From £10m Self Made Business to Rock Bottom - The Neon Beach Story | Midnight Podcast Episode 1

Right. It. Welcome back to what is, I guess the first episode, but also like episode 8 of the podcast we were doing last year, the unfilled podcast, which for many reasons was paused and delays, disagreement of content life that was happening that we're going to speak about a little bit. Just decided that after basically a pretty year for myself, just going to bring the podcast back because conversations are interesting and I just think as a selfish endeavor, if anything, it's pretty interesting for other people to hear it. We're gonna go into loads of shit, not just entrepreneurship, not just ecom. Try and keep it interesting. I think that was the intent last time, but it was a little bit unmanaged in certain circumstances and we're a year younger. So, yeah, this first episode, I guess just to dive into it, just gonna give the story of what happened, I guess, to me over the past 18 months. So I did a Twitter thread for the first time, like ever, like a week ago. And this is Tokyo, by the way, is the lockdown dog I got. And he wasn't actually born as Billy. Just noted when we last recorded. He's like 15 months old. So you can't give me abuse on this video because he's in it and he'll read it. He's this old. Yeah, he is. So I guess that. Yeah, we'll just introduce who is on this podcast.

Yeah.

Then we'll get into it. So I'm Billy. I'm Matt's flatmate from last year throughout lockdown. And I run a company called Info Productions. We build info products for influencers and.

Help coaches do the same thing. I guess. My turn.

I'm Tyler.

Yeah, Tyler. I'm a property entrepreneur and online entrepreneur. I've known these boys for a couple of years now, live just down the road. We have a lot of insightful conversations and so I think definitely worth documenting.

Yeah, just kind of honest conversations that are worth putting online basically more than anything else.

And we keep catching ourselves having really interesting conversations. Like, actually, fuck, it'd be so interesting to just document this because so many people get so much value from it.

Yeah, that's what I used to always think. Like, I'd have conversations with my mate Tom. He's probably watching this in the car. And I was like, oh, I want to make more content. And then I did YouTube when I was like 17 and did music shit. And then the world told me that I shouldn't do that. I should go and become a lawyer. And then I was like, YouTube. And then I started YouTube again for like a year and a half when I was like traveling full time and wanted to be a travel vlogger. And then again I probably got told I grow up, focus on like building your business, etc. Etc. And then yeah, I think I've now got to the point where I just don't give a as much about what other people think, primarily because of what's happened to me like the past year and a bit. So yeah, now just feels like a decent time to start fucking sharing stuff again because I just enjoy making content. I think conversations are interesting. Podcasting is an ever growing medium. I think a lot of podcasts are fairly shit to be honest, even the ones that are big. I'm not saying this is going to be the best one ever, but it's certainly going to be, I just think more raw and real hopefully. And yeah, maybe I should put it out there. That's going to be a million subs in the first year. That's probably a big answer because I don't think Stephen Bartlett's either licensing deal. Maybe 10k subs in the first few months would be good. Something like that. But okay, Joe Rogan. Yeah, exactly. And I guess co host Tokyo Rose as he's called. But yeah, diving into the story then of the past 18 months. Pretty much, yeah. I put a Twitter thread. I guess my intro is I'm an E commerce entrepreneur and apparently a scam artist according to a lot of people on the Internet a few months ago. But yeah, we did like the whole fucking past intro thing like of when I was like 17, me and Fred who runs an issue, did like the original episode. So we're not going to go into that I guess just the past 18 months. I try and wrap it up in like five minutes and then get into like what happened and like a few questions and yeah, basically found myself running two successful E commerce brands. Probably a bit naive to the risks and elements of like managing a business of that scale and just thought yeah, this is normal with like a 10 million pound red revenue run rate working from a bedroom because me and Fred were similar and we'll probably do an episode with him as well. Had a jewelry brand I say had because I actually recently completely exited both of them, but we'll get on to that in a minute. Had a jewelry brand called Midnight City that was doing like 200 grand a month. So decent little business, profitable, smooth, just wasn't that into it. Then launched the problem business, Neon beach, which will forever haunt me. I've actually got rid of most of the Neon Signs in my flat now and replaced them with a more expensive Philips Hue. I've now got all of them. Yeah, exactly.

So much trauma associated with them.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Started Neon beach in like January last year, 2020, December 2019. Whatever. At the height, well pre pandemic. Perfect timing in a way for that sort of product. Long story short, yeah scared the out of it. I was just really into it. It was basically no one on the market doing it and I don't even like people always say like how do you come up with ideas and. And it was literally case if I just wanted that product and no one was really doing it and then yeah, I guess read the Twitter thread. I'll put it down below for like a more precise outline of what happened. But yeah, basically scale it too quick. Got to the point where was doing like a million quid a month in like month six which was great. Like had interest from like Love island to want to do a partnership. Ended up doing that with them. Was producing everything in China. Brought it over to the uk. Long story short, ended up working with a supplier that just couldn't keep up. I don't think maliciously they just had their own problems. I probably didn't do enough due diligence. I probably trusted people too much, et cetera, et cetera. Ended up like getting to Q4. Yeah, both, both brands scaling and then kind of scaling maybe too hard in hindsight. And then basically like one and a half million quiz worth of orders didn't get delivered. Someone finds out who I am, shares my details online, like you can imagine. It's like the perfect storm. To be honest, I think it's the most fucked up e commerce story I've ever heard. Like other than like major, major companies like doing shit to be fair, other than life threatening illness or death or whatever. Definitely, probably. Well I think the most brutal combination of things like online abuse for months at one point, particularly in like January, which is a pretty shit month for everyone anyway and it was a global pandemic. Yeah, the business was pretty like burning cash. I'm the only person involved in the business other than a bunch of freelancers. Basically didn't have a single employee at this point. I was the sole director, owned 100 the business in hindsight didn't have any proper guidance about a lot of things. Yeah, geez. This is a whistle stop tour of it. Definitely read the Twitter thread because it's more like thought out. But anyway, long story short, thought I was going to sell the jewelry brand for like a million quid. That ended up falling through for one reason or another. My focus completely shifted off that. That business ended up scaling down. Even though that was a good business and it still is. I put all my focus into Neon, which ended up being the rotten egg of a business basically. Yeah, long story short, I knew things were pretty fucked and I was like okay, well pretty much January, February of 2021, probably the worst two months of my life to be fair. I don't think I spoke to anyone about what was actually happening maybe other than Fred. And even then it was only like at the last minute because I was literally saying I'm not actually sure what the to do here because I'm racking up this Amex bill refunding customers and basically the worst part about it, which still pisses me off and there's load of stuff online like Google, my name, Neon beach, there's probably website, there are websites and Instagram pages from a very select few of people, select percentage of people saying I was this fraud. Basically people saying I was making loads of money when the absolute opposite is true. I was doing everything I could to solve a problem which was caused by a third party that came down onto me and then like lies online combined with like. It's one thing dealing with a business that's basically lost a million quid in about three months, but it's another thing when you're doing that and again online abuse to the point where I had to change my phone number, et cetera, et cetera, disable my Instagram and people saying that you're a scam artist and shit, when actually that they just don't know anything about what's happening. So yeah, long story short, decided I needed help. Ended up managing to do a deal with an investment fund who probably can speak about, but I won't speak about the podcast. You can Google it, you find out. And yeah, in March of this year they basically bought 80 equity and I'd stupidly structured both the brands under, under one company which I would never do again. Which meant I lost a good business and a dying one basically for pretty much no money in the end that they ended up putting in well over 1 1/2 million quid into this whole situation. So ultimately that's you know, money that could have been mine if, if, if I sold it in good circumstances or more. But yeah, that's pretty much what happened. And then for the past six months, and that six months actually ends officially tomorrow I think on Monday like the 13th of September, I've just been working for them as a minority shareholder in my own business, basically it was just like I've built in over three years or whatever, but I knew that's probably never going to be what I wanted to do, making like decent salary. But yeah, basically went from yeah, making on track for the business to make a million quid profit because it made half of that in the first half of 2020 to potentially not working, not knowing how the I was going to pay rent because all my money was in the business really and I'd put my own personal money into the business to try and solve problems, etc. Etc. Which is why it's even more annoying when you get these trolls saying that I bought a house in the Bahamas or something, which is literally what someone said because I was on holiday in which is unpaid for by points. Yeah, but yeah, that's pretty much what happened. So yeah, in a year went from thinking I was going to be a multi, multi, multi millionaire in like the next year or two to yeah, feeling like I was pretty close to being like pretty fucked and ended up coming out the other side of it and being pragmatic about it and just, yeah, accepting what happened. But long story short, that's an 18 month story wrapped up into like two minutes. But definitely read the Twitter thread because it's a bit more precise on like time frames and stuff. So yeah, I just think not enough people. I think this is definitely a pretty large L for someone of my age to be fair. Which definitely something to write about in like the future biography or whatever. But I definitely give myself credit for going after it. But yeah, I just think, you know, everyone thinks that anyone that runs a business just wanks all day and makes Prince a million quid a month. It's just not the truth. So yeah, I just had a pretty year but definitely learned more than any other year and probably calloused my mind more than any, any other period of my life. But. And yeah, just learned a lot about people and yeah, I guess you realize who your true friends are and stuff but. Well, I probably didn't speak to friends enough about it to be honest, for anyone to have a real stance.

But I think this is the first time we're probably gonna have like a see like proper conversation about it and although we've talked about it, probably go into a lot more detail.

I lived with you and I was worried a few bits, but not all bits. Yeah, I remember thinking consciously I didn't really. Yeah, I was like even Liv, to be fair, I don't know if she'll watch this. She definitely at the time didn't know the full extent. I probably gradually sprinkled what actually happened. She just saw I was getting abused online. Yeah. But I was paying for the holiday, so it's fine.

At that point when I'm obviously, I.

Hope this is still recording out.

We'll dive into when, like when things started to go wrong and what that looked like. But when those things did start to go wrong, how long was it of that? When you thought, oh, this is just a minor bump in the road, I'll get it sorted versus having that oh moment that. Okay, this is.

Yeah.

And what was that oh moment like? Do you remember sort of what it was?

Yeah, I remember the oh shit moment. But I think this is one they wrote about Twitter as well. And at the time it was probably quite gradual, but I think as well I was probably lying to myself and just like not wanted to. I knew stuff was going wrong. But this is the thing as well. Cause a lot of people, trolls would say why did you continue selling? Why did you continue running ads into Black Friday when if you knew there was factory problems? Because I knew there was pending problems. But the reason for that is a few things. Firstly, there was a deal with Love island and they had like minimums that I wanted that form. They're running TV ads, etc. So there's third parties that have a financial interest in the business also don't know what the fuck's going on. Secondly, when, when there's a lot of fucking like people don't realize this, you can't just turn off your advertise. Like E commerce is like a momentum thing and we were like doing bespoke products, etc. Etc. Like the customer service team alone was costing 35 grand a month and there was like 25 people in the Philippines run by a US agency. So you can't just suddenly turn the taps off because then the people that are serving the customers to solve the problems, you can't. Well, you could pay them, but you can't pay them forever. If you're going to revenue, et cetera. Yeah.

It's a serious game.

Yeah. And then cash flow is a problem because ended up getting like 20 payment reserves in like Q4, which was way more than the net margin. And then you're like, oh shit, you're loading up your. Loading up your Amex card and. And then I'd have revenue based finance, which you probably didn't need in hindsight, which was actually from the fund that ended up buying the business. So in a way that had a silver lining that they knew about me quite fine. Yeah we using this new software so I had to dunno what the fuck's going on. Hopefully it's recording. Had to pause it. Where was I.

So is that recording?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So yeah the cash flow. So payment processes start to fuck you because just go back a little bit. I'll let you two speak because I'm gonna lose my flow without any like direction questions and but yeah so obviously the average order value of this is like 300 quid. So it's not something that people forget about. It's not like a ten pound subscription that you wouldn't even notice you're paying for. Like most of the stuff we're selling is bespokes that the shipping times longer so just. It just lends itself to more customer interactions and complaints and a bit more specific and the product's horrible in hindsight like it's beautiful product but when it goes wrong there's a lot of things that can go wrong. It's very different to selling like a four pound chain from China which is what I used to do and selling for 60 quid. But yeah. So you end again chargebacks and refunds obviously and chargebacks have fees and then if you go over like 1% charge back I think it was like 15 charge back at peak in like December or whatever. So payment process end up holding money and. Yeah. Where was that? That's basically what I just to give.

Some clarity on like what a chargeback is because I. I didn't fully. I'm not in ecom more in obviously we've got coaching and info education business but when you get the charge back you've. You've paid for the product. Yeah your supplier plus then you've got to refund the full amount plus there's what a massive fee on with the banks or something.

Yeah it's lose so it's like. It's like you pay for the film as well.

Yeah. So you've lost three.

Your customer's pissed off and has written a one star review. Your parents address on which is what happens to me.

Yeah.

So was the business relationship to your parents address? No, of course not.

How the fuck they got access to your parents dress?

I think what it was and just come back to the original question in a minute but I think what it was I figured out is because I had a. I had a business when I was like 17 that I'd registered that because of my age had to be. And then you can go on company's house. A lot of people don't realize this because they're retarded but. Well, maybe not because certainly trollers don't realize this because they are retarded. You can go on Companies House in the UK and basically find out how much money people have got in the bank. Like to an extent this clever accounting or whatever but. And that's unique to the UK and in many ways it's good. But in, in this sort of scenario it's pretty, you know, if I was registered in Dubai or even America, that wouldn't have been the case, I don't think. But yeah, the original question was when did I realize things were going wrong? But that was the answer to why I kept scaling things. And I guess you gradually think things are going wrong but I think everyone is guilty of. Because like problems happen all the time in running a business and just being an entrepreneur. But this was a pretty large scale problem. I probably realized properly things were wrong and then didn't sleep well for six months when I had a call my account and they were like, you do realize the business is insolvent. And I was like, what does that mean? Because like, yeah, I'm not going to name the accountant, but they were charging way too much money. The management accounts were like three months late. So when the business has gone from making 100 grand a month profit to I think in one month losing like half a million quid in one calendar month and your management account to three months late and yeah, it's not a good combination to know where you're actually at. And they were like, yeah, it's not great. And in hindsight, to be honest, I'm not passing the blame but I'm very surprised they didn't like highlight this to me quick. It obviously knew the general position. I knew it was. But a bit of me was just like, well, I can't, I can't stop the music. So I've got, you know, like you just said the obligations and so on. So yeah, and I was like, ah.

That'S another massive lesson. Like just having good finance systems and financial.

Yeah, absolutely key.

That's what you get to a certain level. I'm at that level now where I want to be seeing at least three, four times a week financial reports of the business that are up to date. Yeah, because I've been guilty of that. Months go by and then you check the accounts and obviously the cash is in the bank is not the cash that's in the business. Yeah, yeah, you could have half a million quid cash in the bank but that could be all that money that's, that's due or. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly that and creditors owed far more than that. So. But yeah, like carry on.

Yeah because yeah, this is probably a topic my pick out whatever you speak about. But yeah, I'm gonna speak to Fred about this because I mean yeah, it's just one thing that a lot of I guess entrepreneurs, oh I want to get a million quid in the bank of his bollocks. But yeah, you don't realize that. And in my case it wasn't. It was mainly yeah the business had revenue based finance of like 400 grand or whatever which probably in hindsight didn't need. But you get these companies like Clearbank and so on just offering you money and it's like, well especially Kobe because I was getting other third party advice say like, yeah, take on as much like cheap debt basically as possible because we don't know what's going to happen to fucking businesses. Like at one point everyone, you know, people were speaking about like yeah, every fucking business is going to be fucked. All this shit. And if E Commerce actually ends up being better than ever, which is part of the problem.

And do you personally guaranteed any of these loans or. Well yeah, for the revenue based financing.

No. So it's kind of like these guys.

Okay. So it wasn't too like crazy risky like it's this.

I wouldn't even know. I didn't even know what person guarantee was a yoga to be honest. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, like, like amx for example. You know people like flexing their metal Apex cards and again I spoke to a lot of people about this but then Amex will give you a 600 grand limit when you've used them for three years and spend consistently and give you triple points. Yeah, advise you to spend more. Yeah. And the problem was for me I ended up, and this is why again it comes back to these trolls not knowing what the hell they're talking about is I was basically had to refund like literally over a million quid's worth of orders which by the way I paid for and then had a charge back on. So it's like a lose, lose, lose and then ends up loading up the business amex basically to pay customers back. Because all the while, and this is the thing as well, when shit went wrong and to this day like so like there was this one particular troll like some anonymous person who's I remember putting some out on the website, like January, trying to just like this is when I was like, yeah, shit's pretty fucked. But we are working on it and it was the first time I'd like publicly put my names or anything or whatever because people had put it out there without me knowing for however they've done that. I don't know. And what was I saying? Yeah, just refunded a shitload of people and. Yeah, yeah. People not realizing that that's what was going on. Like it. People don't get it. Like it's impossible to fix that scale of problems in, in a week, especially when the business was entirely self funded. No, like it's not like a Silicon Valley business where we've got 500 million quid in the bank to just throw at problems. So.

So let's.

Yeah, people just didn't realize that all this heat came on.

Oh, you got to go.

Yeah, go.

Next one.

Yeah, lovely. Enjoy.

Enjoy your dinner.

Yeah, we'll just cut that bit out.

Well, I'm, I'm keen to know. Going back to the start, I just want to give the viewers sort of an understanding of the magnitude of how it went from literally 0 to 100. Real quick because I remember my, My first memory of Neon beach was because before I knew you, when I first met you were doing the jewelry brand and sort of knew kind of the numbers. You're doing that. You told me and was like, you're saying a couple hundred grand a month.

Yeah.

How long have you been in that business for.

That brand? Before I kneel only like a year. But then I. I'd been doing. I'd been running a multi million revenue level for like three years prior to that.

Yeah. So like, it's not like this just was your first business that went crazy. But then. So my, my first memory was y. I think it was December. You were having a party at the penthouse and it had some of the neon signs there and you were telling me sort of like kind of hit a sweet spot. You only, like you said, created it because you wanted the product and then you found just. Because obviously the aesthetic of the product and it just was really starting to pop off. So what point did you realize, oh shit, I'm onto something here. Was it certain revenue amount? Was it sort of. Because. Yeah, from, from, you know. Do you remember sort of the numbers from month one? Month. Yeah. Three.

What? So before I go into that, because that's one thing and this again, I keep coming back to the trolls, but this is the. That still haunts me to this Day, like so much. All these people, like, we're talking literally hundreds of people, like, give me death threats and shit for like the whole of January and whatever. Like Ultimately, when 50 million people see your ads, and it's probably something like that, you know, only you only need 0.0001 of them to be like 500 nutters. Yeah, but I didn't even start this business to make money. I already had a good business. So that's why people say like, well, I'll get into that later. But I started this business, so I always like the pink neon aesthetic and it was a real like passion project for me, weirdly, because you're a design, you're a designer. Yeah, I call myself a designer.

Yeah.

For an entrepreneur initially and certainly not a scammer. So these posts online are saying. So, yeah, like there was a lot more depth to why I started it. Right. I was never to make money. There's a lot of easier things to do. Like I used to do. I used to drop ship fucking kitchen gadgets from China on like random websites and make more money than Neon was making the first few months. But I, I was trying to build a brand which had already done with Midnight, to a smaller scale. So, yeah, like I, you know, people say focus on one thing. I didn't plan on launching a second brand. And then I just started this thing because it was a genuine interest of mine. And that's why I think it went so well. So, yeah, I remembered I literally made the logo, did all the ads so famously. I mean, all these ads. And it was like a new genre of Instagram ad in a way I'd never seen anyone do neon lights. And it's obviously by definition like the most Instagrammable thing ever. Done all of it myself, like built the website, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously these are skill set that I've built up over years, so. And that's another thing as well. Like there is a skill set involved. You can't just launch a. This is why it baffles me when people think it's a scam.

It's like, that's the reason I asked because obviously in the first six months you were doing like a what, just sort of run rate, like a figures?

Yeah, pretty much. I went on a podcast actually, I think July 2020, and you know, whatever, they give him slightly exaggerated names, but they call it eight figures in eight months. And I thought it sounded pretty sick because the Runway, the run rate was eight figures in eight months because it was doing like a Million a month or whatever.

But that wasn't just your first eight months in econ. That's the point. I'm. Yeah, it was like years and years and years of building skills.

Yeah. Then. Yeah. Brand building E comm skills. I ran all the ads myself. Etc. First. And I remember in the first month it did like 100 grand literally in the first month. And that was like January 2020.

And then this was fully bootstrapped as well. Your own cash.

Yeah, like cash flow that had from.

Yeah.

The other business. And stupidly didn't set up a new limited company because I didn't think it would be anything. And then whatever. Didn't have the right advice at the right time.

Mm.

And then.

So 100k, month one.

Yeah, I think it did 100k, 250k, 500k, 700k, 900k by like month six.

Pretty much month six you build business.

And then from there until like Q4 was doing similar. And then in Q4 I did like 1.5 million.

Wow.

Or in Q4 in November. That was. That was the 1.5 million of problem products.

And so. But yeah. So at that point, just again, to give some context to the magnitude of what you're doing, you had a business that by month six was pulling in pretty much a million pounds a month. And this was you working with literally this imac in front of us here.

Yeah.

At sort of the dining room table in your apartment with Fred. With how many actual PAYE employees?

I had zero employees. And I. Yeah, I probably had at the peak like 25 customer service people, maybe five freelancers, two agencies, which are by the way, I actually think having a PAYE employee. And that did happen later, ironically, just as shit was falling down. I'm not even sure that's needed, but I guess that's probably another podcast. I'm certainly an expert on that in.

Terms of then whether.

Yeah, it was just like the team and no one that had.

Yeah.

No one with any experience basically. And there was no one. I built a decent experience across like all facets of E commerce. But in hindsight definitely obviously didn't have enough experience like with supply chain. And the problem with this product is ultimately people call it drop shipped. Whatever. It's not drop shipped because it's kind of different. We should be had like three dedicated factories in China pretty much. Which obviously I've never met because of COVID Can't go out there. Everything's made to order because most of stuff's bespoke. So that's just the nature of the model and that was what the competitors were doing. And there's probably one or two competitors to be fair. That before Neon beach and then there was a shitload of copycats and I think most of those are died out as well because it's a hard model. But yeah, the point is that I had experience, I knew how to run a smooth, more traditional econ brand. But this one just had problems that Midnight would never run into due to the nature of the model. But yeah, it scales so quick. It was right place, right time, it's something I was into and then I still think it's a sick brand. It's such a shame in a way I like yeah. If I just. That's probably like the, the most poignant emotion. It's just to like pissed off like fuck's sake. So I remember saying to Fred oh yeah, finally found like the one, the one that's gonna be that 100 million pound brand and that'll be the next one. But I thought it was this one and I was just really into it and yeah just pissed me off more than anything that it went so wrong and people viewed it the wrong way.

So. So looking back now then obviously you had business pretty much six months in a figure run rate and most eight figure E commerce businesses probably have like full time financial directors, full time supply chain logistics, products, head of marketing, whatever. And you are pretty much new like full stack entrepreneur. Like you can run the ads, you do the designs, managing the fulfillment. But looking back now then what was the sort of things maybe you wish you could have done differently? Was it having maybe. And even to hire a good fucking team can take months and oh Jesus. So almost when you scale that quick is almost if you went out to try and find more team members it would have taken you quite a while. And the last thing you want to be doing is rushing hires and try and pull in a C suite of chief.

Chief to be honest. Think about it now and I've had this debate with a few people. So I went from like living for the first two years for like 2017 or whatever. 2017, 18, pretty much 19 as well do like the whole Bali laptop thing where everything was very, very lean. I was doing more like drop shipping stuff so I wasn't building brands. That's kind of irrelevant. And then I don't know what it was. I think I thought that I needed obviously I moved to London like two and a half years ago. Whatever that was good. But then I thought I needed to try and outsource everything and. And like, well, I didn't have POI employees and so on. That kind of ironic to the point I'm making, but I thought, oh, I need to get an agency to do everything, even though I used to do it on myself, which increased the costs and didn't necessarily increase the performance. But I was like, oh, I'm building a proper business now because I want to detach myself. Whereas previously I was just effectively very highly paid artists in a way, and I just learned these skills and I was doing everything. Then I got obsessed with the idea of me to fucking outsource everything to the point where I don't even need to work much. But then that's probably part of the problem. And then, yeah, then I got to the next stage of that, which was in like mid 2020, where I was like, oh, I want to start hiring proper people, like. And that did happen. Ended up being a few employees that came in, but they came in just as I figured out shit was going wrong. And then that was really hard in itself to not like people you've just employed. There was like three people, like pay employees because I thought I wanted it. Like, there was even talks of getting an office in the middle of COVID in like September 2020, me and Fred actually nearly got an office. I don't know, I just had this idea normalized things, whereas now I think that's retarded. So yeah, that's probably part of the problem is going from doing a lot of stuff myself, which actually worked better in a way, to then outsourcing a lot of stuff, particularly customer service. But that kind of has to happen at that SC and then go to the next level thinking I need to outsource even more by getting people that can like replace the management stuff and a few people that ended up hiring. And yeah, I mean that's probably speak about that for an hour in itself. But yeah, but I think what people don't realize and there's no right or wrong, and I don't think entrepreneurs are better than employees or whatever. And you get these cons on Twitter, like money Twitter, that say if you're not. If you're not an entrepreneur by the time you're 14 months old or 14 days out of the womb, then you're a fucking failure. And I don't think now, because I've been an employee basically in my own business, well, not even my own business really, what used to be my business, the past six months, that's definitely humbled me in ways and whatever. But the point is, and this might offend people, I don't care. There's a huge difference between getting a paycheck on PAYE, clocking at 9 to 5, whatever it is, it's compared to running a business, especially when it's big. Like you literally don't know what the you're doing because you have to learn it. And then there's something else that comes up, like hiring someone and you don't know what the you're doing. So yeah, I don't know. I just think people that you take like massive risk. Who do people think employs people if ultimately businesses, granted a lot of corporate big businesses, but those corporate businesses were started by someone at some point. So. Yeah, and you always get paid less as a leader. But I think you're just talking about.

The risk, the risk that you're taking on a business owner and you're talking about obviously how.

Yeah, I guess just people that have never done it, not understanding the pressures, especially when things go wrong.

So let's, let's, let's into context then. Let's say, you know, you're pulling in a million pounds a month to a lot of people. That's a huge, huge number. But really there's very like thin margins on that. And then one, the level of risk that you're taking on is like, can cause like crippling anxiety when you're, you've got just as, you know, one thing that can go wrong can destroy the whole business. But you've got people to pay, you've got mouths to feed, you've got orders to ship. And you know, it's not like you've got a million quid in your pocket every single month you're getting paid. It's actually you're getting paid less. And even then you're probably not having to pay yourself.

Yeah, there's a few parts to that because. Yeah, that's a good point actually. Like, particularly, particularly like younger people or whatever and people that aren't in the entrepreneurial space, whatever they'll hear. And this is the thing, this is the problem with like programs like Dragons Den as well. And whatever people say, people say you're making like gurus will say it, they'll say, I'm making a million quid a month. What they mean is their revenue is a million quid a month. But that's the first point. Secondly, that's the business's money technically and a business is a different legal entity to a person for reasons. And I didn't structure that well enough in Hindsight. And then on top of that, like the net margin on that million was probably like 8%. So like maybe 15% in like Q4 or whatever. It's probably between 8 and 15%. So 80 grand, 150 grand a month profit, whatever. That's great. Then the second part that people don't think about is the cash flow element. Yeah. So you're not getting all that money upfront all the time. Because firstly, payment process, I got screwed by payment processes. So then they end up holding more than your net margin, which doesn't happen usually, by the way, that just had a problem. But even if it's normal and they don't hold any money in E commerce to say you're netting 100, 100 grand a month, whatever, loads of money, firstly, you need to reinvest that into ads. Like, this is profit. So like, yeah, granted you've covered the ad cost of that month, but to scale it, you need to reinvest that. You need to buy stock in usual. Even with the drop shipping model that I was using, we're still paying factories up front to get a reduced price on the. The meter of LED light.

How much are you paying up front? You pay like what, 20, 30.

One of the factories ended up paying like 400 grand up front. But usually you pay like 50 up front and then 50 on shipment. That's pretty standard. And then, yeah, even assuming that you've got a million pound in the bank account or whatever, the business bank account, that's. That's. Then that's not. Then your. Okay, it's your money because you're on the whole thing, you own the whole business, whatever. Like, there's obviously a lot of clever accounting ways you can, whatever, but that's still not your money. And yeah, I just think people get it confused. Like If Ronaldo's on 500 grand a week after tax personally, then, yeah, he's making two million quid a month. That's fucking Ronaldo. Like. Yeah, I mean, for, for an entrepreneur or business owner to personally make 2 million pound a month, the business has probably got to be doing a fucking billion a month in revenue is what I'm saying. It's just very different. Like, revenue doesn't equal. Doesn't equal profit, firstly, doesn't even equal cash in many cases, and certainly doesn't equal money in your pocket. So I literally comments on all the. There was like these Facebook pages and shit, like communities of like 500 people set up by very lost and troubled individuals. And yeah, I remember one of them Just saying, like this guy's off buying these cars with our money. And it was like, Jesus Christ. Like for a start, I have another brand which has been successful, like go on Companies House. Like the business was making 300 grand a year net profit for three years prior to any of this. So yeah, I mean, yeah, you get the idea. It's just people. It's just a very strange world we live in and people make wild fucking. People just firstly make stupid claims about money and just don't know what the fuck they're talking about, like from outside perspective. And then secondly, yeah, it's not actually in the game. Like they just can't understand. They're like just a point on that. I'm not going to say their name but Billy would know these guys. So those is like this is just one example of this sort of thinking which is there was this like, I don't know, creatives, whatever this videographer company we work with like two guys, like last year, I think it was like three grand a day or whatever, which is a rip off. But they thought they could name the price because you know that they know the business is doing like big scale or whatever. And I remember they didn't deliver what they're meant to deliver. And I said to them, well, basically they submitted a lot of raw files. I was then meant to edit because I didn't have an editor. It was paying them to edit a video and like film it, edited to deliver it in final format. And they were like, oh, that's going to be an extra cost. And they're like, your business is making all this money and you're trying to, you're trying to get us to do more work. And they were like playing the whole star the artist bolog. So actually their business was making way more than my business was making certainly in those few months because was hitting the fans. The point is just people make a lot of assumptions, particularly people that don't have any experience in the game that they're making assumptions about. And it just really pisses me off. So yeah, go on many tangents, but that was the point.

And so how's, how's the last, well, six months been then? Sort of just what's, what's, you know, what the last six months look like and, and what's sort of plans now moving forward?

Yeah, so it's been an emotional like.

And I don't think you probably talked about it like how, how, how hard has it hit you emotionally? Because again, I don't want the audience to think that oh, you had these troubles.

Yeah, two different questions.

You've exited the business and now he's just chilling in this nice apartment and.

It'S all, well, yeah, I'll address the, the first part first and then yeah, sure. So the way it works is ultimately this fund paid a load of money to buy my brands out of trouble basically. And ultimately it was that.

Was that just to pay off the creditors really or.

Yeah, basically. And because I could have shut my laptop off the South America and just said I'm not dealing with this. Yeah, I spent like two months and this is all in the Twitter thread, but in less detail knowing that I needed help. When I finally fucking like, yeah, just know I needed help and I was like, well I need to get investor or blah blah, blah. I'm not going to get the exact like legalities of it or whatever. But I literally like was googling what do I do when my business is fucked? Because literally though, and then I would get on the court, I literally went like Google Ads, these fucking law firms, etc. Called them whatever. Anyway, long story short, I ended up speaking to loads of funds, this is back in like February 2021 who are interested because a slight sidetrack, this is the thing as well. How the is the business a scam which people still say, some people, if a multi, multi million pound fund invested a huge amount of money into it, you don't think they did their due diligence? Like it just baffles me. And do you not think they just had due diligence on me as well? Like if I was a complete fraudster, A, why would I have a brand that's public? Why would I not be doing some dodgy in bitcoin or whatever. And B, why would I, why would a fund like that put a load of money into it? And people can Google this, I'm not making this up, it's a fact. And buy the brands out if it was a scam. So that's the first point. And then yeah, anyway, there was a bunch of offers or whatever because firstly they knew that the business had done well in the past and they knew there was potential there, particularly because there was two brands involved because of the way I structured the business stupidly in hindsight. And secondly because I think they liked me which yeah, I just had to tell them what the had happened. And you speak to these guys like hour on a call and I was probably very colorful with my language and so on which I'm being on this podcast because it's just How I speak.

You sign over that inside of you.

Yeah. I'd never been trained in this corporate jargon because I never had a job in a corporate company and that's just the way I'd done things. Anyway, ended up agreeing to work with these guys, which was partly my choice, but largely their choice and lawyer's choice or whatever. They offered the most money or whatever it was. And then ultimately all the money they put in, like a little over a million quid. Like I said, basically that was the money that ended up paying customers back and solving problems. And then the cost of that was me losing 80, 80 equity in the business I'd spent three, four years building. And the other brand I nearly sold for a million quid and probably could have sold for half of that if it was separate. So, yeah, I got. That was the only thing to do, though, that was the right thing to do, to put things right for customers. Because even though it wasn't my fault, and again, this is why I pissed me off. And trolls say I'm a scammer, so I didn't have to do that. I could have just shut my laptop and no one would have got the money back realistically, unless they dispute it with the paying process or whatever. But it might take months. So, yeah, all the customers over the past six months, first, yeah, they all got the money back, et cetera, et cetera, whatever. Loads of problems were solved working with them to incorporate these brands. Basically the way this was, this fund had started a new second business, literally hadn't even officially founded it yet. And then they want to buy up a load of ecom brands similar to like these Amazon roll up funds. And the idea is they raise a load of money, like, whatever, and then they buy a hundred brands for other, like bedroom brands for like a million pound each day, spend 100 million quid buying brands they can then over 5, 10 years, grow that into the next hot group that's worth 3 billion quid. That's the idea on paper. So both my brands ended up being the first two just by chance because I'd known them previously through whatever, from the lending. Yeah, and then, yeah, and then they were like, okay, we weren't planning on buying brands just yet, but this up opportunity has happened. We get on well with this guy, went to meet them, whatever, and then, yeah, that's what happened. So then I've been working with them for the past six months. Long story short, like, that took a lot of pressure off, but so that was a good thing. It solved all the problems. But then ultimately Neon beach was to be honest like it's hard to repair a brand when it's got six and a half thousand one star trust kind of views that are very, very flamboyant and in depth like in all these websites that you could probably get removed if you spent months chasing them down. But you know, saying it's a scam, whatever, it's pretty tainted brand at that point but still has potential. And then yeah, I've been working with them for six months. It was always an initial six month term. Long story short, about a month ago they said to me well there's two options here now so the end of the six months, whatever you could either have a very small bit of equity in this next in this brands group which sounds great but I mean to be fair it was a great offer that did a lot for me etc etc and I really like them and I'll probably continue to work them in some capacity but I just didn't want to work in a big corporate long term. I just think I would regret not doing my own thing again. The other option was they buy out my remaining 20 for what is ultimately very little money compared to what I could have got a year ago, whatever. But at the same time, you know, the money that I could have got went into solving the problems and pay customers back. So that's what happened. And then yeah, I decided to do that. So it's a bit of a transition period. So yeah, I'm not going to be working on either brand going forward. I kind of haven't been for like the past two months anyways to be honest. And then yeah, I've been working on the next brand already because obviously that's what I'm going to do. What the else am I going to do? And I guess yeah a few things that have come from obviously like it's not like because in many ways it's oh, I'm back to square one like lost most of my money is what it is, sold my car because you've got the skill set right so yeah, exactly, that was the right time to do it. But the one thing I just, yeah like I beat myself up about it but you can't. The few things you can't take away are experience and network and I spoke about this in my Twitter thread so experience being that I know easily what the to do to start sign of a brand I don't have to buy calls on it, I'll spend six months asking people about it, I'll just do it with more experience granted, like I've got to come up with concepts and didn't happen overnight, et cetera, et cetera. And then secondly networks and now like I'm pretty, I get on well with the founder of this fund. Like he's actively said, you know, be interested in working together, potentially investing in your next thing if you want, et cetera. So there's all that network and yeah, I suppose ultimately people that are worth knowing will like other entrepreneurs understand that shit can go wrong and like about calls with other people or whatever. And like ultimately most super successful people have been fucked in the ass probably once or twice. Not literally in a business sense or maybe literally. Yeah, I'm sure most people probably not this scale at my age but. And I don't wish it upon anyone but yeah, I don't think I'll have a this hard probably ever again. I hope certainly not in the same way. So yeah, basically that's where I'm at now. It's a bit of a limbo stage like. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, yeah, hard work, moving on to the next thing. Like yeah, like I said I could have very easily just shut my laptop when was going wrong. It just off or whatever. But obviously it wasn't going to do that because I had to solve the problem. I knew that very aware of the fact that I didn't want to burn all these bridges with I don't know, whatever people that had an interest in the business or customers. Not that we're friends now but yeah, so I just proactively was like, okay, fine, be pragmatic about his six months of feeling a bit like a employee. But it's better than, well like an employee but it's better than what could have happened which is no one got sorted, the business went and there was no next step. So yeah, I definitely rate myself that I even when I just wanted to jump off a cliff, to be honest, in like January, February, literally do with like what the do I do. Because once you've got that skill set and that mindset, I think it gets put to test. It gets put to the test where goes really wrong.

So how, how bad was it emotionally? Like what's like was it, you know, I guess what?

Yeah, sleepless nights? Well yeah, I mean I would say sleepless nights to start. It's like one thing but yeah, there was a period in January I went to kill myself. I was actually like this. I, I say I've always struggled with like mental health challenges or whatever. Like everyone these days in social media Generation. It's, I think, entrepreneurship for it done that to me and made me like borderline bipolar, which is. Yeah, I mean, you almost have to.

Become numb to it.

Yeah, I, I know obviously I have friends and acquaintances or whatever that I definitely look at. I think they have probably their head screwed on a bit better. But yeah, I think my gift and curse is that my mind is very active and very. Probably adhd, probably borderline, like Asperger's or whatever. So when stuff's going very well, I like act on things and move very quickly and stuff. But when the stuff goes bad, it's like this, this. And I've always been a bit like that, like, even when I was like a teenager and stuff. And I probably masked that a bit when I started, like getting money and being successful in my early 20s and stuff. And then it was like, yeah, the feeling was, to be fair, this is kind of deep. It was like, oh, like now I feel like I've lost that success. I'm now back to fit. I felt like a little kid again. It was like, oh, everyone's taking the piss out of me. Everyone thinks I'm a scam. I said, it reminded me of being 18, having a clothing brand and these cunts in the year below taking the piss out of me. So, yeah, it was a bit like that. And then, yeah, I don't know, just thinking probably. And I had like therapy for like a few weeks, but I just didn't get and get on very well with it. I should probably pursue it again. But one thing I spoke about with this bloke, this therapist, was, yeah, I probably put my entire, like, self worth and value on like the money and success that I was having for years.

And the numbers, you guys, I'm guilty of it as well. I'm sure all of us are. When you're an entrepreneur in your business, you become so attached to the numbers and you're obviously, you know, every day we've. With our obsessive personalities, we're constantly chasing that success. And that metric is pretty much all the time. Revenue.

Yeah.

What remedy they're gonna get to when. When hits the fan. That's almost like crushing your identity. And I'm good. Like, when I have a month where maybe revenue dips or it's a lot lower than it is in the past, you then take that really personally. Think, am I maybe I'm not as good as. Because when it's going good, you think I'm. I'm smart. Yeah, you think you are the dog's Bonnets. You get so cocky. And maybe not cocky, but very self confident. And let's be honest, we all are very high functioning, smart people. And it's taken us decade. Well, yeah, say decades. Like my entrepreneurship journey is probably coming up to like nine, 10 years. So it's not happened overnight like this mindset and skill sets that we have. But yeah, and you get, you start to take it personally and it crushes you when, but that's, that's something we have to learn to do. Not get attached to the numbers, focus on the other things. Like you said, like, okay, network, skill set, knowledge. Strip everything away from us right now. All the, all the money or the business. You know, give us a laptop and an Internet connection and another six months and we're back on our feet. Yes, obviously, just coming off that last point, we definitely, mentally, it is so up and down. And I remember working in, when I used to work in sales many years ago, we used to call it champagne and razor blades because you'd have a wicked, a wicked day or he'd close a deal or wicked week and he'd be high on life, thinking, like I said, you're thinking, yeah, I'm sick of this. Everything's paying off and then the next day, the next week, a deal falls through, something goes wrong and it's like one day popping champagne bottles, the next day you got the, the razor blades out. And I remember being taught very early on in sales that when you have the good days, you've just still got to keep level headed. And then when you have the bad days, you again keep level headed and just trust. It's part of the process, part of the journey.

Yeah.

Even then as I transitioned to the business, getting a business that I've got now, which is, you know, with seven figure business with teams and cash flows and all these things you have to think about. And again, so obsessive with trying to scale the business because like for us is the thought of just maintaining and plateauing the same revenue numbers for a year is like a worst nightmare. You do get so attached to the numbers and then it can affect your mental health. And you do sometimes have to catch yourself, take a step back and realize.

Okay.

Revenue side, like all the other things you've got, which I use, gratitude, I think is such like an overused term, but they've actually got and got to just appreciate. Okay. Even if revenue numbers are down, still growing as a person. And that's ultimately what's down to growing as a person, getting better as a person. I'M sure this process for you, like this will be. You're going to be fucking 50, 60 years old. Looking back on this, I think that.

Was probably the most powerful learning experiences.

And the amount of growth that you've had as an individual over the last 12, 18 months. Even though probably at times maybe you thought like, I don't know whether you've got a chance, you think I'm a failure or failed, you can't deny that you've had more growth over the last 612 months than probably any other period in your life, which that compounded. Now over the next 20, 30, 40 years of your career, probably you're going to look back at this and think that darkest time was.

Yeah, it's a pretty good story to be fair. And yeah, like only in the past, probably two. Like, I think I took six months off Instagram, like changed my phone number and. And it was pretty much I wanted to solve all the problems and whatever until I resurfaced. But now it's just like, I'm sure there'll be some comments on this from some hate it from the past, but I just, yeah, at the end of the day that's what happened. Like I was way harder than any customer that lost 300 quid and got their money back a month later.

Well, what was the biggest thing that I think affected you mentally? Was it the fact that you were being outed by all these haters and trolled and you say if you alluded to the fact you've experienced that on a much, much smaller scale before the start of your career.

Yeah.

But this probably the first time you've experienced it from really like customers. What are these few select roles that didn't really understand the full picture? Or do you think it was the fact that you had this massive business and I remember being hanging out with you at parties and you tell me how good business is going and thinking hard, two, three, how many years time there's a potential exit for these huge numbers. What was the big. What was the biggest thing that took the biggest toll on your sort of mental health and emotions? Yeah, I think, I guess everything really.

The trolling stuff is more like just icing on the cake. Like the end of the day, these people are literally ill. Like I've said it before in like a freestyle rap and I'll say again, no one who's ever done anything of significance with their time or life has written a hate comment online.

True.

Like even to a. I wouldn't even write a hate comment. I don't know Donald Trump and not Donald Trump. If, if some politician came out tomorrow said you can't leave the house without a hazmat suit because of COVID and I thought I was. I wouldn't even leave a hate comment then because people of any substance in life don't write hate online and genuinely don't hate that much in general because it's a very useless emotion. So yeah, like that pissed me off and it upset me because I hate it was the opposite of what was happening and I just didn't like the idea. In fact one little bit of the tale I didn't go into which got really pretty free fucked actually was in January, just before and I have my theories about who or what happened in terms of sharing my address, my parents address and the phone number and whatever and that will remain private forever probably. But yeah, anyway, some fucking Daily Mail reporter. This was the worst day actually the worst. I think it was maybe a few day period but this was the first day I started a Daily Mail. My mum rang me and said and this was like January, like middle of January, like rainy cold, middle of like 8pm whatever, just like for most people anyway, just shit time of year. My mum rang me like nearly in tears. I was like what the fuck's going on? Because they didn't really know what's going on. I have to tell them after this. Some fucking Daily Mail report and I'm not exaggerating, it had rocked up my parents house saying we're here to speak to your son who's a scam artist. And I was like oh, I just remember feeling sick and then going for a walk and then I think it was a few days later when I thought if it's the same day or something when someone shared my phone number online it just all got very real. I just genuinely. That was when I just actually thought fuck this, I just. I just want to kill myself. I've probably said that a few times in my life and never actually really meant it, but that's how I felt. That was the worst like day to day shit because I was like peak business problem. And I remember having to call ITV Don and this is this guy who'd was obviously dealing with the ITV because the Love island thing which had then been canceled because well, it's kind of mutual. I don't remember it's kind of mutually canceled. I didn't have the team to manage it and then they saw what was happening, they started saying, well we can't work with the brand. This game, all this Shit, blah, blah, blah. I then called them and said, what do I do? I've never dealt with the press before. And they were just like, don't speak to them, Send them an email. Don't speak to them on the phone. Because I. Then I have this reporter. I don't know if it's the same one. Someone else like messaging me on WhatsApp. It's like pestering me. He left a letter at the door. So he'd come to the flat at like night time, which I thought was weird.

The flat here?

Yeah, where I used to live. I remember just. I just thinking, I want to strangle this, this cunt. And he was. At the end of the day, he'd obviously just acted on a lie that was sold to him. Someone's perception was doing his job, whatever. So not him. But the situation was just. And I remember just being. There was an image of me next to a fancy car I'd bought, which was on my private Instagram account. Someone had followed me and I accepted the follower because whatever happened, that image got shared around all his Facebook groups. And he'd even referenced it, an email to me saying, blah, blah, blah. And I just remember thinking like, the worst case here is an article comes out and you can see it's perfect. Fucking Daily Mail sun tabloid bollocks. Like multi billionaire scam artists makes his money from vulnerable, like people that have lost their jobs in Covid or whatever with a picture of me and my fucking nice car.

And these reporters, they're not there to find out the truth.

They're there, of course they're not.

They're there to get a good story and get the clicks.

And I, to this day, I don't know why nothing was ever published. I think my. I've got away with words. I think I sent him like a thousand word email just telling him the truth. And this happened with which magazine as well, because which magazine actually ended up publishing some of it, but it wasn't personal. They're a bit more of a reputable organization. They just put some out saying what happened and it was kind of factual. But yeah, I remember just sending an email to this Don, just like desperately thinking, well, I can't say nothing because then he's got nothing to go on. But I don't want to get a phone call with him because I twist my words and I might freak out or whatever. So, yeah, so I just said he. But then ultimately nothing was ever published on the Daily Mail. But I remember searching the Daily Mail every morning for about a Month thinking when's it coming out? When's it coming out? Yeah. And then for I don't know what happened, this guy obviously he met, maybe had other information or else when he believed me, did a bit of research and then yeah, actually there was another funny one. It Hell, there's a lot of stress that's happened. Jesus Christ. This happened a bit later but this kind of similar topic. So the Neon beach domain had to have actually even probably shared this. But I'm sharing it. The Neon beach domain went down in like the end of March and at this point I'm like basically just sucking the dick at the fucking fund that I'm working for now. Thank you. So probably should say that. But if they're watching I'm this fruitful with my language even when we're on a 9am call. So apologies but yeah and I was just, oh, don't want anything to go wrong and I just like fucking solve the problems. Like well the stress is gone but I wanted to put things right, etc. Then the domain went down on Friday night at like 11pm so at this point I'm working with these guys like so I feel like it's not all on me for the first time. It's a bit less stressful just a bit later. This is the end of March and I was like why is it donated? Goddamn fuck sake of some cunt hacks it whatever Ended up figuring out that had an email from Godaddy saying law enforcement are investigating this demand. I think for fuck's sake, like who's. What someone said now, like, turned out it was trading standards. I think I actually told anyone this. This is pretty fucked. Like a month trading standards had had. And I didn't know this before but for context. So they call themselves part of the police, but they're not. And that's what kind of scared me because like sake like I thought the. The trolling escalated. Someone was now reporting me to the police and like lying about something, framing me, something I didn't do, whatever. Like the Daily Mail. I was just paranoid at this point. Like I would check the door was locked like 10 times a day. I probably still do it now in a way because I thought some don's going to rock up at my door accusing me of stealing £5 billion, whatever. But this trading standards thing turned out to be because bear in mind the website had 12 million visitors in the first year, had 35,000 customers. So maybe like 30,000 customers in the first year and AOV like 250300 quid. So like I think it was just 8,000 customers. Yeah. And spending 250. I think the revenue in the first year was like 7 million quid on that brand alone.

How much of that was UK as a percentage?

Like 50%.

Okay.

That was what was kind of scary because. Well actually, yeah, just before I got on the training stats thing and Amanda fucking Holden. And if you're watching this, fuck you, Amanda Holden shared something saying I was a scam artist, which I think by the way is completely wrong. If you've got a platform like that and you don't know the facts or something, you shouldn't be sharing shit that can up like ultimately like a vulnerable young person at that point, which is what I was. And then a few other B lists. Well, I mean she's a D lister every now, isn't she? But she had 4 million followers and that didn't help. And this is. So that happened as well. But then the trading standards thing. Yeah. Anyway, so the reason I'm saying 12 million website visits, et cetera. It turned out a hundred people had reported the business to trading standards over the past six months or whatever. And I remember just being on a call with these ones and I had to get on an hour long interview with them and I just thought like I didn't have any, I have to do it. And I'm just questions were they asking? Well this is the funny thing, if they're watching, apologies, but they're probably not watching. But like these people don't know anything about the E Commerce for a start. Like it was kind of comical at some points. And like these guys I'm working with had a few calls with them as well. They ended up taking over the process and. But I had to. The first call with them, but they were asking like, how does, how does E Commerce payments work? You get paid up front, right. And then never ship the product or something like stupid shit like that. And it had to educate them on that wasn't the case. Blah blah, blah. Went through everything that happened. They ultimately believe what happened because at this point the fund were involved and there was paperwork and what had happened, blah blah, blah. But they just have to do their job. And I just remember thinking, Jesus, only 100 complaints. There was 12 million website visitors and 30,000 customers, about 6,000 of which didn't get a product. That's what happened. And only 100 people complains. I remember thinking, well like partly, oh my God, this is fucking hilarious. Not that that happened but that these people are. That it Just seems so out of scale. It was like oh wow, this is actually as scary as I thought it was going to be. And then second is just. Yeah it's just another bullshit process. But anyway that ended up getting resolved and they were happy. And one thing they said as well as they said is your jewelry business a scam as well? And I remember just thinking fuck you. Like just getting really pissed off about.

It and that's the term they use.

They would, yeah.

Accusing it as a. I just thought.

Yeah it was bafflingly like it's the right word. It was bafflingly frivolous and like close minded as well. Just unprofessional given who what they were meant to be and who they're representing etc, etc. But yeah, anyway that's a very long answer to what was the most stressful. But I suppose yeah the trolling was the most annoying and the most like anxiety juicing at the time. But yeah the thing that I'm still dealing with ultimate. I'm probably a bit more accepted accepting of it now. It's just like yeah like a year and a half ago or whatever. Like summer last year. Yeah I thought I'd be retired by now.

Like I'd obviously work at a penthouse apartment supercar. You had a 100 grand Range Rover. Yeah, which yeah.

Not living on the streets now because I continue to work hard and I obviously have some value to the people that I'm working with. But yeah, just humbled me a little bit. And I suppose to be honest as well I definitely so guilty of comparing myself and like the whole network thing. I've spoken to people about this for like it's a blessing and a curse. It's definitely a 99% net benefit. Benefit for sure. But the problem is like oh fuck. Like in March I was like I've lost basically everything. They were paying me 100 grand salary. So like to most people that's great but that felt like the fucking biggest pay cut in the world. And suddenly I was like worrying about how to pay rent, et cetera, et cetera. That's just the truth of it. That might sound like the most cunty thing ever, but that's just the reality. But then it was like, oh geez, Fred's made a million quid this year or whatever. I don't think your mom's saying, I don't actually know if he made a mini quid. But like you know, I think someone like that Tyler's making 100 grand a month wherever it is. I'm now this loser, but Billy's making similar, you know, all this sort of. And then, yeah, so, yeah, definitely compare myself to people that would. Except it's kind of, it's kind of mad actually, thinking about like, all my close friends and I'm not just in London in the uk, are like, if not self made millionaire entrepreneurs, like certainly on their way to doing that and like, money aside, just successful, interesting people.

Well, I think, yeah, I think having a success when I had this conversation with a friend of mine, a team member actually, a couple days ago. Well, about. So for me, obviously I've got this place in London, but my team, my business, my office is based in the Midlands. So I sort of feel like I live this double life between back there and back here and back there up in the Midlands. I've got like, pretty much no friends and I've got my team and everything. But the thing I love most and where I just find being in London is obviously the network. And yeah, like, we're, we're all hyper competitive individuals. Whether we want to admit it or not. A lot of what we do is, is ego driven in a positive way. I think ego is a term that can be used in a quite a negative connotation. But yeah, we're all hyper competitive and there's no, there's no logical reason to work as hard as we do or put ourselves through the anxiety and the stress that we do to build a business other than just probably purely driven by ego and this, this competitive nature within us. And so when you're surrounded by similar individuals which have all got, like I say, seven figure businesses, eight figure businesses in early 20s, you do compare, it is competitive and you do compare yourself. You think up, you know, I'm at seven figures, he's at this, I need to uplevel my life. But then probably some of you go back, obviously you're from up north and you come from the Midlands, you go hang around with your friends you went to school with are we make a joke and sometimes call them just civilians because it's just. Yeah, of course. And like we said earlier, like, you know, there are, there is, there are entrepreneurs, especially on Twitter, that are so like guilty of shaming these people that aren't entrepreneurs. And I probably wouldn't recommend being an entrepreneur to 99.9% of people. You have to be built a certain way for it. But you, you go hang around people that are on the average salary in the uk and it is a totally different mindset and it sort of grounds You.

Yeah, it's just a conversation because it's.

So easy to get lost in comparing ourselves to other people. But when you really like think all the average salaries in the UK and what other people are happy doing, it's. It certainly grounds you and you can't get, you can't get lost in the whole comparison element. But it's also what drives us like it is, it is a net. Net positive but it's just one of those things it's easy to get lost in. Into and it can affect your mental. Mental health for sure. But. But how much.

Yeah.

Back to when you made about. To when a reporter rocks up to your parents house.

Yeah.

How much did your parents know about the business before? How much do they know? Did they sort of know the scale you're operating at? I'm sure they see the lifestyle and the.

But yeah. So geez, that could probably be a whole podcast in itself as well. So like yeah, I remember my parents telling me and I probably still use it in arguments to this day. Like my dad's saying oh you're retired. If you drop an IV and I dropped out of you. And you're like early 2017 when I had a different business. Whatever. And then obviously over the years especially like they saw what I was doing. Yeah. They knew that the numbers of it could speak. Speak about it. Yeah. And then did they think when.

When the reporter also saying oh we're here to speak your son about being a scam artist.

The worst part about that was I thought Jesus, after this four years of three years whatever of my parents knowing that I was ultimately a successful but on the way entrepreneur. Like my dad would joke about me like when you retire me all this. And I think that's because he genuinely believes in me. He still does. The worst part about that was like. Because particularly my mum who doesn't like I feel it's probably stereotype. It's usually the case like maybe less understanding of like the business. I won't speak about as much with her. She just knows I do this stuff online. She knows. Yeah, whatever. And I just remember thinking Jesus Christ. Like she. What she actually now thinks of my scammers and these is all a lie. Especially because she had less understanding of what I was doing in the first place. That was like horrifying. But I don't ever think she actually thought that. I think she was more just worried like parents are. But yeah, then I just basically told them everything. I was like yes, it's got pretty. And then yes, they obviously saw what happened over the next few months. But, yeah, like, how much.

How much did you go for in there?

I don't know if she'll watch this or not. Not that much, to be fair about that.

How much did you know about what you were going through? Any sort of relationship?

She knew about the online abuse. Like, she wouldn't know about the finances or whatever. I've kind of revealed that in crumbs over the past few months, maybe in conversations about who's paying more rent. But, yeah, not that much, to be fair. Like, I feel like it's one thing telling people what's happening, but then it's another thing telling people that don't have that much context or understanding in the first place because they just misunderstand things. Like, another thing I thought was, oh, all these people that have, like, from school or uni or whatever, that have looked at me as, you know, either admirably or resentfully looked at me as, oh, he's like, he's made it or whatever. Which I hadn't. But I was obviously on the way there and doing well or whatever. My other concern was all these people that are just in normal jobs and now thinking, oh, yeah, he was caught. Little cunt. But I think, yeah, I think that's to be fair. Why now? I was like, actually, I don't. Like, granted, people can talk online or whatever, but, yeah, I may as well put my. My truthful side of the story out in something like a podcast. So until I did that tweet thread, do the. Yeah, like, even Connor McCloskey the other day messaged me about that. I don't think he knew the full extent of what happened. Like, loads of people messaged me like, Jesus, I knew something had happened but wasn't sure because, yeah, even though when I was living with Billy, to be fair, I don't. I don't think he really knew what was going on and I didn't really want to speak about it. I was like, whatever. I don't know, maybe I assumed that people wouldn't give a. Or whatever, but I remember we're trying to get him on the podcast. Fred, don't think you mind me saying this. I remember going to his flat, well, where I used to live at, like the end of January, and just telling him what happened and crying and just saying, like, I don't know what the to do. I think he was nearly in tears as well, to be fair. Yeah, I think I said, like, would you lend me 100 grand or something? And that's just an interesting, fully transparent. Like that never happened and I'm glad that didn't happen. But that's how desperate I was in the situation. I was trying to work out how the am I gonna. Not for personal use. It was like how am I gonna save the business? I didn't want the business to have to be ultimately sold to a fund, but that ended up being the way that was the only option. So yeah, I think he. He knew what was happening to his sense. I lived with him and so to be fair, it was kind of bad timing to have to like move out while all that was happening. And then meeting with Billy, he knew less about what was happening and. And stuff. But yeah, it's probably hard I try and imagine, like must be quite a weird dynamic because we were like very similarly successful. I would say we lived together for like two years and whatever. Yeah. I always think it must be quite weird for him at the time, particularly when all that was hitting the fan. Like, I mean, I'm sure he had his own problems, as everyone does, but certainly wasn't going really badly. Like business profitable. Yeah. And it must be quite a weird dynamic thing like how to react to that because like there's only so much you can say like get better or get better, whatever. Ultimately didn't get better. And then I had to sell the business. But yeah. What was the original question that was a tangent on what I was asking.

About your parents and how much they knew and.

Yeah, I suppose, yeah. How much of friends being scared to tell people, especially people that don't have context on how this shave and works. And I think the interesting part as well. So my uncle is like a serial entrepreneur and that. That's probably. I don't come from money or anything like fucking my mum's a nurse, blah, blah, blah. But he has a lot of money and doesn't never help me in business or whatever. I've never even spoke to about business actually before, which is. Which I suddenly thought that's really fucking stupid because speaking to him when this was all happening like in February and it was just interesting how different the conversation was. He was like, oh yeah, cool, you've had your first major fuck up about 5. Everyone I know that's made 100 million or whatever it is and he's just done badass shit. Why does has had something happen like that? And his conversation was, yeah, cool, you learn loads from it.

I met a successful billionaire out in Dubai and we talked about what it's taken to get there and he's like he's had multiple heart attacks and breakdowns and you think like what if you got to go through and he said he wouldn't wish it upon his worst enemy.

So.

Yeah. But obviously we'll wrap it up shortly. But a couple quick fire questions I have then. One, looking back now at what happened, how much sort of responsibility do you take for all happening, thinking it was purely mistakes you made or it was. Again as entrepreneurs we don't like to use the term luck too much because you should create your own luck. But there was a few, like it was a bit of bad luck with suppliers and yeah up like how much responsibility do you think?

Yeah, I think ultimately you have to like even if was bad luck, like ultimately it's my fault because it was my business. But yeah, I do genuinely hand on heart fail that I had a lot of bad happen in a certain sequence that was probably unusually unfavored or bad luck, whatever you want to call it. Like I don't think I did much. Like I did everything I could to solve problems where possible and it just, yeah, it was a combination of things like, like I said, third party factors like having deals with Love island, having taken on revenue based financing to approve the business, having another brand at the same time which I also had to run, not having the experience at the scale I was at because they don't teach this in school.

There's no, at this scale as well, there is no real reference points you can go to. You can't buy a course.

Yeah.

On how to really operate a business and salvage it and save it and operate smoothly at an 8 figure run rate or even a multi 7 figure business maybe to get to. You can go on an econ course and they'll teach you how to set up a store and scale it in Renet. But unless you've got some serious like a fund you're working with or some serious mentors or associates that have done that you really like. There's no reference points you don't know really who to go to.

Yeah, I think I'll say flat out on camera, like ultimately I take responsibility for what happened because if I hadn't started the brand it wouldn't have happened.

Yeah.

And the flip side of that is I was also responsible for making sure that every customer that got fucked way less than me but got fucked in their mind, including all these fucking trolls, got their money back. Because if I hadn't done this deal and spent months stressing about what we're going to do then that wouldn't have happened. Like I said a few times, could have shut my laptop, it wouldn't solve any problems. So I give myself credit for that. Yeah, but yeah, like I say, there was a combination of factors that were unlucky and I think the thing that was the most I just felt was ultimately wrong was the trolling and people making grossly inaccurate lies and not realizing how damaging that is as well. Like, like I said before, like I can't imagine ever leaving a hate comment on anything ever honest on the Internet and I don't think anyone has ever done anything that with their life either would do that but.

And you only got to run ads and see the comments on ads.

Yeah, Facebook. I'm sure there'll be comments on this video as well which will probably get deleted or I'll reply to you depending on what they say. But yeah, I mean an hour and 20 of just keeping it real so far and yeah, yeah, like I said, I ultimately take responsibility for starting the business and so on. Any advice, my responsibility. But I did everything I could and ultimately I think more to put things as settled and right as they could be.

Any advice?

I don't think I deserved the backlash I had.

No, of course not.

Trolling is always going to happen. But given trolling, when you're like a YouTuber and you're making millions or whatever, just like when stuff's not going that wrong and people just trolling is one thing, but trolling, giving the actual real stress I was dealing with as a first time entrepreneur ultimately just added insult to injury and I don't think anyone can understand what that's like until they've been through and everyone's had their own elements of trolling and obviously problems and, and I'm not saying this is as bad as parents dying or whatever and I know it's not, but in a business specific sense I reckon it's pretty much as bad as it can get. To be fair. I honestly do.

What advice would you give to someone going through maybe a similar situation that you've been through the last sort of six months more so on the mental health side and emotional side as well because I don't think it's something that's talked about enough.

Well, if they're going through like amazing shit in the business, I think the main thing is to make sure you're still showing up and fixing what you can because just hiding away from it doesn't help. Also what I wish I'd done sooner is just ask for help and speak to dons because yeah, I don't know what it is. I've just become more woke to the fact that woke is a stupid word, but aware of the fact that, like, there's this, the 7 billion dons on Earth. And I think this is why I've wanted to start making content. And this, this first podcast is coming out, reactivated the Instagram or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Because I realized through you and other people, probably you particularly and Billy, to be fair, who have like personal brands or whatever it is, that people are the answer to every problem you have.

Yeah.

Like literally. And the way to access those people is the Internet, usually because massively, Bill Gates ain't sat there, but you could probably get through to his pa. Not that he needed Bill Gates, but like. Yeah, I don't know.

Like someone said the more, you know.

Asking help and just being transparent about how something is is probably what I'd say because I think there's way too many smoking mirrors. People have accused me of smoking mirrors in the past.

I think you're probably one of the most transparent people.

Yeah, I think that's what I give myself credit for. Like, yeah, I was balling out or whatever with like, financed supercars and now I don't have them because I got rid of them and I got in the ass a little bit. But I'll be back and finance more supercars. Yeah, exactly. Finance a colony. But yeah, I just think having the balls to be honest and seeking help and I. And I think that's what I'll do going forward in the next business and just, just. Yeah, I think everyone is probably guilty of it, particularly in their early 20s. And it's one of those things.

Where is it an ego thing, do you think?

Yeah, it's one of those things parents say. Like, you don't listen to anyone. Like, I've got more life experience. And that isn't always true, by the way. Just because someone's older doesn't mean they've got more experience. But certainly, yeah, it is an ego thing. Like, I would now definitely seek more advice probably from day one and be more aware of what I don't know.

Because the more you learn things.

Yeah.

You don't actually know.

Yeah, I feel like I don't know anything about anything. Yeah. Whereas the reality is I know a lot about E commerce and brand building, obviously up. Because there was a combination of factors. But yeah, I'll do it a lot better on the next one. And I think, yeah, just seeking help from dons that. And it's not about people being older. It's about people. And that's a misconception. I think that's like school tries to make people think that people that are older are better and more experienced in life. It's not always true and in most cases it's not true, particularly in entrepreneurship. But find people and potential mentors, or whatever you want to call it, that have been in your shoes before. Like I said, just speaking to my uncle, for example, I don't speak to him enough to be fair. It's probably a great resource because he understands it because he's, he's not in the e commerce space. But yeah, it's just a different game and like there are people that have been there and done stuff as well. But I guess the flip side of that is, and I spoke about on my Twitter thread, and I go on a tangent again, is it you have to earn a network over time. Like you can't be straight out of uni or fucking school and be like, oh great, I want to start hanging around with these fucking 40 year old billionaires that own this fund. They can invest in my startup because you got to go and earn your stripes.

This is one of the podcasts because it's the most common question I get is how do you upgrade your circle? And the answer I always give is upgrade yourself. Because when you get to a certain level and you start playing at a certain level, you attract people playing at that level. And again, having this conversation this week with a team member of mine from back in the Midlands who lives up there and wants to upgrade his circle and I sort of made the point that actually the people you want to be spending most time with are sort of in cities, they're in London, they sort of become hubs and, and attract a lot of hyper successful people. I said, obviously I'm. You've got, I'm playing at a certain level with a business.

Got a Lambo.

Yeah. And then. But when you do that, you attract other people. Suddenly you have friends. I can probably count five or 10 friends that have supercars or Lamborghinis.

Yeah.

And that's no coincidence, but because when you get to a certain level, you start to track those people. I also made the point I'm not friends or acquainted or know anyone probably worth 50, 100 million or a billion, because I'm not at that level. But I'm sure suddenly tomorrow, if I sold a business for 100 million or half a billion or a billion quid, yeah, suddenly within a few months I'll have friends or acquaintances that are Also at that level. So you definitely have to earn it. But the number one way to upgrade your circle is just upgrade yourself for sure.

Yeah, it's so true. And, like, just earning our stripes and, like, yeah, like, it's all part of the fucking resume. That's the way of. I found it, definitely found it hard to think positively about the situation, but it's gradually become easier. I think part of the therapy of that is now starting to share parts of it because, like, yeah, I went through a period of. I've previously, like, not that bothered about. I wasn't making much content or whatever. Like, had an Instagram account, didn't really share anything. I was like, oh, shouldn't share anything until you've made it, or whatever. Which I think's a bit of a toxic attitude, to be fair. And then I started going on Twitter and shit, and it was like, oh, wait a minute. Like, even by just sharing my major loss, a lot of don't actually gain from that. And, like, I was getting messages off Don's I'd never spoken to, like, saying I nearly cried and shit. It's like, oh, shit, wait a minute. Yeah, it's just therapeutic to talk about stuff in general in life. And to be fair, that's why I want to revamp this podcast and take it actually seriously this time. It's just, if anything, it's a selfish pursuit to A, release myself for what's in my head and B, just speak to interesting dons, document the journey because.

The next five, 10.

Yeah, like, building a biggest term.

Yeah.

And. Yeah, exactly.

And I think as you grow the next brand and see more success, you'll probably look back on everything that's happened far more positively as a blessing. I won't be surprised if in three, well, even two, three years time, you're probably saying to me that, you know what? That was probably the best thing that happened because you learned so much.

Yeah, it's always hard to see that in the moment, but, yeah.

So before we wrap up, what's the plan for the future now? How much can you share?

Well, what's the plan for the future? I want to rip this podcast because I've always just felt touching it right at the start. Like, I've always felt a bit of a call into, like, content of some kind. Like, I play around with the music covers. I was like, 16, had the travel vlog thing, which I used to love. And then people, I just felt, oh, this ain't cool right now. I shouldn't focus on this. And then I Feel like they say your brain fully forms by age 25. And I feel like my brain is maybe fully formed now and it's just giving me the awareness to be like, oh wait a minute now is maybe I should actually go back to the. That I like doing. Which was. And I liked making content before obviously. Love econ. Yeah. So basically two things. I want to do more content and I think podcast is the really the only relevant medium that I could do. I'm gonna walk around London. Well, I don't do much day to day apart from sitting my office and set up a screen like most people in reality. So I'm not going to start a vlog of some bollocks. I guess do this podcast and then ultimately start a new brand. But I guess which I'm already working on and I hope to have a new brand live in like the next two to three months. But I'm definitely approaching these slightly differently. The main thing being I think I haven't done this yet, but I would like to probably get some partners on board with it. Not active partners, but maybe just like silent partners, investors, whatever from day one rather than being. Not just because I lost most of my money, but partly that but. But mainly because just experience that I've realized that I don't know a shitload of things and rather than. Yeah just entirely bootstrapping it like hustling from bedroom. So I feel like I've done that now. So yeah, I mean the plan over like the next few years is build the next brand. One brand by the way, not two like I did last time. Do the podcast. I want to do the podcast more like once a week would be nice. That might be a tall order. Certainly once every other week like consistently because we tried it last year wasn't the right time, whatever. And then yeah, build the next brand and fucking sell it for 100 million quid before I'm 30. But we'll see. I'm not guaranteeing that. Cause I might finally fall in love with the process and want to keep running it or whatever it is.

But yeah, oh yeah, enjoy self sabotaging and going through this up and down.

Yeah, I might do this again to a larger scale. Hopefully not. But yeah, I definitely. My mind has been calloused to the point where definitely just give less of a. What someone's going to write on. On the comment section in this. In this video alone. So yeah, I just enjoy having conversations and I think I'm pretty good at them and that. So basically podcasts and brand is the Plan.

Cool. Well, I think people appreciate your transparency and there's no doubt, obviously your story is going to, like, help and serve a lot of values for our people. But yeah, I think as a friend, like, it's definitely been amazing to sort of witness one. It was still a big achievement. Scaling the brand to what it was and then to go through what you've been through, like, I'm sure, you know, like, us boys have always been here for you and why it's like crying. No, there's more like mad respect for you and always, like, transparency has always been like. And the authenticity has always been the main thing. Although one of the most like, prominent values I've associated with you, which I think for sure is like massively appreciated. And I think it's all up from here.

So, yeah, yeah, that's the plan, I think. I think with this podcast as well. So this is the only episode that's going to be about me because this isn't the Me show. That's not the intention. But I just. The reason I wanted to do this is the first episode is a few reasons. It's what I said on the Twitter thread, which I'll link below. It's firstly, it's therapeutic. Like I just said, take it genuinely is fucking therapy, particularly to speak about, rather just write about it. Secondly, I think people can learn from it, so it's free value, hopefully. And thirdly, no one can say shit when I've just talked all this dirt about myself. Like, we'll try and just be. This is how it says, you know. So, yeah, you know, there'll be e Commerce stuff. The plan really with this podcast is what we probably want. Well, what I wanted to do and force my two of the flatmates at the time to join me in trying to do last year was just have deep, interesting conversations with generally entrepreneurs because I feel like anyone that's doing well, the most interesting people that I have access to are entrepreneurs of some sort of. And not just Ecom though. And I've got a list of people I'd like to get on and hopefully we can make them open up as much as I probably have in this. And yeah, just see where it goes with different episodes because I just think there's generally. Social media has made it very easy to speak to people and put information out, but 99.9% of stuff, it's just. It's just lacking that. Like there's questions that people want to ask and no one's asking them. That's the same stories from the same people over and over again and the same people over and over again. And I just hope we can bring out some gems of conversation by just trying to. Yeah, just being more honest about shit and asking more interesting questions rather than just the surface level crap that I feel like most podcasts do. And I'm not saying this podcast will be better than everyone else's, but hopefully it's more authentic. That's what I say, and we'll see where we take it.

Cool, it's been a pleasure and we'll.

See you on the next one.

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