Founding a Multi-Million £££ 40 Person Agency in London - Max Whicher | Midnight Podcast Episode 25

Right. Then back with episode 25, I think @ the midnight poll. I did one yesterday, then realized that should have been episode 26 because of the way I'm putting these out. But we have Max Witcher. That's how I say your name.

Right? Yep.

Correct. And I thought that I'd met Max before at a previous flat party, like two years ago, but turned out that I hadn't and it was a friend or something that looked very like.

You. I swear, my.

Fans. Yeah. And then you were recommended to come on by someone else. Who, I'm not even sure how I know them. Someone on Instagram, and they said you had a crazy life story. Loads of shit to talk about, which is no pressure now. But, yeah, I'm super excited to get into it. I think you've got a lot to fucking tell us about. And dive into. And I guess, as usual, first question, basically, who the fuck are you? What do you.

Do? Who the fuck are.

You? I guess maybe, like, keep it fairly chronological and then we can dive into a billion different.

Things. Sweet. Sounds good. I'll try not to ramble because definitely do.

Rumble. All.

Right. Okay, cool. Where should I start? Fuck. So school, probably. I wasn't super academic at school. I was really into cycling. Basically just sport in general. Anything to get me out of school, but obviously stay in school to a certain extent. Super into cycling. Started working at my local cycle business when I was, like, 16. Had lots of fun, obviously. Really enjoy the practical side of things. Spent more of my time working in the shop than going to school. Definitely like missing lots of exams towards the end of school. Obviously love being practical and earning money. I think I was super money motivated. Can't hide from the truth at a very young age. Which we can dive into in a bit more detail further down the line. But, yeah, started that, had loads of fun, essentially continued to, like, get more and more involved as I got older. So I stayed on to do A levels at school, even though I probably shouldn't have, but it felt like the right thing to do. Basically go with the crowd. Had, yeah. Basically got more involved in the cycle business, started managing it, looking after it while my boss was on holiday. And then one day he turned around and said, do you want to buy it off me? And I was like, wow, obviously I would love to, but I have zero pounds to my name and I don't come from a wealthy family. My parents definitely didn't have any money to, like, support on that. And he continued the conversation a little bit. He was basically planning to retire Wanted to move away from the business equally sort of didn't want to sell it to just a nobody or an anybody and he eventually offered me the business on a private loan and because I'd been working there sort of as a manager for a long time I sort of like knew the business inside out or what I thought was inside out. Obviously it's very different managing to owning and then got into that, started going through the motions of buying the business off him on a private loan. I kind of felt like it was a bit of a no brainer at the time because all my friends were going off to university. I didn't really or it definitely wasn't the right option for me because I wasn't that academic and ended up sort of getting myself into the equivalent debt of going to uni like twice through a private loan basis. It felt very de risk to me. Like this is my blind optimism at that age essentially. Yeah, didn't really see the downside. It was an established business, it was already making revenue, I was already paying, I was already earning a wage and I was still living at home at the time. So like there was zero risk. So I obviously went for it, made the pun, did that, had fun, built and grew the business like got into some. I mean the first year was carnage definitely like owning a business is very different to managing a business. I was signing checks without any money in the account essentially and just like hoping that I would make enough money on the weekend for that to go in. And that was like probably my biggest oversight was that I had this business but I didn't have any money to run the business and obviously cash flow is really important. So I learned very quickly around like cash sold like 25% of the stock immediately just to give myself cash flow buffer. I had like a couple of grand to my name when I started this. So genuinely nothing did that. Had fun. Basically a couple of fraudulent transactions came through. I had people buy bikes, pay for the. Well I thought they paid for the bikes, take the bikes, probably 10 grands worth at the time and then like a month later I'd get a letter from HSBC being like this was a fraudulent transaction charge back on the card and obviously that was a lot of money when I was starting off but did that essentially like it was definitely like sink or swim. I knew that I basically I didn't really have an option but to make it work. At the end of the day worst case scenario I had the rest of my life to pay it off. It didn't work but I really had to like double down and focus on it. So I did, did that over like four or five years. Paid off, it was a five year loan I think. And then I paid off in four years very like basically as quickly as possible. And then got to that point where I was like, what next? Science? Get itchy feet. My options for growth within the industry were like geographical expansion or online expansion, both of which were obviously interesting, but geographical didn't really feel like the right thing to do. Like rents and rates were increasing, high streets were dying. Yeah, so forth. And then online expansion was obviously much more exciting to me. I built basically when I took over the business, it was a local business for local people and then I started creating online shops like immediately because I was at that age where I was obviously digitally and socially savvy but in a unique commercial situation. And that was basically good fun. Built the business from selling like locally to then nationally and internationally. And then yeah, my options for growth were like online didn't really feel like the right thing to do. Like there was a couple of big players that were like private equity backs like Wiggle and Chain Reaction who I would be competing to. And it would have taken like a capital injection which I didn't really have or was willing to spend. So naturally I just started consulting like very organically to businesses that I stocked in the shop. Very selfishly, to be honest. Like I would have, I stocked a couple of brands that were like less well known but like great products. So like an Italian road bike brand for example was like this pinnacle moment for me, which really cool product, loads of heritage like Capinarella of the world, but no one really knew about them. People would come in and be like, oh, it's really cool, I love that. But I googled them, there's no presence whatsoever. And I was like, fuck sake. So I basically started building that presence for them, like selfishly. Then that got more involved and then they put me on a small retainer to like build their social. Initially this is when like businesses like didn't have social accounts and then I started building the social accounts and then I started managing the social accounts.

And.

Then basically realized that there was a huge opportunity here from a commercial perspective at that point. I then met my now business partner Alex, who had just left his agency. He was working for one of the big agencies in town called Essence. They look after brands like Google, YouTube, FT, stuff like that. So he sort of like took a slightly more traditional route, went to university to business, international studies, marketing grad scheme, big agency but clearly had like a very entrepreneurial, you know, personality. And once he had worked at the big agency and seen them grow, he realized that, like, he was just becoming a number. So left to start his own business. Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was going to launch a bike brand. So he was doing like the B2B approach, I was doing the B2C approach, essentially selling to customers through retail and online. He was importing bikes from Taiwan into the uk, had a flagship shop in Covent Garden, Seven Dials did really well, like building the brands, but similarly to me, like using social basically as the way forward. The industry is very old school and stagnant, so we had an immediate competitive advantage just by being proactive and digitally savvy. So it was like massive blessing in disguise. We got introduced through a friend of a friend and just connected. I think I reached out to my LinkedIn and being like, hey, do you want to do a knowledge share session? I really want to know about agencies. And I feel like I could probably add a lot of value from the bike industry because you're ultimately selling to people like me. And I got loads of dealer margin contract information that's probably useful. So we did that. Had fun. Keep saying had fun. Yeah, this is me covering up the lack of fun in this boring section. But we started consulting together. Basically. I got like major imposter syndrome. The brand, the main brand, the Italian road bike brand that I was consulting for. Like, we kept on asking for more bigger stuff. I had to go up to see their CEO a couple of times and I felt very out my depth. I was very much like a scrappy, self taught entrepreneur and I felt like Alex just had the polish and finesse. That's my business partner now. So I got him involved from the consulting perspective and because he had that agency background, he definitely had a lot of weight to bring. We did some projects together, had loads of fun, dedicated one day a week to it. That one day a week turned into five days a week. Um, we ended up merging the businesses, the cycling businesses. I had a warehouse with a team of relatively capable people. So we merged the businesses, took his brand into the retail business that I had, and then basically just got an MD in to run the cycle businesses. And then we thought we'd double down on the social media consulting. Social media consulting then quickly spiraled into what is now a spin brands agency. So fast forward six years or.

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

Pod. We've got a social agency which is about 40 people, looks after about 60 different brands across 20 different countries. Specialists, not generalist, based in Waterloo, have lots of fun with.

That. Is that actual fun this.

Time? Yeah, that's actual fun. No, genuinely like there's. Yeah, like we basically from the cycling industry, we had this itch or like craving for something a little bit more scalable. We realized that cycling industry, as much as we were initially drawn to it through our passions and hobbies, logistically it's like chaotic. There's so many pieces, there's so many people taking a slice of the pie and you have to work very hard for like what is a 10% EBIT at the end of the year. And we want something more scalable. Little do we know we were going into a people based business which isn't the most scalable thing in the world. But for us it felt very scalable and even now is obviously a lot more exciting. But we really started the social agency because we saw an opportunity in the market when neither of us had like this burning sensation to become like marketeers. We just happened to be business owners doing it for ourselves successfully, who kind of started advising. And then that advising meant that we didn't want to necessarily be doing the advising ourselves the whole time. So we hired people and then those people obviously ended up creating what is now as the agency. And that's kind of my story up until now. So definitely not the most exciting. There's less sex, drugs, rock and roll in there than you're probably hoping.

For. No, no, it's good. Fucking hell, you're good at speaking to fair. That was a nice. That was a 12 minute answer to a.

Question. I like.

That. Sorry. No, it's good. So what happened to the bike brand itself.

Then? Yeah, good.

Question. So how did that merge? Was it both at one point or.

What? Yeah, so definitely both at one point, which was very stressful. It was like a. Obviously there was a. Like I said, like a capable team. There's about five or six people running the business for a long time and the online side was obviously relatively easy to keep an eye on from a distance. I moved up to London about 10 years ago now, sold the cycle business two years ago, similarly to how I bought it on a management buyer, essentially. And that was kind of always the plan. So like we, the MD that we got in at the time to run the business, we were sort of like grooming, ready for the purchase one day. But so that was a relatively smooth process when it happened. It was a beginning of pandemic. So, like, I was very conscious that because he was buying it on a management buyout, I needed to ensure that he was successful and, like survived to get a full payout. But equally I wanted to maximize a bit of that as well on the way up. I'm not sure if you remember, but at the very beginning of the pandemic, there was like the first two months or so where everyone went into lockdown and then we were like enforced to do the exercise and everyone was cycling basically, and then. And then supply chain fell apart because there were no bikes in the country, so that was tricky. But yeah, in short, the cycling brand is still going and doing very well. They've actually just built a cafe, so they've got a bit more. They've gone a bit more community centric. I was a bit more like online social community centric and they're a bit more physical again. But yeah, my first exit, it doesn't really feel like an exit, but it still is a feeling and it's quite nice to know that I built it and then also departed relatively.

Amicably. Yeah, nice. I can't believe the fucking pandemic was two years ago because so much.

Has happened and it's a big blur.

For me and a lot of other people. It's like, yeah, Jesus Christ. 2020, 2021. It is a big blur. I feel like I can get an old. When you say.

That.

Yeah. How old are you.

Now? I'm 29. So, yes, started the cycle business when I was 19. Did that for like four or five years. Basically cut my teeth, I suppose, learning like how to not ruin a business. Learning a lot about cash flow. And then, yes, we're about six years old now. The spin brands, which is the social.

Agency. Did you ever think about going to.

Uni? Yeah, I.

Did. It's pretty niche. Fucking just buy a bike.

Shop. I know, so random, isn't it? I did think about going to uni. I actually felt very like peer pressured into going to university. I remember like quite clearly being a lesson where you were writing your personal.

Statements.

Yeah. And I was like, miss, what do I do if I don't want to go to uni? And she was like, just write a personal statement. I was like, yeah, okay, cool.

Thanks. It's the.

System. Exactly. And yeah, that. So I did. I definitely felt pressure from like fam. Family. My family will maybe come onto it because, like, they're amazing from a support perspective, but they're like the least commercial people I know. So I. What I did was probably quite scary for them, knowing that they couldn't necessarily support or like get involved too much. But they were always like, just do whatever makes you happy, like, which is like absolute dream. I've so grateful for that. But a lot of friends, like basically all my friends went to university. Weirdly, I think the timing was quite nice because as they went off to university I sort of like had this penny drop moment of realization. Was like, fuck, I better sort my life out. And I had three years to do that. That was like my time had just started. As soon as they left, I had like a lot of my friends moved out from the area. So I wasn't like as distracted from a social perspective. And I was like, well, I just need to double down and work seven days a week for the next three years and hopefully I'll be at least on par with them when they leave. And that's genuinely what I felt. And then obviously I feel like, yeah, uni has its benefits, but it's not for.

Everyone. Yeah, for sure. You get a real life education building a fucking bike business. Were you living at home the whole.

Time? A chunk of the time, yeah. So not completely, but most of the time, which was strange. I also, for a big part of it, I was sharing a room with my younger brother who's like my little. My best friend. He was like, maybe it's him.

That came to the party.

Maybe. No, I don't think.

So. I look like.

You. Yeah. So yeah, that obviously helps from a de Risk perspective because, you know, like, at the end of the day you've got like, bills to pay and then paying yourself obviously wasn't lower down the priority list. But I, like, have increasingly learned how important it is to do that because there were stages of the cycling business when it was really tough from a cash flow perspective. And I would, like, maybe not pay myself or pay myself really scattered every three months. A bonus essentially, rather than a consistent income. And I realized that that created loads of resentment from the work that I'd put in. I'd feel like it's not worth it, which is just another random.

Perspective. Yeah, interesting. And then how long was there crossover from Spin Brands and, like, were you involved in the bike business up until two years.

Ago?

No. Yeah, did that handoff and then it.

Was. There was about probably like a year or two at the very beginning where I was doing both, essentially, and it was like, quite intense. I'd just broken up with my girlfriend at the time, like, when I started Spin brands, and to be honest, it was probably like the best thing that could have ever happened to me in the nicest way possible. It was very amicable, but I just had like full seven days a week focus on business, which may not have been the healthiest thing, but I definitely feel like it allowed me to.

Get. How old were you then when you woke.

Up? Nine, when I was 22, something like that. That's when I started Spin. So, yeah, about 22. I actually. I think she was starting to get excited that I was moving away from the cycle business because it was so, like, laborious and, like, all encompassing and probably neglected. Neglected the relationship. Yeah, Less sexy. And then we went on holiday and I was like, spent the whole time on the holiday speaking to Alex about, like, logos for Spin and whatever you do when you first start a business, like. And she was like, oh, fuck, lost him.

Again. But, yeah, it's funny you say that because, yeah, I have. I went to Barbados last, like, December 2020, and it was like. Sadly, it was the most expensive holiday I've ever been on, but the shittiest holiday I've ever been on because I was so stressed about all the shit that was happening at the time. So I spent the entire fucking time, like, literally just in the hotel room on my laptop and she was like, what the fuck's going on.

Here?

Yeah, we would have been better off just going to Cornwall for three days and me switching off my.

Laptop. Hindsight's wonderful.

Thing. Yeah, legit. Tell me about it. With a lot of things. For.

Sure.

Yeah. But starting the agency then I feel like, you know, social media agencies and stuff now is 10 a penny, as you know. And I've had a few on this podcast actually, and kind of taking the piss out of the fact it's ten a penny. Yeah, you obviously started that. Well, in my mind before it became this. It's almost like a meme.

Now.

Yeah. You don't have an smma. Yeah. What are you doing online? It's like Tai Lopez is pushing it and shit. It's become.

Like. Yeah, it was when Gary Vee was like the only person shouting about.

It. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So how was that? Like, do you think that was that much competition? The same way? I mean, obviously not in the same way, but like, obviously. It sounds like it was a pretty natural progression rather than a, yeah, we should do this, so let's learn how to do it. It was just you doing stuff that you were kind of involved in anyway, and then why. It just made sense.

To. Yeah, it was so organic. We literally rolled into it. I think we had a little look at the market and we were like. We felt like there was big smokes and mirrors agencies at one end and then there was like the flaky freelancers at the other end. And like, there was this big hole in the middle for like nicely organized, relatively lean, agile, young agency. And we hired a couple of marketing agencies as an experiment for all, like, bike brands at the time, where we were basically just like learning a lot from their decks and proposals. And then we bought an online course. Founder, was it? Founder.

Mag. I've actually met the founder of founder, Nathan.

Chan. Nathan Chan.

Yeah. Because I got really pissed with him. Oh, this is so funny. Sorry. Like, he's like 5 foot 4 or something and he's like heavily Australian. I think he's like from Adelaide. He's like, hey, Mandy, what's going on? Or some shit like that. It's a really bad.

Impression. Yeah, I.

Literally. I met him and that Greta Van.

Real. Oh.

Yeah. In Barcelona. These ecom events are always just massive piss ups. Yeah, but that's how you get to know people anyway.

Yeah. And.

There'S. I remember him telling me, because I had a Rolex watch on everything. I think I just bought thinking I was like, Mr. Big and he said, you have to get a Rollie, as in a Rolls Royce, before you get a.

Rolex. It was some weird.

Thing. He's like, rolling before Rolex, man. I was like, okay. I just remember it distinctly. But.

So. Sorry, that's random. But Yeah, I literally remember paying like 200 quid for this, like, Instagram growth course and that. We thought we were the dog's.

Bollocks.

Yeah. And yeah, like you said, like, genuinely, it was like an easy win for us. I feel like we must be like, one of, like, there's us. And I think Born Social were going like, they're probably the other independent social agency, but they're. And now they're like, they're.

Everywhere.

Right. But I feel like we definitely got Head Start, which was nice. And then we got some, like, bigger brands under our belt and then. Yeah, I feel like the rest is kind of history with relatively clean sailing. But we've obviously got to keep up our game because there's a lot of young, hungry entrepreneurs coming through.

Yeah. And is that. Was it primarily organic back then or was it like paid social or both? Yeah, now it's probably mostly paid.

Right? Yeah, literally, I can remember, like the phasing approach, like, so specifically it was like creating. Creating social media accounts for people, which obviously is like super easy. But that was like a big thing for brands. They were like, just create one. And then they'd be like, cool, what do we do with it? We're like, okay, cool, we'll post on it for you. So when we post organic content and they were like, this is great. We're going, we're getting loads of followers and stuff, but, like, there's no ROI here. And we were like, all right, cool. And then we integrated Paid social. So, like, within. That was probably like within the first year though. So it was quite like a staggered 3, 612 month process. And then since then, Paid Social and Organic social has been pretty much 50% of our revenue. Like, there's been stages where it's like skewed, but it's relatively.

Consistent. Yeah. And you're 100% focused on.

Social. Yeah, pure play.

Social. Because, yeah, I have a mate that has an agency who's actually on the pod and they're like, oh, we're trying to do everything. And I was like, yeah, does that make sense? Like, was there ever, like, do you ever think about doing that? For example, Google, TikTok, YouTube influences could be fucking everything, couldn't.

It? But, yeah, well, interestingly, like, that was like something that I think. I don't know where we got it from. Maybe an advisor or maybe actually just through, like the very early stages of basically being a young person dealing with online marketing, you just get thrown everything. And because we were building a business, we were very conscious of like, cash and basically being paid to do stuff. So someone would be like, can you build a website? Like yeah, sure. It's like Shopify, no worries. And then you do like say you can do SEO and it doesn't really work out, whatever. So I think we learn very quickly like to just focus on be a specialist. But obviously it's quite hard initially when people are offering you money to do stuff and you're trying to grow a business and pay a wage. But even now under the social banner, it's massive, isn't it? So we basically have five core areas that we specialize in. It's like organic, social. So classic feed, population, content, curation, creation, community growth, paid social, where we basically it's all customer acquisition. We manage about a million pounds of media, spend a month on behalf of our clients in creative is probably like the biggest part of our business. Well the big, the fastest growing part of our business now. Yeah, as you can imagine, which is very social. First we have like 10 person design studio, like illustrators, 3D designers. We hired a TikTok influencer last year, YouTuber stuff like that to be a bit more raw. And then like we do obviously influence management where we have like a roster as well as like custom stuff and then we do consultancy but all under the social banner so we wouldn't like go too far from.

That. Yeah. And how did it look in the early days? I imagine very different to now with an office and 40 employees. Like what was the first year like? Team wise setup was like. And how are you even getting clients? Was there like an outreach strategy or is it literally just winging the out of.

It? Yeah, it's a good question because.

There'S obviously courses for all this shit now. Yeah, like yeah, imagine it was.

Different. We, we inherited Alex's storage unit basically. It was a nice storage unit in Putney. It was like a little studio office essentially. He used to store his bikes at the time. So when we merged the businesses I took on his storage and we basically moved into his studio which was very small, like I mean like literally half the size of this room and just us two at the time with a load of bike boxes around us. And then we worked out of like the hospital club and random like you know, like cowork spaces in the city. That's where we'd like do our client facing stuff. It felt a bit more legit. And then we ended up hiring Alex's now wife, but at the time girlfriend who worked for essence, one of the big, the agency that Alex worked at as well but in hr and we were like obviously she, I think she was unhappy at the time. She wanted to basically move on from there. And we ended up hiring her as our first account manager. It just made sense. It was like the right solution. We were getting a bit burnt out working like doing all the biz dev and stuff at the same time as doing all of the work, executing it. So she was our first hire and then we obviously without really realizing at the time HR was like a very crucial component in building a people based business. But most people would never think of like hiring HR as their first person. And then from an outreach perspective we were crowd cube investors, serial crowd cube investors where we would basically like message everyone, ask for their pitch deck. It was time where like basically if you want to get to a decision maker when they're raising is like the time when they're most on their emails and everything. Yeah. So we would basically sign in, show interest in their investment and then request like I think you could email them at the time and they'd send you like the numbers, their financials and then it's like five minutes later the founders responded to you with their numbers and we'd be like, sounds really, it looks really interesting. We'll have a think about it while, whilst we're on this conversation, whilst we're on this thread, like this is our agency, if we can collaborate, that'd be great. And then like loads of they were just converting so quickly and like we'd get responses and be like, cool, can you meet tomorrow? We'd be like, oh fuck, actually go meet someone and sell. But they were obviously taking on funding at the time. A lot of the funding is for like marketing investment. So I think a lot of it is like, you know, people say like timing is so important in life and business but like there's a lot of like predictable timing and when businesses raise is obviously very predictable timing for.

Us. Yeah, but yeah, I've just been down that process myself. Not on crowd Cube, but yeah, just with like angels and shit and it's a fucking like. Well it feels like a full time job in itself because I'd never done that before. Even just putting a pitch deck together. I just, I mean instinctively like just not corporate at all. I think I literally talked about like, I think I mentioned my ex girlfriend in the pitch deck or some bullshit. Like maybe not, but it was like, it was very personable but I think like, well, I guess it came across well to certain people. But yeah, I mean you've been in eight.

Years. Six years for spin. Yeah, yeah, six years basically.

Yeah. What has been the hard like how have you grown it? Because obviously 40 employees is a. That's a pretty fat.

Agency. Yeah. It's because I always think of.

Agencies as like you get the little. Especially now that you get kind of bedroom agencies where it's basically just one bloke.

Yeah. A freelancer.

Yeah. And then you get obviously, well ones like yourself and you know, bigger, more formal setups that might work with like bigger brands etc.

Etc. Yeah. Have we grown it? I suppose we were always just like quite hungry. We always wanted more than we had. Greedy is probably another word for it. When you win certain clients, they give you access to other clients. It's quite funny. When we first started off we were like. We never wanted to like be a sellout. We really wanted to be like. We were working with the challenger brands and helping the startups and small businesses and that's like. We still like have space in our heart for them. But commercially, obviously as you grow, business size gets bigger and revenue accordingly gets bigger as well. So we've basically been climbing up the totem pole. We started with friends and family referrals. We ran our own ads at one point which was quite good. We were quite heavy on basically social growth initially when it was. There was a heyday, we were building our own social accounts, reaching out to lots of people, like proactively just in.

Dms.

Yeah. Then obviously.

Winning. Sure. You sent me a dm.

Maybe. Yeah.

Probably. Yeah. I mean I definitely.

Replied. I don't know, part of the strategy. So yeah, I guess just being very proactive. Crowdcube was obviously a big part of that. And then we obviously would win a couple of big accounts and then chat about those big accounts and then those big accounts would attract other big accounts. I think relationships is like the heart of it all. It sounds pretty cliche but like we were really keen on like making long term relationships with a lot of our clients. Still very good friends with a lot of our clients from the early days and they would still refer businesses that they talk to. Especially when you get on like the crowd cube circuit, I think you get kind of get known as being an agency affiliated. We are actually affiliated now, but officially. Yeah. Not after they listen to this, but we. Yeah, that kind of just like took. Came sort of one thing to the next. Just went further and further and then basically I suppose we're a very simple business at the end of the day. It's like people and revenue and clients. Like that's Kind of it like it's relatively black and white and we have revenue per head and we had lofty. Well what we thought was lofty goals of revenue per head that we then realized that we could stretch. And as you continue to build the business for longer, obviously the retainers end up increasing and then when they increase they obviously, you know, the revenue pair increases. So now it's quite like simple business and we just like we're quite hard on new business development and referrals and partnerships. It's a big part of my role is just speaking to people all the time and making relationships that create referrals. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of like. It feels like honestly a blur over the last six years. I couldn't even like break it down. It's quite hard to think when.

I think about back about life sometimes it's like you've just lay there. Yeah. Because it feels so slow sometimes day to day. Like even just over a month. Like it's February.

Now.

Yeah. It's.

2022. I.

Know. I get so deep.

Crazy. Yeah. It is weird, isn't it?

Right. So agency relationships and stuff. Because I've worked with like seven, I think seven like fucking social media, paid ads agencies over the years, which is probably not, not a good sign, a reflection on me or them. Maybe more me because I'm just a very picky or.

Whatever. But no.

Comment. Yeah. Like how do you find there is a lot of churn or not and like. And if there is or not, like how do you prevent that? Because I've got mates that got agencies and Yeah, I mean obviously it's a very simple business. But where it differs I guess to like ecom is that the amount of customers you have is way less. But obviously each one pays way more. And how do you manage that? Especially when you got a team of like 40 people. Is it. I mean, I guess it's that built. It's built up over time of course. How do you make sure one of my cancels the next.

Month? Yeah, exactly. I suppose like obviously logistically we have like contracts to like mitigate.

Risk.

Yeah. More informally I think. Well and formally like the biggest thing is aligning expectations with.

Reality.

Right. Like I would say like the closer reality is to expectations, the happier an individual will be regardless of whether that's personal or business. And that's kind of my job I guess to really align expectations. And it's much. I mean look, paid social is always going to have a relevant like be relevantly be. Be relatively turbulent because you are at the mercy of a platform a lot of the time. We obviously want to take control of as many of the variables that we have. So obviously creative is one of them that we're obviously pushing to bring in house as much as possible to increase the agility overall being objective as possible. I think the subjective bit is where it's hard and probably harder with organic social than paid social because you have an opinion on what looks good and we have an opinion on what looks good. And the only thing really separating that is our experience and the other clients we have on our roster to back up that our opinion is maybe slightly stronger than yours. But it, yeah, there are so many variables. It is hard. I would say like we definitely when we started the business had a churn issue. Like it was lots of businesses that would were small businesses, very emotional, like founder led businesses admittedly and quite knee jerk. But we equally weren't nowhere near as assertive as we could have been. And we were probably quite malleable because we were like young people in business at the time. I think that's, I think we got a lot tougher at that now and we're a lot more like assertive and authoritative over our opinion and why we believe something's good and to be as data driven with that as possible. Because otherwise like what is our differentiator between like anyone else essentially? I'm not sure if that answered the question.

But. Yeah, no it does. I mean how do you charge then typically? Because like again I've had people, you know, agencies, whether it's all retainer and then it's like why is it all retainer if it's performance based thing? Yeah. And then the other way around where it's like entirely performance but X, Y, Z, you know what works best you think? And has that changed since you got.

Bigger? The only thing that's really changed is how much we charge. And yeah, like we started 100 pound a month and now we charge you know like upwards, you know, like several thousand pounds a month. We 100% have minimum management fees to mitigate exposure and risk on our side. That essentially just equals time allocation to the account per month. Like as much as it's nice to like package things up glamorously. We're a simple business and it's people powered and people are as the main commodity of time. So we have minimum management fees. And the best thing that really works from my experience is having like a mutual incentive and that upside is just super aligned. We get really clear on things like Attribution or what measure of success is for you. And then there's like either bonuses that are released or there's a potential for us to basically hit an upside somewhere along the, somewhere along the road. But we, we have a very classic management fee structure which is like fixed levels up to a certain media spend and then we go into percentage of media spend and then that's normally capped at a certain media spend. Because like, you know, spending 100k and 200k, there are variables but you know, they don't jump up twice. I think at the end of the day when we create agreements is it's just like.

Business.

It's. Business is business. It needs to work for us, it needs to work for you. We try to be as commercial as possible. Occasionally. Yeah, we have to have like minimums to cover our overheads. But above on those, above those minimums, let's just have like a adult conversation around like what works for you commercially, what metrics you need to hit to you know, like be successful, quote unquote, whatever that is. And yeah, we're really keen to be like a little bit more creative and entrepreneurial when it comes to like performance based.

Stuff. Yeah. And then come on to team because that's my fucking struggle with hiring. And like my mate who's episode 23, he runs Soul with us, actually an investor in my new thing as.

Well.

Nice. He was always telling me, you're so at hiring. Which is probably why I've had issues in the past trying to do so much myself. Obviously 40 people is a pretty big business and of course it's grown to that point. But like where did you start with hiring and, and how has that changed over time and like, I guess how has it scaled? Is it just been like ultimately figuring out over time? Because obviously it's been quite a long.

Time. Yeah, I.

Suppose. Like what are the biggest challenges? I guess within.

That. Yeah, I wish I had like a question, silver bullet answer. But the reality is a huge amount of it is trial and error. I think you get very good at interviewing people when you've interviewed like thousands of people. So I think you just get better. I think we had, we've gone through like points where we probably had an issue where we were hiring very similar people to us, which aren't necessarily the best employees because both myself and Alex were like, came from a business background and like relatively entrepreneurial. We would always look for people like that and that would really excite us. We'd get on really well but then they'd Be very ambitious. Normally leave after a bit to do their own.

Thing.

Yeah. Which to be honest, I'm also happy about. Like that for me is like a fulfilled purpose on the journey that we are on is like your.

Fellas. Quick one. You may or may not have noticed there's been a bit of merch, so to speak, in recent episodes. We've got two different things. We've got some of the retro style OG neon beach posters that designed like four years ago you may have seen on my Instagram. And then we've got some of the best selling OG viral style neon signs that basically did start that entire craze about two years ago now. So yeah, if you want to add something to your home office, your living room, just anywhere sick basically that you want to add that extra thing to and support the channel, then you can check that out. Link is in the bio Midnight Co shop. And yeah, just an aesthetic item to complement the process, I suppose. Cheers for watching and enjoy the rest of the.

Pod. Creating people to be better at what they were, you know, before they came in. So I think that's a big part of it. We've diversified our like recruitment team now so like from interview processes we have like qualification calls as you can imagine. Like we get inundated with like people that want to work in social media straight out of uni. It's like the E, I would say, like it's just such a bulk Hoover up for anyone fresh out of uni now, which is good and bad thing. We obviously get like huge amount of quantity and then we just need to filter through the quality. So I think we got quite good at that. We do like phone call qualifications initially with our HR manager and then we'll do like a couple of interviews with different people in the team. I think we've overall just got a lot better at what we're looking for and we do actually have like a report card now. So we're quite objective. We have like essentially different areas that we look for in an individual. Like you know how like data driven they are or creative they are and there's not a right or wrong but it just helps us understand like where they would go in the.

Business.

Yeah. And without like, you know, oversimplifying like our business, it, it is quite simple. We have like tiers of account managers that have need to have a base level of executional knowledge and then you have senior account managers who are more experienced and a lot of that just comes through. We used to hire like the attitude train the skill, a lot. I think we still like that approach, but because of the growth that we're growing, you can't like just hire the attitude because you're going to end up with a very flat level of seniority now. It's like we'll poach basically good.

People. Yeah. I was gonna say, where did the bulk of these people come from? Because when I was trying to get better at hiring, I decided using LinkedIn ads, but then I found it was like, Christ, you get 500 applications overnight for anything like social media. Cause it's just such a popular.

Area.

Yeah. So do you use like agencies, recruitment agencies or.

What? If we literally only just started using recruitment agencies, we feel like really, we really didn't want to use them for such a long time. Cause it just like makes me feel sick like having to pay like six grand or whatever replacement and I'm like. And I know that I'd rather give that money to the employee directly to be honest. Like, but we kind of, we definitely feel like it's, it's just like there's so much, so many people out there looking for work in this space. We do, we have like two approaches, I suppose. One's like the Hoover up and normally for like entry level roles, which is like junior account managers, junior designers. And a lot of that does come through LinkedIn. Like we use something called workable now which just like splats out everywhere you can do video qualifications. So like trying to qualify as much as possible early on as possible and then we head hunt a bit. Like I just try to have as many conversations with people as.

Possible.

Yeah. At the end of the day this has happened like in a nice way, not negative way. But we're speaking to marketing directors a lot of time. There's always this big conversation about in house or agency, like.

Brands. I've thought that myself so many.

Times. So we're sometimes, I mean like we've got one of our like top senior account managers what did work for one of our clients ages ago. They didn't work directly for them and then we, we took them on but so there was a gap in between that where they went somewhere else and then we took them on. So that kind of stuff, I suppose just trying to think ahead, like be smart. We speak to so many people like on a day to day basis. I think you attract the right talent as.

Well. Is that like a big part of your day to day? Would you just say like speaking to people like whether it's current team or like new hires or is it a Bit, I guess it's a big blend, obviously, like sales and everything as.

Well. But yeah, definitely. I mean, we've got quite good at like splitting things out and like roles now into departments like my business partners, like more like process people focus. So he does lots of like, you know, the systems and processes internally and then we've got performance director, we've got creative director, we've got hr, we've got sales, you know, we've got those periphery sort of like team members. And I personally do, yes, speak to a lot of people. I will have like strategic conversations with people I feel like could be a good fit. Not now, but in like maybe the next year or so. I'll take people like coffee or go for a coffee just to like, you know, catch up. Because there's two approaches. There's obviously they probably work somewhere. Like us being on their radar is obviously going to be a good thing for business development. And then also like just to create the relationship is nice. I'm very conscious of like my time and the value of it and how I don't have a huge amount of it. So I try to like qualify out a lot of people I speak to first. Sometimes there'll be like internal stuff. We have like pods, basically. So like a lot of our time is spent like liaising with the POD leaders and therefore the managers. But for me specifically, I'm like more out facing on the business and I'm speaking to basically like, yeah, prospective businesses and yeah, people in the space. It could be interesting to.

Collaborate. Yeah. Because one thing, I don't know if you've ever found this, but obviously I'm a bit younger than you, but I've never got close to 40 action employees. I had like a team in the Philippines at one point, but it was very scrappy. It was like agency here, there and everywhere. And then I had like three paying proper employees at one point and then, yeah, that didn't end very well in hindsight. But my problem was always I just got major imposter syndrome, like trying to hire anyone, particularly people that were older than me, because two of them were older than me. I mean, I don't know if you've. I suppose, and if so, because it's something I need to get over because I'm trying to build a big business and like, I'm very conscious of the fact that I find myself definitely just like stuck working like in the business a lot of the time rather than fucking on it and like trying to like remove myself and create like more of a Leverage, leveraged.

Approach.

Yeah. But hiring is a part of.

That. Yeah. It's interesting. I would say like, my probably like an advantage that I got was when I had the cycle business, I inherited a team of like five or six people. They were like 57, 30, 35, you know, like 17, 18, and then like 24 and I was 19, you know, so it was like, it's real like mix of people. I think that was the hardest thing I actually probably take for granted. But like going through that process of trying to manage those people and get an output out of them without being like, it overly hierarchical and me just sitting on my high horse asking to do stuff. So I basically created a very flat structure. It was proper teamwork and I was quite transparent around like revenue and like, we're all in it together and we'll all learn, you know.

Collectively.

Yeah. So I suppose I was quite like, I didn't really have anything to hide because they knew my position. So I got over that imposter syndrome a little bit. I was like quite vulnerable and like, this is the situation. Let's make best out of a tough situation. And then hiring within spin. I definitely had imposter syndrome at the beginning, especially when we were hiring people from who had like, on paper been doing marketing for a lot longer than me or had gone to university even like, and done a marketing degree. And I was like, you know that literally very far from that. But I guess you just like, I've always like really been very self critical and like really tried to work on being open with weaknesses and strengths. And I've always known that maybe it's a slightly like egotistical thing where like I've just always felt like they may be smarter than me, but they'll never outwork.

Me.

Yeah. And this is a quote that I remember like listening to ages ago. It's probably like a Gary Vee podcast when I was 17 or something. But that was like a big quote that got me through or motivated me a lot when a lot of my friends went to university and I came back and like worked. So I think that was a good way of getting past it. I was like, they can be on paper smarter than me, they'll be better than me than this, but I will work 23 hours a day if it kills me, you know.

Like. Yeah. And with the team now obviously having gone through Covid, was that like, how was that? I mean, obviously everyone was working from home. Did you keep the.

Office? We were really fortunate. So we actually had. Yeah. So we had an office in Putney at the time. And we just handed our notice in. We were going to move to Waterloo anyway and we were weirdly about to sign on this office. Literally like February I think it was. So like just before like things started falling apart and they had some issues internally so we were always gonna have to remote work for like two weeks. And we had told the team, we were like, oh, there's a bit of hold up on the office. Don't worry, bear with us. So we had left our. We were, yeah, basically hand out notice him. We weren't paying rent or rates and we were remote working and then this office like actually fell through and also then the pandemic obviously hit and everyone was forced to work remotely anyway. So it's like a huge blessing in disguise. Like basically had like a decent stint. I can't remember how long it was complete, like 6, 7, 8 months maybe where we weren't paying rent or rates, which is like a third of our overheads. So yeah, that was it really. And then we. And then we ended up like moving around. We had a client at the time who just signed a 10 year lease in Oxford Circus, like 10 care. I know. And they were like a luxury events agency and we're like a bit, you know, just bad timing with pandemic obviously. No events. And then we ended up moving in their office for a bit because we've got like a very young team. Everyone's between like 20 and 35.

Tops.

Yeah. Even 18 to 35. Sorry. And we knew that the office was always gonna be important part of that process because like, you know when you're like 20 and you're like in a house share with shit Internet with four other people, it's just not like an enjoyable work.

Environment.

Yeah. Let alone a productive one. And a big part of agency creativity comes from the energy and like being together in the room. So I'm quite like bullish on like the office and I knew we were always gonna have one and we ended up just sort of like moving around. We had a co work space for a bit like while we were mitigating exposure, just trying to get the lands. And then we signed where we are currently on a. Basically signed for the year and then we did a. We basically offered them 50% of asking price and accepted it. And we were like, winner should have gone lower. Fuck.

Yeah. Cause the whole office thing I was mentioning before, like I've had an office in the past with literally me and like one mate. Very premature at the time. And then obviously there's like, great benefit of not having an office, I guess. You know, flexible, whatever. But especially now, like, ultimately post pandemic world, I hope. Now I'm, like, so sick of working from home. And I think, yeah, I think a co work or something in a co work is probably, like the sensible middle.

Ground.

Yeah. As I've definitely started to, like, appreciate the just fucking being around people a lot more. I don't know, like, as I've got older, I suppose I think I used to think, like, kind of, yeah, I don't have to go to an office, don't have to commute. You know this. I think it is interesting you say that because. Yeah, literally I've just started getting cabophemia in, like, the past.

Month. Interesting. Yeah, I. I mean, I can imagine it's, like, been accelerated over the last two years of the.

Pandemic.

Right. I definitely had times where I was, like, loved working from home. I was like, I'm so productive. I'm working 10 hours a day, forgetting to eat lunch, and I'm getting a lot done. And it may be like, going for, like, a run or whatever either side. And I felt quite healthy and like, cooking dinner, you know, was a revelation for me because I would always just eat out because I just ran out of time. And I, Yeah, like, genuinely love the office so much. I say the issue is it's like finding that balance between productivity and having your own space. And for me specifically, I get quite distracted. But I like tapping into it and I. Right now is a perfect balance where I'm in, like, three or four days a week and I've got maybe one day to catch up on admin at home or loads of calls or I'm in the office. And fortunately, I've got a private office within our office where I can, like, just be on calls all day, which is like my own, essentially a glorified phone booth. But that's the only issue with co working spaces, when there's just a lot of people and we've struggled a little bit. We've always gone private office because it's. We're on calls a lot of time, to be honest. And it's quite hard to, like, find space that isn't a claustrophobic phone.

Booth. Yeah, Yeah, I definitely feel that. And how do you think going forward is gonna be? Full office or. Because I know, I'm sorry, The working world's kind of changed, everyone's saying. And a lot of people speak to that, like, including my brother, who's got, like, a I guess more normal job and stuff. It's like flexible working all this because there's obviously pros and cons. People seem to want to be able to.

Choose.

Yeah. When they're feeling lazy. Stay at.

Home. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Monday, Friday.

Thing.

Yeah. I think there's a good balance. I think Flexi is the future, basically. Like, we'll always aim for a private office for as long as possible, as long as we can afford it, you know, like it's. Things are changing, but I think most people come in, I would say, like we have a 50% rolling capacity in our office each day, so it's not 100% at all, but most people come in like three or four times a week and I think that's perfect blend. Yeah, I think it's.

Future. Yeah, I agree. I think I need to get out of the flat like three days a.

Week.

Yeah. Just start to go fucking.

Mad. It might be different as well for you because like you're in control of your, you know, it's not like you're an employee and you're commuting to a job that you don't necessarily like and you have to commute at 9 in the morning with every other salmon swimming up.

River. Yeah, very true. I mean, I definitely started to think, now I'm always talking. So I've got mates that have like genuinely really big businesses. Like one in particular, I can think of, it was on the pod in like episode seven. And he literally works from home and doesn't believe in like the office. Like, I don't think he has a single like UK based employee. But then obviously you get like other businesses where, you know, they have a team of 100 people, a great office culture, all this. I'm almost torn between what I feel like I'd rather have like the big office and like the whole setup because then it's, I don't know, it's as much about the kind of lifestyle and the experience of.

It.

Yeah. And the enjoyment of it, I think as it is about like, is it, you know, cost efficient? Yeah. Et cetera, et.

Cetera. I think there's two things for me, like a, the office creates a huge amount of energy for us. Like I walk in and I'm pumped every day. Like it's, it's, you know, it's a tangible thing. It's not like looking at spreadsheet and seeing how much money you're earning. It's like you walk into an office with a bunch of people who are, you know, like buzzing around doing Lots of things, having conversations. That's so, that's so exciting. I would say like building a good culture is very hard and I feel like we've done a good job and it's like a number one priority for us to continue that. But I think we've probably got competitive advantage because we're all a similar sort of age and therefore relatively like minded. I think when it starts going quite broad it might get a bit more confusing. Yeah, yeah.

Definitely. But yeah, on the creative side of things then? Because that's something I've struggled with in the past. I feel like obviously you get SMMA that generally where agencies that generally offer like paid ads. You mentioned creative is a big part.

Now.

Yeah. When did that come in and how does that work? Because like I feel like media buying and I've spent less money on Facebook ads and Google Ads and etc etc in the past. But like creative feels like it's a bigger variable than ever. Especially since iOS 14. All.

This.

Yeah. And most would just skimp on it.

Feels. Yeah, 100% I would say like.

There'S a lot of agencies that doing just creative. I've seen like creative specific.

Ones. Yeah, exactly. I guess, yeah we do. I mean basically as like Facebook and when I talk about Facebook I basically mean like all social media advertising platforms like across Tick tock and everything as they've become more competitive, like they've got such a low barrier to entry and are always like much more black box orientated where the levers that you have to control are actually limited to a certain extent. Creative is one of those massive levers that you have freedom over. So we always saw it as an opportunity. We always had designers from early on but not really like ad designers. And then iOS kicked in and we were like we lost probably like 20% of our ad revenue like in two weeks or like two months probably. It was like a very like sort of an epitome moment where we were like fuck, we really need to like refresh and change things up here. Obviously creative was that glaring thing like looking at us in the face and we saw there was loads of creative agencies that do like creative very well and there's lots of very data driven agencies that do, you know, analytics and data very well. And then we, we felt like there was this increasingly bigger opportunity and like merging them together and having data under one roof so we can and have maximum agility with creative and what's working and what isn't and then not just creating digital assets. Then we hired this TikTok influence last year, who is physically unboxing, talking to the camera. One hour the ads are live, the next hour we're getting data fed in the hour after that. It's such a fast feedback loop which obviously gives us a competitive advantage to, to like outperform other.

People. Yeah. And are you making that in house? Yeah.

Everything.

Unfortunately. No, that's good because. Yeah, yeah. Like I'm trying to find maybe you can do my creators with this new brand because literally I'm trying to plan, come at that annoying stage where right now everything's ready to go well, I mean, products on the way and it's just like until I have product like finished, I can't really do much because, you know, like I've just got mock ups on the website. The website's not even live, but the website's ready to go and there's so much creative stuff I want to do, like using apps like Billow. Have you seen Billow? And it's like UGC and all that shit. But until I have a product, it's just frustrating. So I'm twiddling my thumbs at the minute, but the second I have product, I think, yeah, it's such a massive thing. I think I've slept on it in the past. Yeah, it's easier for certain products.

But. Exactly. And like definitely products is the hard part, is the easy part of a hard.

Situation.

Right. Like the more complicated that product is. I think we found, because we've got a young team, if we've got a product that maybe is more suitable for like an older demographic, that puts us in a bit of like, we're like, well, do we still do this or do we get like a modeling to do it? And then there are definitely complications but nothing that we can't deal with, you know, and, and as we grow and as the demand increases, we'll just adapt accordingly, I.

Think. Yeah. And where do you see the agency going over? Like, have you got plan for it? Because obviously you've, I mean you probably have got a plan but like, is there a specific level you're trying to get to in terms of revenue? You look for an exit, like, because I've spoken to people and this, some people say like agencies not an exitable model. And then you read about cases where actually that's not the case at all. And it is. Are you just enjoying drying things? And definitely a.

Mixture. Like I think we've gone through like this slightly like bipolar period where you know, you go, you really like fed up sometimes and then other times you're very, you're absolutely loving it though. You get the biggest buzz from it in the world. We've had conversations around like acquisitions or merges with other agencies. Sometimes it's. We got approached actually in the year of the pandemic quite a lot because we're an independent specialist agency. We're very bolt on a ball to a larger agency, especially like a PR agency which is maybe like we're a bit behind the times and Social's taking over or an old school marketing agency that's trying to digitalize. We had some interesting conversations. I think we're always, we're curious people. I don't think it's high up on our radar at all at the moment. I think it has been higher and it's also been lower. Look, I'm always open to the conversation. I think we have evaluation in mind at the moment which is. Feels about right. It's like hungry enough but not like or you know, completely ridiculous but at the same time like I think we always know it's there and as long as we stay at the front of our industry that is an independent specialist agency and constantly innovate and do a good job, we're not only having a load of fun, we're also making a chunk of cash doing it. Not, you know, like, and we reinvest a lot of that into like building the business but it's, it's almost like a dividend heavy business as well. Like sometimes I think one of the offers that we looked at we were like that's good, you know, it feels quite good. But actually like I'm still young, I've got the rest of my life ahead of me. I don't really have this burning sensation to go off and do anything.

Else.

Yeah. And actually if we five years time get an MD and become chairman, you know, like and take money out of the business that way then you know that's actually not a bad life either. So I think it's always interesting to look at options. Who knows? It needs to be exciting. Both of us, both myself and Alex are like super entrepreneurial and we wanna, we need something to like fuel our.

Fire.

Yeah. Right now spin is enough of that and there's a lot going on and we're in a very hot space which is very exciting. I think the moment it becomes a little less exciting is obviously something but that could also be self inflicted. A lot of the time we've gone through those spikes and we're definitely loving it at the moment. So yeah, kind of like vague Answers to that, like, who.

Knows? Futures. But I think having like bricks and mortar and it looking more real, like, literally gives it, you know, higher perceived value for a potential buyer as opposed to, like, obviously agencies that could potentially be doing as big numbers. And that's because in episode 22, which hasn't gone out yet, but it will have gone out by the time this comes out, this guy called Alex speaking about, like the strategic narrative of, like, businesses and shit. And I just got stuck. I love the term and I was so interested by it. It's like positioning the brand and business beyond just like the actual numbers to make it appeal to whoever, in whatever.

Capacity. Yeah, I think it's a very good point. It completely depends on the buyer. Right. It depends if they're a fully remote workforce. They probably don't care or they probably see it as an opportunity to cut costs immediately and add more to your bottom line. So. And in the back of my mind, I'm always like that with, with rent and like overheads, I'm like, it's always there. You know, we could go remote tomorrow if we wanted to and make an extra X amount a month on a bottom line. So it's like a nice safety blanket to always, like, you know, we've got a long way to go before we. We could, you know, get into a tricky waters. I think, yeah, there probably is perceived value, especially if, like, the business is more of a traditional business and like, culture is really important to them. I think it's much easier to create a good culture in an office where there's a physical environment where you're speaking to people. I don't know, like, there's obviously that skew between, like, extroverted and introverted people and where they work best. And we've obviously got a mix in our team and probably, you know, slightly more extroverted people come into the office more. But I think it's a fairly good.

Balance. Yeah. And you said at the start that you are driven by money. Like. Oh, you were at least. I mean, I won't put words in your mouth, but like, I guess, firstly, like, are you. And secondly, how has that changed from being 19 to 29? Because I know my perspective on money's changed a.

Lot.

Yeah. Doesn't necessarily go away, but the angle perhaps changes and the.

Reasons. I think it's really interesting and.

It'S a subject that I kind of get philosophical.

Now. Yeah. Spoken up about. Yeah, boring. I think it's really interesting and I think a lot of it comes from like the whole Nature nurture scenario. For me personally, my mum was an illustrator, my dad was a photographer. They both worked for the science museum. They met at the science.

Museum. That is old school.

Romance.

Exactly. So I want to meet my.

Future wife, start hanging out at the science. Yeah. And they, we. I. Well they, they lived in Worcester Park. Like neither of them came. I think my mum came from like a. Parents were farmers. My dad's parents were like in car sales. He was like car salesman or something. So like not like anything crazy but like humble beginnings and like, but not like also like I'm with. I'm very conscious that when I say this I'm like white male, grew up in so extremely, extremely like.

Privileged.

Cancelled. Yeah, exactly. Waiting for the. But essentially they like really over leveraged themselves to move out of the city and into like a nice area. And when I was young, so like the whole time the environment at home was like money conflicts.

Constantly.

Yeah. And like my dad had a big nervous breakdown when he was 40 or 50 or so. Like had to take time off work for a long time. At the time he was the only. He was like the main breadwinner. And I was probably a little bit naive at that point. I was out of the house a lot. You know, I was just like a youngster, just like keeping busy at the skate park or.

Whatever.

Yeah. But I think that definitely had an impact on me and like what that and the stress that it brought to our household. And I think I was just always very conscious of like getting to a level of financial freedom and I think that has loads of.

Stages.

Right. So I think yeah, growing up in that environment like made me ages, extremely conscious of money and having, and not having money. You know, like often I wouldn't be able to go on school trips because it didn't work for my parents. And like every. I knew that like to get the things that I wanted I would have had to like get it myself. And I think that was actually probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It's given me the work ethic I have now and the motivation to create something, go and get it yourself rather than sitting back. And then I started earning money and like I was probably at that. I was like 21 or so where my income was like the same as my dad's and I was like that's not right. Like that feels very weird. And that I think affected like our. The family dynamics slightly. I was very conscious of like making sure that obviously everyone was in a comfortable situation. My dad still has two jobs, you know, he's like 65, he like definitely over leveraged on a mortgage and he's like constantly stressed about money and they. And from that I've also had like grown up in an environment where like we've always had. Well, my family have always been relatively bitter about people that seems well off or affluent and I saw that quite interestingly and have probably gone the complete other way and been really inspired by people that had like a level of affluence. And I'm also very conscious and maybe more self aware or just willing to be curious in this space that like, you know, it's not as glamorous as it seems from the outside in. And I've learned more about that as more conversations I've had. You know, I've been fortunate enough to have conversations with billionaires and like learn a lot about their lives and everything in between, you know. So I think that's less of an issue for me now. I think it's nice when I've got to a point where like I feel comfortable but not, I think there's, it's finding that balance where you should always be pushing yourself to feel a little bit uncomfortable but also knowing that actually you've got it very well compared to a lot of your peers and just a lot of, you know, statistically so from like a broader perspective. But yeah, I don't know if that sort of kind of made sense. Kind of.

Not. Yeah, no. Well, because I always think about the question like if someone gave you a billion quid tomorrow, what would you actually.

Do?

Yeah. Because a lot of people probably assume the whole world would change. Maybe it would for a month, but then like fundamentally it's quite a scary question because a lot of people, I mean myself included and I certainly haven't made anyone near those levels, of course, but I probably thought when I was younger chasing money would like, I don't know, solve. This is like probably some I should speak to about my non existent but pending therapist. I probably thought that chasing money and like ticking certain materialistic goals off would like, I don't know, quiet in the fucking Ferrari back in my head. Yeah. And then it doesn't. And then it's like, oh fuck maybe. And obviously there's levels to it of course. Like I still, I would love to make 100 million quid or whatever but. And I think I can if I put my mind to it. But I'm probably more aware of the fact that I think even at that, even when that happens, I don't know, it might not scratch the itch that you think it's going to do. I mean you hear about all the time, like people, I don't know, like they sell a business, maybe it's a bit like just trying to come up with a story and obviously it's not that relatable for most people, but like include myself but, you know, they sell a business and they feel empty or.

Whatever.

Yeah. I often just think like, well, if, you know, if I did have a billion quid tomorrow, work on what I should probably work on now, what I'd work on if that was a real situation. I think I remember definition. You're probably doing something you'd enjoy.

More. Yeah, I think that's big part of it. Maybe it's purpose, isn't it? Like that's the main thing that we thrive for. And I think, I think there's a couple of things. There's a, like, for me personally, I don't know what it is and maybe this comes from what I just mentioned, but like always making my parents proud, you know, like really like creating something that I'm proud of. But also, you know, I get they're happy and they're proud of me too. I think is a big driver motivation for me. I think getting to a sustainable like financial freedom level is really key and explosive is nice, but I think it comes with its own stresses as you know, like too. Well, like, tell me about it. I've got like a very humble uncle who now is like, I, you know, he's like CEO of a billion pound business, has like thousands of.

Employees.

Yeah. And he's just lives in like such a normal life and I love that. I think there's something where you go through the external validation like when you grow up and especially when you're young and maybe imposter syndrome is a big part of that. Definitely had like flashy cars when I was younger and I think a big part of it was to like show success like externally because I didn't really feel like I was there approval. And I actually think I, I genuinely feel so much more like comfortable in myself. And maybe that has come from like, you know, the hours of therapy that I've had or now having a very like humble girlfriend who would probably hate the idea of me having a flashy car. You know, I think that really helps like ground you. But you, that's just the process, I think. And some people go through it in different paths and some people don't.

You know, how long you been with your girlfriend? I'M not trying to bring this onto my ex again, way.

Too. Yeah, a couple of years. Well, coming up to two years. Not.

Pandemic. Yeah. Because I've had a few guests on. I think it was episode 24, getting good with the Numbers, and he'd been with his girlfriend like, seven years and he was 24. I was like, fucking, oh, okay. I did something wrong or living in the wrong place. Yeah. But do you think. Do you think if you're single, you care more about, like, flexing and shit? I've debate. I mean, you don't strike me as someone that would do that now anyway. I mean, you said in the past maybe, but do you know what I mean? Because. Yeah, I was looking back at pictures from like a year ago and I was like, I look fat in that. And like, obviously it's. It's not about flexing, but, like, the point is that I got. I don't know, maybe I was so comfortable with my girlfriend that I just stopped, like, going to the gym as.

Much.

Yeah.

Stupid. Like that. I think that's definitely a driver. Like, I would say, like, objectively, the single period of my life, I was a bit of a twat. Or I was like, at least craving that, like, external dye my hair blonde again. Validation. It's like. It is what it is. It's like, I. I think, yeah, hindsight's wonderful thing. And at the time, you just feel like. I think there's an element of emptiness that comes from probably not having a piece of the puzzle that you feel is really important. And actually the moment I actually really remember, it was like, literally the year before the pandemic where I just decided to stop dating. And I was going through the stage of, like, basically dating almost for the sake of it. And, like, I don't know what it was, but I was. I was definitely, like, trying to fill a void that was in my.

Life.

Yeah. And I. I just reflected on, like, I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna, like, stop dating. It's just really cringe again. But it was like. I think I read it in a.

Book. Nothing's cringe on this pod. Trust me, I've said.

Everything. It was like, if you can't love yourself, then no one else will love you. And I was like, I really need to work on myself because I really am craving that from someone.

Else.

Fuck.

Yeah. I was in a float tank the other.

Week. Nice. Good. Loving.

Yourself. Yeah. Honestly, I've only done like, three of them, but it was like borderline psychedelic experience. And I swear, like, I remember coming out of it and put in the group chat. My one conclusion was I need to love myself.

More. It's kind of.

Deep. I don't know that's where it came from because there was no stimulus, obviously. Sensory deprivation. But yeah, I don't know. I swear I could like, feel myself like floating through, like heaven or some.

Shit. I love that I need to float tanks I've never.

Done. I actually found it really hard the second.

Time. Is it a bit.

Claustrophobic? I wasn't in a good headspace the second time I did it. And then it's challenging to sit with your thoughts for that hour and.

Like an emergency button to get.

Out. I mean, it's like you can open. Yeah, it is pretty claustrophobic, but. Well, I mean, it's not because the whole point is that when you shut your eyes and like, you basically forget you have a.

Body. So you're like, that's.

Insane. Head. But I'm. Yeah, I'm trying to make a conscious effort to, I guess meditate and understand my thoughts more. But, yeah, we're going off topic, but I.

Think. I think, no, I think that's really interesting.

Point. And like, it's become like a priority for me because my literally, I think, well, just like being fully transparent, I had like a bit of a fucking mental breakdown last week. I don't know what it was. Well, I kind of know what it was. There's a few triggers, but. And then it ended up in hospital, actually, because I just pretty fucked ruining my personal brand here. But I literally. There was like. It was definitely an element of anxiety for like a week. So I went out and fucking had a massive bender, which did not help. But I literally cried every day for like a week. Not like constantly, but I'm not a crier. I mean, I'm an emotional person. But, you know, I wouldn't cry on like, any given week. Like, it takes a lot to make me cry. Not me. I don't know what it was. And it was like I hadn't. That's why I need a therapist. But it was like I hadn't acknowledged the. I don't know, like, past traumas or whatever, like stresses of the past year. Yeah, my relationship breaking down. Definitely compound trigger about that as well. And yeah, it's weird. I literally felt like a different person. But I think that's. I mean, that's not normal for me. But maybe with meditation and. Yeah, just like investing in rather than just trying to look better or, you know, Have a bigger number on a screen or whatever it is. Yeah. Maybe I've had a bit like a spiritual awakening in like the past year. And it's like, fuck. Like, yeah, kind of what you said, like, you have to work on yourself and love yourself first. Because I think a lot of people probably just lie to themselves and like, if you put them in a room without any coffee, alcohol, social media for like a week, could they survive? I mean, I probably couldn't be fair, but like, yeah, it's kind of quite profound. Yeah. Most people think they may be content or happy or fulfilled when actually if you tell them they can't drink wine the next.

Year.

Yeah. Are they actually fulfilled? I don't know. It's quite a.

Existential. I think it's really interesting. I think I lucked out, to be honest, because my current girlfriend is a yoga teacher.

Right. And she and I need to start going to yoga.

Classes. Yoga's the best thing. And also through that, like, we meditate every morning. Like, I think it's the best way to start the day. My life was like. I wasn't like, completely outrageous, but, like, it wasn't sustainable. It was like, you know, like working long hours, starting the day with like a cinnamon bun and a coffee. It's just like sugar and caffeine into it. And then like, obviously working, eating out, you know, like going out, sleeping less. And I genuinely feel like the pandemic saved me in a way because it really just forced me to slow the fuck down. And then obviously in sync with that, I met my now girlfriend who's like the most Zen person ever. And, you know, you really get that.

Energy. I need a Zen girl going.

Forward. I mean, utter.

Yoga. Was it not in a yoga.

Blade? There's no. There's no yoga. But it was really weird, actually. I'll tell you, just because it's so random. But have you heard of something called Next.

Door? No, I haven't.

Actually. It's basically like this website where you can like, moan about your neighbors or like, you know, cat.

Stuff. Really? That's.

Fine. It's like small business, like, place and you can like, talk about stuff. Anyway, like, a couple of weeks before Pandemic, it was getting a bit weird. So I was like, people are talking about like, riots in London. I was like, it's weird. Someone said, like, I should look at Next Door because that's like where all the chat is basically. So I downloaded it and then it came up and it like, GEO tagged me where I lived and I could see like, everyone that had next door on my road, and I lived at the time on a road that was like a bit of a retirement road, you know, And I thought I'd do a really nice thing and message, like the four people that came up as having next door accounts on my road via it and be like, basically, we probably haven't met. I live here. If you need anything, just.

Shout. Wait, so does it show you anyone that's on the app that lives near.

You? Yeah, I think I must have.

Like, verified like somehow an underground dating app.

Then. Well.

Exactly. Around here it's always bloody.

Flats. I think you're struggling in a flat because it's like a million people could live in this building. But yeah, definitely. And also they might not have next door. It's quite a rogue thing to have. But anyway, I messaged those people and be like, do you need anything? If you need anything, just shout. And then a couple of nice elderly people, like, that's great, really great, but I'm all good. And then one person replied, who's my now girlfriend, and she was like, hey, I don't live here. That was really kind of you. It was good to chat. I'm probably butchering this and she'll, she'll like rinse me for.

It.

But basically, like, I don't live here anymore. My parents live here. I live the other side of, like, Putney. But if you want to come to a Zoom yoga class, hit me up and I was like, that sounds good. I probably need a bit of Zoom Yoga. I'd like, recently done like a hot yoga and, like, kind of got into it, but still, like, very amateur and went along and, like, just, you know, there was that energy. And we met on Zoom for the first time and then, and then we went for a walk and, like, caught up and then the rest is.

History. Yeah, that's cool. That's like classic because I always say to my mates, like, I don't know, I just. I don't want to have to tell my future kids that you, I don't know, you met your wife on.

Hinge. Yeah.

Exactly. Or something like that. But it's, it's interesting because some people have a real dislike to dating apps and they're like, oh, it's not real, blah, blah, blah. You should meet a girl in a bar. But then, like, arguably, if you meet a girl in a bar, a, you're intoxicated, B, like, there's no filter at all. Whereas on Hinge, like, you need to set preferences, whatever. It's like Do I mean, like, should it be seen as just the modern equivalent of meeting someone in the street, but with actually more criteria? So it could arguably be more organic? Or is it like. Do you know what I mean? Or is it like horrible social media swiping, whatever. Because I see both sides and it's an interesting debate. I think people probably just want, and I definitely want the romantic tale of. I met my wife, hypothetical wife, in fucking art.

Gallery.

Yeah. She dropped her hat, I picked it.

Up.

Yeah. Some bullshit like that. But I'm just a hopeless.

Romantic. So am I. And maybe it is a personality type. Right. Some people are more romantic than others. And I genuinely felt like I was going on these, like, dating apps previously and I was sort of like, before it even turned up. I wasn't really that, like, up for it. I was like, what am I doing? Like, this is so. Yeah. But then equally, I know people that have got married to their now wives who they met on dating apps and they're the happiest couple.

Ever.

Yeah. So I think it really depends on, like, your personality. I definitely felt like even, you know, you're never gonna find someone you like if you're going into the situation on back foot, not really wanting to find them through a dating app, which you have now met them through.

So. Yeah, yeah, Very, very.

True. Yeah. It's odd.

One. It always comes on to relationships, by the way, in this.

Pod. Yeah, that's fine. I like.

It. Weird fucking shit. Coming back to the agency, then. Well, I'll try and come back to the agency. What has been. Well, I guess, like, broadly kind of mixing, like, the philosophical side with business? What do you reckon has been the biggest personal challenge since you were, like, 19? Like just, I guess, relevant to business, but ultimately.

Life.

Yeah. In. In building something. Because, I mean, for me, it's probably been loneliness in the process. Like, I'll start. It's like a therapy.

Class. Yeah. Loneliness for.

You.

Good. I think, like, as this word obviously get. Well, words get thrown around loads, but, like, imposter syndrome has been a big part of it because of just my upbringing, I think, and the fact that I didn't go to university and I ended up with this very, like, weird, scattered, like, like, untraditional, like, process. I've always felt like, even, like, hiring people that, you know, like, are quote unquote, like, smarter than me on paper. I find that quite intimidating. But equally, I would say, like, a bit of a strength and a weakness is that I remember, like, I have these, like, weird affirmations, maybe Where I like tell myself, I like encourage myself to do something and I hate doing it, but I know that it's the right thing to do. And I remember like driving to the office back in the early days and saying to my, oh, I had a really stressful meeting like the day before and I was like sweating and like just you know, like it was probably like really casual for my business partner at the time because he was like, you know, just used to it and I was really nervous and. And then I remember like the next day waking up feeling a lot more chilled about going to the next meeting. I was like, oh, it was nowhere near as intimidating as one yesterday. And I was like, there's a real like compounded thing when you put yourself out of your comfort zone and it only takes that five minutes to like be outside of your comfort zone. And once you like get going, it kind of calms down. But pushing that like aggressively and trying to almost make myself feel sick with nerves as much as possible for like the last six years has been like the main thing that's motivated me as well as being like probably a weakness in a.

Way.

Yeah, yeah. I actually think comparing myself to other people and their intelligence so like academic intelligence has always been like a big weakness for me. I'm learning to shape like shake that definitely. And as things like business become more, there's more tangible success and outcome. I feel like the, the bike, the bike business, initially it felt like it was probably a bit of a fluke and I didn't really like wasn't that proud of myself for the process. I just felt like I was in the right time, right, right place, lucky opportunity. Managed to like get away with it by like the seat of my pants. And now I feel like the second time now. And there's been a lot of, there's a bunch of them.

Businesses. That's where you can't be a fluke sort of.

Thing. So yeah, I don't know. Again, probably vague answer, but you keep saying.

That. But no, it's good. The answer, the answer. There's no agenda. Do you think if you, do you think you could do it without a business partner? Cuz just in general, I've never had a business partner and I don't know, maybe I'd be a lot less stressed or whatever if I did, but I guess it was never intentional. It's just I've never come across the person that made sense to do that with and maybe I'd be a terrible fucking co founder or.

Whatever. But yeah, I think Obviously, I mean before we went into business together we had like loads of conversations with people saying don't do it. Basically. Yeah, it's always going to end up in a mess and I genuinely, hand on heart, think it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Like meeting Alex, the timing was obviously great. I think our compatibility is really good. We've definitely got like different strengths and weaknesses and maybe he's a little bit. I think he's a little bit older and like, you know, like he's, he had the specific experience. So I always felt like weirdly he was more of a mentor and I was his right hand.

Man.

Yeah. From day one. And I think that really helped the dynamic. I think when you're too even or you're too like maybe. Yeah, there is an ego in the way of that. I think that really causes difficulty. I genuinely think, yes, I could do it on my own. It would probably be twice as.

Boring.

Yeah. Half as quick, half as, you know, like twice as stressful. I think you genuinely like share all of the up. Well, you share the best things and you also half like the bad things. So even from like a financial risk perspective, like when you. Not that we put in any money to start the business, but yeah, it was like £100 each rather than £200 from me. You know, like those things obviously increase massively as you grow the business. But yeah, I think overall, definitely it was the right thing for me. It might not be for you, but it also might.

Be. Yeah, geez. I mean, yeah, if I find that person, I guess this time around with this next business. Yeah, I've got investors involved which in my mind is like co founder because yeah, a few of them are quite involved and it, yeah, it definitely a lot more experience than me, which is good because trying to learn from my mistakes of just fucking being very childish at scale in the past, I guess. All right, final question. Well, I felt there's so many things that I always find it takes about an hour and so shit gets philosophical and then when it gets philosophical, that's when I wish I got the red wine out and I could just fucking go for like five hours. But I try not to drink at the minute because it's been a lot of emotional distress in my life. If you could give. I've started using this stereotypical question every episode now. If you could give three bits of advice to your 19 year old self and I want good answers. Don't fucking cough out Jesus. What would they be? On reflection, I don't know if you've ever thought about that because someone asked me that the other day and I've never thought about.

It. I don't think I've ever thought about it. Would I give.

Myself. On the spot.

Here? Yeah. It's hard.

Surely. It's.

Instinctive. Yeah. Weirdly, I feel like I want to. I want it to be good. There's obviously loads, isn't there? But I would say, I mean, like the first one is obviously try not to be conscious of, you know, like what other people think of you. I think I was always very self conscious as a kid and growing up and definitely looked for other people. So just like focus on, you know, stick in your own lane. Do. Do you like really work on yourself, like have fun? I think it's quite interesting. I had some advice, I will come on to it. I had some advice when I. Well, some like unwarranted advice from a customer of mine when I had the cycle business, which was like, you're too friendly, too smiley, no one will ever trust you. And I really took that on board and it really bothered me and I would actually ignore that advice completely and just be like, be kind. Kindness. Kill them with kindness, like.

Always. That feels relevant to me. Recent text.

Exchange.

Awkward. Yeah.

Gross. What's the third bit? Go big or go home? You know, like, I think I've always been quite nervous and like not that brave to do things and it might sound weird from what I've said, but. Yeah, I've always feared failure a lot higher than probably what it looks like from the outside in. And there's not really a lot that can go well. You know, there's lots that can go wrong, but there's very few things that will result in like, you know, me dying, you know, or like whatever, you know, that, that real, like bottom line. So, yeah, those are three, but very off the hat and probably could improve on next.

Time. No, that's good, that's good. Now that was enjoyable. That's already an hour and a.

Half.

Amazing. I could probably go for two and a half hours if we had red wine. But yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. I think maybe bringing up the relationship stuff and going down to like psychology and I always just end up going down that route and people give me stick. Stick on it in a way sometimes in comments and stuff. But I just feel like it's a huge part of any business life. I'm. Yeah, because ultimately as an entrepreneur I feel like obviously businesses kind of blends with life and they both play into each other and Yeah, I guess I've just been reflecting a lot on like the holistic approach to life rather than just fucking staring at a screen and. Yeah, I don't know, I think I need to find myself a yogi wife. That's like. It can teach me to control my manic.

Mind.

Yeah. So I like pondering different ideas surrounding it. It's.

Cool. Yeah, I think it's. I think it's.

Really. I think.

It'S. Yeah, like I said, it's definitely saved me. I think like it's helped me like balance a bit on the work hard, stay humble approach as well. Like and just enjoy life for what it is and like practice gratitude, like practice being vulnerable. You know, it's like the hardest thing in the world but actually it's probably like the biggest strength and I think that's something I've always. Well, quite recently, like being inspired by you from is just like, you know, really delivering it how it is and I don't think any. Well, it very rarely gets done like that, especially for quote unquote, like successful people. And I think that's the ultimate strength. But obviously not an easy thing. And it takes a lot of self awareness and probably a bunch of therapy. But yeah, that's the.

Goal. If anyone can recommend a good therapist, by the way, put it in the comments or some shit or DM me because I, I definitely need to get one. I'm just doing like the classic male thing of I've got feelings I need to deal with, but stubborn, like just like putting it off. Oh. Like I'll do it after I've done this bit of work and it's probably like the most important.

Thing. It's the best money I've ever spent. Genuinely. Every.

Three. Everyone has said that to.

Me. Bam. So.

Good. Is it in.

Person? Do you do it in person? No. You.

Can. Yeah. I've had it in the past but never consistently and it's just like, yeah, like podcasts. Doing a podcast and speaking to mates and is therapy to an extent. But I don't know, like, yeah, I could maybe having that formal outlet from someone who is trained if I can get. Figure.

Out. It just helps you process your thoughts so much and yeah, I think genuinely best money I've ever spent. I would encourage anyone to do it obviously without forcing.

It. But yeah, interesting. Right. That said, cheers for watching the episode. If you're enjoying the pod, subscribe, like share it to a friend. All that good shit. It's been a lot of love on the pod. To be fair, I'm getting. I think I'd like 250dms last week or some bullshit, which is actually mad because we only have three and a half, 3,000 something subscribers. But, yeah, going deep rather than wide, I suppose, to start with, is the plan. And, Yeah, I said 52 episodes in a year. This is episode 25. So we're like halfway there pretty much. And I'm enjoying it. So cheers for watching. See you in the next episode. Peace.