Foster Care to Military to Celeb Fashion Brand Founder - Jason Armstrong | The Midnight Pod Ep 53

I think I started off with just influencers, just building the brand through literally celebrities. So like Love Island X on the beach. Most people now like they launch a brand and it's straight into like Facebook ads, TikTok, everything like that. It almost seems like another time because when I launched the only way to really get your brand out there, so it felt to me anyway, was influencers.

Right, we're back with episode 53, I believe, of the Midnight Pod and for the first time I think ever we have an aged. A 12 year old Dalmore whiskey which Jason has been kind enough to bring along. We're normally on the red wine, as everyone knows, so I'm going to try not to chug this because it could go down too quick and we can end up having to finish this podcast about half an hour in. But like I was saying, we're joined with Jason Armstrong from Calibre Clothing, who we've been. We've been chatting online probably I was going to actually say, how long has that been on and off? Is it just that? I swear it's longer than that.

Maybe.

Yeah, sweet. Yes. We chatting online for like a year on and off. And I feel like I've built relationships with people in the e commerce space through that. Like, I don't know if you replied to a story. I replied to a story. Then you realize you got loads of mutual friends.

I think. I think originally I was watching the podcasts and then I'd had a few friends that had gone on, people that I've spoken to in the past through Ecom and then just followed you through that naturally. Just reached out just through probably stories to do with stuff in our industry and just spoke on and off through that. Really.

Yeah. And we were chatting just before he came on. I didn't realize how much of a pretty fucking mad story. You've got to be fair. I know you mentioned before that you had a good story, but I don't know, everyone says probably don't know.

Yeah. To be fair, there's. It's weird because you ever heard of a podcaster called Mike Winnett and he does all the contrepreneur stuff.

Yeah, I've seen that.

He calls it like a backstory.

Yeah.

And I always laugh because he is. One of the things he does on the Contrepreneur Bingo. Is he ticks off things that they say that are like, yeah, okay, that's, you know. And he gets who he gets a full house. And one of the things he says, oh, they've got a backstory But I actually do have like quite a mad backstory and I think from most of the guests that have kind of come on they quite young into econ, whereas I did a lot of other stuff before kind of even business, just in general. It was.

This dog is mad.

It was. It wasn't like obvious to me at 18, 19, I was going to be in business. It was. It kind of just. It happened through. Through a result of running someone else's business and helping them. So. Yeah, but start. Tell me where you want me to go from and I'll go from there.

Well, I guess you're from Birmingham originally, which is pretty evident. I mean, maybe the accent's faded a little bit. You said you live in Stoke right now?

Yeah.

Where is Stoke?

So it's in. It's literally.

I should know that I'm northern. Is it Northern?

Yeah, you know. Do you know Staffordshire? Yeah, it's.

It's like I'm very ignorant right now.

No, no, it's, it's. It's a city by Staffordshire or within Staffordshire, if you like. But it's the best way to describe it is it's. It's smack bang in the middle of Manchester and Birmingham. So if I literally go on my sat nav and put in like, yeah, I looked for a tsar and Stoke before and there was no tsar in Stoke, but I was exactly like 47 miles from the Tsar in Manchester and 48 from Birmingham. So it's kind of like. So sometimes I go to Manchester, sometimes I go to Birmingham. So it's, it's literally right in the middle. It's quite a big classes a city, but.

Yeah, similar to York in size, maybe. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. I guess normally I go back to like childhood in a way. I mean there's probably so much.

How long have you got?

Well, maybe just because obviously you said you started the brand like what, five years ago and you're 31 now?

2017. So I was 26.

So it's obviously 26 years prior to doing anything in E commerce. Yeah, that is a bit different to a lot of guests. I feel like I started fucking late. Not that you're late, but it's funny because everyone these days, they're getting, I feel like more and more because of like Twitter and stuff. It wasn't like, we get into stuff when they're like three years old.

When I, when I started, it wasn't more. It wasn't just so like. I don't even think. I know I've heard you talk about doing. You were Doing Facebook ads like quite a while back. But I didn't, I didn't really know about Facebook ads until like 2018, 19. I think I started off with just influencers and, and just building the brand through literally celebrities. So like love Island X on the beach. So but most people now like they're getting into like they, they launch a brand and it's straight into like Facebook ads. Tick tock, everything like that. But when it, it seems like it almost seems like another, another time because when I launched it was when I we started the brand it was the only way to really get your brand out there where it. So it felt to me anyway was influencers.

Yeah.

Which that's actually like kind of combo. It's common gone really and it's more micro influencers or people you, you can't, you can't get away with using people that aren't like on point with your branding like in terms of they overdress like your brand if you've got a clothing brand or the message of your brand or whatever is in point in line with what they do on a regular basis. Whereas before because of Instagram used to be the algorithm didn't exist and you could get literally like it was, it was just. The feed was just time. You know when like someone posted 2 minutes ago it'd be a top of the feed. The reach was so powerful that even if they didn't quite fall in line with your message or didn't wear your products all the time, just one post would get all your sales for like a couple of weeks or a week and just. And you'd be able to monitor through a discount code or whatever. And like now you people use obviously SMS, email, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook. But literally when I first started it was like Hera, it was just all influencers.

Yeah, that's interesting. I want to go into loads of stuff with that but I guess to cover first ground prior to that then go back a little bit I guess normally from like sort of school, teenage years a bit beyond there. It's probably a mad story. So yeah, maybe skip up to some of the more palatable bits. Okay, so just give us a chronological run through.

I was in foster care.

Oh, that's something I didn't know.

Yeah, most people don't know because I think in the early years I purposely didn't tell people because they treat you different. They'd either feel sorry for you and it wasn't like it just something you just bring up. But certain scenarios you didn't really have a choice to speak about it. Like I've lived with like a black family, so when we go to parents evening it's pretty obvious that they're not your mum and dad. So then, yeah, people then ask questions like that. Or you might be, you know, you might be put with an older couple who were like, is that your nan and granddad? Where's your mum and dad? So. But other than that I wouldn't mention it just because I just want. The big thing is when you, when you're raised in, in that, in that way all you want is to be treated normal. You don't want like the sympathy and you don't want to, you just kind of want to just go out and just crack on and just play with your friends and whatever and just go to school. So for years and years and years I just didn't tell people, even like close friends that I'd gone to school with for years. Didn't know. Especially when I got with a family that looked more like they could be your parents. People didn't ask the question then how.

Often did that change?

Yeah, so I got put into care when I was five or six. I can't remember the exact age it was, it was like about then and I actually had the record for the most moves of like 22 from my borough to the point where I got moved down to Cornwall because no one in Birmingham would have me. So I moved around like loads of areas within like West Midlands, like Warsaw, Dudley, West Brom, Birmingham. And it got to a point where when you're in the system you have, if you was to go to a new carer you'd have like a record of your behavior and obviously what you've been like at your previous carers school records and that. A bit of like a, a CV for that carer to go. Right. Because they'll, they potentially a lot of them still have their own kids at home and they foster with their own kids so they don't want to bring a destructive kid into their home if it's going to cause trouble with their own children who's a similar age. So they'd have like, they'd have like your records would be shown to carers stating why they're moving you on or you know, your past and your history and stuff like that. And it got to the point where no one in Birmingham would have me and it was, it was close to me going into like a children's home and then they, they ended up, obviously I was too young at the time. To realize why or the main things. But what ended up happening was I moved to Cornwall and it was basically based off no one in Birmingham would have me, due to my record of moving around so much and just being disruptive, getting kicked out of schools, just fighting, getting into trouble a lot. And the problem is as well, it's like a snowball effect once you move to a new area. It's. It's very hard to like, to fit in with new kids because a lot. Who are you and where have you come from? And even just like going back as a kid, moving five miles would be massive. Like, it's not like now where you're adults and you've got cars and stuff and you. You're two minutes down the road from. Yeah, if you move five, six miles away, you'll be changing school. You'd be a new circle of friends off your estate. Who are you? Why have you moved? Like, where's your brothers and sisters? He's got no one to like, block put you in either, like, you know what I mean? Like an older brother or. Or a friend. Oh, yeah. He sound is. So you're just completely starting over again and you just. It's. It's hard work and in. So, so settling once. Once you start to move, it's kind of like it becomes a bit of a. It becomes a bit of a roller coaster from there to really get settled and different carers have different rules and different, you know, know one care or, you know, want you to do one certain thing or being at one certain time and you get moved on and they're telling you to come in an hour early or. And it's just hard work. Whereas if you've got your parents, it's just the same all the time. It's that consistency. So once you start to move, it just happens where you just kind of. You can just all of a sudden be moving around the system. So I got moved down to Cornwall and to be fair, it was amazing. Like, the carers have got. I recently went and visited him. Well, about three, four years ago, I went and visited him and it was amazing. And I hadn't seen him for years and I lived down there for three years and then eventually I got moved back up to Birmingham because my mom had come down and tried to get me adopted and the carers had basically said, listen, he can't be adopted because he's too old. He knows. He knows of his family. But that was kind of like her input is, I don't really want to see him again. But my nan was a massive part of me, like, you know, my life. Both my nan's. My other nan passed away in 2007 but my current nan, the nan that I'm talking about now is still alive now. And she basically fought to get me back up to Birmingham because she felt like I was losing my identity after being down there three years. I had like the accent and it was too far to travel to come back and visit family.

Reason to go back.

Yeah, it's too far to come back and visit family and friends. So she tried to get, she tried to adopt my nanded but at the time she was living in Blackpool and she used to come down to like Cornwall. It's like a nine hour coach journey literally from one of the country to the other and she wanted to adopt me. But going back to what I was saying before about like, you just want to feel normal. I knew that if I go back up to my nan and granddad's, people are going to ask when I go to parents evening, whatever like that, or when they knock on for you, who are they? Like they're obviously too old to be mum and dad so I just wanted to kind of be with someone. It looked like they could be my mom and dad so the question wouldn't come up. So we tried it for like a little while and I basically just like wouldn't settle and just said I don't want to be adopted. So my nan kind of managed to just at least get me back into Birmingham. So I came back up to Birmingham, went with one carer that didn't work out for a couple of years and then went to another carer at the age of 14 and stayed there until I was, until I joined the Marines at 18 but then I would on leave come back to them anyway. So like I basically went live there from 14 to like 21, 20, 21 until I moved out and got my own place. And then I still see them now, still see their sons and they're like my brothers and stuff like that. So I had that like. And they were of an age where they had kids the same age as me. So it felt not only have they got the same accent as me but they look like they could be my mom and dad. So if you go out shopping in Asda and whatever you, you haven't got people looking at you weird because you've got parents that are a lot older than you or black carers and you're white and there are people you know. I used to go to Pentecostal Church every week and I'd be the only white person there. And the kids, kids don't understand, they're like, why are you here? Who's your mum and dad? So you straight away, you're on the back foot with people and you're thinking, well I've known this person two minutes, do I really want to tell them my life story? And do they really, really want to hear it? So you just, you find yourself just like avoiding like conversations and stuff like that. So something, something as being just, just being with the right. The people that look like they could be your parents was a massive thing really. So once I got that I started to settle back in my area and that's, that's me up to, from 14 to, to 18, 19. I was, I lived there and I still see them now. So that was my childhood really. It's moved around loads, you know, different people, different parents, different environments.

Did you go to uni?

No, college. Went to college. Any reason I went to college was speaking about it earlier when I tried to join the Marines at 16, I was too small so I prolonged it till I was 18 just to put weight on and even then I struggled.

So I planned to go to the Marines. Before you went to college?

Anyway, I was in the cadets at school, the army cadets and all I wanted to do was join the military and when I went down to Cornwall, I'd been in the marine cadets down there, so that's where the marine thing was always on my mind. And I went away for a week with the, with school and did an army look at life course and my results from running and press ups and sit ups were so good that they recommend that I join the marines or the paras and just said your run times are amazing. You, you clearly very physically fit.

You've never did a marathon?

Never.

No.

Yeah, cross country was about the most I've got.

Yeah.

Did a lot, did a lot of long runs, like 10 mile runs and stuff like that and used to, just used to do crazy amounts of football and stuff as well where we just always running stuff like that and did cross country and the cadets did cross country at school, 1800 meters and stuff like that. Yeah. But yeah, so I, I knew from when I was at school that's what I wanted to do, but I didn't, I wasn't, I wasn't heavy enough. You had to be 56kg to join the Marines, which is literally like my left leg now. And so what I did was I went to college, did sports and fitness for two Years. And the funny thing is I used to have a lot of issues in school and I used to get kicked out. I've been to pupil refer units, I've been to two high schools, multiple primary schools. Like in the lessons that I enjoyed, I was bang on and the teachers would love me. But in lessons that I didn't enjoy, I was disruptive. Getting kicked out just, I only, I'm only really interested in doing stuff I'm interested in doing, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And I really struggle to have any interest in something that's just. And I just think this is pointless while I'm learning algebra.

That's how I feel day to day, running a business when all I want to do is make movies.

This is the thing that I've seen this with the business as well. Like, I'm massively into like content creation, that side of things, but like the corporate side of things. It's like, it's a bit of a, like, oh, okay. But it's. You've got to kind of, you've got to be able to do both. But obviously, yeah, if you, you can, you can always employ people to do certain jobs that you're not strong enough. And you really wanted to do that anyway because that frees you up to do what you're actually really good at and obviously where your, your skills are gonna thrive, really, because. But in school you don't have a choice and you've got to do. It's very. It's weird because it's like I didn't. I wasn't interested in business at the age of 18, 19, but there's a lot of like, similarities to, like, being an entrepreneur, to like me being a kid. Like, I didn't want to do the same stuff that everyone else did and I couldn't see the point in doing it. And I only want to do the lessons. I enjoyed dressing the same as everyone, turning up at the same time as everyone, doing the same lessons. I always used to like, kind of do my own thing. The lessons that I picked for my GCSEs, because in the last two years of school you get to choose your own lessons. I did well in them and I was, I enjoyed them and I got some GCSEs. And then when I went to college, not an issue, do you know what I mean? Distinctions. And. Because it was something that I'd chosen.

Yeah.

And I enjoyed doing it. So, you know, there wasn't any issues. I wasn't obviously getting in trouble or anything like that. And it was it was very apparent to me that I've got to do something that I want to do. Do you know what I mean? Obviously the, the Marines and when I had to come out of the Marines, when I had to leave the Marines, it was like I want to do now and it's doing jobs and stuff that I'm not really.

So did you, did you go into the Marines or you mentioned before you tried to get into Marines and it didn't work.

So I joined the Marines at 18 and two years, year and a half, two years in there and basically I got to week 26 was 32 weeks and I had a lot of issues in my shins compartment syndrome. So they put me into what's called Hunter troop, which is like a rehabilitation troop. If you've broken an ankle in training, you're going to Hunt troop and then they rehabilitate you and they put you back into the, the troop closest to the week you came out. Because each troop I think they're in like four week installments. So like when you start four weeks time another troop will start so you can get back troops or through injury and stuff like that. Once you, if you've got an injury, they'll pull you out, rehabilitate you and put you back in. So that was the idea that I got to week 26 and basically sat down, had a conversation like the sergeant, stuff like that and they said obviously it's causing you problems. We're going to come to the phase like the commando test now to give you the best chance to kind of get through that. Let's put you into Hunt troop and see if we can just get some. You know, I think I got fitted with like, like some special souls and stuff to kind of like put an arch in my running because I realized it's quite flat footed and that was the impact of that wasn't helping. And they tried everything they could but ultimately like my shins were just fucked.

So you end up leaving.

I had a conversation where I'd passed all my tests to get back into my troop. But they knew that further down the line it would be with a 30 mile Yom coming up over Dartmoor and stuff like that and the speed marches, it, it was going to be an issue. So with me only being 18 and the entry level being up to 32, there was like leave, see if you can get something done about won't be on your record if you choose to leave yourself and you can always leave, you know, join at a later date or go and join another Force like, you know, the navy or the army or something like that, if we medically discharge you and it's on your record, you'll get a payout but you'll never be able to join again as such. So I opted just to leave on my own accord and I did try to re rejoin about a year later, but it took so long to get my medical records from Portsmouth up to Glasgow because I was going to join the army. That's where their medical. Where they'd have to send my. Because once you've previously served, they want to know why you left and you'll be on record. And it took so long getting my records up to Glasgow that I ended up just thinking I've got to start moving on and just looking at other things to do. So with me, obviously coming out the marine, stuff like that, it's not really like a transferable skill where you've been training for last 26 weeks to use rifles. You run around an assault course and okay, great, you can run a mile and a half in seven minutes. But, you know, where's your skill set as such? Yeah, obviously if you pass out, you get a trade and such. But. So I, I had a few friends who'd gone on to either they'd either previously already been in the marines or lads that had gone on to pass out and they had a lot of contacts of insecurity. So I ended up going into security. I was doing like bodyguarding, close protection. I worked for Matchroom Boxing, doing all the boxing, ringside security.

Oh, sick.

Yeah, yeah.

Any big fights?

Loads, yeah. Wembley. Joshua Kellbrook.

Oh, sick.

We didn't have Tyson Fury. We did have him for a little bit. Well, didn't have any of his fights exactly, but he was with Hennessy, Hennessy Sports who were Channel 5. So under Matt Troom we were obviously Sky Sports. Company called SA uk owned by Simon. So we had, yeah, we had, we had the contract for Matchroom. So we did all the fights every weekend. O2 Arena. Anthony Joshua Multiple times. Loads of boxers. Kellbrook did the Frotch Grows fight at Wembley. Did loads. I've got like get like a lanyard with a. With a thing and I must have like 50 of them.

Yeah.

At home. Did all of. Anthony Joshua was like first 10 fights. Luke Campbell. Loads, yeah. Tony Belly Everton when he won the world title. Done that. So yeah, that was good. We. And then the company that we were subcontracts to work for, the company that had the contract with Matt. True. So my actual original company, we Mainly focus on doing nightclubs, doors, festivals, concerts. A lot of it was weekend based work. So the money wasn't great. You'd have like Friday, Saturday, some Sunday daytime events, but it'd be quiet for the week and it'd be busy for the summer, then quite more quiet for the winter. So the money, although I was what, people see me on TV every week and it was like, oh, you know, you must be killing it. You're working on TV. You get picked up from your office at 10 o' clock and from their office at 10 o' clock in the morning to go down to London. You'd get to the venue like a couple of hours early. It start at 2 o', clock, go live on TV at 3 and then go off TV about 10 and you then have it like a debrief at 11 and then you'd be back in the bus to come back to Birmingham at like 12 and get home for like 2, 3 in the morning for the whole day. You only get paid for when the show goes live to when it finishes. So from 3 o' clock or from when you, when you get there and you have your, your briefing that from like 2 till 11, get like 80 quid and you're at your house 16 hours a day. But people would do, because they seen it as a privilege to obviously be around these celebrities, be on TV and it is good for your CV where if you want to go off and you know, extend your career in security or go and get your CP badges, you can then go, well, I've looked after and you've got all the photos to prove it because you're on tv. You can, yeah, you could, you could pause it and screenshot yourself on tv.

That's interesting.

So. But it was good. It was interesting. But I got to a point where I, I could, I couldn't earn the same amount on a nightclub door on a Saturday night for four hours work, be in my hometown and be back in bed basically the same time I would be if I'd left at 10 in the morning.

Yeah.

And work in London for the same amount of money. So eventually that's why I stopped doing it and then. Yeah.

So how long did you do that until you started the brand? Was there other jobs up to that point?

So I did security for eight years and I was doing security when I started the brand. The actual whole reason the brand idea, a big part of the reason the brand idea came back was because of security. So I going back to. I was only working weekends. I got a regular Job in Watches of Switzerland, six, seven days a week. And that's played a massive part in me.

Just come a bit closer to that. Right, brother, shuffle that. Yeah.

Is that right? A massive part of me, we've. I've always been ambitious. Like, I could have joined the army, but I went for the Marines. I've always liked doing something that everyone else isn't doing. All my friends are being plumbers, carpenters.

Yeah.

And I was going off to go in the Marines and a lot of them are like, what the hell's the Marines? And I'd come back on my leave and I've jumped out of Chinook helicopters and they've been in JJB stacking cell shelves.

Yeah.

So I've always liked the idea of like doing something different and following my own path. When I was working in Watches Switzerland, you're surrounded by a lot of, like, wealthy people, ambitious people. People are coming in my age and buying 10, 20 gram Rolexes. And it opened my eyes up to kind of go, what are they doing that I'm not? Do you know what I mean? And it just started, just kind of like set something off of my head. And also working around, like, a lot of the lads that are in the showroom, they were very passionate and ambitious and a lot of them, you know, were working towards saving up for a Rolex or to buy a Rolex.

And so you work in security there.

I was working security there. And the general manager, who I still speak to to this day, Lloyd Morgan, he's very well known in Birmingham. Like, he had a big. He was. He had a lot of advice. He was like a mentor to me. And it just opened my eyes up to, like, business and wealth and stuff like that. So it kind of the seed started for, like, for caliber in that shop. Just, just in terms of, like, there's more to life than just. You know what I mean? Just.

I think everyone has maybe a. The first. The first exposed to what's possible. I had that when I did a work experience in London when I was 19.

Yeah.

And I. I didn't know what an entrepreneur was before that, really.

Yeah.

Blokes driving like Rolls Royces and.

Yeah.

I was like, hold on, these guys aren't footballers or celebrities, how they're making money.

Remember one of the guys came in, I'll never forget. He was. He's what you'd call a chaff, if you like.

Yeah.

And you'd look at him and you think, he hasn't got any money. You come to realize that a lot of the people that you think don't have anything have a lot more than. Sometimes the people that.

Yeah. Don't judge about by its cover. Yeah.

And fingers as well, they feel like they've got nothing to prove it. So you can get, you can, you know, if they just pop out that day and then they've got to go to the gym later, they're not gonna, like, they're just, they're just in the tracksuit or whatever. It's, it's, it's more circumstantial. But this guy came in and he bought a 50 grand AP and I'd got, I'd been chatting to him half an hour before. No one had come up to him and even asked him if he wanted to, you know. You know, because usually if you walk in, they come straight over to you. And he was very humble, just chatting away to me. And they actually thought I knew because of how much he was speaking. He used to be a dorman, that's why he was speaking to me. And he set up his own, like, electronic gate company and he was making millions and he, you know, he'd already got an AP on, but it was, it was, you couldn't really see it unless you properly looked. And he spent like 50 grand on a watch that day. And he used, every time he come in because I'd spoken to him, he just, he just would speak to me for ages. And you start to kind of speak to people in there and think to yourself, like, they're just regular people but they work hard and they, and they just, they've got ambition and whatever. And it's like, you think to yourself, like, I could, I could do something. Do you know what I mean? It's, it's just finding what it is that, that you want to do. Yeah, but there's more of a, there's more of an obvious reason how how Caliber started. So part of it was, was being in, around that shop and being around people who was obviously doing really well for themselves. But I was, I was working five, six days a week at the watch shop and then I was working my weekends at a gym and a guy used to come in and he used to have his own meal prep company and we got speaking loads and I started to, to buy his meals.

Yeah.

And they came in the one day and he said, who, who runs the gym? Social media. And I was like, oh, it's me. He's like, mate, that's wicked. Like, he's like, you do all that yourself? The Instagram, the Facebook, I was like, yeah, yeah. It's like, would you do it for me? And. And I'll pay you. And I was like, well, I actually enjoy doing it. I said, I'll do it for free. Yeah, I'll have the meals that I buy and just give me the meals for free.

Yeah.

So I started to build his social media for him.

Interesting.

Yeah. So that's kind of how it. How it almost happened without me even realizing it was happening before I. I had a massive passion for bodybuilding. I always have. Since I was five, six years of age. I was obsessed with Arnold Schwarzenegger Stone. Like, I was buying Flex magazines as a kid.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolute beast on the magazine. My mates are buying Beanos and Dandies and I'm buying, yeah, Flex magazines and like, walk. Are you buying that, you weirdo? I was obsessed with anyone that was just big and muscly and I was like, I've always loved bodybuilding. I've always love Arnold Short Snigger. So been into fitness and training my whole life, basically, and I've always been drawn towards, like, those physiques. And that's kind of what led me to. To working in that gym, because I was. I was living in the gym anyway, and I helped him out one day, the guy who owned the gym, and he asked me if I'd, you know, help out a few times and just, you know, go behind the desk as such. And it just ended up becoming like a. An ongoing thing. So I got really friendly with this guy who, basically, he was a stockist. Imagine, with his meal prep company, so he'd have like a fridge with all his meals in, and he just come in every week and just fill them back up as people bought them. We got speaking and I ended up taking over his social media from seeing what I'd done with the gym social media and going back to my passion with bodybuilding, I knew. I already knew who all the athletes were. I'd been to body power in 2014.

Yeah.

15, 16. I knew, like, all, like, Ryan Terry. I knew everyone. I knew, like, inside out.

I used to be mad into all that stuff. I used to want to be a fitness model. When I was, like, 17, I went.

Through a phase and I was like, there's a photographer called Charles Crofter and he used to.

I recognize the name.

Yeah. He used to shoot, like, all of. All the men's physique guys. Mace. Not. Not the massive guys, but mainly men's physique.

Yeah.

And I, I was like. I'd. Before ECOM came along. My YouTube time would be like Rich Piano.

Yeah.

And I used to love watching.

I used to watch the Ben and.

Jerry's down in all the time.

Matt Ogus was the og.

Yeah.

And Chris Lovardo, Bradley Martin, all those lot.

And I used to, you know, there wasn't really. And there still isn't massively now, but like Ecom on YouTube. But there's loads of bodybuilding, you know. Like you talk about the gymshark early days, how they got Jeff Sage and all them people involved, but there was a big bodybuilding community on YouTube and I used my, my pastime that I now used to watch or I have done for like the last few years or whatever watching podcasts was. It weren't really such as podcasts, it was just more like documenting. Like Rich Piano would just film himself going to the gym. He's. He's rooty and he's dead, you know what I mean? And that's what I used to watch as like my pastime, do you know what I mean? I never really was massively into like watching Coronation street or EastEnders or soaps of TV. I've never liked the idea of Coronation.

Street is a classic.

It was always a bit of a fear of mine subconsciously. I used to say to my Mrs. The last. My, my worst fear in life is being a Dave coming home with my tea on my lap after working a job. I hate watching Coronation street, sadly, that's a large proportion country and, and I just thought, well, even though I'm not where I want to be in life, I don't want my habits to be, to match up to that. So rather than do that, I'd go to the gym and I just watch vlogs and stuff. So I already, when he asked me to take over the social media, I had a massive knowledge base on like, okay, I know I can blow this up just from putting it in the right people's hands. And we already had people that would come to this gym that I had good relationships with that had a big social media presence and I knew that I could, I could get them, I could get them on some whiskey.

Yeah, he loves a drink.

I knew I could get them to promote the brand as a favor to me. Yeah. So I took over his social media within like three, four months. Doubled the following, got like athletes posting about it, got them on. It's quite, it was quite easy to negotiate with them because they didn't really want pain, they wanted the food, like, because it's genuinely like made their life easier and it was what they ate. Anyway, they meal prepped themselves. So it was, it was really, it was really like, now if you go and get an influencer, they want the Earth before they even do anything for you, they want to charge you a separate portion of feed just to do the story. Whereas it should come hand in hand, really. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, whatever, but. But back then we had like, loads. We had like 20 influencers networking with all of those people and ended up massively blowing up his Instagram. And I stood, I stood in the watch shop the one day and I was just thinking to myself, and I thought, I want to do my own thing now. And I thought, I've built someone else's business up. I'm running this whole social, whole social media, speaking to all the bodybuilders, organizing all the posts, building up the Facebook. And I thought, it's time to do something for myself now. What am I interested in? And I've always liked fashion. I've always been interested in dressing nice, taking pride in my appearance and clothing. I'm not going to lie and turn around and say, like, you know, I'm obsessed with it. And I went to designer school or any fashion design or anything like that. But I've always took pride in my parents and always, you know, liked buying new clothes and always been interested in dressing well and taking pride in my appearance. I think it goes hand in hand with training, going to the gym, getting your hair cut weekly, little thing, you know what I mean?

Just, I need to get my hair cut more often. I'm like, every. I used to be like every month, then it was every two weeks and it's still not enough. I get a fade now it's like, fuck. But I need it again. I did two days ago.

My barber will probably watch this, but he's an absolute nightmare. You'll get your hair cut, you'll walk out to go and book again with him because he does it on like a website and app and he's fully booked for like three, four weeks.

Yeah.

So you're having to like, you almost need to put like three or four slots just to keep going.

Yes, I'm the exact same, but.

And I, I'm not like, I'm quite spontaneous. I'll go, right, I need my haircut today. And I like, you know, so I don't really plan like three, four weeks in advance to go, right, I'll book in. So sometimes I've got. I used to get my haircut weekly, but since I've been with him, it's been more like 2, 3 weekly now because I can't. Yeah. I'm not on it enough to make sure that I book on time.

I feel like I need another trim now. You got me self conscious about this fade. It's growing too quick.

It always grow fingers because you have it so short on the sides. It always before. Yeah, it always looks a bit scruffy then.

So true.

That's a good length to be fair. But yeah, so I, I was always interested in fashion and clothing and so I got speaking to one of the lads and we had a magazine in the shop called Caliber but spelled with.

A C. Oh really?

It's a watch magazine called Caliber. Hope they don't try and sue me now.

No.

And I liked the name and I knew what the name meant. So I'd heard of a term at the term. I don't think they've used it as it's spelled differently to the word that I'm gonna. That the reason why the brand's called what it actually is, the actual reason behind why I've called it this is. I spotted the, the word caliber on the magazine. But I always liked, you know, when you go, I was a high caliber footballer. Yeah, that's what the brand means. High quality, distinction, merit. That's. That's where it came from.

Yeah, it's a good name actually.

And so I looked into it and I realized it was trademarked, spelled differently with a C. So I decided to spell it with a K and then I could own the trademark. So that's so. So it became its own word then as such. So some people don't really know that it's linked to like yeah, high caliber footballer. So they'll go, oh, what does it mean? And then when I tell them, oh, it actually means that they're like, oh, you know what I mean? And it kind of links in with the brand anyway, so, so I thought of the, the name for the, for the, for the brand in the shop and I thought, okay, well I've built up his econ brand selling meal prep time to do my own thing. So I started to source manufactures and knew nothing. There was no light 2016. I thought of the idea back then. It was very light. You wouldn't. There weren't loads of brands about. There wasn't really anyone you could kind of reach out and like a guru or courses or anything like that. Not that I knew of anyway. And I literally just went on to other clothing brand pages that were about looked through who they followed and found A couple of manufacturers that way and just. But some of them would have be following thousands. So I was like, should, I mean just looking through, you know, a couple of days and I found a couple of manufacturers, messaged them and it just so happened that they'd made for a couple of these brands and they could prove it with their production.

Yeah.

But the first company I used was going out of business and I spent a £thousand on three different T shirts and had, you know, got. Got a logo made by a friend who did logos and websites. Obviously got the name and it wasn't like a. There was a. It was just the logo was the name as such. So I got that, that made up pretty quickly and I was just. The idea was just to get it on T shirts very much how it used to be and just put it on celebrities and just get it out there and just make sure that it was good quality T shirts but just mark it and be creative with the photo shoots and stuffing and make it look a certain way. And that was, that was kind of as much as I'd kind of really looked into it. And I spoke to a factory, they sent over the logo and the designs I wanted to my friend who does logos, he could do like tech packs as well. Show me the photo. It's like bang on, fine. Like paid a thousand pounds, sent him over. When I opened the boxes, the top T shirts that I'd been shown were like on top. I pulled them off. The rest were like this big kid.

Sized T shirts like pure scam or.

Just scammed me like. So when I messaged him and saying like what, what the hell? Like they're all way too small. I can't sell these. Just got blocked instantly.

That happened to James from, From.

Yeah, a lot of people.

Yeah. I mean I've had.

This is why when you speak to anyone who owns a clothing brand and you say to them it's a bit of a, A taboo subject. Who's your factory? People are very like naive that they're going to just turn it over to them because it's almost like, yeah, the golden key. If you've known what I've gone through to get this factory.

Yeah.

How much money I've spent, trial and error and sampling. I can't just give it you. Do you know what I mean? Because for two reasons, I might even like you, but I almost feel like you need to go through what I've gone to, to know whether you're cut out for it. Because it's almost like all those hurdles Are like challenges that are like, are you cut out for the. That's going to come your way? Because it's going to come. And if I just give you this nice factory now when they're lead times or they're, they're not applying to your WhatsApp, you'll think they're the worst person in the world. But you actually realize it's quite normal and the biggest battle is the quality of the clothing and it turning up on time. All the other stuff is just quite normal. But you almost have to go through the shit to realize how good a decent factory is. So I don't know actually how much use it would be giving someone the best factory possible straight away. One the MOQ entry would be too high for them anyway. Yeah, probably to afford because a decent factory won't bother with like 50s. I want like hundreds at least. And they want your minimum, you know, minimum order to be five, six grand or whatever for them to even put the stuff on your projects, take off bigger brands. So it's not really like going to be any art. If you've built yourself up to a decent factory and someone comes along to you, they're gonna have to have deep pockets just to, to work with that factory. But also if they've known, if they'd have known what you've gone through to get to that factory. You can't just. If it's someone you're really close to and stuff like that and it's a net benefit and something's going to come back your way, that's fine. But that has to be organic and you have to be your friend or you've been speaking for a while and you know you're giving them something and they're giving you something. You know what I mean? You're not just going to go around to random people and just give out. Because what's stopping them copying your design and having more money to market it and overtaking you as well? Yeah, so it's, you know, it's really hard to find a good factory and the first one I got burnt but it didn't put me off. I just, I just looked and found another factory and this time I made a. Make a video. Only paid them 50% up for a front. Made a video of all the stuff once it was finished for them to get the other 50. Yeah, you live and learn.

And then so many things like that I've done.

Then it came over. Got a model that I knew was, was popular at the time and got a photographer, got the Images done built the website on Shopify, just did it myself. It's very user friendly. Shopify just literally, literally did it all myself. Put the images up in there with my friend who did the logo. The, the help of him just doing little bits of coding and stuff like that. And then just basically a lot of the influence that I'd already worked with for the meal prep company, I'd already kind of said, someone thinking of setting up my own thing, would you do me a post on, on launch day? And because I'd built up good relationships with them and stuff like that over the time and some of them I'd met at Body Power, they were like, yeah, sound no problem at all. Back then it wasn't so like it. You could get people to do stuff for free for you. It wasn't so monetized. I mean if they liked your products, they would sometimes just do it on a gifting basis. So they was like, send us some clothes out and I'll happily promote you. So on launch day that, that's what I did. I got as many influencers as possible to just drive traffic to the website. And that was, you know, 2017, June, got launch of like two hoodies, free t shirts, Shopify store had a launch date, got all the influencers to post and that was it. That was the start of Caliber.

How did that go?

Did one sale in 24 hours. Really did what had. Had loads of trash.

Always the classic story.

Yeah, I'm not even gonna lie. The first month did we launched on the. I think it was like the third, the thirteenth of June did like two and a half, three grand the first month. It cost me ten grand to set the brand up. Yeah, 9,800, something like that. So it was about ten grand. I saved up £15,000 and I basically spent nine grand on clothing, the website, the photo shoot, the models fee, and then had like five grand set aside for marketing.

Yeah.

And paying influencers because I knew that because of already doing my friend's social media and knowing the importance of influencers. At the end of the day, doesn't matter how good your product is, if no one sees it, no one's buying it. So you have to get eyes to your website. So I knew that. Pointless launching a brand and no matter how good the quality of the clothing is, if you're not going to have money set aside to pay people to bring eyes to your store. So I know some people speak to me now and they spent the whole money on product, but they've got no money for marketing, they think that word and mouse going to do the trick or. And it's not like they're an influencer or anything like that where they can drive traffic through word of mouth or anything. Like, you know, you might get a few people, you know, buying it first, but that soon dies off and they're not going to be return customers of thousands of. Of pounds. You have to have a strategy in place to either market the brand through influencers or obviously now it's all Facebook ads, paid ads, whatever. But yeah, so I'd set aside five grand to basically just pay influencers to get to my website, you know, to drive traffic to my website. And then the second month did like five, six grand, then 10, 15 grand. And then within like three months, I'd made my money back and I was like, okay, I've got something here. I never forget the first time I, I set aside the money to invest in the brand. I had a conversation with a friend and this and they said to me at the time I was renting an apartment and they said, 10 grand, you could have got a mortgage of her. And my response to them was, if the brand goes how I think it will, the least of my worries will be getting a mortgage. Yeah, that people think so and they, and they think like it's either or like if you spend this money on that, you're not gonna be able to do that.

They don't think like, well, that's just standard civilian mindset.

Yeah.

Massive lack of a better term. I've had the same conversation with people over the years. It's like the biggest risk, taking no risk in it, never gonna back yourself, you're never gonna do anything.

What's money anyway? It's a number in a bank at the end of the day. And as long as you can afford to do your daily things anyway. What, why not? You're only here once. So what if the brand fails and. Yeah, and you get a mortgage free too. You know, I've got a mortgage now anyway, so I did it anyway. Yeah, people very like small money where they go, well, you could have got a more. I will get a mortgage. I would do it anyway.

You know what's interesting about that? Because I don't know if you're the same now, but I mean all my mates now and have been for years of entrepreneurs and just we all think the same and that's why we're mates. But like, you forget that I come from a normal background. Like even my own brother, like, he'll speak like that. He's just recently bought a house and like, this is. This has been a real talk about mortgages and. And, yeah, and I'm saying, well, you know, I'm going to build this business, sell it and. But, you know, all this, it just. We view the world differently because that's something he would speak about with his mates and they'd be like, oh, how are you getting a mortgage? Whereas me and my mates, we speak about how we get into 100 million.

You don't even have to justify or explain it. Like, this is the thing as well.

It's a different conversation.

I found myself get, as I've got older, I don't hang around with any of my old friends. I can't be around my family as much because everything's small talk, everything's small thoughts. And the thing is, you'll never speak to an entrepreneur. His answer to me would have been, great, you've done it two years ago, or, great, well done that £10,000 going to potentially yield you millions or whatever. You speak to your family and they'll be, oh, he's taking too much of a risk. Why have you done that? Silly. That is, you know, you could have done this, you could have done that. You'll have that conversation with them until they see you successful. Once they see that you're absolutely. They'll go, oh, okay, you did the right thing. But until you've done that, even on the journey where you're being quite successful, because it's kind of behind closed doors and they don't see the warehouse or anything like that, they're still subconsciously thinking, well, it hasn't paid off yet. And, and it's. But you, you come to realize that if you want business advice, speak to business people. Don't speak to your family. There's no point.

People aren't successful.

And telling me massive risk in investing in a brand because if he felt, if he was. If he was on that same wavelength, he'd probably do this, he'd already done the same thing. Or is, you know what I mean, that there was a reason why those people are doing nine to five jobs. They have a nine to five mindset. Sometimes it's circumstantial where they're just not at the age yet where they've got to the entrepreneurial level or, yeah, they haven't saved up enough money. So those people will go on to do those things nights. Most of us start off like that anyway. But a lot of the people that are doing those jobs, they don't Think like we do. And as you get started, start to kind of get older, you realize you're wasting your time even justifying to them that why you've made that risk or. Yeah, because if you speak to an entrepreneur, he won't. He wouldn't even question that. He'd just be like, fair play. Like, what's the brand called? They won't be saying, oh, you've took a massive risk there.

And.

Yeah, so. So 201718 streetwear brand basically used loads of influences, predominantly hoodies, T shirts, went into caps and jeans and the basic, the basic model of the brand was good quality clothing and just get it on influencers. Very similar to Hera.

Yeah, it was of that example.

Yeah, it was of that age. And it's kind of funny now because obviously the. The guy who's obviously a big part of my brand now owns Hera.

Yeah, I forgot about that. I need to get Ash on the podcast, actually, because I used to follow him religiously when I was maybe 21 when Hera was starting. I know he's no longer involved in it for X, Y and Z reasons, but yeah, I think that'll be an interesting pod.

So, yes, it was basically based around getting on influencers with big followings. Love island people.

Yeah.

Had connections through obviously athletes and bodybuilders and stuff like that. And we wouldn't just use bodybuilders, we'd use anyone with like a big social media presence. So launched, put it on as many influencers as possible and that was basically just the model of the brand. Get good quality clothing on famous people and get as much traffic to the website as possible. And it was a streetwear brand. We had a lot of independence come to us and want to stock us. I always avoided it. We had foot asylum come to us and want to stock us. And I turned that down and effectively I didn't realize. It sounds silly, but I didn't realize it was as the terminology that I can use at your Spice brand. I know you've mentioned it.

Yeah.

And it started to become that.

And a lot of brands are in that space. Space in it. But when I launched, we had fresh.

Couture, you know, knives pre London. Harry, you obviously had six silk Jim Kings be inspired.

Six people. Still massive, aren't they? They're probably the only one. Well, not the only one, but one of the ones that is gone.

People realize how big they are. So I actually.

They're mad in Spain, aren't they?

I. I have a really good relationship with the owner, Tom. Tomo he beat the nice game on.

The pod as well.

Yeah, he would come on through me.

Asking to set that up.

Yeah, definitely. So he, he actually bought me like a 300 pound gift for my, for my babies when my baby was born. A rocking chair.

Oh really?

Yeah. So he, he's actually ex army so I think I've been up to the offices in Leeds, that's where they're based. They're from scum fort but their offices and Leeds for six silk. And he's a really nice guy, very humble, never talks about money, never posts about money. You wouldn't know that he owns a Lamborghini. It's never been posted on his social media. Yeah, just a very genuine nice guy guy I think. I don't know the other two lads. There's three lads that set up, set up the brand. But, but me and Tomo speak a lot and I think because obviously me being ex military and a lot of my family being ex military, we is kind of drawn towards me through that invited me to their offices. Yeah. And he's. And I don't think people realize like they're turning over over 100 million a year really.

Yeah, I didn't realize that.

Yeah, they're massive. In of spite Spain. They're massive.

Yeah, I thought Spain I've seen with like Messi posted South American, South America.

I went, I went to Barcelona and I've seen people wearing six silk everywhere.

Yeah, very true.

You know you went to the new camp and there was people wearing them everywhere and obviously they did the collaboration with Danny Alves. Yeah, I saw that to enhance that and they did, they did it with Messi but they, when I first started they were the kind of brands that were almost like the blueprint. There wasn't the cold books that there is now and the represent. Represent was always around I think but I didn't know them back then so. And a lot of them they, they use like you know, the Leon Scotts, the Stephen James.

All the same models.

All the same models. And it was kind of like that was the blueprint. You get a good product, get a name that's and then just stick it on them and make sure you shoot in cool locations. And that was kind of, that was almost just the, that was all you really thought of it really. It wasn't really like it's always about the quality of the clothing but it was more so just about product placements. And a year and a half, two years in 2018 I almost kind of stepped back and looked at the brand and went, this isn't what I want. Foot asylum are coming to me. And I didn't want to be, you know, just a colorful hoodie with a logo on. I wanted it to be more refined, more refined, more like Reese, more contemporary, more. I had this big thing I used to say to people, like, we used to price our t shirts at 45, 50 quid. Quite expensive. And one of the main reasons why you do that was I say to customers sometimes protecting the brand. For me, I said, if you spend 45, 50 quid on a T shirt, you're not going to go and wear it in the gym, you're going to wear it to a bar.

Yeah.

Because there's a sense of like, I've spent quite a bit of money on this T shirt. Like I'm going to wear it for a nicer kitchen or.

Yeah, that's very true.

So I, I was already kind of doing things that would almost. That's now, like, I can understand now why I was doing that. And I didn't want people wearing my stuff down skate parks or in gyms. I wanted people to go out on a night out and wear that outfit. And also that's where all the photos are taken for the social media. If you go on someone's social media, nine times out of 10, if they're wearing a T shirt in a gym, it's under a hoodie or it's been sweated on or whatever, you're not really looking at it like. Whereas if people go for a nice out and they're wearing a nice outfit, you'll. You'll take notice of the outfit and people will post those pictures more often anyway. So just as like a byproduct of them wearing the outfit out, it will then get put on their social media and it then, it then it's out there more. So I. So with the price point and the quality of the materials, I was already trying to position it to be like a brand that you'd wear on a night out. But I realized that with the big logo and the way I was promoting it wasn't really in line with what was in my head of how I wanted to be perceived. So I decided to. Before that brand got too big and too known. It wasn't, it was still not in any shops. I knew that I could kind of remodel it and re. Rebrand it. I wanted to keep the name because the name, I like the name anyway and it meant something and it was. There was a. Obviously we spoke about like high caliber Quality, merit, distinction. It wasn't just like a. I know a lot of companies just go, oh, we'll add London on the end or Couture on the end, and they're just London. The name's got no mean meaning, but this brand, the name did have a meaning. So I was like, I'm not changing the name, but I want to change the look of the brand. So in 2000, the brand is at like two phases. So it's. So although it's five years old, financially, we're like 18 months old because of the stock gaps we've had with that, where we haven't had stock or where we've done this rebrand.

Yes. It's. So just. Just on that, then, like how you obviously mentioned to me off camera, but how involved were you? Like, when did you go full time? Like, when was it at a point where you were thinking about going full time? Obviously you mentioned just then pretty much 18 months out of five years, were you properly selling?

Yeah. So there was a period of time where I left work six months and went full time in the brand in, like, 2019.

Yeah.

But my factories weren't relying reliable enough to get stuff to me on time and I was missing like three, four months of no stock, so there was no income for the brand.

Why then stock so hard?

I'd go back to work and I used to obviously do security. As we spoke about my foster brother Greg, who the foster carers I lived at for 13 years, easy. Exact same age as me, bar a couple of months. And we're best friends. We're like. Like that. He was in traffic management, working the motorways and stuff like that. And he said to me, I know you've quit work. And I didn't want to go back to doing security because the big problem was with security, especially working the Rolex shop, was you couldn't be on your phone. And Lloyd will watch this back and he'll laugh at this, but he used to come to me and he knew exactly what I was doing, he knew I was building the brand, so he never used to go mad at me. But Obviously, it's a 3 million pound showroom. You press a button to let people in, you can't be there on your phone and there's a client stood outside waiting to spend 100 grand and they're waiting for you to even notice them, to let them in.

Yeah.

Which would sometimes happen if I wasn't looking up at them. I wouldn't even know they're there for a couple of seconds. Because I'd be on my phone speaking to a factory or do you know what I mean, Speaking to a photographer about a photo shoot. It was always work, but it was. It was hard to work and run the business insecurity because you weren't allowed to be on your phone. And obviously it's an E comm brand. Everything's done from my phone. So it was really hard to run the brand and work full time in the job that I was doing. So I. When the brand started to get to a point, I mean, at one point I was bringing in like 10 bags of parcels that I'd packed overnight. Just saw my lunch break. Because I worked in the city center, I'd go up to the raw mail, drop them all in. I had to build a rapport with the raw mail workers just so I didn't have to queue because I used to miss getting back. I'd miss my whole lunch queuing. Because you're in the city center, it's busy. As I'd queue just about getting there, drop all my parcels off, miss my lunch, come back and do the rest of my shift. And it was getting to the point where it was like, I can't do this. So when the brand got really busy, I quit security and. And the shop was very supportive. Like, I'm still friends with. I went to Barcelona with one of the lads from there. There's lads that have bought from the brand. The owner, the general manager, Lloyd, is a massive, you know, mentor to me and supporter and always checks in on me and messages me all the time and words of encouragement and stuff like that. They knew that when I was on my phone at work, what it was for. But at the same time they've got a store to run and they've, they've got, you know what I mean? So it was becoming a bit like, I can't do both here. So I left work for six months. But it was great. When I had stock, I could pay myself a wage. But when I didn't have stock for 3, 4 months because of suppliers being late or issues with, you know, with getting it over here and whatever like that. So my brother Greg, he worked on the motorways and he said, listen, on day shifts were done by 12 o', clock, it's job and knock. Once the road's tarmac, you can kind of go home, you're in the van, you can be on your phone, come and do this because you'll be able to do both. So that's. I went back to work doing traffic management. Which is all like for layman terms, it's basically the blokes that close the motorway on the, on a night time to tarmac. That's what I was doing and traffic lights and stuff like that. And I was running the brand and working full time. But could, because I could be on my phone as much as possible once we put the job out and close the road off, you're effectively just sat in the van waiting for the tarmac as to finish and then you pull the cones off and the signs off and the roads open and you're back home in five, six hours. You're, you know, it's, you do a 12 hour shift, it's done in five hours job a knock once the road's ready to drive back on you back home. So I did both for a long time. I was working seven days a week and running the brand seven days a week on my own. I only went full time when Paul Richardson, the gym sharp director, invested into the brand and gave me a good, a good chunk of money to basically he wanted my focus to be completely on the brand. So it was kind of what number do I need to give you? Obviously I'm buying half the company off you, but I also want you to be 100 free to focus on the brand because that's when it's really going to grow, not when it's like a side hustle. So he put me in a position where I could leave work and not have to worry about bills or anything like that or paying for my own lifestyle and I could just focus on running the brand. And if we didn't have stock for 3, 4 months because of new collections or whatever or reorganizing stuff and whatever, it wasn't an issue then because that money was in the bank. So I went full time with the brand like five months, five, six months ago. But I've always worked apart from that period of time where I left for six months because I couldn't do both with security. Yeah, I've always been, I've always done.

Everything just going back a bit before then though. So in terms of like actually marketing, were you doing paid social? Is it all influences all the time?

No.

So obviously how's that changed?

You got to like when I rebranded and I basically decided I wanted to.

Kind of.

Be more premium and kind of come away from the big logo, tattooed model thing. I stopped using influencers and they didn't have the same impact they used to do. Once the algorithm came in, you wouldn't, you know. Yeah, I remember Paying a thousand pounds to Alex Bowen.

Yeah. I work with him as well.

And within 24 hours I made eight grand back office discount code. Yeah, because I gave him a discount code and it was directly from him.

Yeah.

And five, six, seven, eight posts changed. I do same thousand pounds and I made 800 pound back. I was at a loss.

Yeah.

That was the difference. And it was just the reach that his photo got compared to the first time I used him was night and day difference, yet he had 600,000 more followers.

Yeah.

But the post is not being shown to half of his audience because of the way the algorithm works. And if that post doesn't perform well in the first couple of minutes, it just limits the reach of it. Same with stories. If you post a story and if you give it an option where it's a yes or no because of the engagement, it boosts up and it goes out to more people. But if you.

Oh, really? I don't actually know that.

Yeah. So I spend that much time on Instagram, like I know all the tricks. And if you just, if you just post one photo instead of five photos, that will get more reach as well. Because what it monitors is how much time people spend on the photos. Now if you post one photo, people will look at one photo, but they ain't looking at 25 photos, are they? So the, the engagement drops and what that tells Instagram is your other photos aren't interesting. We're gonna, we're gonna downgrade the reach. So you're better off just posting one. You know, if your brand's turning over millions and millions and millions anyway, it doesn't really matter too much. It's a very small thing. But if you're quite a small brand and you want to get as much reach as possible, you need to get them engaging with that first story and, and like this or that PC brands do this or that, it's not because they want to do this or that, it's just because they're trying to get the engagement on that first post. So then the reach, it go, it goes out to more people. But Instagram as a whole just, it's just terrible. Like the reach was shocking. So influencers just, you just naturally stopped using influence because they didn't, they didn't, their, their, their performances were half. But they wouldn't, they wouldn't budge on their price. And because they're following still going up, sometimes they're actually charging more, but the results are less. You know, some influencers are coming back to me and I was like, well, I've used your discount code to obviously you put it in your caption. So I know how many sales come from your story, from your post and it's half of what I used to get. But you're double the price. So I feel like that and that they didn't really catch on early enough to understand that if they probably would have worked with brands and kept their price in line with their performance, yeah, they probably would have got a lot more work.

But so did you pivot to pay social or anything then?

So then once, once I started to realize that, you know, the reach and, and the sales from, from celebrities wasn't what it used to be. I'd got speaking to a guy that used to, used to, used from Australia. He used to run a lot of his own. He said like four or five brands and he used to do drop shipping and stuff like that. And he was the kind of first person that spoke to about Facebook ads and then he basically started running them for me and that was the first time. It was 2018, 19 when I started to do Facebook ads. And then we, we obviously then did the relaunch in 2000 and we, we did like a, we did a rebirth for the whole. Rebirth for the whole brand. And we couldn't use influencers no more because it would have. It's not, it's not in line with the way the brand looks to use tattooed models or to use, yeah, mtv, you know, it's more based around the product. And I didn't want to use a big fancy celebrity model. I wanted to use someone that fits with the brand identity. And Facebook ads just went hand in hand with what our kind of brand mission was anyway. Now it's like, okay, we don't want to use people covered in tattoos because if we're like a contemporary menswear label like Reese.

Yeah.

So we, Facebook ads was perfect for us because it was like, right, we haven't got to just use people just to get the reach. We can actually, actually make our brand look exactly how we want it to.

Look and then just pay for the.

Reach and then just pay for the reach through Facebook ads and obviously email marketing and stuff like that and sms. We did, we just, just did all that eventually and just that was never gone back since. Not, you know, we had, we had a lot of footballers buy from the brand. Coutinho bought from the brand.

Oh yeah.

And I'm a massive Liverpool fan, so yeah, same. Oh yeah, yeah, that's good. When I remember sat there one day on Shopify and just seen a sale come through and I was like Coutinho, Mel were training ground and I was like off serious.

Yeah.

So there was an email there. I don't know if this is like a breach of date protection, but I, I email. Well it's not, is it? Because they, it's, it's. They've bought from the brand and you as a brand you're effectively. If they've signed up for email marketing, you can reach out to them, can't you? So I've emailed them just saying like my shoe miss is like the Coutinho. It's going to Melwood. So chances are said I'm a massive Liverpool fan. Can we refund the order and send them out as a gift and in return get a post? And then they came back and it was actually his cousin that was ordering on behalf of him.

Yeah.

And he said, yeah, that'd be.

I don't think the 50 quid T shirt is gonna dent his pocket either way.

Exactly. And that's the great thing about using footballers is they don't want, want to, they don't want money because they're multi millionaires. So they're not going to charge you like 500 quid for a post because they make that in a minute.

So Casino did a post.

So. So I've got up, yeah. I've got screenshots of not just Coutinho, he'd end up snowballing to loads of footballers. So Coutinho done me a post. I got a ton of followers from that.

Well, actual tagged.

Yeah. Tagged post.

No, that is decent.

But through that came Firmino. I've been in Firmino's house, he's got me tickets, I've been to games.

How'd that come about? Coutinho, as in, how did you get in his house?

Through speaking. So basically we spoke loads and he realized I was a Liverpool fan and he said, you want some tickets to come to a game? So I went to Liverpool first. I went to his Liverpool menu. Shakiri scored 3:1.

Yeah.

And he'd added. I didn't know he was going to do this but he'd added in the in because you went to collect the tickets and gave me two tickets for a friend. He put a VIP pass to go and meet the players after the player lounge and he was in there. So obviously I went up to him, introduced myself. He didn't speak much English but he knew who I was. You just, you work out a way to kind of. Oh Caliber, John. Oh, okay. Amazing. Yeah. Thank you very much for the clothing. Ridiculously humble. The South Americans, they like the difference between them and like British football is. Is like they've come from such humble beginnings that you giving them clothing's a big deal. So I'm like, they don't realize that they're doing you the favor.

Yeah.

They would pay for it. Like, I used to get like, Lanzini. I got stuff out to him, the West Ham player, and he was just buying stuff all the time. But he was, he was like, I said, I will send you this stuff. Because he was tagging me anyway. And he was just doing it. But because I'd already give him some stuff. Like six months ago, he was still buying stuff because he likes to stuff and he was just tagging off his own back.

Yeah.

Whereas like a British star, you'd message someone with the same amount of following as him and they wouldn't even respond to you. Or like. And if you was. And if I was going to do a paid. If I was going to do a post, it would have to be like on their terms and just night and day difference between South American. So I kind of seen a bit of like a. A pattern there. So when Katina done the post for me, once I've got that photo of him, where are my stuff? I then just chucked that photo into Moreno's dms. He done me a sign, shirt and post. Firmino came through it. I got Otomendi from City, Lamella from Tottenham, Dilio from it all posted for free. Yeah. You can check it all on tagged photos for free.

Did that make a big difference?

Massive difference. That's why I've got the following. I've got. And it's. It's. What would work as well is people know that they're not doing it for money. They don't need to. So it comes across really organic.

Yeah. And like, they genuinely like it.

Like genuine. Because obviously, like, some influencers will do a post because they need the money.

Yeah.

And they don't really care about the brand.

So many.

So many. Like, you know, I've. I remember Alex Bowen, he was doing Post for Circular and then five minutes later on his story, he'd have his Rolex GMT on.

Yeah.

And he's just done a paid post for a watch and he's took it off, put his own Rolex on. People see that.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? So that's where influencing really struggled because people. People could see that this person doesn't actually Give a. About the product sometimes. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. And that's at the end of the day, it's a paid service there. You're paying them to promote the products. They've done their job. But it also helps if they like your product and they wear it. You know, I always used to try and work with influence that I knew followed the brand already and genuinely like the brand one, because for my ego, it made me feel, I don't want to use an influencer that don't even follow my brand. Because how can he tell the people to come buy from this one? He doesn't even take notice of himself. It just. It's. People see through that. People aren't stupid and they see through it. So the good thing with the footballers were if they didn't want to do it, they wouldn't do it because it's free. They just do it if they like the product and they're happy to get it for free, more than happy to post it. So we. We started going down the route of like, paid, paid ads, but getting it on footballers. So I've got it on like that. So many footballers. I mean, I. Speaking to you before off camera. We went up to the old firm game. Ranger, Celtic.

Yeah.

My models is English, but his dad's Glaswegian and a lot of the Rangers and Celtic players used to buy the stuff. Once I started to get it on, like Coutinho and Lanzini. Footballers follow those footballers, obviously. So I get a lot of orders of footballers anyway. And I'm massively into my football, so I'd notice the name straight away. I'd know, like, that's a footballer. I'd then speak to them on Instagram and build up a rapport with them and then stuff like that and gift them stuff for posts. And that was another form of marketing to me, was them posting the brand and me gifting them stuff.

Yeah.

I'm massively into my football anyway, obviously, like. So Firmino, with multiple games I've been to for him, build up a rapport. He invited me to his house to drop the stuff off.

Yeah. And that's a proper delivery, that.

Yeah. And then through that, he invited me in and said, you want some food? And he's not the only player to have done that. James McLean. He was at West Brom, Wigan. Me being in Birmingham. The first time I met him, he was based. He was at the belfry and then he rented a property and he invited me into his property and his Brother was playing fee from that and they made me drinks of maybe a drink and whatever and I sat chatting to him for ages and stuff. And because that you can tell pretty quick if someone actually likes football or faking it. Well, they knew straight away that I was, you know, genuinely interested in football. So, you know, you can. They know that it's like when you're speaking to them through, like, social media, they can tell whether you just. You actually like football. And that helps a little bit, I think. So I've built up good relationships, gone to loads of football games, you know, and. And that's been another avenue, massive another avenue of marketing for us.

That's something I need to do more of. I did a bit of influence market in the past, like Alex Baum, a bunch of Love island guys way back in the day. J Alvarez was probably the biggest one.

Yeah.

Got no return.

I remember you saying he got no return. I've had a couple of.

So now I'm like, I'm just scared of it now because I just don't think. I feel like it works.

I think it's easy to find out who's genuine, though. If you, if you understand social media and you see after an hour they're on 400 likes and after two hours are on 25,000 likes. You know they bought the likes.

Yeah.

So. And so you can tell the Engage profiles. Just if you, if you actually genuinely love social media and your brand, you'll always. You'll already have like a level of understanding of who's legit that will narrow it down to a certain amount of people and then they'll always be the one con artist in there that's got like a fraud following that won't get you the results you need.

Yeah.

But it doesn't take long to look through their social media and their following and their comments and the likes to understand who's actually got the legit audience. And then you narrow it down to two or three people you want to work with and you should be okay based off of that. But you can get stung. I got. I've got stung off. I'm not going to say their names on here because I don't want to mug them off or anything can say. But there's some people that have been absolutely shocking that have come back multiple times. I've stopped speaking to them and they're messaging me.

The risk is paying. A big one that you think is going to work. Like Jailbreak is paying like 45 grand for three posts. Must have brought in like 4k. And I was like crying and it's.

One of those ones you can't really know if it's going to work until you've done it. And you can obviously speak to other people, but if they've got different products, it's not. And also people don't really want to let on that oh, it's performs really well. You know what I mean?

Exactly.

So. But yeah it's. But that's the great thing about Face up marketing is it's one you can monitor the performance and you can scale.

Yeah. I've always just been so heavy on Instagram, especially with the new brand. Like, although I'm now I'm thinking I'm a bit too reliant on Instagram. So I'm trying to diversify this.

This was my big problem because I knew everything about Instagram and I built brands on Instagram. I'd sold brands on Instagram, like built pages up people. And I've done that as a money earner as well. I used to build people's profiles for them and stuff. And when, when Facebook come along, I just didn't. Going back to like at school, if I'm not interested in something, I just don't, I don't dive into it.

Yeah.

But with social media I love it and I spend a lot of time on it. So I understand everything about it. Social media, like there's nothing you can catch me out on with Instagram, but with Facebook ads my knowledge is limited. I understand it enough to have a conversation with people, but I wouldn't run it myself.

Yeah.

So I've always then been reliant on marketing companies to do them for me.

Yeah, man. I use an agency now. I used to do it myself, but definitely I wouldn't know enough. Now you.

The thing is it changes so much. You've got to do it every day.

100. I used to be in it for hours every day.

Like, you know, when I follow a few people, I follow a guy on YouTube called Ben Heath.

Oh yeah.

And he puts out a lot of really good content and he's, he's very frequent with it like daily. And you can learn. We've got. One of the things I did when Caliber got to a certain level is people would message me and ask if I'd help them set up clothing brands. And there's three brands that I've helped go from like nothing to like turning over like multiple five, six figure months. And they're, they're established brands to now. So we've got like A thing called hustle hub on WhatsApp. And we use a lot of marketing companies and rather it's all just use the same people. We go off and try different factories, try different marketing companies, try different packaging companies, get the best price and we kind of, we get, we do a lot of networking that way. One of the lads in the group had been burnt by quite a lot of marketing companies and he ended up just doing it himself and he got better results and got really good at himself and kind of really dived into it and now he runs all of our ads and the results, I mean he's, we, we view some of the biggest marketing companies in the country like massive companies that look after really, really big brands that turn over like 60, 70 million a year. And they're, they're, some of them are the worst, the worst results. They're just terrible. And they, they put someone in charge who's just been employed who spends like an hour a day on your ads as opposed to having someone in house who's spending 10 hours a day on your ads and, and understands the brand message and stuff like that. There are pros and cons to use a marketing company because I've obviously got other people's data and stuff like that. But we've almost got that ourselves. The fact that there's three of us, three, four, there's like four of us now. So we can see like if my ads, for instance, if I wasn't doing many sales and I'm going, I wonder if it's the market I'll know because how the others are doing. So we've got that data through four or five brands rather than just my own brand. And this guy now who's in our group, he does all of our ads. So it's quite, quite lucky really that we're not actually reliant on a marketing company now. Yeah. Solely to do, to do our ads for us. But scaling as you, as you really scale, you're going to need a marketing company. I think I feel just to have that professional touch of one. Our guy is only really good with Facebook ads. You need tick tock.

Yeah.

You need other avenues of expertise. Expertise.

Anyway you're really good at answering questions. I feel like I've not gone through any of the things I want to ask you.

Go for it.

We don't have to quick fire them but like so fulfillment wise are you. How do you manage all that? You do it yourself or you outsource that?

Did it all myself. And then obviously when Paul came on Board.

I'm gonna ask you about that next.

We'll go to that next. When. When Paul. One of the first things I said when I sat down to Paul was he said, what do you need to take Caliber to the next level? I said just to stop packing my own parcels.

Oh, so you're doing it yourself. I was doing it myself, yeah. Right. I've actually never done that. I've always done three po.

Yeah. To be honest, because I'd never got like a massive.

Which is expensive, though, by the way.

I just launched and just was like, I didn't know any other way other than myself kind of thing. And it was just one of those. And sometimes I've worked hard rather than work smart. And I found out the hard way there's an easy way to do this. And I've just kind of. I've always. I've always worked really hard. But sometimes you also. There's the certain scenarios where it's like you. You need to offset stuff to free up, to do other things. But that was one of the big things that was like tying me down was. Was I was packing my own parcels, working full time, and my time actually spent on designing products and speaking to factories was then like, you know, a couple of hours a day.

Yeah.

So one of the first conversations that Paul went ahead with Paul was, what do you need to do to take Caliber to the next level?

Yeah. All right.

Was getting a fulfillment sensor. So I've got one now.

How did that relationship come, come about then? Because obviously he's very well known. Jim Sharp, loads of other stuff previously. I mean, I knew he was obviously. Where's that come from? So initially, and then I guess what was the process to working.

Yes, I. I knew of who he was just through just knowing everyone on Instagram with. Involved in Ecom and stuff like that, and his attachment to gymshark and stuff like that. I'd be honest, I didn't realize the level he was at when I first started speaking to him. I just thought he was. He was at gymshark and very high up. And that was basically. He was almost like a member of staff. Didn't realize he'd been an entrepreneur and had multiple businesses and the success that he had. When I first started speaking to him, I added him on Instagram, he added me back. And we hadn't spoken in. A couple of weeks later, I noticed I had an order come from Caliber and it was a big order, so it just stuck out straight away. And it was his name and it was going to Gymshark headquarters. So I messaged him and just say, listen, thanks. That order, that's a massive order. Like, really appreciate it. Glad you like the stuff. He was like, yeah, love the brand and that. We got speaking through that and that's. That's kind of how it happened. And then through speaking to, through speaking to him, I then kind of like he had a link on his Instagram. It was a link to an old podcast he'd done on YouTube and it was. It was him speaking to a guy about his background. So obviously he'd been involved at the Birmingham at Border. He first started off in waste management, made a lot of money from that.

He took over old school industry, took.

Over his dad's company, blew that up, sold it. He. He went to Birmingham Football Club. He was on the board of directors there. He'd owned All Saints. He got them out of it.

Owned All Saints. Everyone asked where my shirts are from every single episode. When, when every single shirt I've ever worn. This fucking podcast is All Saints. I have about 20 of them.

If you go back to all the lads in Marine, Marine training, everyone used to swear All Saints all the time. It was like a thing that. It was just like you could tell someone that had been in the military.

Because the shirts, in my opinion, those.

Tight, all types of jumpers and. But massive. Brandon, I was very aware of All Saints. So when I realized he'd owned All Saints, it's like hell. Okay, he's. He's obviously, he's not just a member of stuff at Gymshark. So I watched, I watched that video and he'd basically been at Birmingham on the board of directors. He'd had waste management company, he'd been All Saints, got them out of administration, sold them on. And then as he, in his own words, he was training at David Lloyd in Bromsgrove, met Ben and was like a mentor, really. Yeah. So he, so that's how they met. So he was, he's. He's from Birmingham.

Yeah.

Obviously Ben is as well. They're from. Ben's from Brahmsgrove just outside of Birmingham. They were training at the same gym and they, they would speak to, to Paul for advice on Gymshark because they were still in the early stage of like 2014, but they were still turning over like 4 or 5 million a year. So they were doing really well. But they used to go to Paul for advice and to cut a long story short, they ended up employing him full time to advise them on how to take that company to the next level. Yeah, and that's how Paul went into Gymshark. And then obviously, they went from turning over 4 million a year to 200 million a year, 300 million a year, to obviously being valued at like, 2 billion now. And so I was, okay. Like, he's obviously. He's not just a, you know, a member of staff at Gymshark, he's effectively their director. You know, you know, Ben's the founder, but he employed Steve and Paul to basically run the company. Yeah. So we start speaking and I just basically said to him, like, would you be up for having a conversation about investing into Caliber? And he was like, I'd love to. He said, yeah, I really like the brand, let's have a chat. And he gave me, like. And I'd met a few people in the past that had offered to invest and I knew within, like, a couple of minutes that there wasn't right for the brand things. They would say. The thing that. The thing that was different about Paul was I'd sat down with all multimillionaires and it was all about. They would tell me how we could make it better. Because, like, Paul was very much like, what you've done is amazing. Fair play. Like, congratulations on what you've built. This could be something massive, like, keep doing what you're doing kind of thing. Whereas when I'd met other investors, they were like, oh, we could change this, we could change that. We could go down about, have you looked at this? But have you looked at. Yeah, but why not go into Foot Asylum? Because I said I didn't want to go into Foot Asylum. I was like, I've got this other vision of being like a Selfridges brand.

Yeah.

I said, and if I go into a time, I'm never going to go into Selfridges, and they'll never be perceived that way. They weren't on board with my vision, whereas he was straight away. And for someone as successful as him, he never once told me, like, anything I was saying was wrong. He was very humble and he listened to everything I said and he was like, okay, yeah, I'm interested. He said. He said, I've got a lot on at the moment and at the time, I didn't realize he was buying Hera. He said, can I come back to you in the new year? Because this was in November last year and we'll speak more on it. So we met up in the new year again and we'd kept in touch ever since, like, phone calls, chatting and stuff like that. And basically he was like, okay, I Just need to speak to my. You want to speak to his daughters first because they, they'd acquired her at this point and I think there was. He wanted to invest in Caliber, but he was a bit worried that the brands would clash potentially further down the line. And he also didn't want to. He said to me, I don't want to be so busy with them that I've got nothing for you. And I also don't want to also be so busy with this that I'm not helping my daughters when I need, you know, when they need me. He said, so let me just run it by them and speak to them and make sure that like, you know, let me get their opinion, obviously value their opinion. He said, let me just come back to you. And he came back to me and he was like, right, let's go for it, let's do it like. And, and that was it. He was on board. And to be fair as well, his daughters have, you know, they've spoke to me through social media and we spoke about meeting up and stuff like that and, and they've been there to kind of give advice and stuff like that and help out and it's. Yeah, it's, it's still in the very early stages. We've, we've. Obviously the deal's done. We've bought a massive amount of stock that's due to arrive any moment at our fulfillment center. We've moved into a fulfillment center. Yeah, the same one that they use for Hera.

Which one's that?

Core in crew.

I've heard of that performance.

Yeah.

Probably emailed me.

Yeah.

So many of these days, to be fair.

The guy who owns it's also called Paul. Really nice guy. Very switched on. I think he's, I think he originally worked there as like a manager and ended up. Ended up. He's now the owner of it and they've expanded and stuff like that and they're doing really well to be fair. They're not global where they've got fulfillment centers and Amsterdam and stuff like that. They're still UK based.

Yeah.

So, you know, but Paul, Paul, when he initially went, when, when we did it, he said, oh, I use this fulfillment center because Ash White was already here with Hera and I mean I basically went to the met them and I liked what I seen and they were really nice people. So I didn't really feel like the need to move out and we just stayed there. He said, we'll put you straight in there with them and we'll use that one for You. And the good thing about it is as well, it's based in crew, which is 16 miles away from house in Stoke on Trent. So I, I popped up there and had coffees with the owner and stuff like that and had a look at the setup and stuff like that. And when my stuff does land, I can just fly up there, quality check, whatever, just be nosy and stuff on the process and that and. But it's still in the early stages, so until that stuff, you know, lands and, and everything's on the website, we won't really see the impact in terms of the scale of the brand in terms of what it's, you know, gonna do now. Because our big problem before was we'd sell out after two to two, three weeks and we'd never know what our proper month could be. And suppliers I previously used, I didn't trust them enough to really go big and know that, okay, yeah, that's what I really need to order to last me three months. But if they that up, I've got no more money left, do you know what I mean? Or I've got not enough to re buy that or take that hit, you know what I mean? So I was always buying like a safe amount just to make sure that like, you know, it's enough to last us. Like in certain quantities we'd sell out within a couple of weeks. But in terms of the whole collection, it would last us a couple of months. But it's really hard to scale because you can only sell what you've got. Yeah, you're not going to do a million pound a month if you've got, you know, 200 grand resale value in your stock, do you know what I mean? So, you know, it's now we're in a position where we can buy as much as what I think the brand needs to really grow and we can, we can do the numbers that I feel like the brand can really do and become a household name as such and really kind of stamp, stamp our name on the industry.

So how does the setup look in terms of day to day? Like do you have an office? You got a team?

I had an office, obviously. Marketing. Freelanced to a marketing company. I do everything myself, social media, photo shoots. There's, there's nothing I don't do other than the market. In the Facebook ads that was done by a marketing company. I've used a few marketing companies. The one I most recently used, to be fair, I think you know the guy, Jason West.

Yeah, I do, yeah.

Really nice lad, but he's based in Middlesbrough and the guy he used for his ads was in Australia and that's.

A time zone problem I was getting. I remember once I've been there before.

I got an email back at 4 o' clock in the morning, morning and I said to Jason, this guy's on it, four in the morning. And he was like, he's based in Australia. And I, I like to meet people who are like a big part of my brand. If you're running my ads I want to be able to like get in front of you and talk to you. If you're on the other side of the world, it just feels a bit. And with, with Jason being based in Middlesbrough, we had a few meetings. It's a four hour drive and then a four hour drive back, it's eight hours so we couldn't really meet each other. And I'm thinking I'm literally 50 minutes away from Manchester where there is more marketing age and there's flipping hot dogs, you know what I mean? So it's like I need to just bring everything in close. I already travel a lot to Birmingham for family. My model's based in Birmingham, the studio use is based in Birmingham. I'm always traveling, I'm always on the road. So I was like let me just bring things in closer and get a more local marketing company. I started to speak to someone in Manchester but then to be fair, the guy that's in our group that I spoke about earlier has just been killing it for a lot of brands and he's going to do it from, from now on as such. But Paul uses a big company for Hera and that's potentially somewhere we're going to go next. But they're also looking to I think hiring house for Hera at the moment. But I think feel like this time next year we'll be probably using a proper marketing company to kind of do everything like Klaviyo for email and Snapchat, Tick tock, cover all the bases. So Officer had an office. I predominantly had an office because that's where all our stock was. And then once we went to a fulfillment center I was like, well I'm paying a lot of money for an office here. For space where I'm just sat with a laptop and a desk. It was more of a novelty thing. It was good to get out the house and because being at home and being on your laptop when you've got a six month old baby and you've got a baby. Got a baby.

Oh yeah, that is, that is a Combination.

It's so the office was like, I.

Can'T deal with this Sausage dog. A safe home, baby.

Well, I wait. I feel like I've waited. I'm 31. Most of my friends had kids at like 23, 24, 19, 18. And I've wait, I've. I've dedicated. 18. Yeah. I've dedicated like 10 years.

It's an interesting one, that is because it's a. I mean everyone each their own, of course, But I think 18, still a kid. I mean, I know people had kids at 18 because when you come from like a state, state school background, like I do, and a lot of people. Cultural differences in it, massive cultural differences. Is you typically follow what your parents did a lot.

A lot of people in the areas I'm from and stuff like that. Like, I didn't grow up in a fancy or anything like that. I think just the natural thing to do is settle down, have kids, get a safe job. Yeah, that's kind of. That's it. You know what I mean?

Whereas done.

It was always, obviously, I joined the Marines, so I was away from home straight away.

Yeah.

And then when I came out, I was on my ass because I wasn't planning to come out. I had to leave because of my shins. So I had no money. And I was always of the mindset because of my upbringing, there is no way in a million years that I'm going to have a kid and not have no money. They're not going to catch the bus, they're not going to go to school with holes in the trainers. Like, when I have a child, I want to be set in life. So I'd already, I'd already made up my mind from like a young age that I won't settle down or have kids or a family until, like, until I feel like I'm financially in a position where I can afford it properly afford it. A lot of people will think affording it's having a thousand pounds in the bank. It's not. And I know what it's like to go to school, dress like and get bullied for it. And I'm not putting my kid through that, you know what I mean? Like, my mom put me in like Pocahontas trainers, right? Girls poke hunters trainers, right. Got to school some kids at the Mickey out of me, ended up battering him, got suspended. And then she battered me for getting suspended. And it, it was her reason why I was in them trainers fighting in the first place. And it was always on the forefront of my mind growing up that it's funny because business was never, like, on the horizon, but ambition was. Like, I wanted to go in the Marines and I wanted a career. I didn't want to just be a normal person, have a normal job. And I could have gone and joined a lot easier forces, but I was like, I'm going to go for the hardest one. And it was so ambition's always been like, I've always wanted to achieve something in life. Had a chip on my shoulder where I'm like, yeah, I've had a massive chip on my shoulder. And there's years gone by where I wouldn't admit that's people, but I'm okay with that now. Like, I do feel like I've got a point to prove. And they're like, from the upbringing I've had, I was never meant to be successful, but that's only drove me on to kind of prove people wrong anyway. And it's kind of actually enhanced. It's, it's. I've used it as fuel, if you like. But it was always at the forefront of mine to be successful. And I always kind of had this image in my head of, I'll have a nice car, I'm a driver, house, money in the bank, and a career before I have a child and before I have a Mrs. So I stayed single for like, I had a relationship at like 18 that went bad. Went in the Marines anyway. And then I was away from home and I stayed single till I was 28 from 18. So I had 10 years of being single.

I'm very single.

Traveled loads, you know what I mean, and had fun and stuff like that. But people were saying to me, at 26, 27, when are you going to settle down?

What you mean, 26?

Yeah, but you can settle down when you're gonna have kids, when you're gonna get married. You know, when I was like, when I'm a millionaire, like, that was kind of my attitude. I didn't say that out loud, but that was what I was thinking in my head. When I'm successful enough where. When my kid comes to me at 4 years of age and goes, dad, I want to go on a snowboarding trip. Not four. He's snowboarding four. Yeah, but when she's older to talk, yeah, and she goes, I want to go on a skiing trip or a snowboarding trip. Turn around and go, can't afford it. I never want to be that person that goes, we've got a budget or we've got to save to do stuff. I want to Just be able to go, right, there's the money, let's do it. So I wait, I. In my head, you know, I had Caliber when I was 26 and I started dating. My current partner was 28. We made official when he was 29. So we've been together like three, four years, you know, officially. We've obviously had our child Raya, who's now just gone six months when I was 31 and she's two years older. Me, she was 33. So I feel like, you know, she's not gonna get 40 and start banging kids out. So you've got to do it at some point. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, so I felt like it's a good, It's a good time, it's a good place. A lot's happened this last, last year, to be fair, without even without realizing like quite big things and similar to yourself, I. I do suffer with depression massively. And. And I think that I used to think I wasn't happy because of my circumstances. And then when I achieved things in my life, I still felt exactly the same. Yeah, it's.

It, that's. That's when.

That's the way out. The way I can realization. The way I. I can best describe depression for how it feels to me is some people are happy all the time and sad sometimes, whereas depression, I feel like you're sad all the time and happy sometimes. And when I. I used to think it's circumstantial because I was skins. Because I had to leave the Marines because all my friends were driving nice cars and going to Ibiza and I was only working weekends and didn't have much money. And I used to think, this is why I feel the way I am. And then when I got my own house and Caliber was doing well and I got into a good relationship and stuff, and obviously what Paul did was absolutely like life changing, really. And it was massive to me. And to be fair, probably the happiest day of my life when he rang me and said, let's do it. Within about a week, I was like, I felt exactly the same again. It was weird. And I had this money in my bank and I had, you know, I've got a nice car on my drive and I've got a nice house and I've traveled and I've got a beautiful daughter. I still have the moments where I just feel like. But the one thing that has been a massive difference is every morning I wake up, my daughter just laughs and giggles. She never cries. We put her to bed at 9. She doesn't wake up till half 7, 8. And every morning she wakes up, she's instantly just smiling, laughing. She doesn't cry, so it's impossible to stop slightly. Day bad because when I look at her, it's. It's a. It's like everyone says, oh, when you have children, like, it changed your life. But it's weird because everything I've done has been for myself and the chip on the shoulder, but now I'm doing it for her. It's like an even. It's an even. It's like a beast. You know what I mean? It's like, wow, I really can't let her down. But. But it's. But it's weird because I've had my own demons to battle and stuff like that, and I think a lot of it's to do with my upbringing and not having a mum or dad in my life. I met my dad when I was 22 and we've built up a good relationship now, but it's took a long time to get to that. But he's more like a friend rather than like a father figure. But I missed all those years of having like a dad on the sidelines when you score a goal or teaching you to shave and stuff like that. I never had any of that. I never had an older brother either. So I had to, like. I had to, like, be my own role model and you know what I mean? So it's been. It's been going back to not wanting to feel different, being in care. I used to get offered counselors all the time and I thought, how am I doing counseling? Because everyone looks like I'm a weirdo speaking someone about my feelings. So I used to just put it off, put it off. And I never have had it. But I. I realized like two, three years ago that I probably need to talk to someone or whatever and have that conversation and whatever. But I. I've used a lot of what's happened to me as like, a driving force to do what I've done. So I'm almost scared of. Of not being depressed. And I think that's. I don't think I've ever said that to anyone before, but I actually, I use it as almost like my fuel to, like, the way I feel. I'm like, I've got to achieve this to feel better or I've got to, like, prove people wrong or whatever. And I feel like if everything's perfect in my life and I'm content, I won't want more and it's the wanting more that makes me do what I do every day. So I almost don't want to be cured and go and get all. Yeah, it's. I don't know if you understand what I mean by.

I think all of us are a bit crazy that, that try and build things for ourselves and you know, you need some.

Would I do what I do now if I'd have had a normal upbringing with my dad? I know you have and you've had a good upbringing. There'll be other reasons why you are the way you are. But I think to myself if I'd have had that normal upbringing I'd have gone on to be a plumber maybe or. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. My parents wanted me to be a lawyer so yeah it was, I just knew it wasn't for me. So I mean. Yeah, you know, you are.

But don't think, I don't think you really have a choice. I think you think it's just, it just I, I really enjoy what I do and I enjoy working, being my own boss. I enjoy working on my brand and I enjoy building it. I couldn't work for someone else on their time and ask permission to go and have a. And stuff like that. It's just not me. Yeah, I'm quite a combative person. Like I'm very strong minded and I know what I want to do and like and I know what I don't want to do and I feel like to get that freedom I have to have financial security and be my own boss. Otherwise if you're always asking for permission off, you know, your boss and whatever, you, you haven't got a choice in life.

Yeah.

You know, so that's, that's one of the reasons why I'm obsessed with owning my own company and being successful because when I want to go on holiday I don't want to have to wait six months to go on. I'll go when I want. Do you know what I mean? And I want that freedom and more so than. And you'll know this, a lot of people think you set up businesses for money. It's not because. Not really massively interested in materialistic things as such because if you was, you wouldn't have a business because every time it came time to spend money and speculate to accumulate, you just blow it on everything else. You actually have to be quite tight to own a business. And whenever all your friends and all your friends are out drinking and spending and whatever, you actually go, well, I need to save this money to run that company. What I'm actually chasing is freedom, financial freedom. If. If I could live abroad and work from a laptop. That's my dream. And just.

And gentlemen, why can't you do that? Well, I guess you got a kid now, it's a bit different.

Got a daughter now.

I was thinking this myself recently. I've been sat in London the past four months, granted, living a nice flat, all this. I got mates here. Why am I not. Why am I not in Dubai or Bali? I'm going to Bali next week. But I used to be very nomadic. I mean, I still travel a lot, but a bit of. A bit of. Me kind of had an awakening the other day and I thought, I'm not. I'm not really happy right now in winter, like, I just don't want to be in London when it's minus five and, you know, I could be anywhere. The thing is, I think, obviously I get more work done, there is a balance.

But I. I traveled a lot like I used to. I used to go all around Europe and I'm very spontaneous. Like, I sat. I remember sitting there in my dad's living room on a Thursday and go, I've always wanted to go to Canada. Sat on my phone, I said, I'll fly in two days.

Yeah.

And I just did it. And I used to do that quite a lot and I used to go. I've gone loads places on my own because I didn't have. Because I didn't have a core group of friends that were single. A lot of my friends had kids. A lot of my friends didn't have much money. They'd have to plan holidays, like, save for it. I found, well, I'm never going to go anywhere if I'm waiting for them, so I choose to go on my own. And Because I'm quite a lone wolf anyway, and quite like, not massively social unless you're interested in the same things I am. I just used to enjoy just my own peace and quiet and just. If I want to go and see a place like, I don't know, the Coliseum, I'd just go and see it.

I did that.

I've always wanted to. Yeah, I went to Rome by myself. I've always wanted to go and see the Colosseum.

So I still want to go with a beautiful brunette, but that's waiting.

What his funny thing is, it's a very. It's a very dainty place, like Paris and that's.

I went to Florence by myself, which, when my parents had a honeymoon the whole time I'm thinking, when the. Am I bringing a girl here?

A few of the lads from. From our watch shop went to Florence because they've got the Panerai headquarters there. Yeah, it's beautiful. I've seen the photos. It's beautiful. But I. A lot of my friends want to go to IB for every year. I'd rather go and stay at the Niagara Falls. I'm a weirdo. I'd rather go and see the Pyramids. I know you like to go to IB from party.

I'm definitely less of a party than the other stuff, though, from doing the.

Doors for eight years. Look, like when the drop puts me off and if I'm going to be around drunk people, I have. I have to get drunk. And I don't like being drunk because I like to be in control and I've seen what happens to people who get smashed. So I haven't been drunk for like 10 years. So rather than good to IB for all like, partying and stuff, I'd rather go sightseeing. My friends, especially when I was like 23, 24, doing that weren't on that level. They are now. Yeah, I've been doing that for 10 years. Like, okay, Eiffel Tower, let's do it. Okay, Barcelona, let's go there. I want to go and see Messi play new camp. Do you know what I mean? Okay, Rome, Belgium, like, and I know America. I've been loads of places and. But I'd go because I'm like, okay, I want to go see the Coliseum. And my mates would be like, what's just a brick wall? It's just a brick. What are you looking at when you get there?

Yeah.

Didn't understand. They didn't get it. You know what I mean? They don't understand. So I just found it was easy just to go on my own. So I used to just go to a lot of places on my own. But. So my biggest thing was I'd love to be able to build a business where I can just travel the world and it just ticks over. But obviously because I was always packing the parcels, I was always restricted doing that with the fulfillment center. It would be easy to do that. But I also feel like was with fashion, you almost have to keep your finger on the pulse. Like, if you're all the other side of the world. Yeah. You won't know what the fashion trends are over here. You. You almost need to kind of like be around the brands that you're competing against. If you're the other side of the world. It's. It's really hard to kind of like an organizing photo shoots. I'd have to get someone else who did the campaigns for me and I. They wouldn't do it the way I'd want them to do and they wouldn't see the vision that I want them to do. But I want to do this cool video where our models driving down to, like, a vineyard in an old classic Mercedes, gets out, throws a drink over it, sits at a table with a woman and drinks some wine. I've got all these visions in my head that I want to create. Yeah. I feel like I can only. It will only come exactly if I'm there orchestrating it. So if I'm the other side of the world and trying to tell someone through Skype how I want it to look, it won't be the same. And with my social media and content, I'm a bit of a control freak. Like, I want complete control of how the brand looks and I feel like I can't do that from the other side of the world.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Gotta figure out, so where do you see the brand in five years? What's next? Obviously, it's been a disjointed five years so far.

Yeah.

But now it sounds like you've got solid foundation.

Yeah. That if I'd have looked back five years ago and said this and you'd ask me the same thing, it wouldn't look how exactly how it looks now. So I think. I think it's really hard to look too far ahead. But the next goal is to have a full year of stock and really see what the brand's numbers will be with stock every month. And then my ultimate goal is to scale it to a point where it's turning like 10, 20 million a year. Selfridges, Harvey Nichols Browns, Choice, Harrods are knocking on the door for it to be stocked there. I've already had people from Selfridges buyers reach out and say they're watching the brand, they like the brand. So I know I've kind of. I'm on. You know, I'm on the right track and to be in a position where I'm financially secure. We can all say what number that is to us, whether it's 5 million in the bank, 10 million in the bank, 20 million, 3 million, 2 million. It's different for everyone. I. I'd be happy being financially secure, having. Being my own boss, employing my family to work for me. I mean, like my partner or whatever. Like that and being able to do that, help my family financially like retire my dad and stuff like that, give my, give my brothers jobs and stuff like that. I really want to be able to do that to them. That's my, that's my goal for the next 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years is to build a brand to position where one, it financially retires me and, and my kids. If you like, if it looks after them, it looks after my family and I never have to worry about, you know, going back to work and stuff like that. And you know, that's, that's the end goal is freedom, financial security.

You're not going back to work. They say that.

No, I know, yeah.

Never look back.

I think because of my upbringing as well, because it's, there's not been a lot, a lot of security in my life that's subconsciously what I'm chasing is like, yeah, is, is, is the financial security of being set for life. And that's not 100 grand in the bank or 200 grand in the bank. It's not. Not because a nice house and a couple of cars and a couple of holidays, that's gone.

Yeah.

So straight away you're talking about a million. Well, if you're talking about a million, the company needs to turn over 5,6 million for that to be the profit. So you, straight away you're talking about a company that's going to turn over 5,6 million and then you might as well say 10 million then. So that's where I'm kind of looking to get to is 10 million turnover company and whether that happens in two, three, four years. But that's, that's the goal of having someone like Paul on board. There's no reason why we won't do that because there's nothing that he's not really involved in that isn't absolutely smashing it and flying everything he's ever done in his life, not everything, because not everyone's, everyone's got not success stories, but pretty much everything he, he touches in his life turns to success and that's not by chance. It's because he's obviously very good at what he does and he's very experienced and he's very hard working and having him by my side, it just makes me feel a bit more at ease as like having a mentor and stuff like that. So one of the big things I've done over the last year or two years is networked and that's made a massive difference because I used to keep myself to myself and I used to Always use this analogy that the brands like a boat and any wave of negativity will capsize it. So while it's still small, I don't want to like put myself to it and any of my previous history or past or whatever or anyone jealous or whatever would try and tarnish it or fat ex family and stuff that like that.

Yeah.

As I've got older really, it doesn't really matter but the bigger the brands got, I've now looked at like a ship and any wave of negativity just bounces off it such. So one of the big things that I've done over the last like year, two years is just networked being around like minded people. And that makes a massive difference. You are, it's a cliche but if you hang around with five idiots, you'll become the sixth.

Very, very true.

Five successful people, you'll become the sixth. Successful. Not always guaranteed like that. You've got to obviously have something about you. But that's one of the things that I've done over the last year or so is, is networked and been around like minded people. It takes longer than it probably. I do it quite organically. Like I don't just add someone and go, hi, this is me. Like who's your supplier? Or can I come and meet you? Can we hang out? Like I just chat to them naturally and through that I've probably got like 30 brand owners on my WhatsApp that I can just speak to at any given time and phone them and stuff and we can just chat for an hour or two hours. It's just, just happen naturally.

And yeah, definitely.

I, I actually get a really big kick out of helping people. So if I know they're struggling with like a packaging company or they feel like they're getting ripped off, I'll just give it, I'll just give them mine. And just doing stuff like that for people, it comes back to, it comes back anyway because people were like, okay.

I remember that like yeah, yeah.

If they've got something about them. And so that's, that's been a big, big thing as well. I've done over the last year is just two, three years ago. I never would have, you know, spoke to you. I just feel like I would never come on a podcast. Podcast.

Yeah.

First sometimes I feel like you've got the attitude, do you go on the podcast until you've made it, but then if you really think you're going to make it, shouldn't make a difference because.

Why wait, I've not made It. And I host a podcast.

You say that, but Neon beach was turning over silly numbers like.

Yeah, but went wrong, didn't it?

But you've done it.

Yeah, I've been there a few times. I know how to scale stuff. Yeah. I'm not a noob.

No, but you've, you've had, you know, Lamborghini, Ferrari, you've had Ferraris, so.

Yeah, that's some nice cars.

I've not had a Ferrari, so.

Well, it's quite easy. I mean, that's another topic. It's quite easy to look like you've got 20 million quid if you put 25 grand deposit and finance a Ferrari like me.

But even finance, I'm the most honest.

Man on the Internet. Yeah, you do. I had. Yeah, yeah.

But some people will go, okay, I've got to achieve this before I go and do the podcast. But then if you genuinely believe you're going to get there anyway, how nice would it be to look back and.

Go, that's why I document my. Innit.

My daughter's 6 months old. When she's 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years of age, I can go, that was dad when he didn't have gray hair.

Yeah.

But like, why wait until I've become a multi million. But previously I would have said to myself, I've got no right going on a podcast speaking about anything until I've, until I've, you know, the brand's, you know. Yeah, the size of, I'm not going to say the right, you know, competitive brands, but the size of those brands. But at the same time, I've also got a backstory that.

Yeah, no, definitely, definitely is, is crazy.

So it's, there's definitely some value to it as well.

I'm meeting a girl in 40 minutes, so I asked my last question.

I take. You gonna cut that out?

No, I'm not cutting that out. Okay, the truth.

Fair one.

I felt we could go on for like three hours because he's got a very good story. Real proud to do part two. We'll do a part two. And when you reach 10 million next year.

This is the thing I was saying to my Mr. She was saying, what are you going to speak? I said, it's weird because there's a reason like, of why I am the way I am that feels important to say. But then there's the brand story and the, the ecom story. So I feel like. But you know, try and get as much in as possible to give some, some context of where I've done.

Yeah, nice it's definitely one of the most interesting ones I think the most varied for sure because yeah, we could dive in probably as well.

I've had to just kind of like there's no point like with school and stuff like that and previous foster homes where it's bigger. Netflix series this if I'm. If touch would, you know, I make it then maybe one day. Definitely got the title off my book.

What was it?

From foster care to. I could be entrepreneur or millionaire.

From foster care to entrepreneur one that rhymes. From foster to.

They both rhyme. Foster care to entrepreneur. Foster care to millionaire.

Foster care to billionaire. That's what we like. That's good. I like that. Right, final question. I ask everyone the same thing. You'll probably be able to give me a 20 minute answer but try and refine it into three.

I won't because I've already tried to think about this on the drive down.

What the question, the question you're going to ask now. Well yeah, three bits of ice to your 18 year old self. Knowing what you know now, I guess you've got 13 years on that network.

I've always been a bit of a recluse and I wouldn't, I would never have gone and approached a bloke in a bar not wearing a nice suit and a Rolex. Now potentially I'd make sure I bump into him to have a conversation with him or network or whatever and I understand the real importance of that and nine times out of ten they're quite approachable and they're willing to talk to you and give you some advice and whatever. The 18 year old me would never have had a conversation with Paul Richardson and never, never had, never felt the self worth to be able to sit in a room with him and offer him something and have a conversation. So the biggest advice that I could give number one to someone who's 18 is don't be scared to reach out to people who 9 times out of 10 you also need to have something to offer them like you need to be able to, to network. You can't just be, you know, have, have nothing to give back to them if they ask you questions or whatever. You need to be a bit, you know, on the side the same level to somewhat. But don't be scared to reach out, have a conversation with people who you want to aspire to be like and who are doing what you, you want to be doing or currently doing. So that's definitely one thing I used to avoid, used to keep myself to myself and you know, and there's People that found out that I owned caliber 3, four years after it was about and they already knew about and gone bloody else. You're the guy that owns it used to be very, very secretive. Like, no one really. And people. Customers. You say, oh, have you got, you know, a profile I can add you on? Like, I've spent thousands with your brand. It'd be nice to just. And I'll be like, didn't feel comfortable doing that. But there's massive benefits from networking. Did you say free?

Yeah. Be here all night, Mommy. You can think of a million things.

Don't listen to friends. Advice on, you know, your friend. You, You're. You'll never. Very rarely will you go to school with people who are going to be your friends when you're in your 30s. Some people are very lucky and they have that and whatever. But the people you're around aren't all necessarily your people. They're people you're circumstantially because of your postcode.

Very, very true.

Them at school, I feel like, get out there and find who your real type of people do. You know what I mean? And. And have similar tastes in you or whatever. But definitely like, you know, the world's bigger than your postcode. Yeah. A lot of people just kind of think, well, this is it. You know, this is. He's my friends. All five of my friends are going to be apprentices at, you know, a plumbing company or whatever. That's what I'll do. Just. Just broaden your horizons. So that's. That's the second thing I'd say to people. Third, Don't know, something cliche. Don't be scared to fail. Everyone fails.

Yeah. And I fail more than most people watching this podcast.

And most people who you think haven't failed are just hiding it. You know what I mean? They have failed. Or, you know, and most people you think are smashing it behind closed doors, they're struggling. So don't be scared to fail. Doesn't mean you don't have to broadcast your failures and tell everyone that you're struggling, whatever.

But yeah, I do that. Too much Internet.

I'm impulsive. That's why I don't have Twitter or Facebook.

Yeah.

Because I used to. Right. States all the time. And I'd be like, I do a little bit of Instagram and stuff like that. Like, I've been going crazy over the last week saying, where's all the messy hate haters now, Ronaldo? Better the mess, you having a laugh and stuff like that. I mean, I'LL put it up after five minutes ago, whatever, done that, like it does it, you know, but, you know, you know, I'm impulsive like that, but I'm opinionated. So if I think, if I think something, I'll sometimes write about it. Yeah, but you are who you are at the end of the day. You shouldn't be ashamed of it. If that's what. No, definitely, if, if you're outspoken, then that's, that's that, that's it. People will praise you for it once you're of a certain level, but when you're on the come up, people will go, you know, but it's always the way. So at the end of that, you can only be who you really are. And if you try and be something you're not, and this is probably coming back to that third point, if you try and be something you're not and you, you get friends that way eventually, like it will come out further down the line anyway. You're better off just being yourself. And if those people don't like you for that, that's, that's the best case scenario. Rather than try and be something or pretend to be something just to make friends. And I think young people portray to be something that they're not, just to fit in or just to have a. Have a friendship group. And it's better just being yourself. And if those people don't like you for who you are, you know, you'll find, you'll find the people that, that you need to be around eventually anyway. So don't be afraid to be yourself. You don't need to portray or pretend to be someone else just to fit in a room.

Definitely.

Definitely. That's probably it. That's it. Three things.

Sweet. On that bombshell, it's been a great episode. Well, yeah, we could make this a classic and go three hours probably. Yeah. Super interesting story.

Yeah, it's, it's.

There's good to know your story about it.

There's loads, mate, honestly.

But yeah, I'll link, obviously Jason's brand. People probably know anyway, but I was linking. Go check it out. Go spend five grand with him then. Then you can invite him for dinner, like familia. Cheers for watching the pod. As always. Subscribe. We're back on the weekly grind with the episodes properly this time. I've. Yeah, I mean, I, I was a hypocrite myself last year, saying an episode every week for a year. Did 48 instead of 52, but start hiatus. We're back on it now, so see you in the next episode. Cheers for watching. Subscribe Peace.