development in, in I kind of like focused on like myself and like grow myself again. So like when you go for the E Commerce stage, you want to learn how to do the Facebook ad, you want to learn how to do Influencer and then you learn, then we learn how to do the wholesale stuff. And then it was like, right, how do you actually become a leader of a business? And then again, just like I've always like relied on books. So it's like probably quite common that people say that but like I really did because I didn't have a mentor or anything. So like Jim Collins, good to great. It's like probably a good one for you to read actually.

Yeah, I need to read more.

Yeah. Good to great is good because that talks about that and like the, the journey and taking it from. Yeah, like good to great. So applied myself into learning about new different skills. I would say I'm managing a board because you've got like that comes with its own challenges as well. Yeah.

I mean one little question on that before I move on. Like what do you think? I suppose like even for me now with this next business, I'm consciously thinking like I need to stop working in the business. His work on the business, like even like pre revenue right now, obviously it's kind of different but like as soon as that launches, what should I focus on in terms of becoming. Trying to position it as 100 million pound brand in five years, which is by the way the absolute plan. And like you know, reverse engineering it. Yeah, I already realized that I'm way too anal like doing everything myself. Like even website stuff like. But obviously there's bootstrapping.

Yeah, that's good.

But it's getting that balance right between trying to do it all myself. Yeah. And like hiring to grow. Yeah. So where's that line? Do you know what I mean?

So yeah, so when you launch it's all about just driving traffic machine how to do.

Yeah.

So I just focus on driving the traffic and then once you've got enough data I would then start to like focus on what's actually happening. So you might drive your first like 10,000 visits, but what's actually happening? Like what's your conversion rate? Okay. Young conversion rates probably. No one's seen it before. It's probably going to be like 0.1 or something, you know, and then start to like make adjustments on the website, use the data that you've got which is like this is all stuff, you know. Right.

But yeah, yeah, I guess I mean more from like a, like from like a broader speaking like founder perspective, like assuming I get it to a million quid in the, the first eight months or whatever of 2022, which I will. That's the plan. Like you know, over those months when that's happening, like what should I be thinking about from like a broader perspective? Positioning it to be able to do 50 million in three years.

So what I used to do was let's. Yeah, right, you've got me, got me thinking Now.

So, yeah, no, I can do the first bit.

It was all about. So it's all about like making yourself redundant in every situation you find yourself in. So like going back to hair burst. Christmas service took me four hours a day and packing took me six hours a day. So I've got 10 hours there.

Yeah.

So when it's like, like when you think about like allocating the job essentially of building a business, allocating like time, capital and resources. So you've got resources because I know you've raised some money, you've got time because you work on it full time, but how you allocate that time is going to be important. And like, I agree with what you're saying about the customer service thing and investing time and doing it yourself because that's where you get all your most of your feedback.

Yeah. At the very start at least.

Eventually you'll outsource that or you'll hire somebody to do that. You'll hire. You're probably using a third party logistics from when you start and it's just about like constantly reevaluating where your time's going, which I don't think enough people do. It's like I'd really like focus on. And I actually used to do this with a journal again. I used to write this stuff down. So it was before I started hair versus enduring. It's like I just like monitor the clock. So I'd finish the day, I'd know that I've spent. I spent four hours on customer service, I spent six hours packing, I spent two hours at the gym.

Yeah.

And I spent this much time chatting with my mates or whatever. And then you just like, it's a process of elimination and you'll start to see like, okay. And once the revenue's coming and you're driving the traffic, it is a case of scale up. But it's all about your time. And I see a lot of, a lot of. When you're talking about like going for the next stage, that's ultimately what it's going to be about, is allocating your time better. Because when you've got revenue and you've got traffic, like, can you get more of it? Yes. No. Can you replicate what you've done in the UK in different markets? Yes. No. What you need to do to do that, get translators, higher staff in those regions and just like a system process because you're probably. What do you reckon? Okay. Go back a stage. When you're doing previous brands. Where does your most of your time go?

Traffic generation ultimately and therefore revenue generation. So traffic generation and revenue generation.

So you.

I was very good at getting sales.

So you monitoring the Facebook ads, which is like.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you create content and that was like where it starts. Because I think the one thing I'm good at is in hindsight is put in the like there's loads of terms for this, like keeping the main thing. The main thing I get revenue. Like. Yeah. So I don't know. I think there's a lot of people and I've made many mistakes as well, but that is the one thing I'm good at is like I know if there's no customers, you don't fucking matter. So like even with the first version of the first product I just showed you before, I know that's 80 there, it's probably not 100 there, but I'd much rather get something to market ASAP, start getting data now, now, now. I don't want to wait a year to perfect it just based on my feedback. I mean, I'd rather we sell 10,000 of them in the first four months and there's a lot of things wrong. You get the feedback etc, etc and then we can iterate and throttle it and go.

No, I agree.

So that's always been my approach. It's definitely been a high risk approach when it's gone wrong because I just put if it's working. Literally like with neon I got. It went to like 15 grand a day. I'd spend in like four months.

What markets are you selling in?

Pretty much only the UK and us.

So imagine if you.

And it wasn't even localized currency or.

Anything like Facebook has worked in every country. No, Facebook has work in every country. So anything stopping you selling in France was. Man, I don't know if French people like neon signs. I mean it's just. That's a category thing. But if you could. For you to go from what that was to like the next like five or six times in revenue would be different markets because you had a proven.

Model, you had a product that people horizontal scaling. Yeah, yeah.

Different markets. Because you only can get so big in one market and you had a product, you knew how to do the Facebook ads. So you literally you paying a translator away from scaling in a whole new market.

Yeah. Legit if.

If that. If that's the type of product they wanted that market. I don't know. UK and US are quite similar. Right. So that was an obvious two markets to go for.

Yeah.

And actually like we really struggled in the U.S. which is a long long story, but the U.S. is almost like so big that like some U.S. brands, there's absolutely no need to go into any other market because it's that big. But for the uk, all depends on the ambitions of the founder and what you're trying to achieve. But for something that's quite niche, like Neon Signs, I don't think it is niche.

That's why I say, I honestly think there can be a billion pound revenue brand. I'm not doing that. I'll do that next. Yeah. Coming on to, I guess, next section. Just the way I was thinking about this pod, the deal with jd, which I feel like is probably what everyone wants to do when they start a brand is just sell it and make a footload of money, go to Dubai after two months, whatever you did. Like, where did that, Was that like a plan? Did that ever. Did you ever start to think about, oh, we want to sell, sell the business, or was it never even on the radar until a conversation started?

It was never on the radar. It was never a plan until after about year five, we started to get caught by loads of corporate finance guys. So I just entertained conversations. I knew what some competitors were selling for and it was like, I'm doing quite well here, but if we sold some of it, we could probably get like more money. But by this time I already was really wealthy and I was making a lot of money from like investments I was doing and stuff like that. So it was never a plan, it became a plan and it was, it was like a ruthless, like two years, that process, because you kind of like, like JD had been absolutely amazing. And I'm so happy with the deal that I did in the end. But there's a good 18 months before that where I'm like speaking to different buyers, like trying to figure out which one I want to work with, doing DD processes, like telling everyone about how we run our business, which nobody really wants to do. Like, I don't want to sit in front of like buyers and like spill the beans on like why we've been so successful. You know, when you've got no in the definite, they might not even buy it, you know, so you kind of go for this process of like investors just wanting to know how we work. One to understand if it's a good buy, if it's sustainable, if it can grow further, if they can sell it for more money in the future. So they are doing the right thing by going into detail. But when you've had like a private brand with your mates for like seven years, to then after explain for the first time to like complete strangers who you just met for the first time, like how this business works. It's like you don't really want to do that, you know, so. And I can understand why an exit is attractive to founders nowadays because there's so many examples of like good exits but like I'm no happier now I've exited than when I was not. And yes, the extra money is good to have than not to have, but I would, I mean it depends on the business. Like a lot of businesses, especially like the new ones that are VC backed, it's almost, it's from like from birth, it's its goal because you've got VC investors, they need to get cash out. You're growing it to sell it. You're pouring all the EBITDA back into growth. You can't take it as a founder because your VC terms will probably say that any capital is, they need to be paid back all their money before you can take a penny and stuff like that. Like a bit differently what you've done because you've raised money from angels where you like your mates and stuff. So it's like really cool. But going on a bit of a tangent. So to answer your question, it wasn't the initial plan. After six years of graft and building a brand, it became a plan and we then went through like a two year process of finding the right buyer and right at the end we found it, thankfully.

How does that conversation even start? Is it like literally like an email with a tempting number or what to even get you engaged in obviously spilling the beans that you said?

So first things first, and I've seen like, I guess we're talking about like advice for like brand owners that want to sell or might sell in the future is you need a corporate finance advisor. If it gets to a certain size and there's many out there, like you have to pick a good one because they are gonna like. I was always quite independent in how I thought and I had an end goal and I was, that's what I was gonna take. But you speak to these people over and over again and they do infiltrate your beliefs of like valuation, what the best thing is to do. And it's a really high pressure moment. And you always like, when I was deciding to sell, I spoke to so many business founders who have gone through the process who were kind, kind enough to share their time with me. Like really successful guys have exit and I was like looking for like anyone to help because I had no one to answer to. I like to know anyone to answer to. I had nobody to, like, advise me on what the best thing is to do.

Yeah.

You know, and it's like a big moment. You've built this thing for, like, so long. So how does it start? You appoint a corporate finance advisor. So I picked one that had done.

But I mean, is that before anyone even approaches you? What's the incentive to appoint someone?

Sorry, I just go back. So we started to get messages saying from various different groups, like private equity groups. First for private equity. Because they're like, all over it. Yeah, it's like, oh, we're so and so capital. Like, we love the brand, we'd love to have a chat. So I started to have those conversations and I was like, people are like starting to waft numbers out. I'm like, I don't even know. I don't even know. I've initially heard, like, corporate finance people are actually like a thing. I honestly don't know. Yeah, I don't know if a PE fund. Because I initially started to have these conversations myself and then there were a lot of conversations. And then I'm spending like, you know, I'm talking about my diary. Like, where's my time going? I'm spending like two hours a day speaking to, like, these people. And like, they probably started to ask me stuff that I didn't have full confidence. I was making the most of that. I didn't kind of felt a bit on the depth, I would say. But at the very start of these things. So, again, well, two things. One, I bought like every private equity book on Amazon and just like, plowed into that. So, like, how do private equity businesses think? What returns do they want? What's like, the mistakes that founders make? Like, that whole. Honestly, that was like, just dived into that. Then I appointed a corporate finance advisor and they did approach me maybe four years before exit. I'm getting a bit mixed up with the years now. But anyway, he was a guy who'd done like five or six deals in beauty that I really looked up to. And I thought, if he's done those deals, then he could definitely do ours. And then when we actually took it seriously, I reached out to, like, a lot of the big corporate houses, like UK PMGs and all the big ones, and spoke to different corporate finance advisors, got all the prices, assessed it, and I decided to go with ultimate. My gut with the guy that I actually met first. And I trusted him to help us find a good deal. Then their plan is, then you create a process. So make sure the information is packed together. So you've got all your finance information, you've got everything they're going to want to see, like the investors. Then you go to market, so they'll start to speak to various different buyers and you go through a full process of speaking to how many do we. Oh, God, can't imagine.

Are they going out proactively trying to then find buyers? Yeah, and this process was initiated just by inbound people that were interested in buying it.

So we probably had like four or five inbounds at this point. And it was like a case of they were like in the bucket, like potentials. But then what I realized about the corporate finance world is it's very small. So like the news of hair burst going to market to sell is not like a hard message because it's almost like, I mean, how many corporate finance advisors are they in beauty in the uk? Dunno. If there's a specialist, I'd probably guess he's probably gonna kill me. Cause it might be completely wrong, but I'm guessing, say 10. Yeah, maybe. I don't know, like proper specialists at like a high level doing beauty. Let's say there's 10 and then they all know all the buyers. So like once one knows, the next one knows before you know it, like all the potential acquirers probably know it's for sale. So it's not like they're like hammering the phone trying to find buyers. It's like there's a certain amount of buyers, there's a certain amount of corporate finance advisors and there's only so many brands. So they're all like. That's how these big corporates grow, they buy so they're always looking. So when something's coming, they'll find out about it quite quickly.

And then like, obviously it's a long process, but like in layman's terms, are they literally just. Are they dishing out like an initial potential number and then going into due diligence?

Yeah. Or it's like a parade. So you go, you get all the interested people. There's a lot of like chit chat, all this kind of stuff. Get a feel for why they want to buy the business. If they're interested enough, it's like, okay, we'll go and present. So we'd go and presentment all over Europe by all these different buyers. We go meet them, do like a full management presentation, explain like how the business works, what we do, all the information about it. Then we get like some kind of indicative offer. So they'd say, the business is worth this. We think we'd love to progress and get more information on the business, blah, blah, blah. And at this point, that offer means absolutely fuck all. Because after it is when they tear it down. So they. What often happen is your buyer goes, oh, we think it's worth this much. And we all go, holy shit, that's a big number. Okay, yeah, we're going to tell you more. Like, we'll do due diligence. Like, here's all the finance information, here's how we run it. Call after call, after call after call. And then it's like, right, what's the actual price after that? So I'm sure a lot of business owners out there have had indicative offers, like, and rightfully so. Like, the guys who put the indictive offer in have probably only seen a management presentation, like, how can you value a business without getting into the information? So that first one means nothing.

So they're going to tear it down.

I mean, it depends who you're dealing with. So it depends on what reason. So then let's just say you had a potential 20 buyers. You whittle that down to like four or five and then you let them in the data room. So that's all the information about the business into one file. Like all the legal information, all the trademarks, the finance information, everything's in this one pack. So everyone rummages around there for like three or four weeks. And then it's like the buyers are thinking, okay, what's our actual offer going to be now? Like, how many people are going to be interested? They'll probably be speaking around, speaking to different buyers. Like, we're thinking about putting this in, we're thinking about putting that in. Like, how much is the business worth? And then it's like, that's where the big posturing happens. So some buyers might go, oh, it's actually 30% less for this reason. And the reason actually doesn't even matter because at this point it's like you've got a rough indication of what the business is worth. The reasons they provide may or may not be legitimate. And then it's a case of like, when we have to choose, like the.

Buyer at that point, whose court is the ball in at this stage of the process. Do you think?

Depends. How many? Good question. So it depends. It's like anything, right? So depends on the options you've got, really. So you've only got one option. I won't even go to market at this point.

Did you. Did you Care emotionally if a deal was gonna happen or not. Oh, yeah. Have you been tempted?

Yeah.

In front of you.

It was brutal, like. So what we did was when we, when I said it wasn't the plan to sell, like, my approach to selling was, this is the business. I'm fine because I've got all this money saved that I spoke about before. So we'll sell it, but only on our terms. That was like the approach.

Yeah.

Obviously it's a really successful brand and people wanted to buy it, so it attracts a lot of interest. And I think that was the best position to be in because I was quite clear that like, this is, this is what I'll accept. This is like what I want to do. If you're in a situation where you're desperate to sell it, then you, you, the business is probably not. There's a reason why that is. The buyers are going to see the information anyway. So you. I think a lot of people, like, try and sell, like. And I've had it now I'm a buyer of brands. I've seen it like, oh, this, I don't know, like Ecom brand has done like this for the last three years and it's done this and now they want to sell it. It's like, well, I can see what's going on here, you know. But we had like a really strong brand that was continuing to grow and got loads of prospects in the future. So who boils the coin? So for us, it was actually ours at the start of the process, but we had an 18 month process. So we did the first round and we turned down every single offer and went to market again 12 months later. And we got to a place where we thought we'd accept. And there was three different parties that were involved at that point. So I had a good choice of what I wanted to do.

And did you ever think, oh, we could push this a bit harder for two more years and I don't know, you know, double the money, whatever. Because obviously, like sound, you know, you read about it like, broadly speaking, timing is obviously important. You want to sell when it's on the up.

Yeah.

So did you ever think about that?

100. 100. And that's what we turned down the first. When we did the first round like 12 months ago, we turned it all down because we're like. And it goes back. This is like more of a, A broader thing. But like when you actually consider what money is like. So for me it's, it's access to freedom. So when you go, I Was never too caught up in the numbers. But it's like inevitable, right, because you set a business up for money. Like everyone wants to make good money. That's like an obvious thing. But it was like when you get a certain amount of money, like 10, 20, 50 million, whatever it is, like, what are you actually going to do with that and how's that going to increase your happiness or life? Like realistically, it's probably not going to change that much.

Well, I was going to ask you these philosophical questions.

Is that afterwards? Right.

It's a good point. Yeah. I want to come on to that after.

Sure. Let's carry on.

Let's carry on in my head. That's the logical next step.

Okay, so let's carry on. So.

So you get the few offers that you're happy with.

Few offers come in. There's three. I'm happy with the valuation. Now there was the. Well, two were the same, one was different and JD was a different one. Yeah. So JD came around through a different advisor, which gets really complicated. So we had the common like beauty buyers. And then this guy is a really cool guy from Manchester called Paul. He runs a firm called Sudulo and he was like, me and him, I actually had. We had. I just met him once before and I thought he was pretty cool. And he was in Dubai when I was in Dubai. So I was like trying to go for a beer. He was like, yeah. And I was getting quite frustrated with the process because we've been. This is like an 18 month thing. Right. So we, I went to go meet him as like a second opinion. We got a chat and I was like, we're like, we've got some really good offers. I'm trying to figure out what to do. Like I was like using my network to try and get different opinions and he was like, well, why don't you. Would you consider doing a deal with someone like jd? So yeah, we went to go for that meeting, but we had that one and then, yeah, two others that were P backed beauty conglomerates almost. So it was three at the very end, which was hard for me.

Are you going through due diligence with all three?

All three.

So to the Bear band.

Yeah. Yeah. It was brutal. Like it was so like I'm rubbish in the morning. Like my brain kicks in at like. I'm glad this podcast is now because if it was at 9am I'd be useless. But yeah, that.

The morning podcasts for that, the midnight club.

But I'm on calls at like 7 in the morning to like one buyer, then I'm doing another one at 9 and then I'm doing another one, I'm just like bored out my brain. So it's like, that was brilliant.

Has this become a full time process for you at this point?

100.

If you don't work on the business.

Anymore, and this is a common thing, like businesses start to really suffer during these processes because you can, I mean there's a few things. So first of all you're obsessed with like your monthly numbers, which is a bad thing. Like if you're obsessed with your monthly numbers, you're in a bad spot because.

Well, because you want it to be.

Growing when, because every, every business performs better if you have a long term vision. But when you're like, you've got corporate finance people like crawling all over your business, like watching you month by month. Because these processes from start to finish are like a four month thing.

Yeah.

So you go to sell a business, you do the beauty parade, everyone's looking at your business, they want to buy it and then your sales drop in that month, everyone knows about it. So it's like you've got a, you're in that set of like you're thinking short term, you're monitoring the numbers but at the same time you're doing the chatting to all the buyers. And that is like a full time thing because you have to prep for each call. Each buyer might be looking for the business for a different reason. So you want to show that part of the business off. Like what JD liked about Hair Burst was we had a platform for beauty brands. So if we can, I mean we've.

Got.

Tens of thousands of influencers that we've used over the years and we have all their details, we understand their performance metrics, we know which ones are good and which ones are bad. So if we can plug all the beauty brands into that, which we'll get onto later is a real asset. Now other brands liked us because we could launch brands quite quickly through social media. So we'd explain that to like another buyer. So you're having to prep for all these calls and do them and run a business. So it's a nightmare for me. It was like a full time thing towards the end.

Yeah. So then accepting like you go through due diligence, is it literally a case of yes or no to the three at this point?

It go, it went right to the wire with two JD being one and another one. And I was like, that was like a tough few weeks. I actually accepted less money on the deal that I did because I didn't like the way that Hairburst would have gone with the other party, even though I'd have probably got. Well, I would have got more money and I didn't really want to be in that private equity world with the Hairburst brand. Now, private equity is good for some things, like I'm working with some private equity firms now on looking at different brands and like co invest and all that kind of stuff. But for a buyer for Hair Burst and the way that the business is ran, I didn't feel like the right fit. So I kind of went with my gut on that when I chose the buyer, but it was more about what it was going to be and I believed in Hair Verse being a platform for the brands and I'm in control of that. So that was like quite a good new thing for me to do. Whereas the other one would have been we'd have plugged into a bigger group of other brands and we'd have been helping, like, other brands, but we might not been passionate about those brands. So I didn't like the idea of that.

And then from accepting, because again, in like, layman's terms, because no one watching will have done this from accepting that deal, like, to like, effectively money in the bank, like, how long is that? Because I kind of spoke about this in episode 15, actually, which is like private equity up to. It's more interesting because you actually did it yourself.

So signed. So the last, like, few days is like, hell. Because you're like. You're like, so what I. Why how I dealt with the pressure of the deal was I just pretended it wasn't happening, even though I was on all these calls. Yeah, because I always knew, like, from our previous experience 12 months ago that, like, everyone's just playing a game and anything can drop at any moment. So until the money's in your bank, it's not finished. So even to the last few days, I'm like, yeah, it might not be finished. Like, this might happen, this whatever. So I was kind of just like pretending it's not definitely going to happen because you didn't know what's going to go wrong. So. But then towards, like, when I'm in, like day two, towards end, I'm like, you can't ignore it. It's like I'm literally signing all these paperworks for, like, the legals. I'm signing paper for this. I'm signing paper for this. Whatever. Finished. You get a call from a lawyer that said, so I actually finished on a Friday at like 7pm And I was like, is it done? But no one said. But I was like, I've signed everything I've been asked to sign. We've agreed a price. I know what's happening. So what happens is the. So the seller, there's two law firms involved that are external. So we use the firm. JD did some in house, but also use the firm. So they send the money to the law firm of the. So who's like. So what would usually happen is they would send the money to the law firm and they hold the money now because we finished. It's like seven on Friday.

I'm like, like in escrow effectively.

Yeah. I'm like, has it gone there? But no one would tell me because it's like late on a Friday afternoon.

Yeah.

So I'm like, if it's gone now, it's like it's done in my head. But I didn't know if it had gone. So I'm like waiting for confirmations. I had to wait all weekend that weekend, like not knowing. I was like pestering the lawyers all weekend trying to get a thing. It's like, oh, I think it's been sent. But oh no, this is, this is. I had a call on that Friday and they, the lawyer said to me, right, so we've completed. They can send the money into the lawyer's account. But because It's Friday at 7pm it's not the back. It's not going to be processed until Monday morning. If they send it now, there's a chance you might get lost. And I'm like, what? I was like, what sort of question is that? So he's like, your choice is we can send it and accept it. But he's like. And I'm like, what? Like you send it from a bank to bank, it can get lost. Not crypto. It's like this is like real money with like real banks. And he's like, oh, there's, there's, there's a tiny percent risk. And I'm like, oh God. Right, fine, wait till Monday and just send it then. Like that.

Jesus Christ.

So and then obviously got through that weekend. Monday, they've got it and then they've rang like all the lawyers have rang like their side and our side of rang to say, oh, we've completed, like, congratulations. I'm like, hey, when we get my money. And then they sent it on like that day and I received it the next day so it was like completed. It's almost like a five day thing.

On a Tuesday, Yeah. Was that a good Tuesday?

So I, my business partner got. I'm like messaging them. It probably received. I think we got like 3pm when we're like waiting all day for it to be sent. I'm like message them like we sent it. Yeah, we sent it. Like yeah, it's coming. It's all right.

Okay.

And I was just driving to the gym in Leeds actually. David Lloyd. And I've parked up my car and I've looked at my WhatsApp and they're like, oh, I've just received my money. So I was like, okay. So I've gone on my phone and got on my Internet banking. It's like that. So that's done. Lennon's went into the gym and had a workout. Yeah.

Was that like a good feeling or was it anticlimax? Because we always talk about this. I gotta wait till that day, get a big fat egg.

Probably be a bit anti climax for you. I think it's like, don't get me wrong, it's a good day, right? But you're kind of on like I. Oh. I didn't know how I would respond. So I'm kind of a bit on edge cuz I'm like, this money's coming in. It's what I've been working on for the last nine years. Like it's not the end to hair burst because the brand's going to continue. I'm still involved and all that kind of stuff. But it's a big deal, right? But I was pretty pumped that day, pretty happy it was done, but I didn't expect it to be. It's not like I went from like zero to like whatever because I had the money saved and I kind of. My approach to money was evolved over the years. And like I said when at the very start, like I was so reserved my money and I wanted to save, save, save, save, save. Got myself into a good block spot and we just. More of that and I kind of learned how to. It kind of happened slowly. It wasn't like you see some businesses like, you know when ebay sold, was it ebay? It sold. No, sorry. A German version of the guys who made Rocket Internet made like a ebay version in Germany. Sold it to actual ebay for like 40 million. It took like 40 days to like from founding to sale. So they went like bang. Yeah, it's like God knows what that was like, right? But for me it was like nine years of like work. So it didn't. Wasn't like I got rich or One spot, like, it's more exciting to start what I was talking about, where, like, I can see it come in. So it was. I mean, it was more. I felt more like a relief for that process to be over, which took 18 months.

Yeah.

Than like sparkles going off and we're going nuts. So I was pretty chilled.

Did you do anything to celebrate?

So, initially, no.

I'll buy anything by Cullinan.

Honestly, things I bought for myself since the deal, I reckon I bought an apple watch strap for seven quid. That didn't even fit my apple, my wrist, so I didn't even use it. And that's it. I'm being deadly serious and I bought a single thing. But what I did do was.

Like.

I've said to myself, like, oh, I'd like to get, like a new watch to, like, so I can look at that watch and go, this is like my deal watch. Can't be asked to go buy one, so I've just not bought one. Can't be asked to go. I ate shopping, so I've not done that. I did a. I took my mates on holiday to celebrate. So that was good. That was the best thing we did. Oh, yeah, because that was like a proper celebration for the deal. That was like. That was fairly recently, so it was like three months after the deal. We did that. That was really cool.

Yeah. Do you think it actually. I mean, you obviously read about this shit. Like, money changes, you know, it brings out the real person, blah, blah, blah. Like, I mean, obviously. Yeah, you said it's kind of different in a way because you said you already have money and shit. But, like, do you think after that, does your worldview change at all for you since. Well, I suppose, yeah, maybe you're a bit. I don't know if you're a unique case or not because you already had made like stacks of cash and shit and invested it. But yes, I guess since the deal, because that's like the. The big one. Does it change how you view? I don't know. Not trying to ask. Does it change anything really, or is it just more access? So, like, for example, like, a lot.

Of people want to meet me since I've done that deal.

Well, including me. But I already followed you, so, yeah, I just wanted to get on the pot.

So that's. That's quite cool because you mean cool people. Like, I like meeting new people, so that's cool. A lot of people aware of it. I don't think would be aware of it. Yeah, like, a lot of people know about that deal, but it was in like the Times newspaper and like loads of like old fashioned sort of like deal places. So I've got like loads of messages from like a lot of cool people that I'm happy to go for coffee with and like explore ideas and stuff. So I've quite enjoyed that side of it. I'd say like 0 to like 3 mil is like loads more exciting and you start to have those sort of considerations. I think after that it's just like this. Nothing changes.

At any level.

Huh.

I think like even if you made a billion quid, I don't know if you did, but I don't think you did.

Can't comment, not that much. If you had a billion quid. There's a lot of unhappy rich people, I'll say that much. And that's like a common thing. There's a lot of unhappy rich people. And I think to get to that level, like when I spoke earlier about you drive to learn, like some people are just driven. Like there's billionaires who wanted to buy the brand. So I've met billionaires in this process. Weird. Like there's like something like a lot of them, like one particular person was, must have been. He was like an absolute animal. Like he was still going like full speed, like well into his like 70s. And like, like I admired it from one standpoint because I'm like, the work ethic's unbelievable but I'm like, where does it actually come from? Because it has to come from somewhere. So I don't know if he's trying to. What is cool if someone's like trying to prove something to self. So like if you have that motivation, trying to prove something to yourself, that's a massive asset because you're yourself developing like same ways. Like if you go, if you get into running, like you want to beat your own time because you're trying to like compete against yourself and you develop yourself in that way. I think if you're driven by something that's external, it's probably going to be bad. Like you're trying to like sell more than a competitor. You're trying to like, that's all just like superficial. And you'd look back and think that was a complete waste of my energy and time. But like I never have, I never had like a fixed figure or anything like that. So did anything change from that? No. Did making like previous that making like like 3 million quid plus or anything like that change anything? I think it probably. I think I got confidence from it. I think As a person, I grew in confidence because I was like, I thought I was good at this, I've done it and it's working. So what else can I do, you know, like, if I can do this with this brand, like, what else can I do? So like, I felt like now I feel like I've been like, successful. I've exceeded what my initial plans were. So I gained confidence from it. Trying to think on the spot.

No, I think it's a good answer. Do you think, do you think you've realized what actually makes you happy more since a lot of money? Because obviously, like, I mean, myself included. Yeah, probably, particularly when I was younger, but even now I'm like self aware of it, but I'm still doing it. It's like, yeah, I want to make a load of money. But then I asked this hypothetical question to myself and other people, like, you know, if I got given a billion quid today, what would I do? And then I should probably do something along the lines of what I do now to actually make potential. A billion quid. Which is kind of what I'm doing now. Anyway, we still have a podcast and shit. I might just have a Conan downstairs. But yes. Have you realized what makes you happy and has that changed over time when like the desire for money. Yeah. Removed.

Yeah. I'd say you learn a lot about yourself. That's a good point. You do learn a lot by yourself because you, you face, you put yourself in a different situation and it might be been the core driver for like 10 years of your life. Right. And then you actually achieve it and then you go, what, what the hell's next? And like everyone talks about the gold medal thing where like people who. Another stupid stat that I'm going to come. Come out with. It's probably not true, but X percent of people who win a gold medal get a bit depressed because they've, yeah, they've aimed for especially like athletics. Right. A lot of, I don't know, let's just say, let's just pick like rowing or. Because you used to be a rower, didn't you? Had a lot of people who were going to be a gold medal or they probably start when they were like three or four or six.

Yeah.

Is that, Is that right?

A bit older for Rome, but yes.

You're so young and you go for that thing, you know, So I mean, for me it was. I'm spending more and more time now because I'm not so focused on making money. I'd like really trying to understand and answer that. Question. So, like, what do I enjoy? I like seeing like, I like engaging conversations, like interesting people. I like seeing people around me happy. I don't like being surrounded by people and they're like not happy. I like to help people. I like to see other people succeed. So like that's where like angel investing is like exciting to me because I get to hopefully see like be involved in like people being successful and being around that sort of stuff. I like to learn new stuff and like none of that involves making money really. Like angel investing, you might make a bit of money, but it's not going to be. I don't do angel investments for making when I do it to be involved with cool. So like my drive has probably changed a little bit since the deal maybe. But like this is like something I used to do. So I used to play what I've tried to think about and the way I process it is what is. When you're a kid, all you do is have fun. Like your decision making process. A six year old is when you. When I was six, it was like, I want to go play football, I want to play video games. Because that's what I find fun.

Yeah.

So as you go into your adult life, like, do you. Does anyone actually really think that way? Because I didn't. Because my thing was like, learn, learn, learn. Like if I'm at the gym, I listen to a podcast about business. If I'm at home, I'm reading a book about business and I'm doing business. So now I'm like trying to play more sport and do stuff that I do purely for fun and that's maybe quite happy. So yeah, golf at the moment, it's like sucking me in.

So what's the plan? Obviously still involved now. Hair Burst.

Yeah.

But like what's your plan? I guess kind of immediately like this, the next year or so, but then also going forward. Like, is there any concrete plans that you want to start a new startup or change the world in some way?

Still figuring out. I think it's obviously still young. Yeah. So long story short for the next year. So I'm. But now I'm now acquiring brands in the beauty and wellness space within the Hair Burst group and with jd so if we find like cool brands that we think we can help, we'll buy like a minority majority stake in that leverage. All the stores that Hairburst has got, plus all the influence of contacts and everything else. So I've been doing that for the last three or four months. That's quite interesting. Meeting Loads of cool people doing that, chatting about angel investments and doing a bit of that as well. No concrete plans to start a new brand anytime soon, but the startup phase is the most fun.

So who knows, one day I've got an interesting question. If you hypothetically, with the knowledge you have now lost every penny, no investments, anything.

Yeah.

What would you. I guess kind of two parts. Firstly, what would you do? Well, how would you get started again? Because, you know, a lot of people watching probably say, I've got 500 quid. Obviously you've got experience. And what brand would you start? Like broadly speaking, just on, off the top your head.

Yeah.

Like what would you focus on? So the first, like what would you work on and how would you get the bits together to make it happen if you had no money?

Yeah.

But the experience you've got.

So we haven't spoke about this yet, but first things first. First is I'd assess myself. So like people might call it mindset or whatever, but trying to go a bit deeper than that is and go back to my diary and like my analytical mindset that I've think I've probably, maybe I've been born with it or maybe I acquired it from finding interest things. But where's your time? So like again, it's like capital, resources and time. So it's like, right, where's my time? So If I'm now 20 again and I think about doing a business, I spend probably. How many hours do I spend playing FIFA and cod? Right, let's have a look at that. How many times do I spend watching on tv? I actually never really watched that much tv. I didn't really find it interesting but I did play FIFA and stuff. So it's like, right, look at things like that first. Like break yourself down, like, what do you know? Okay, you probably know nothing because you're young. So start to invest time in life learning. But you have to free up that time. A lot of people say they haven't got time. Well, you have, you might not spend, I don't know. I've got a mate who sleeps like four hours a night and he's like a live wire. Like for me I have like a good eight hours. So I've got like 16 hours a day, right. So it's like, where is that time going? And I'd invest that time into learning and understanding things first and assessing my expenditure. So I'd probably try and find a way to make a bit of extra money. If you've got a full time job, like, okay, simple Maths, like do like a P and L on yourself. Like, okay, my rent's 400 quid a month in Skynet. Probably a lot more down here. A lot more. I bring in 30k or 20k a year and start to like save and just have that mindset of. Because if the first thing you're going to do is if you make any money in your business and you're gonna spend it, that's fine if the business is gonna continue to grow. But I'd have that. Like, when I was doing the phones for you job, I was. Went back home, I was living at home. I was paying like minimal rent to my parents. I just like stomached it. I think you have to go through that to like. And again, like, this is another story. Like when I went traveling when I was younger with my friends, after I've been between poker and like phones for you, I was. We spent like 10 or a day probably was the budget. We lived in a tent together in Australia.

Yeah.

And I was happy as I've ever been, you know. So I learned how to live skin, basically. I think that's a good asset because if you can live at a really low level.

Yeah.

Then when you do build a business, you'll run it in the same way. You know, like, if you spend. If you have like a really good job somewhere and you spend all your money on like going out and stuff, then you're going to find it difficult when you build a business and start to make money to invest it in the right places, you just like. So I think that's a mindset thing, is the first thing I would do. Then I'd invest my time into learning. And to answer your question about what brand would I start?

I mean, like right now, where do you think is the best opportunity for an E comm perspective is what I'm saying. And I want you to say what I'm working on, but maybe not. I mean there's obviously more than one, but just your opinion.

So what I've. There's so much information out there now in terms of like, not only like learning from YouTube videos and books and stuff, but like I can. Which you didn't use to be able to do when I started. I can go on Amazon now and I can find out what revenue like any products doing. So I can go on like, I can't remember what it's called now. You might know because you're an ecom head, but there's like apps you can.

Get that you come and.

Yeah. Something I don't know, is it Jungle Scout or something like that?

There's a lot of them. Yeah. Amazon amz.

So I can now go on and find out. Let's just pick a category. Okay. Detergent. I said that earlier. I don't know why I'm on detergent at the moment, but I could find out like how much revenue the biggest brand in the world will do on Amazon. I can figure out how much traffic that site's gonna get through Google Trends. I can figure out all this kind of stuff. So I'd probably pick a book like Category Killers. That's the worst endorsement ever because I've not actually read it, but it sounds about right. Where you identify a different category. I'd go deep into that category. So like brands like that big conglomerates own are like a faceless brand that's ready for disruption. So I would find something like that to go after. So like, like for example with, with our category, it was a similar thing where there's lots of faceless brands. There wasn't any social media brands. There was no one doing that through E Comm. There's so many things that are still. There might be in retail stores. They haven't been like digitalized or brought through E commerce yet. And even then like you don't necessarily need like if your goal is what my goal is, which is to like have your own ecom thing and like live off that. You don't need to really create anything unique. It's all going to come down to execution.

Yeah.

Like there's many people who could go and like start a clothing brand. Like all you have to do is find the manufacturer. So all the skill and all the, the wealth is generated through the execution of said project, which is a skill so you can acquire that. So I'd identify different categories. I'd get the information through like Amazon and Google on different traffic sales and all that kind of stuff first and then think, okay, could we do something a bit different in that category and then go from there?

Yeah. Good shit. Good shit. Yeah. It's interesting. I thought we could go down so many different things, but it's been like over two hours. This is the long one. I feel like, I mean there's a few different last questions I want to ask. But one question is what's been the hardest thing? Just from a personal level, going from phone shop worker to exit in a big business and making a load of money and doing what a lot of people want to do.

What's the hardest thing personally?

Yeah, the single hardest thing across everything, the whole journey. If you had to pick one.

This is probably not very useful because it's quite a unique situation. But one of our co founders got really ill in like the early stages of the brand. So he developed. I don't think you'll mind me, I spoke about it to a few people. I don't think I'm on me talking about it, but he developed Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer and we lived together. He was a co founder of the brand and he went through like it was three, maybe more years of like treatment and stuff and he wasn't. He wanted to work on the business but he was unable to and it all worked out fine. We managed to agree a deal where we bought his shares out and stuff like that. So it all worked out fine and he got looked after and he's, he's made great money from the business and stuff. But that was like a really tough time because I had to figure out that. Which is not easy because it's, you know, that was like quite a difficult situation. I'm watching that happen and observing that. That was like quite a tricky time, figuring out what the right thing was to do, trying to think of something more useful that might be more applicable to other founders. Maybe. My lowest point was in the middle. So I wonder if I think having an end goal is quite good because I, the, the first bit where I'm making my money for the first time was like amazing. Like the best time of my life, apart from my trip to Thailand when I was like 20 and then I came just like not really knowing and feeling a bit lost. Like when I was like 26, 27, I think it was like we'd done the brand, we'd made good money, but like now what. And it kind of felt a bit lost at that point in time. Camera feeling like particularly not great during that period.

Yeah.

But then realigning myself and going, right, okay, we're actually going to go for an exit now. So I think I almost needed an end goal. I'm. This is. I'm just thinking this off top of my head. Yeah, no, I've not actually said. I don't think I've said that before because we even, we never. The goals are always quite loose. But I think having a, a target to go for is quite good. Which might be silly as like a revenue target for a year or whatever, but I definitely got myself into like a loss period in the middle where I'm like, I've achieved my life goal now. What do I do? Which I think is what people allude to when they sell because that wasn't actually over my goal. I didn't really have that. I had it in the middle where I can travel. I've got money.

Yeah.

Now what the hell do I do? And then figuring that out was like quite tricky.

Yeah. Interesting. On the flip side what was. What was the most fulfilling part of the process? Which makes an interesting question because I think a lot of people are searching for that and maybe never found it.

The happiest time was the start because we were doing what I wanted to do which is travel. But what was the most fulfilling. It's a much deeper question.

Got to go deep.

It wasn't when we sold. If that's what people think I'm going to say it's not that. Cuz I didn't. It was like that was. That wasn't like a. I didn't get like a euphoric feeling of like fulfillment from that and even like when we. When I people go or when I saw my products in the store for the first time I honestly didn't care like it wasn't even a thing.

Yeah.

I can't remember we've got. But people were saying like you've got to be excited like your brands in Holden Barrett sat there on the shelf. I was like I think I had a particularly bad day that day. Like something happened in the business that like got my mood down. So I've got into holding Barrett store. I'm like great. Yeah it's there. I knew it was going to be there. Take a picture. Right. I was like literally it like I wasn't bothered. Look like okay it's not the exit and it's definitely not the exit day. But I think knowing that like looking back at all the fun times I've my mates during that period of time is like as the years go on it's probably gonna. It's being more and more fulfilling. Even though it's like that bit's finished. I just thinking about looking back at it I could even just thinking about and talking about now I'm actually feeling like pretty good. So that's like it's nice to know that's going to continue because you can look back and go yeah we did really well and I had a great time building that business as well. Like especially E Comm like you can get wrapped up in it. It can be super stressful but like what a privilege this life is to be able to build a business from your flat and have the potential to get to an amazing size when our grandparents were going to war and all this kind of stuff, you know, like what a privilege. And I think, but that's great. That comes from gratitude. It's not, I guess it's fulfillment, but it's gratitude and that. But you have to develop that skill. And that's again since the exit. It's like looking back, really appreciating what you've gone through is something I'm trying to work on and developing myself. But I think that's like becoming quite fulfilling. Yeah.

Nice, nice. I'll wrap it up with one last question because I thought I could go down a million rabbit holes and make a five hour podcast, but everyone would fucking stop watching. I've asked this for everyone now. So if you give three bits of practical advice to yourself when you were, I don't know, when you fucking started 20 years old, knowing what you know now, what would they be in life and business? In summary, That's got to be worth its weight in gold for a lot of people.

I'm trying to think of something like dead generic.

Yeah, it's a generic question, but it can be a good answer.

God, I should have prepared for this. Three practical things of advice. What's gonna happen is I'm gonna go home in a minute and think I should have said that so much better than what I did say.

Let's go with you got.

It's going to be three hour podcast before I get this out. Three practical things about. I'm trying to think what I tell people when I speak to them about building a business. I would say like, okay, so think about, look after yourself like number one. Meaning like when you build a business, especially today, like there is a lot of investors out there. Like spend time finding the right investors looking at like term sheets, like proper term sheets. Like don't just, yeah, look after yourself because you're gonna come across a lot of people when something goes good and you just don't wanna wrap yourself. Like the amount of founders that I meet who have got like 10% of their own business and they've raised 5, 10 million quid over course of like four or five years. And I'm like, what have you actually taken out this business? And they're like a salary. And I might watch the seller and they're like, it might be a good salary by this point. But yeah, I'm thinking this is what you could have had. Yes, your investors want you to grow at like 100% a year. But if you grow at 50% a year, how much could you have taken out? And, like, just, just remember, like, how lucky you are to be in a position to grow a business like this. Put yourself first. In terms of, like, the money that you can take out the business. Yeah. Is that enough anymore? Trying to think of another topic.

That's a good one. I'll put you on the spot here.

I see so many, though. It's like, because it is easy to get caught up in the numbers and like, especially when you see, like on TechCrunch and all these other places, like, so and so is valued at this and valued at that. Okay, that's another one. Don't focus on headline numbers. That's a big one. So I've finally got to number two, don't focus on headline numbers because that is the press, right? Like, they want to get a story to shout about. Like, you'll see if a business is worth, like 200 million, that doesn't mean that person has got 200 million. Like, it's easy to look at a brand and think it's like super successful, but it might have just gone through seven different funding rounds and the PE fund that's put money into it want to raise its profile. So they've got the paid press and more people looking at the business because they've heard the story and. But what's happening to the founder is my point. Like, what is that founder getting out of this? Because they're the one who, like, built it, they're the one who, like, brought it to the world and they should be looked after. But you have to look after yourself in this world because people will. Yeah, that's a negative thing to end on. But, yeah, look after yourself.

That's two points. That's right.

Final one.

Anything personal business philosophy.

I think. We've covered this a lot already, but, like, just, just like. So if I died tomorrow, I honestly reckon I could look back and think if I had like the split 10 seconds before I died, I honestly think, like, I'd think, yeah, you've given it a good go. And I can think about this a lot because since my friend got, like, really ill, like, he's fine now. He's never looked better, actually. He's like. Do you know what I mean? He's like, he recovered like four years ago and now he's. Now he's on top form. But, like, seeing that and getting close to that, like, you soon realize, like, you've only got 80 years or whatever is the average age in the UK that people last. Like, just do be careful of yourself. Like, strive to be happy and just try and take each step of your journey on building a business with gratitude and be grateful that you've got the chance to build it, rather than. Yeah, like, just think about what a great position we are in in 2022 where you can build these businesses and just. Just focus on that when you have a bad day, because they're gonna come.

Wise words. Wise words. Yeah. That was an interesting one, I think. Yeah. This has definitely been the most, like, full ecom story pod I've done, fundamentally, an E commerce podcast because, yeah, I mean, start, middle end, really in my mind and going forward. So, yes, super interesting story. There's probably lots of things that didn't even cover, but we've done like two and a half hours, so I'm gonna try and wrap it up. Yeah. Hope you enjoyed the pod. If you're enjoying. I think it's like 99 male. So I say, fellas, subscribe to the pod. Yeah, we've got loads more lined up. Go stalk Jimmy on Instagram or some. Let's turn his DMS off. And, yeah, cheers for watching the episode. I hope you learned a lot. I certainly did. And we'll see you in the next one. Peace.