Entrepreneurship is Lonely as F*ck, BFCM Prep & Daily Admin - Documenting the journey - Episode 22

Yo, I have just spent 25 minutes recording a full episode of this and then realized that I hadn't turned my video or my microphone on to actually record, which probably says a lot about the fucking state my brain is in right now. I've been working for like the past 12 hours staring at a screen. It's going dark at half past four and yeah, my brain's a bit fucking fried. So I just did like what I thought was a cracker episode. I wrote a few notes and yeah, just it's not going to come out as well the second time around, so I'm going to chop this down to like sub 10 minutes or at least try to. And yeah, episode 22. It's Monday, 31st of October, Halloween. This is my first Q4 and Black Friday, I guess since 2020. In 2021 I actually wasn't running an E Comm brand, which is the first time since like 2015, I guess I didn't have anything live at all during Q4. So 2016, 17, 18, 19, 20, I did five years, 21 didn't. It's like my seventh Q4 in E comm if you count like all the tiny like E comm stores I had way back in the past. But yeah, it's kind of weird. So haven't done it for two years. 2019, I was running Midnight City, my jewelry brand. I remember doing a 50k day on black Friday and then a bunch of other big days during that month. And I was pretty gassed at the time with that. That brand had only been live like six months, seven months, maybe eight months at the time. So a bit longer than Spacesuits has been live. Then 2020 did my biggest ever Ecom day, which was like 150k with neon beach and did like half a million quid over like four days. I think it was like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So like Black Friday to Cyber Monday, four day period. But then that was before everything went fucking wrong with the supply chain. So basically don't really count that period. But that was my biggest Black Friday period. And yeah, November 2020 across the two brands was fucking fat. Yeah, I can't remember exactly what I did, but it's definitely over one and a half million in the month, probably more. And then everything went tits up as everyone knows. Very long story. Go watch episode one. And then this year obviously haven't had a Black Friday, a Q4 period for like two years. It's kind of mad because a year ago I actually didn't. Didn't space because Wasn't a thing. The idea wasn't. The idea wasn't even a thing. Certainly not in the mushroom form. It was. I played around with like the idea of doing a bathroom product brand, but then very quickly realized that was not for me. I'm very glad I pivoted to this because I'm way more passionate about it and I think it's proven to be the right decision. But yeah, it's a weird one because everyone's saying the economy's fucked, you know, all the news, doom and gloom. I don't really watch a lot of it intentionally. I'm obviously aware of the pulse of what is going on in the news and the economy, etc. But as like, a lot of people that watch my channel, probably in like the Twitter sphere, we don't watch all that shit. I don't pay attention to a lot of, I'm not going to say propaganda, but a lot of doom and gloom, which I don't think. I don't think that's net positive to put in your mind all the time, particularly as a founder when you've got a lot riding on, like, the success of the economy and how your brand performs and so on. But for me, ultimately, I don't think you should be worried about that. I'm not worried about it. You know, if you've got a good brand, a good product, I think most importantly good service, then take it a day at a time. You know, everyone's affected by the same economic market, whether it's a recession, whether it's not, whatever, anyone, what anyone wants to say about it. I just think focus on what you can control. And I sound very stoic saying that, which is rather unlike me, but I think that's the best way to view it. And yeah, ultimately take it a day at a time, week at a time, month at a time, and battle problems when they come, rather than worrying that the whole economy's fucked, et cetera, et cetera. So my Q4 plan, and again, I've just been over all of this previously, so I'm repeating myself actually recording this time, I hope. Didn't really see the logic in doing a massive, like, Q4 Black Friday sale with it being a one skew brand fundamentally, like subscription focused. Didn't want to piss off customers, wasn't sure the best way to do it. Also don't think actually doing a sale is always the best option, particularly if you don't need to clear stock, which I don't, especially being like one primary skew, like I've said. So yeah, I am running a promo like a semi promo for like start November then I can main Black Friday offer But it's all very subscription focused so you'll see when it comes out if you follow the brand etc. On ads which I'm sure follow everyone from this YouTube channel across the Internet but you'll see what I'm doing. And yeah the decision was basically yes, we're going to have to discount a bit because that's what everyone's doing. I think that makes sense to boost conversion rate and you know, go with the flow and ride the wave of Q4 on Black Friday. But I don't want to discount and just get one time purchases. I want to discount the first month and really focus on subscriptions stacking those as a key metric during Q4. So that's why I'm doing And yeah you'll see that come out but I'm keen to see how that goes because having having pivoted fucking on my brain's fried. Like in the last episode I said we've pivoted all kind of the business as a whole and certainly like the ads focus and the marketing spend focus to be subscription like to have subscription is the main metric that we're really trying to increase and retention of course. So yeah just like Black Friday strategy follows that as well. I'm so tired today. I'm just recording it anyway. I've been staring at screen for legit like 12 hours. And yeah like my plan is to continue the upward trajectory every month. So like October has been a record month. November I'm sure will be obviously hasn't happened yet but that's the plan. I also plan for December to be bigger than November and January to be bigger than November and December. So it's probably very hard to continue that trajectory like indefinitely for the next year but certainly for the next three months. That's my plan. November, December, January. I think that makes sense with a wellness brand going into January. I think it makes sense with a subscription brand. With subscriptions are piling and yeah like I also can't just scale because our altar didn't really well especially since we've pivoted to subscription stuff like based on the CPA I need but knowing the LTV we have over like a 60 day period and 180 day period ads looking really good. We could spend probably four times what we're spending right now and it'd be profitable over like a 60 day period. Like I mentioned before with this subscription stuff but I Just don't have stock to do that. So that is a challenge and I don't want to be in a position where I, you know, could scale twice as hard in Q4 and do and then run out of stock because that's kind of pointless. So yeah, It's a measured Q4 scale. Like it's not going to be as big as my 2020 Q4 was with Neon beach and Midnight combined, but it's going to be a lot more healthy I think and focusing on the right metrics because top line for the sake of it doesn't make sense. But in my case trying to stack subscriptions for longer term profitability and LTV is really what I'm thinking about. So yeah, and that's another major challenge right now is just like figuring out stock and cash flow and getting the balance right between allocating capital to stock which takes three months to arrive in my case, but also having enough cash that if we don't hit targets and so on, I don't screw up because I've been there before and it's not a good feeling. So yeah, really got clear targets for every month. I'm not just Chad scaling like I would have done in the past and so far hasn't always hit the exact target every month. But now we got 6 months data it feels a bit more robust in terms of like how the business is looking ad spend wise. We know our CAC's pretty consistent, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, just put a stock order in for 20,000 units today on top of like two other 10,000 unit orders that are coming in in the next two months. So there's a lot of fucking stock on the way and that's what you need to scale obviously. So yeah, the next thing is fundraising. I've put a like Evergreen Sea Legals pitch page link below, which basically means you can sign up to if when I open up a round of funding. You can put your email in there, get the pitch deck depending on who you are, etc, get access to financials, all that sort of stuff. Haven't decided if I'm going to do like any hell, my brain's fried. Any sort of crowdfunding like seed is crowd cube yet or if I'll just be a bit more selective with it. Probably the latter I think. But yeah, looking to do another round of funding probably early, early next year, maybe early Q2, maybe end of Q1. I think trying to get to 12 months of data and sales history before doing another round would make sense. So probably April in my mind. March or April. But yeah, I'll probably start putting some, some stuff in there so people can see what's going on. I just think it's quite interesting. Don't know if anyone's like raised money from a YouTube channel before, but that's kind of what I'm doing here, I guess. Documenting the process and doing so at least. See, I'm starting to prep like an investment deck and shit, which I've honestly never done because I credit myself as being generally creative and a pretty good designer, but when it comes to like putting a deck together, it just, my brain doesn't click with it. So I'm finding it pretty fucking hard. And it's a challenge, but it's something I'm working on in the background for, you know, if and when I decide to fundraise. It's, it's ready for that. So yeah, that's what's going on as well. So if you're interested, just click on that link below, it's in the bar of this video in the description and you can put your email in for when I drop any information on that. And again, I'm repeating all the shit I said earlier but didn't record, so I probably sound like a broken record in my own head, but I'm not. I feel like everything I'm doing right now is stuff that's gonna, I'm not gonna see results for, for like three to six months fundamentally, like aside from my basic day to day admin, like planning new products, planning like future fundraisers and I basically end up living in the future which is kind of always the way when you're growing a startup I think. But I prefer it even more now because I'm trying to work and again, cliche, but I'm trying to work way more on the business rather than in the business. And I've always done that, but like even more so now I think so actually got a few decent team members and it's much better set up than it was in the past basically. So yeah, it's difficult because you don't really appreciate the value of working on things that you can't see yet that aren't tangible yet until you look back at the stuff you did three to six months ago in the past and like that's now a real thing. So that's what I'm trying to do my day to day life. I'll probably do a Q and A because people ask me this all the fucking time. And you can give me some more specific Questions for maybe the next episode. But day to day life as a founder, for me, honestly, it's very fucking boring right now. It's a lot of emails, a lot of admin, a lot of paying invoices, a lot of looking at my bank account, figuring things out, a lot of looking at the budgets and cash flows that my finance guys put together and making sure that we're aligned and that sort of stuff, and making sure those projections align with reality. And yeah, I guess my job is to make sure things don't fucking fall apart. And that's always going to be the job of a founder. And I guess I try and structure my day from kind of like the most, the hardest and most mundane tasks at the start to the more fun stuff in the evening and later on in the day. I guess this is kind of work doing this. This is one of the slightly more fun things and like planning, like video shoots and so on. Like this one on Friday we're doing, which I'm super unprepared for, so I'm writing a script for that. It's very buried, I guess, as any founder knows of any kind. But yeah, I feel like at this stage, and again, I've said it a million times, it was so creative right at the start, but now it's kind of the trenches stage where we're in that medium part where I don't have like a management team because that's just me, but I also have people doing a lot of the stuff that I would have done right at the start, like, you know, website stuff, ads in the past, etc. Don't need to be working on another 80s film right now, even though I am in the background, because that's not the main thing that's moving the needle. So, yeah, it's just like hard work and that's good because I'm making progress. But it's not all fun. And I don't think it has to all be fun. It's probably like 10% fun right now, and that's fine. But, you know, the results of it, I think are fun. And that's what I'm driven by. So that's fine. And I feel like I've always structured my day with like a power list, which is something Andy Frisella spoke about first off, like msc, a podcast, best one ever. Go listen to all the first podcast I ever religiously listened to as well, in like 2016, 17. And the power list is just five things you need to do every day. And like, they're the key Tasks to get done. It's not a to do list. It's a bit more like powerful than that. You wouldn't write things you do every day on there, but it's like five things that move the needle every day. And I write that the night before and that kind of dictates the general theme of my next day. But obviously more things always get added. And if I finish the list, more things are always there. And if I don't finish the list, they're still fucking there. But another way I'm thinking, another thing I'm thinking about a lot at the minute is granted, I might have got my list done for the day and I don't want to be working all the time as well, because I'm trying to think about that a bit more as I'm getting older and maybe more mature and figuring out what works for me. But if I can put more work in now, that means I could achieve a five year goal in three years. Then in my head it's a bit like, why wouldn't I do it? Why wouldn't I front load the next few months? So I'm not like, I don't know. So I'm not left in three years thinking, fuck, we could be a year further ahead. So it's always that fine line between, like, you actually need some rest and balance because you genuinely do. I believe that otherwise a net negative. But also thinking, well, fuck, do I really need to watch a fucking film for an hour? Not that I do that in like the weekdays, but, you know, how could I spend that hour doing something that moves the needle forward? Because there's always something. And if you finish the list for today, like, why can't you get started on tomorrow's list, you know? So it's probably a really toxic hustle attitude, but I feel like I'm constantly torn between that and then like the balance. Wholesome, enjoy the process mindset. And it's a difficult one, so I don't know if people can relate to that. Probably can, but that's what's going on in my mind. Fuck me. I said 10 minutes on this rerecord. We've already done 14. I'm rambling as usual. The flat's really hot because I'm wearing a hoodie and I've got a fucking light up there. But yeah, what am I broadly focused on right now? I guess subscriptions ltv. Consistent growth and not running out of cash. Trying to grow as quick as possible. That's literally like the headline figures, subscriptions, LTV consistent growth, want to have cash. That's basically it. That's like a top level thing. Obviously there's a billion things that come under that, but they're like my main focuses. I've really pivoted the business to be subscription focused, literally in the past two, three weeks. All our ads are now subscription focused. It's looking really good. It's Q4, so maybe take it from a little pinch of salt. Like, I'd probably feel more comfortable with the numbers as they look terms of like, tax on subscriptions and shit in like January, February. But obviously load up on subscribers as much as we can right now. That's really my main business focus. And yeah, I'll do a Q and A episode. Maybe a bit more actual day to day. What I'm working on stuff. But yeah, fucking hell. I'm probably my most tired episode ever, actually. I feel like I can't even speak straight. But I'm doing an episode a week, so here we go. I wrote a few other notes. Yeah, entrepreneurship's lonely as fuck. I think it's probably like the most lonely thing you could possibly do in the world. So you have to build a network and have at least some friends that can relate to you if you're. If you're doing it. Fortunately, I do have that, but it's still lonely as fuck. Because I think it's lonely physically a lot of the time because, you know, if you work from home, which a lot of early stage founders do, and I could have an office. We could afford to have an office. Do I need an office? No. So I'm working from home. If I had an office. I probably fucking hate it after about two weeks because I want to just get out of bed and work. So there's like physical part, which is lonely, I guess, like, mentally it's lonely because you're the only person dealing with a lot of like, I don't know, voices in the back of your head saying, is this going as well as I think it could? Like doubting yourself sometimes, even if things are looking good, which for me they are. But still that voice in the back of my head saying, it's all going to go wrong. Because it has in the past, which is probably, like, haunted me forever. In fact, it definitely has. And yeah, I just think it's very important to have people to speak to and shit. Whether that's even on Twitter. You know, other founders, like, join a group. I don't know. I mean, like a few founders groups and shit. We meet up now and then and it is useful. Pool party, Social club was gonna be that maybe still will be pending. It's on the list. And just. Yeah, shared stress is less stress ultimately. And I learned that the very, very hard way in 2021 when things came to a very abrupt halt and I was the only director and the only person responsible for anything. And that's not the case now. I'm the only director still, but I'm not the only shareholder. I'm not the only person that has a genuinely vested interest in the business. And it feels a lot fucking better being that way because yeah, you need, you can't do all yourself. And that was just naive and arrogant of me to think so when I was younger. And yeah, it's lonely as fuck, so you need people around you. And yeah, I probably look like the person with the best network in the world or whatever and you know, certainly like the young E. Comm. Entrepreneur space and I do have a great network, but it's so fucking lonely is what I'm trying to say. So, yeah, I guess final thought, I'll leave you on. Which I seem to be doing in these episodes recently. And it's something I read or heard somewhere the other day and like, it's obviously true, but I just clicked on me right now is that you can have it all in life, you genuinely can, like health, wealth, love, happiness, all that, the full fucking package. But not all at once. At least not in the earlier years when you're still fucking building, you know, you're not at that retired 4 year old Elon Musk sort of level stage. Not that I ever necessarily want to be retired, but you can have it all, but you cannot have it all at once. And I think the certain areas that I can't have right now, and I'm choosing to put further on the back burner, are things like maybe a more involved social life, you know, relationships with certain people. And I think the one day I'll never sacrifice, or at least try not to sacrifice, is my health and fitness and training. And I'd probably say that that comes for me before, like social life because it helps work more, which is ultimately the top priority. Not work, but like the business and the goal with that and my mission with that. So, yeah, but it's still always a balance together. It's always, it's still always a battle to get the balance right because a bit of me is like, oh fuck, I should go to Bali in December. Like it's on the cards. But then I'm like, is that really what I'd do if business was number one. Granted, it might actually be better for my mental health. I might feel good getting out of, you know, shit, rainy England in like December, January. But would I actually get more work done or is it just me looking for an excuse to go and have another fucking like semi work holiday? I don't know. And finding where that line is for you, I think is difficult, but important to try and do. And you need a lot of self awareness to do it. So I'm trying to figure that out still. But yeah, I'll leave you with that. You can have it open all at once, at least on the way up. Different seasons for different things. And yeah, I'm fucking tired. I've been working a lot today. This is, this is a true reflection of the trenches. Although some people give me shit for saying the trenches because I live in a lovely, very nice central London flat. But the premise is all the same. We're working on something, we're building it. It's tough, but it's. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. So space goes to the moon, let's fucking go.