From Broke & Bored to Agency + Brand Group Owner at 26 - Adam Power | The Midnight Pod Ep 51

Right, we're back with episode 51 of the Midnight Pod. The first ever, technically the first ever co hosted episode with a guest. We have Adam Power. That is your name, isn't it? Second name.

Yes, it is.

Because in traditional fashion I never research my research my guests. It's a small world, you know. Lucas, you're on his pod. Lucas has been on the pod like twice. Came on the first terrible season 2.1 episode with myself and Ollie. But yeah, if we're fucking trying a new little format. And we're back on the red wine as well. What is this? A Rioca Campo something Ryoka saying to be special. Only one bottle between the three of us. So we'll see how this goes. But I guess the first question. And this is gonna be the thing I say in every ep, every fucking episode. Who are you? What'd you do? We'll dive into everything. We already started chatting about some pretty interesting things off camera just before we started recording, which we can dive into. So I don't think anyone that we've had on has been in that space like buying brands and shit. But you do a load of things. And you Irish, it's a good combo.

But you're half Irish as well.

Yeah, yeah, I'm biased.

Yeah. So yeah, my name is Adam Poor.

And I am just bring that a bit closer.

I am Irish, as we said, but basically just turned 26 and I started off with my agency and eventually went into buying brands like we've been discussing here. So I'm sure we'll get into that. And also recently launched an education company as well. So basically teaching people how to become freelancers. Basically inside the Google Ads, Facebook ads, email marketing, whatever world they're. They're kind of attracted to. So that's kind of where we're at.

So. And going back, did you go to uni? Like standard upbringing.

Music, Right, Yeah, standard upbringing. Obviously, you know, no one has a perfect toilet, so nothing was perfect but never got to uni. Failed. So in Ireland we don't have uni, we have like secondary school. And you go to like, you'd go straight to college from there to. For your degree. So I failed my secondary school, which is high school. I suppose I failed that.

And.

And I kind of had like this, you know when you're like 16 to 20 or just bouncing around different places trying to figure out life. I kind of had that. I had that period where I just. Nothing was going right for that period of my life. So had every job you can think of. So everything Instead of uni, basically never went to uni.

And that first foot in the door of like E Comm and agency, when did that come? Because I can't even remember how the fuck I got into E Comm. It's like everyone's got like some place they end up falling into some sort of entrepreneurship.

So the E Comm kind of fell onto my lap with COVID Previous to that, I kind of got into the agency world, but in the agency world, I never kind of gravitated toward E Comm. Towards E Comm at all. I was more lead generation, like just working for all local businesses. Do you know what I mean? So, because I failed every single job that I've had, say from that 16 to 20 period of my life, My goal was to just, if I can create my own job. So I didn't care what I had to do, it was just creating my own job. And that came with an agency from the OG himself, Tai Lopez. That's where that started. Yeah, yeah.

Working for his agency.

No, no, no, his. I basically got fired from one of my jobs Christmas week, say 2016 or 2017. And I came home and I was like, just jumped on the computer. I was like, what the am I going to do? Came across Tai Lopez. He was like, click for my webinar. Ended up giving him a thousand euro for a SMMA course the same day. And yeah, did that Lambo to hair my garage.

Yeah, but see, bought a course and the rest is history. Yeah, it's quite literally.

But the goal, when I was buying the course, the goal was because I failed. I fail. Like when I, you know, people say, like, I got a failed job, I failed every job. Like I failed an electrician apprenticeship, I failed like three or four different factories. I was a forklift driver. I was like, I can go on for a while, but. So my goal with the course is when I, when I bought the course, the main thing, if I was like, if I can create my own job, so if I was getting paid 30k and if I can grab create my own 30k from my computer, you know, nine to five from home, that was like my wildest, like my wildest imagination at that time in say 2017, 2018. So.

So it's less like you were like naturally an entrepreneur. You more just fucking hate what you do that you were doing and want to do your own thing. And that was like an opportunity.

Well, I don't think I was a natural entrepreneur, but I had, I had potential. I knew I had potential deep down.

So.

So When I was in a job and I was late every day or I was doing fucking up something at work or I was doing something wrong, it was never because I was, you know, not intelligent or anything. It was just I had potential that was not being fulfilled and I was looking for distraction. So I had. I don't think I was a natural entrepreneur, right? I had massive potential. I knew myself since I was a kid. No matter what I put my mind to, I could do a really good job, but I just could never find something to put my mind to. And then tight Opus brought that avenue for me.

So when was this? Like you said, 2017.

2017? Yeah, just after I turned 20.

Quit your job, like straight away. Like, what was the timeline from buying the course to this becoming like the reality of making your own money?

So this was the week before Christmas, 20s. This could have been 2016. I'm actually unsure, but. So I was in a medical device factory. That was quite. It was quite a good paying job at the time for, for someone who was 20 with no qualification. And they brought me into a room the previous month. They're like, okay, from January next year, you're going to get your long term permanent employment contract. So everyone was like, oh, you made it, you're successful, you're in a factory forever, you've dental care and you've all the benefits that come from a corporate position. But the week before we finished up for Christmas, there was an issue and as I said, it was a medical device factory, so someone has to get the blame. So I was the youngest guy there. I got fired at that time and that was say a Wednesday. And I bought Thai's course on a Friday. So I lost my job on a Wednesday.

So you're like, back against the wall.

So I got My last paycheck, 2K, 2 1/2 K.

Remove this dashing.

I've not said anything because it's just been transitioning. Shag my arm.

I could hear something in my ear. I was like, what's he doing?

Get out the room. Yeah, I think he's gonna have to go, oh, no.

If I put him in my room, it just shits.

It's gonna have to happen for the great.

I'll open the door so he can go outside.

That might be all right now.

I reckon he'll chill. I reckon he'll chill.

Anyway, I was gonna.

Yeah, I'll let you chime in. You stop being raped by a dog.

So, yeah, basically I got fired from that job on a Wednesday. Got my last monthly paycheck pre Christmas, which was say 2, 2 or 2 and a half K euros. And I bought toys, course for one K. I bought like this beat up laptop off a Polish guy, 300 quid. I used that last 252.5k to like to get. To get myself on some sort of track.

Like are you living with parents still at this point?

Living my.

Yeah, living parents, yeah, quite like. I feel like some people get to that point and I kind of like burn the boats mentality in it. Like you have to, when you get into position where you have to make it work.

Ye.

You used to do that when back in. You did that to some degree through when you start when, when you dropped out of uni, it's like remove that, remove your other options and you usually make it work.

Yeah.

If you.

But when you have the fallback it's like you have less motivation because you have that behind you. But how long did it take you to go from buying that course to kind of, I guess replacing the income from a job and then getting to the point of going from like freelancer to agency? Like I guess that's a transition in it where you go from like you doing everything to bringing someone else in.

Yeah, well initially I didn't know what those terms even meant back then. I didn't know I was a freelancer.

I didn't know some work get paid.

Yeah, yeah, like I didn't. I did, I didn't. I didn't really understand all of that back then. But when my first client came so that the course was four months and I knew I had to finish the course because I knew how to build a confidence because like family members, friends, neighbors, people thought I was crazy. People thought I was because I was up my room doing a course over then people like Adam's playing like video games or something. You know, people really get it back then, say 2017. So it was probably, I don't know. The course is four months. I'd done the course twice in four months and then I started looking for clients. So I'd say it was probably about six to eight weeks after that. So probably six months. So I had six months of just. Even though I wasn't on the course, what I was more kind of doing is like reprogramming my mind.

Did the course actually teach media buying? Did it teach how to outsource media buying and get customers?

No, I thought actually. But it teaches everything from like an SMMA world lead gen, landing pages, SEO, websites, everything.

It was very vibrant, legit, good course.

Yeah. In 2017. Yeah, yeah. It was the only thing on the market in 2017. This is before.

But he printed some serious.

Yeah, like before the E mans of the world. Yeah, before E Man and anyone else. Like he was before any youtuber basically. Like toy was that guy in 2017. I think e Man still was. Was there, but I don't know if he the course until maybe a year.

Yeah, I wouldn't say about then, but.

But yeah, Toy was the only thing on the market. I think he did 50 million from. From that. From that course.

Yeah.

You're on some serious traffic through that Lamb. Some serious traffic.

He's responsing handily responsible for all the cold emails that say. Quick question, Matthew. Yeah, all the fucking automated.

But Toy was doing all that. I was doing all that well before everyone else was doing it. Like that's what he kind of got in and got out with all that.

Singularity of every info product.

Yeah.

Everything roots back to Ty.

When did you start making money then? After doing this course. So must have been sweating a bit if you didn't have a job and you're just in your room doing a course.

Yeah, it was a bit of a mad time, man. It was a mad time. So six months. There's six months. No, I didn't make any money for six months. I would work one. I'd work one day here, work one day there in like a bar or. Or something like that. Same. My father would have friends that would just say come down here and work for the night or whatever. So I'd work maybe two or three nights a month in a bar. But besides that and all just studying, learning, trying to figure things out. And that was like a six month period of like self education. It got a bit tough. But I have to reprogram myself because I wasn't prepared for anything previous to that, like, you know.

So is that how you started?

Well, obviously I got a bit of a leg up doing stuff for you in terms of like general knowledge. And then we bought an info product here off Jordan Plant. We actually started using YouTube and we got decent amount of success and got some clients again because I think I'd learned a bit more than most about media buying, like, more like broad Ecom, which allowed you to talk to founders a little bit better than someone who'd just come from a normal course through what we did with Dusk and stuff. But then we bought a course, it just kind of expediated the process and went from there. But I do think a lot of that early Stage is like learning the mindset side though. Mindset. Reprogramming, confidence.

Escaping the matrix.

Yeah, yeah, escaping. But going from like uni or say high school, college in Ireland we call it like to going out on your own. It's, it's, it's unheard of. Like it's, it's not really. It's not common at all.

I was going to say it's not.

Very entrepreneurial culture is it? Ireland before probably. I've seen that in like my cousins and it's behind here.

It's getting, it's getting.

Obviously this company's like Wayflower and shit Jack.

But yeah, I think it's probably a bit like Europe.

I could be wrong in that. But it definitely feels less entrepreneurial than certainly London.

Yeah.

And even London's way behind like America obviously.

Yeah, yeah. Ireland would be. Yeah, behind London. Yeah. But yeah, it's catching up a little bit. Like I'd say it's getting better.

Goes like America first definitely. Then probably here. And it's even with E comm like you can rip American stone.

Estonia's mad though, isn't it? I was watching a documentary on the Bolt founder, like a 15 minute doc on YouTube. Did not know he's like 28 year old billionaire.

There is some decent like in Europe, but if you look at how you can take an E Comm store from America, change it into German and run it up in Germany, it is still it just like.

Yeah.

So much less competitive because it's less of a culture there, isn't it?

Australia is pretty common to know is.

But it's slow and pretty. Like they just, they just don't like work as much because they love feel like America and Europe and the uk you kind of live to work, whereas in Australia it's like you work to live.

It's probably the right way around. This world is fucking depressed.

Same in like Spain and Italy in some ways like way more like Spain is completely different.

Yeah.

Laid back. Which is weird.

I lived in Barcelona for three months. They wouldn't open coffee shops on Mondays till 11am yeah. You're like, how the fuck do I work? I'm trying to get wi fi. It's mad.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's very laid back, man. Very, very laid back. But the US is obviously just ahead of fucking ahead of everybody.

So how did it look going from you get a first client, like how do you come about that? And how long was it until you maybe had a few clients and you felt like you're actually fucking making it work?

So obviously in the course Ty has all these, you know, cold email approaches and DMS and all this type of stuff. But I was saying to all of my friends and people in my network, I'm Internet marketing at home is what I was calling at the time. I was like, I'm doing digital marketing, Internet marketing. I was like, tell your boss and work, I can help bring them more customers. And I said, if you can set me up with your boss in a meeting and they sign a contract, I'll give 50% of the first month over to them. So people, people are passing on my details to their boss. And one of my friends passed, set me up, meeting with his boss and she was like, let's go. And I think my first client was 400amonth and that was for like everything. Like Facebook ads. Yeah. Content creation, email marketing, everything. 400amonth. But that's, that was just the vehicle I needed to just get the confidence to onboard a client, send a report, send an invoice, whatever the case may be, you know. So first client there, month later and got a second client and a third. And then I kind of got my first like four figure client which really kind of, that was just big money for me back then.

So he's getting rowdy again. Not gonna lie, might have to go.

Should I remove you keep speaking, I'll remove the rapist dog.

Yeah, I feel like confidence builders. Those first ones in there, we did a free trial for our first one. It was just like, get it in the door, learn. Learn like how to deliver the results and then the confidence comes from there. Yeah, you have a bit of confidence in what you're actually selling.

Yeah.

And your ability to sell it and you undersell yourself pretty heavy early on. But I don't even think it's bad because it's like you are technically selling people on something you've not actually done that much before.

Yeah, well you have. That's what I say to people. Like you have to be transparent in your first client. Just be like, yeah, this is my first time doing this. I'm not, I'm probably not going to do an amazing job, but I'm going to go above and beyond for a, a low fee and then just get them in the door because then that just the simple confidence of onboarding a client, sending them their first month's report, having a catch up call. Yeah, just all that just builds such massive confidence, you know what I mean?

So, yeah, definitely.

So the first client is the hardest, but it's, it's what People need to just get done, bite the bullets, definitely, you know.

So from there to. How many people have you got now to skip forward quite heavily.

How many clients?

Yeah, well, no people as in like size of business in terms of like team.

From there to there, overall it's just under 20. I'm not sure. Yeah, 17, 18.

Then when did you start branching off from there to E Comm? How long's like basically when you start doing other things?

I guess move forward five years when I was removing the rapist dog.

Big jump.

Yeah. So as I said, all my first kind of network of clients were all just pretty random, like barbershop restaurant, cafe bar. Then I had like an optician which was my first high ticket client. So we're doing like Legion and stuff with them. And then what happened was I was kind of working with another guy and he referred me over to an E Comm brand. We drove up to Dublin, where Matt's.

From and my dad is from, just to clarify.

Drove up to Dublin to meet and he was like, okay, let's give it a try again. Small four figure fee. And he gave me a budget. And we came back like 40x the budget. And I was like, what the hell is going on here? So that's when my first taste of ecom came. And then I was like, obviously I'd lost interest in all the bars and restaurants, didn't I was like, I need more ecom clients. So that was 2019, I'd say probably six months before COVID I was kind of 50% e com, 50% more local business. And then covert came. I lost 50 cent of my business, 50% of my clients overnight. And then over the next 30 days we just took on so many more E Comm clients when the COVID boom came.

So that for social and Google. Sorry, is that for like Facebook and Google?

So. So yeah, that was. So sorry that was going back. That was just Facebook at the time. We were just, just Facebook Instagram ads at the time. And a lot of our clients started requesting Google. So like, okay, this is going really, really well. How can we for example, get. How could we get more growth? And I started inquiring about Google. So I ended up meeting with a guy who was previously employed by Google and Cork and he was like, we can start offering Google Ads to these clients. So we tried it with one, trial, with two, started going really, really well. And we ended up working together full time. We started building out the Google team with the Facebook team. And then at that time we were offering basically paid Traffic at that time then. So TikTok wasn't really 2019, 2020. TikTok was not really. TikTok was only kind of just getting started back then. So. Yeah, mainly Facebook, Google. Now we do everything, email marketing, SMS, Snapchat, Pinterest, tick tock.

And you said it's 20 people. I missed that bit. That's what's walking back in.

Yeah. 20 people? Yeah.

The same size as you.

Is it 28?

No, they have more. They have way more.

28 in one and then 15 in the other.

That's not just the age, that's the brand as well. Like employees in the brand as well.

Yeah. So come on to the brands. I don't know why I missed. But wait, so you've got the age.

Just one question.

When did the brand start? So I guess you've just kind of started moving on to that part.

Yeah. So obviously when, when I was doing that six month period of trying to reprogram my mind, I kind of never came off that. So I would always watch Ty Lopez, Grant Carol and I would just go down YouTube, kind of YouTube rabbit holes as they say, like most days a week. So I kind of just stumbled across my move from Tai Lopez. I started selling Grant Cardone. So he obviously started talking about like investing and trying to get yourself ahead and thinking bigger and all this type of stuff. So I just kept stacking cash, kept saving everything I could and an opportunity came to invest and someone said to me that they were selling their brand, would I know anyone who's interested? And I goes, let's jump on a call. This was actually literally this week last year. This was. Yeah, first. Yeah, this week last year, 2021. And we jumped on a call and discussed the fee and four days later we sent him the money and bought the brand. So I kind of just.

What brand is that?

That's Zenchi jewelry store.

Is that one competitor?

Yeah.

I'm gonna get get slapped on the wrist tomorrow. So. So you never started a brand?

I never.

Okay, fine.

So this is, this is another story, Right.

That's why it's interesting because we've never had anyone that's done this.

So here's. I'd started two brands, they both flopped.

Oh, okay.

One was it Lucas? Actually me and Lucas. Sorry.

When were the brands that you started and what sort of brands are that?

I started end of 2019. I started a clothing brand. It was going to be called Script and that just went sore. That just went.

Lucas has never told me. Must be embarrassed by this story that Just went sore.

That went.

That by itself. Is that with Lucas?

This is by myself, yeah.

Oh, really?

Why did it go badly? Because I, I, we had a clothing brand.

Just bad, bad samples. Bad. It's a complex design. Bad branding.

Didn't know what you're doing.

No, no, it was just going worse. It was just getting worse as it was going. So that kind of flopped. Last. Didn't like last a couple of cave like nothing major and then say probably about 6 to 12 months later I was starting another brand. So. Sorry. I invested in another clothing brand. That, that didn't go too well either. And then I was, my mind was set in a clothing brand so I started getting into building another. Another clothing brand and Lucas was involved in that with me.

What was that one called?

That was called Elysian. We were going to call it Elysian Clothing.

How he's never told me this.

What sort of clothing? Like was it like spicy?

No, it was like men's. It was like men's like, you know, I'm trying to think of an example brand like Legend, London style brand.

Spicy.

Yeah.

Not quite. I know. You mean like halfway between like six silk and represent maybe.

Yeah, like sort of the middle icon, Amsterdam type style.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that went south and as I.

Said, is that because you couldn't make it, you couldn't like generate momentum or you have momentum and then you something up.

Couldn't. Couldn't generate momentum. I think couldn't decide on the branding, couldn't decide on the name, the website, the style, the supplier. Just nothing, nothing was going right. So I, I'm clueless on starting a brand. I don't know how to start a brand. So that's when I started saving all the money, stacking the cash. And when an opportunity came which firstly was Enchi and I defunds there I was like, yeah, let's. This is, this, this is my.

But did you always. Had you always planned on getting involved in a brand either as well as or instead of the agency because you just thought it was interesting or what? Like you obviously run an agency. Yeah, there's definitely more cash flow at least initially in an agency than there is in a brand. Especially start your brand.

Yeah, I mean like bought. So when I was, when we were fully in E, in, in ecom with the agency we were helping, we were, we'd all. We were just talking to the clients about everything outside of the paid traffic or the email marketing or the Facebook ads, whatever. We'd be always Talking about supply chain 3pls UGC, Shopify stores. Like, we'd always just be trying to connect the dots for everyone. Try, go above and beyond. So in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, like, I'd be quite confident to scale a brand myself. And like, throw covered. We were like. And still to this day, we're doing mega revenue for some brands. So I was like, it just made more sense for me to transition into, have my own brand. And because I flopped two brands when trying to start them, I was like, when the opportunity came, it just made total sense to start investing in buying brands. And that's what we've. That's. We've been doing for the past say 12 months.

Do you think clothing's a hard one, man? Like, it really. Unless you've got a proper vision. Like, you have to have a vision for a brand. There's so many.

Yeah.

I was reading a tweet thread the other day and someone had like tagged loads of them. There's so many clothing brands with nothing about them on. You see that?

You see that name 10 right now.

That you just see and you're like, what is the thought? What is the vision behind this?

And now jewelry. Jewelry is following the same.

Jewelry's going in the same way. Oh, there's just like.

Yeah.

There's just so many brands. It's just a logo and nothing else about it. There's nothing behind it. Whereas the ones that are white label.

T shirt with a logo, the ones.

That are good have like creative vision or creative, like someone creative.

Gotta be a fashion designer.

Yeah.

You can't just be a brand owner trying to sell clothes.

It's also complex. It's a complex niche sizing Skus. Yeah. It's just shipping, like, so I can see why it's hard.

Not for me.

I feel like it was a lot easier, like five, six, seven years ago.

I was just gonna say that. Yeah. If it's starting a clone brand in.

2016, you got the Geordie Shore Waves, Sarah London, Jim King. There's a load of them. But yeah, the legend, London's.

Yeah.

Brands like that.

Yeah.

So like they. They got a very, very good time, but they start that. No.

I also think that part of the market where it's like basic T shirts with an embroidered logo doesn't exist anymore. To the same extent.

No.

People have moved on to like represent coal books and whatever it is, like higher end, like. Yeah. More like quality over quantity. Because fast fashion is slowly dying to some extent. Yeah.

And then the other side is like, you have the ones which have got a creative vision behind, like, nude project. They're massive brands. They've got, like, personality.

All the retro sports brands are massive now.

Yeah, they're massive, like, which are quite sick. But it's hard.

Yeah.

So. So then you bought. I forgot what it said. It's. I don't want to butcher it.

Zeni. Yeah, I bought Zhi. Yeah.

This.

This literally this week last year.

What. Why did the founder sell it?

He was kind of. He was on to me. But the month before he was going to sell. I can't remember why. He just kind of needed something different. I think he was starting. He was starting two new brands, one with his partner and one another brand he was kind of more passionate about. And he. He just wanted to change. He wanted to. He just wanted to get away. Wanted a new brand. So he was just kind of putting the feelers out there and. Yeah, just kind of made. Made sense.

And why did you buy that over something else? Was there. Were you looking at other brands?

No, I wasn't. I was waiting.

Opportunistic.

I was just saving all the money I could and waiting for opportunity to come.

That's the first one that came.

Jewelry is a good niche, if you can get it. If you can get it going. Yeah, it's a good niche to be in because it's like margin. Just beautiful, innit?

And that was.

Must have been. Right. I've seen definitely more so. A few months ago, I saw a lot of TikTok ads for that brand. I feel like that must have been right when TikTok started. Yeah. Moving, which is almost like.

Yeah.

Getting on that platform early with the right brand was like enough leverage and it's just the platform to get it to a pretty decent spot, I'd imagine.

Yeah.

So I guess that's like the perfect mix of brand and like platform.

Yeah.

Alignment, which is good.

Yeah, yeah. The brand as well. I mean, like, there's kind of got a big. More plans for 2023 with the brand. So. Yeah.

What was the process like, taking over? Like, obviously picking up all of the operations behind it.

I underestimated that massively.

I can imagine.

It's complex.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Massively. A brand sounds a lot easier. It's just like, oh, you build a shopify store, you sell a product. It sounds a lot easier than it is, but it's not. It's. It's very, very hard. So we had to build out the team for that. So that's where the sister company came. Whereas the mark, the agency is Powered Media, whereas this is the company's Power Brands. So Power Brands owns all the brands we have now. And there's a team in there that. That, you know, each a lot of.

Similarities to Connor Martin here.

Well, he was just telling me that.

Getting those vibes.

Well, Connor. Yeah, Connor's.

Connor's a bit different, but similar setup, similar background. Irish.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a bit different because it.

Must be something in the war over.

There, you know, Mayo from your house.

I got the bug as well.

Yeah, I can imagine taking over ops from another person's complex.

Yeah, very, very complex. So I had to get it over to A3PL in Belfast as well. Yeah. Tough. A lot. A lot of hard work and that was being done over like Christmas last year. So everyone's order was less the refund. Thousands of people. It was. It was a tough.

Was there any to fix in that brand? Like, was it like broken in any area or was it just like. Good operation?

Yeah, it was a good operation. Definitely. Definitely. Lot, lot of stuff to fix. Like, kind of the. The supply chain was spread out a lot. So that was a lot of extra headache. And then. Yeah, just a couple of other. Yeah, a couple of other bits. But, yeah, nothing that was too major. Like the brand was working with Wayflyer and stuff like that.

Yeah.

So nothing too major.

But how many brands now?

How many brands do we have?

Yeah, I guess the timer. In terms of the brands that you've bought or started. You said you haven't started any? No, I've never started.

No. So now we have four brands.

And what are they? Are you secretive about them?

Instagram by.

Is Zen. She was the first. Jim Goddess was the second.

What's that? Clothing?

Yeah.

Female fitness. Irish brand. Not a good brand. The third was a girl to die for female fashion brand. And the four was tyke. Tigers are recent when tigers only last 60 days.

So why four brands instead of focusing on one? Because this is the. I've done the multiple brands thing. Well, two at a time.

Yeah.

And more prior to that. And I just came to the conclusion for me, I need to focus on one.

Yeah.

Because. But obviously there's a lot of people that run groups, but you have your.

Passion behind your brand. Like, so, like my thing I do now.

Yeah. In the past as much.

But my. My passion is about building a group. Like. Yeah, So I don't have. I'm not passionate about jewelry. I'm not passionate about gym gear. Like, I don't have. I'm not passionate. Women's fashion I'm not passionate about that. I'm passionate about growing something of value. Like something of value that has a 10, 12, 18, 20 year vision. That's from passion comes.

Did they all come to you in the same way? Did they all come to you like almost opportunistic purchases through the agency?

Kind of, yeah, kind of just through networking. It all just kind of happened, you know, it all just kind of happened in a period of time and just people at. People inquiring people like, how do you own a brand? And I'm saying, oh look, this is kind of my plan. They're like, oh, I might be interested in that, or this person owns this brand. They might be interested in speaking to you about that. Or that sounds perfect. Yeah, I've turned, I've turned away like five or six brands since then because if you think about it, there's a lot of people out there who have an amazing product, a really good brand, but they don't know nor have the massive budgets to get an agency behind to do everything and put budgets into Instagram, Meta, Facebook or Google, Tick Tock, email marketing, UGC Creative, everything. Whereas we can do all that and be their partner. Do you get me? So it people have been coming to me with that as well the past couple of months as well. And I've been kind of saying I can't take on anymore right now, obviously.

But yeah, I always wanted to run a brand group. Infinity85 still got the domain, that was kind of what I was planning on doing and then went tits up and now I'm selling mushrooms. But I think for me, why did.

They go tits up?

Well, the fucking story about.

Were those brands underneath the same company?

Yeah.

What were they on the Infinity. What's it called? Infinity?

Well, they're on under MK Brands limited, but yeah, that's number one.

Yeah.

Don't put a profitable, successful jewelry brand under the same company as a Chad scale nightmare. Yeah, I've already lost enough sleep over there.

Yeah, the Chad Twitter world, man, is funny.

You say you're starting brands though, because I think I am arguably one of the best people, the best person I've ever met at starting brands.

Yeah, you're great.

I honestly think you put me in a room six months with some money I can get any brand to a million plus any brand that I've created from scratch. But even if it's tampon brand, like what I've been less good at in the past is getting past the bedroom brand stage of like 5 million in revenue. I guess Neon got to, like, 8 mil, which is still pretty big, but it's different. That's it. You got to, like, 3 mil run rate, which is good. It was a combination of. I got bored, but also I never really built out the infrastructure to go to, like, 10 mil plus.

Yeah.

Which is what I'm now definitely confident I can do. Yeah. But it's taken me, like, five years in the trenches to figure that out a little bit more.

Yeah, it's like. I can't remember who said it, but every. It's like every 12. If you're growing business every 12 months, your job title changes entirely. Yeah, that's definitely what happens. Like, you. What goes. I said this on the last episode. I think what takes you from, like, 0 to 1 doesn't take you from 1 to 5. Doesn't it take you from 5 to 10? Needs completely different skill sets in every business. I feel you should maybe should have just stayed at, like. You should have just stayed make brand. Flip it. Maybe that could have been.

Nah, because it kind of like big impact, just. Yeah. One point quickly, and you should just.

You should just be the guy take. You take brands from 0 to 5 mil and then hand it off to a group. Yeah.

Yeah.

That should be your. It should be okay. It should be your game.

Well, I could definitely do that, but why.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. There you go. You're gonna say something.

I was gonna say, why do you think I was gonna say, why do you think that? It kind of. Do you think that if there's a ceiling that comes. What. What's like. What's stopping you from that ceiling?

Well, it's funny because Jimmy Hill, who's one of my investors and good mate now with the richest cunt that's been on this podcast, like, Proper Money, he says he thinks the hardest part is zero to a million. And I was like, oh, well, I've done that three times before, and I've done it again with this brand. Like, okay, if that's the hardest part, then I just need to stick with it a bit longer. So to answer your question. Yeah, why? I think in the past, probably mainly because I wasn't sure it was what I wanted to work on long term. So it's more just like, oh, great, I've got a finance supercar. I live in a penthouse. Life's mint.

Yeah.

I wasn't really thinking, like, long term. Then you get a bit older and you're like, ah, even if I had all the money in the world, but still want to work on something so then it's more like what would I work on then that I'm more passionate about? So I've definitely what I'm doing now is more aligned with that but also just experiencing it. Like I realized that doing multiple things at the same time for me didn't work. So now I've just set everything up like very differently. Yeah.

And what's the move then, do you think? Do you have a plan to avoid the mistakes that were made the previous time?

Yeah. I mean the first mistake is don't run a fucking custom B2B neon sign business.

Yeah.

Like don't scale to a million a month with 40 Filipino freelancers and not a single experienced person. Like, that was the only problem. Midnight City was a good business. I just wasn't interested in it.

Yeah.

Fundamentally just don't give a about jewelry. It was becoming really competitive. I was quite early in that space in the uk, but yeah, could have been crafted. London just wasn't meant to be.

I remember that brand, man.

Yeah, it was printing for a while.

I miss her. It was printing 20, 20 something. He was running the ads. We were fucking printing.

Yeah, we were.

Yeah. That was nice margins on that.

You were going to segue a minute ago and it's just you've probably forgotten what you're going to say.

Oh, yeah, it was. So the point about getting to that next stage which we're kind of saying before. So I've been speaking to loads of investors and funds and shit, particularly funds is the interesting point. In like the past two weeks, which in itself is like a full time job. I actually quite enjoy it. And it's funny because Dale's. One of the questions I ask is like. Because, like, firstly I think the numbers I'm doing now are fucking tiny because in my head they are because I've done way bigger numbers in the past. But they're all like, oh my God, you've actually got to seven figures in revenue, no employees and you don't have an office. And I'm like, what do you mean I have a fucking office? Like we're doing tiny numbers. Why do I have an office? And then they're like, oh, well, X, Y and Z. Business has got 10 employees. They've raised five times the money you raised and they're doing less than half of the revenue. Oh, and the founder's got an mba. I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, well, that's why. Because they're not hustlers, they're operators that think you need to have loads of fixed costs. It's just funny how different people. I'm thinking of a few brands, I'm.

Not going to say I know a really good one. A really famous UK based brand just bought an office in brixton. They have 50 staff and the office is like 50k a month and they're not profitable.

Yeah. So it's just funny because like they'll look at me working from home and think like they think it's cool but like a bit of them, you can tell things like this kid doesn't know what they're doing. They need an office and a C suite. But I'm like I think I could get to 20 million from this kitchen with no employees. But then do you know what I mean? I don't think you need to look professional to be doing good things. There's probably a balance in between like yeah, probably at some point would be better to not just have freelancers.

And I think it gets to a.

Point where you go, it's just funny depending on who you speak to because all like the Twitter, Econ Bros or whatever are doing way bigger numbers than half these venture backed businesses and they'd have a single employee. Yeah. It's just really interesting. Yeah.

But it's. That would like other people. It's kind of different structure for an exit then it's kind of direction you want to go with the brand really. Do you think so?

Yeah. So this is another thing I think about a lot we spoke about on the previous episode is that there is definitely a big difference I've noticed and especially speaking to like these investors and who ultimately the people that would either help you get to that massive scale probably or would end up buying you. And it's like completely different conversation. It's all about like most of these brands that sell for like 100 mil, they're not even profitable. That's just a fact. Not all of them, there are exceptions but.

They could be, they could have a 1% margin.

Yeah.

Isn't it like the buying the value.

I would much rather be a founder that owns a loss making business that someone views as valuable as worth 100 million quid then be the founder that is showing off by his 30% net margins. But he makes 300 grand a year and he's never going to make more than that.

Yeah.

They're just very different things. And if you start, start at the end which my plan with this brand is to build it and sell it like everything I'm doing is ultimately like towards like even like this funding Round don't necessarily need to do it, but it's part of the strategic path to get to the point where you could sell.

Yeah.

And there's loads of intricate details as to why that's the case and ship. I'm not going to go into that, but yeah, I just think it's interesting.

But do you think that the investors that you're speaking to, when they're saying, oh, you, you should have the, the office and you should have this to staff, like when you're looking for a.

Sale, whoever's going to buy it, they.

Want to buy that system that you.

Want something you're not required.

They don't want, they won't buy. Like if you're running the brand from your kitchen.

Yeah, exactly.

They won't buy you.

Yeah.

To get like, why agents?

Yeah, I mean, at this stage, at seven months old, like they're buying into like the founder and the vision, basically. But yeah, ultimately, if it was in five years time and you were still the one at the helm, wouldn't be worth very much, would it? The second you go, you fucking disappear.

Or you. Or you'd get bought on the basis that you stayed for three to five years, which you don't want to do.

And that goes soaked more times than this.

Why agencies get low multiples because a lot of agencies are very tied to the founder. If you take the founder out, they're absolutely. Unless you've built in the right way so you're removed. But a lot of agencies within like a certain benchmark threshold of revenue.

Yeah.

I guess you're both in the similar position in the sense that you, you're involved in brands and agencies, but if you have to pick one right now, you have to sack the other agency or the brands. What would it be and why?

Right now I would sack the brands because obviously the agency funded all the brands. Like the agency is. Is where everything is kind of the foundation of everything. So if I sacked that off, I'd be unemployed.

So what's the logic and long term vision with the brands is that to build, like we were saying, enterprise value rather than necessarily like, yeah, enterprise cash flow in the. Here and there.

Cash flow for the initial phase, cash flow for the initial phase for three out of the four. So I take away just stuff like that from Zinchi, but the rest is everything's going back in and the rest. So basically just, yeah, build. Treat the companies like real estate. Like, you know, keep building them up.

And.

You know, getting them every single year. Having everything in the green bigger Brands collabs. Everything exciting about building a brand, you know, but then having the agency being the main thing.

Agencies are cash flow businesses, aren't they?

Yeah, exactly.

What else the agency fucking can on Instagram runs an agency.

Yeah. I wouldn't sack the. Obviously I wouldn't sack the agency because I don't own the brands. It's a bit of a different question.

Well, I guess if you had to pick one just out of hypothetical preference. Do you say the same? I don't know.

I think both have pros and cons. I like building the agency.

They definitely both have pros and cons.

They're removed from the agency though. Like very removed.

Like if money was no object, I reckon most people would say brand.

If I was very passionate about the brand. I enjoy working on the, the ecosystem we're working on right now because I can see where it's going.

Yeah.

With Connor and that. That whole business can be ridiculous. If we get it right over the next like five years with the, the three pl the brands.

Well, it's a baby hulk group in it.

That's what we're gonna. That's what we're trying to build. Yeah. And I think it can do that. I think if it would make. Make the right strategical hires, build the right. Build the right infrastructure, build. Launch the right brands, they can definitely do that. Because I think if you. Once you got a jack group can buy space goods, once you got the right. Once you got the right processes and systems in place, like it's still, it's still. You can still apply the same formulas to brands. Like it's not. You don't change that much about it. You change the products, you change the content and you change like the, the vertical and obviously tone of voice and all the actual. You change the brand itself but you don't change the infrastructure behind how you grow it.

Yeah. And if you have the sops from like an agency. Yeah, from the agency but also in the brand from A to Z in regards to. You have your team of designers, you have your supply chain, you have everything else.

Yeah.

So I mean you can just keep.

Keep scaling them up. Ty Lopez does that as well. Like he's after buying. He bought Radio shock buying like 15 mega brands like Radio Shack. Pair one, pair one was like nearly a billion dollar brand.

Radio Shock is a weird, weird one. Didn't.

Yeah.

Proper old school, aren't they? They pivoted all to like.

But they, they were doing, they weren't doing great econ, ecom wise. So he brought him brought them onto Ecom and he's just scaling them all up now. So that's obviously Ty's very smart guy so he thought that through so it must be a good move.

Do you think you'll keep running the agency as long as this plan for the brand group or is that just a here and now thing and it's what got started the agency? Yeah.

No, it always from the agency man. Like the agency is when. When I wake up in the morning between the first couple hours of my day is all agency mentally thinking, checking, looking at stuff, whatever. Whereas the brands are all secondary. Like I'm just mentally and emotionally attached to the agency because they put so much into it. So I don't think I'd ever be able to sell it. Whereas. And you're probably the same.

I find it rewarding the agency. I find it rewarding from two folds. You got the people we train, everybody from scratch. I find it quite rewarding like giving up skilling people, giving people opportunity, having people who want to be there, like building a place where people want to come and work and actually enjoy it and then also having a massive impact on businesses that wouldn't be able to get to the stage to get to without you. You're probably. You're different. Like you could. You could run your brand up to like a couple of like 10, 15 mil just yourself. But there's a lot of business owners that start a business out of a passion and have no idea how to get it to the potential that it actually has. So I find it quite rewarding from that side. And obviously it's a. It's more of a lifestyle business. Like it's. It once you get. If you get it. If you build an agency right, it shouldn't really need you past a certain point at all. Yeah, you should be able to.

Yes, that's where you're at.

You should be able to jump out the window and it not really nothing happened.

Like you ever go to the office?

Yeah, yeah, I go to the office like every month or like every couple of months.

But every couple of months.

I'm still involved in the. In the day to day, but I'm more involved on.

Like you're just involved in like overseeing and make checking everything?

Not even overseeing, like more like marketing. Like most of my function now is trying to bring deals to the agency. Like we've got a CEO who runs all of our hiring processes. Client success, client fulfillment. Yeah, I speak to him twice a week. Yeah, he gives me reports. I work more and like Obviously built a bit of, bit of a personal brand that brought us loads of deal flow.

Personal brand agency now.

Yeah, I'm working one. Yeah, that's working as well. LinkedIn. I hate it, but great for deals. Yeah.

This is the thing. If I just sold my soul suck dick a bit more, I'd like my personal brand would just make so much money. But I just don't care.

Honestly. Just tell the story on LinkedIn with a bit of like I just cannot.

Be one of these kinds. That just makes thread how I went from like battle cave to millionaire in six months. That is such bollocks.

That's why I have to get.

It's just not my brand. It's not me.

They like approve them. Like I don't even want to read them, just post them and just see what happens.

Does your team do it over here?

No, he's this other guy. He's pretty good actually at what it does.

Everyone sells their authenticity.

You have to write cringe to to get successful. LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the platform, painfully the humble brag.

I literally go on it. It's like Facebook these days.

Yeah, it is but it's somehow more accepting and so like I just like.

It'S because it's a professional network so no one can write.

Hey, I find it easier letting someone else write about me in a cringy format than me trying to do it myself.

Yeah.

So I'm just like do it. But yeah, that's mainly my function in the agency is obviously. Obviously I still get involved because I like working with the team but mostly like strategic and like. Yeah, more top level. Which is good because that also means that you could, you could sell it because you're not as involved.

Do you think it is sellable? I've never quite understood the argument that you can sell an agency for big money. I just don't get it.

You can't.

What are you selling?

I met an agency.

The client list that can cancel next month.

No, it's all about like retain contract lengths. How diversified. Like if you've got an agency where 75% of your revenue comes from one client, you've not got an agency you could sell. But if you've got an agency with 100 clients that all pay you X amount a month, it's quite diversified risk. If they're on 12 month contracts, it's tangible a lot of the time. If you sell an agency, you'll have to stay on for 12 to 12 to 18 months to see over the transition.

That's just even More even three years.

Sometimes more. But I met an agency owner the other day who sold his business for between 30 and 50 million in four years after starting it. And it was an agency.

What the numbers?

80 employees. Don't know. I don't know about revenue numbers.

30 million. That's big.

Who bought it?

Grayscale. A much bigger agency. Usually you sell agencies to pe.

Yeah.

It's never. You never really sell it to another agency. You sell it to a PE who will roll it. Who will give an agency or cash to acquire other agencies. Then they'll roll them up into a bigger entity.

Yeah.

And then get efficiency across them by sharing resource and then obviously get bigger. Bigger portfolio, bigger network.

Yeah.

And be able to upsell them onto different services and stuff.

Or like what you, what you'd see as well is like let's say for example a massive paid traffic agency would acquire a creative agency and they'd have. They'd offer creative to their already existing clients. Said by that system that the. The creative agency has so that they can diversify themselves as an agency.

There's some ridiculously big agencies out there.

Do you have plans, plans to sell the agency?

No, it's not built for an exit or anything like that. You know what I mean?

I don't think is that because you just haven't bothered to build.

The agency itself has never really crossed my mind for an exit.

Just a cash flow vehicle.

Yeah. Ours is probably built to sell because I think it's nice. It's good to build a business to sell because it makes you more efficient. But it's like I wouldn't sell it unless I might sell it much further down the line.

But someone offered you 5 mil cash, would you sell it?

Probably, yeah. It's not worth money.

Talks.

Wouldn't get five mil for it. Don't know. I don't know.

It's definitely easier to sell a brand than there's an agency.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It definitely is.

Yeah. You're relying a lot on people in the agency and yeah. If the founder and the. The owner leaves and the team don't like the new. The new management, they just. It could just go south straight away.

There's a lot of ways to increase agencies. Like similar with the. I've been thinking about this a lot is like how do you increase? Because we've obviously got the other agency which we do want to sell. The tick tock one.

You want to sell that. I want to sell actively now.

Like not now like within the next two, three years. If we get it big enough because I think that's quite a good. In my mind that's quite a good strategic buy for a big agency if we can. Because we already, we've got really good relationships with Tick tock some PE firms. We've got like really good like market share in that vertical. It's quite a simple business. It just does one thing. I feel like it would be a good strategic buy for a big agency.

Yeah.

Or even like a medium sized agency to get it to it. But like the guy I'm at, the same agency, guy I met had a really long chat with him about like his focus on like how do you increase the enterprise value of your agency? There's quite a lot of ways. So they built an internal SaaS which gave. When you do something like that instantly increases your multiple by two, three. And there's a lot of ways you can do that from an agency position. Like there's big. You get a lot of access to data, you get a lot of access to like we've got.

Download all your clients customer list.

Yeah, just, just one big CSV in Google Drive. No, we don't do that like even like for a TikTok agency. Our creator network is obviously unique to us. Like that's an asset.

That's, that's very massive asset.

Yeah, yeah. I want to pivot that to being like instead of it just being a network, like it's like a rated network by niche. So like. Yeah, these are the best creators for this niche. These are the best creators for that.

That's huge.

Massive asset.

Massive.

If you want to launch a brand and you can put people, you can put. You already have that.

It's like an instant, it's like a UGC marketplace.

Yeah.

Internally. So there's ways as an agency you can increase value beyond just getting more clients. But there's also ways you can do that with an econ brand by getting NRR or getting like patents.

Yeah, yeah. Like sales channels.

Yeah.

I spoke to a investor the other day. They were like wholesale won't look at brands if they just eat C. Yeah.

That'S what I mean.

Like wholesale it's probably the same. It's what we were talking about there a second ago with the, the guy you met. It's probably very similar because if you buy let's say an agency that has the London office and they've everything in there, they have teams and staff. Like the margins go way down to 10 as well. Like your margins go like if you're a work from home team and you're, you're boutique and you can be like, you can be 75 margin there. Whereas when you like go massive into the like, like social chain where, where's.

Their, like they're Manchester based and then they started a New York office.

But social then will be big. But like, because they have, they, they have the, the client list that they have. But like let's say a brand that has an agency that has smaller tier brands but has the same overheads.

Yeah.

So what you, you're looking at a 10, 15 max marriage if you're getting.

Some serious contract value to it to justify having an office in the middle of New York.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So similar with the brand. That's probably what, that's probably what the guy was insinuating that you spoke with.

Yeah, there's a balance on it because I often think, hell, I don't want to work from home forever.

I think you get to a point.

But then in a way I do because I like being able to just fuck off to Bali and shit on a laptop.

But you, you should be able to.

It's similar to what, depends what day.

Of the week it is said about the agency though. You should be able to get to a place. So maybe not for the next year, but like if you go and raise front 30 mil, that's going to give you the capital to then put like. Because I think there's a Hormozi video where he dives into. There's a reason that all big companies have got like management structures, because when you get past a certain level of scale, it's really hard to run a business without having that in place. I don't know if that's always true. Maybe it's not true for Econ, but I think beyond a certain point there's a reason every brand, every single business in the world beyond a certain size tends towards a certain structure.

Yeah.

So you'll probably find that yours would do that beyond a certain point. You'd have like your C suite. Then you'd have like.

Well, I spoke to it. An angel who I just called reached out to, then I spoke to him and that's one of the things he said, he said, he said something like, I think you're mad if you think you can get past 10mil with the setup you currently have. Because I was saying, okay, I can get to 20mil with just me, me and five freelancers, which is probably pushing it. But there is exceptions. And he was like, no, you don't understand.

There's exceptions.

You're gonna need to get better at hiring and get a proper people. And I was like, all right, okay, maybe it's. Which is what I'm at, by the way. You need.

Yeah, you need to build out teams. Like. Like, we see any of our clients that are doing 10 mil plus, like, they have, like, a department of customer service. Like. Like their customer service team could be, like, seven people full time.

I still do think a lot of companies have a lot of fluff.

Yeah, they do, definitely.

Oh, yeah.

Of course, in a pinball machine, you.

Can be lean, but that's Twitter. Like Twitter.

But then there's also a balance of, like, culture. Like, you still. Once you've got a team, you have to actually make it somewhere someone wants to be. And it's a lot easier to do that in an office space. Like, that's. We're quite. We're very protective about our culture and our office in Leeds because people, like, we don't make people come to the office, but, like, loads of people do because they like being there.

Yeah.

And that's quite undervalued. You don't want to take it to Twitterland, Swear, everybody just.

No, that is true. I often think I definitely like to have that set up there. I'm so torn between it.

But then you want a company culture.

Like an office, and. Because when you don't need it, it's like, I'd quite like to have it, but do I need to spend ten grand a month on a London office?

You don't need it. No.

Especially when the entire team of six freelancers aren't even in London. It's like, what, Fire everyone and hire everyone in London? You don't need to.

You're in there by yourself.

Yeah.

If you look at the very, very top ecom brands, like Gymshark is probably a reason they have a massive head office.

Yeah.

If you look at, like, athletic screens, probably a reason they have a lot of people in one location.

Yeah.

Like, it's very.

You don't find many e comm brands that get to the stage where they're not far off an IPO or an IPO stage without the same structure as a more traditional business. High street brand.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's not.

It's not even a brand that's any business. It's a law firm.

It's like, because you start getting management issues, HR issues, communication bottlenecks that go beyond just the fact of, like, can you run some ads for me?

Yeah.

And like, if you hire people, seven people for customer service and there's someone that needs to report on their efficiency. Then where do they put that data to? How does that feed into that modeling like this.

Who's checking their work?

Comes so much more like complex. You probably just want to get to the point where you can have an office. You don't have to be there all the time.

Yes. I just thought. She thought so. A guy that he actually invested a small ticket into Space Goods like three months ago. He got a fucking deal as well. It was like a little. Because he wanted to invest in the previous round but didn't let him.

I don't know who you mean. I think so.

It's a guy that was the CEO of a company called Wiser. I still actually. Really. No, no. They're like a hr. I'm gonna get it wrong.

I saw a guy in.

They've got. That's like a HR business or something like that. He's gonna watch this. I don't know. I'm saying I'm wrong. But anyway he write me to their office. When I first met him, it's in like east London or some. It was 150 people. It was a sick office. I was like, this is the vibe. And they're making like multi meals in profit every year. Like classic. Like every girl there is like a 9. Some of the guys were as well. Even like they got a fridge full of just like all the trendiest drinks and like trip cbd. All this art. This is an office that's like TikTok like tick tock.

Have that.

Yeah. But they're actually making money as well. So it's like. And then I sat there and I was like, fucking. This is the bit of entrepreneurship I'm definitely missing. I'm sick of just staring at a fucking screen all day.

I think something you probably not another massive tangible benefit to that is like to attract the best people.

Yeah.

You're not going to attract the best people. So I'd be able to. Not beyond a certain point.

Yeah.

Like have it like you almost want to treat your hiring like you treat your marketing for your company. Like. Yeah, it's like. It's like why should someone take you.

That's what this company did. They improved the. The internal brand of big brands. Yeah. So they'll go to Tesco and make it more attractive to apply for jobs at Tesco. Something like that. I might have got that wrong.

So it's like. Yeah, it's a massive competitive advantage in. Especially in a highly competitive space to have somewhere sick to go and work that People want to be.

And I wanted to fucking go and work there. I was like Christmas.

But I think, I think from speaking to people, I think people. I think people want to have the option to work from home but also want to come to an office. Like, I think people these days want to. You can get, you can just like you said there, you're staring at a screen all day. You can get very bored of working from home fast.

I find it like really draining after a bit.

I love it, no worry. But I know most people don't.

Like, I can't do it like five days a week. I have to get out at some point.

Yeah.

I have to like, I feel like it's just draining after a while sitting in the same place. I like separating work from where I'm sleeping and being.

Yeah, that would be nice. It's just like. Although I've been paying for solar works for six months and I've been twice.

Yeah, that's a massive waste of money.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think that's a big thing. I agree. Hybrid is the best way because you always get. You also get like a lot. Like we were speaking from quite an entrepreneurial standpoint. Like a lot of people go to work to do a 9 to 5 and enjoy it. And a lot of the people who are like high output remote workers who you might employ now when you get to like a bigger team, you're gonna have a lot of those people who go to work for not just the money and they want to be part of like a group of people they can do social stuff with.

Yeah.

And I think there's a. You need to find the balance between that to get the right team balance and get the right culture and keep people for a long time.

Yeah, but that's very true.

Yeah, but probably don't need an office right now. We definitely don't. We got a massive office in Newcastle at time, just us two sat down some tables.

Yeah, that was funny.

When do you need an office though, do you think? Like from your experience in the first two brands, like where, where's the ultimate.

It's the first thing is, is there enough people in one location to even. Just to even use an office?

But in, in London you could have.

A. Yeah, but you could have a massive business with 100 employees and if they're all remote, don't need an office.

It is possible to have that.

You could build a 100 million pound revenue business without an office. Absolute fact.

Yeah, you can.

It's more just like if I'm based In London and I want to be in one place. Why just hire people in London? I do think kind of make more sense time zone wise as well.

I do think 10 of people think that there's 10% of people who are more productive from home. There's 10% of people who are less productive. And then there's like the rest of the people fall into this bracket of like they think they're more productive, but they're probably not.

Yeah.

And you. Yeah, I think that's probably true.

But I agree, like it's both finding the right people, but like they only look like.

I don't know.

I think a big company like would Apple be Apple if they're all remote workers?

No.

You know, so that's it. When you're thinking bigger, bigger. Bigger is like, is the off. It doesn't make more sense to just get an office as. As you go.

Well, Elon's just brought him back into. They just. He just said like, he just said off.

Yeah.

If you don't come back in a week, you can. You're not. Not good job anymore. And the thing I think Snapchat just did the same as well.

Yeah.

You have to be back within like certain time frame.

Oh yeah.

And it's like the trend away from that, that idea.

So what like. Yeah, would Apple be Apple?

Like I think part the remote culture. Like and I see a lot of people on Twitter and like a lot of them are like semi gurus and shit and the sort of people that talk about how much money they have but don't actually really work on anything. And like it's all a bit of a facade. There's a lot of those. But like in the whole online business sphere, like the whole e commerce community, a lot of like drop shippers and it feels like everyone's trying to get to a point where they don't have to work asap instead of how can I build something magnificent that I can work on for 50 years? Do you know what I mean? I feel like the true entrepreneurs are much rarer in which I'd like to think I'm potentially one of them. We actually want to build something sick that you can actually that all Granted you want to make a load of money along the way and get an exit and all this, but even if you had a billion pound exit, you still want to work on something. Whereas all the sort of non more newbie types that are probably less skilled, like the agency, like yeah, copyright course gurus and all they talk about is how can I get to 10 mil. So I can just retire. It's like what the would you do?

That's not a goal either.

Exactly. All the greatest people Elon Musk retired, are they? Granted he's a very extreme example, but.

£44 billion on a business for the craft.

Still going to want to work. Which is where the office income is way more relevant. Like.

But even like you don't work from.

Home till I'm 50.

Yeah, but even like you're not even Elam. But look if like I don't know Floyd Mayweather.

Yeah.

Like he's not. He's not retiring and eating and doing nothing.

Tyson Fury's another example of that. I tried to retire three times but just can't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like a lot of the people. A lot of sportsman is a pretty good example usually the transition. Gary Neville's a good example actually.

Yeah.

Like if you're relentless and entrepreneurial and you. You usually find another pursuit. You love the process of work, not the outcome of what it.

I'm gonna start a fund called Pool Party Capital when I exit. I've already got the domain division. That's what's happening. You heard it here first five years before it happens. So yeah, it's interesting. It A lot of these wannabe like guru types.

Yeah.

Just all shill the. If you're not retired by 25, you're failed.

I just must.

What the fuck are you doing for the next 70 years?

Where'd you get you.

What are you doing on a Monday.

Morning if you've got a billion quid, you're still gonna have to watch. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like the rest of the world's still at work, so you're gonna have to do something. It's a nice idea to be sitting on a beach all day but do that for two weeks. It's very boring.

It must be so boring not getting fulfillment from what you do as well and only getting fulfillment from like the.

Outcome of philanthropy, man. That's what that comes in.

Exactly. But that's still like a business effectively still operation. You still have an office for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Something like that. Yeah.

Yeah.

So how about you? Where do you see things going over the next like three to five years and beyond? Just keep too far ahead.

So I don't really. Well, I obviously plan fair ahead as best I can, but I just kind of do like more month on month. How can I just compound the 10 every month? Just get 10 better every month and just keep compounding that. And that's kind of where I see the agency, the brands gone. I also want to force focus massively on the education side from next year as well. Get like a couple of groups going and just keep, keep compounding things, man.

Why do you want to do the education stuff?

Things. Enjoy.

So I take the piss out of my mate Tyler who has an education company and I like, mate, it's just a course.

Well, we don't.

I mean his is definitely more than just a course. But yeah, I hear like forex guys, I've got an education company. So now you sell signals to 15 year olds. Yeah, let's be clear. No, that's what you're doing.

No, I don't. I would definitely never.

Where does that fall into the. So firstly I was telling him how you managed to do everything, because I struggle with doing one thing because the.

Way, the way we have a structure, it's, it's. We, we do one thing, we increase revenue for econ brands. So whether that's our own brands, it's our clients brands or it's our students brands, the same thing. So we just increase revenue for econ brands, but just, we just have different divisions, I guess.

Good way to look at.

Kept it all.

You don't look at different businesses, just kind of different, just different channels, different.

Divisions under one group.

Yeah.

Different vehicles to achieve.

Yes.

So, yeah, with the education company that, that I, I get a lot of fulfillment from that. Like I'm responsible for a good chunk of people quitting a job that they were very unhappy like I was a couple of years ago. Do you know what I mean? So that's good. And then we done. I done an event in my house there about five or six weeks ago and like that was very, very enjoyable. Like I still get messages today being like, I learned something and that weekend that I know hit my first 10k month or 5k month or whatever, you.

Know, so it's a lot more life changing. A little tangibly life changing. Yeah. I've done it on a micro level.

I should really update my course and fog it more. Shouldn't I change so many lives?

Yeah, definitely. I've helped.

I've helped.

What course is that?

I have an ecom course I did like a year and a half ago.

I was there at a brand.

Yeah. And like so many people said it was actually really good because it fucking is good because I actually know what I'm talking about. But I just, I never push it. I've never updated it.

What, what's the course? Like what is a video course?

Video. Yeah. So it's called real commerce idea to launch. It literally covers everything because I always found it funny that every course or like just general topic in E Comm is all about marketing. No one talks about product logistics, customer service, admin, like anything else.

That's true. Yeah. I've never saw a course like that. So is there another course out there like that?

Don't know. I don't even very much just on the side.

But most of the most e commerce stores or courses start with how to find a winning product.

Yes.

By definition it's already working.

So there's drop shipping courses everywhere.

Yeah, I guess it's hard to sell because I, I always talk about how to build a brand or at least like a branded dropship, you know just something that was of more value. It wasn't a get rich quick. And I like the whole, the whole thing was this isn't easy. So it's a harder sell. I mean still sold a decent amount of it. But yeah, I just, I just don't give a shit because I'm building space. Kiss. You know I'm not here to flog my course but I probably should because actually it would help more people if I updated it. And like people message me daily saying can I pay you for consulting? I'm like off. Whereas I probably just should say yes and devote like two hours a month to it. Just charge like 50 grand an hour.

Yeah.

We try to do a group. So many people have messaged me about this. I was gonna set up a group should do it just off the back of the pod.

But I just, it's very rewarding. Like I've helped a few mates quit their job like gone from like one of them.

Yeah. Because I know that I can help so many people.

One of them was working in a mental hospital and now he makes UGC and ends like ends a significant working like 5, 6 times his salary. Yeah, he absolutely hated his job and now he absolutely loves what he does. He has time, freedom.

I know what it feels like to wake up on a Monday morning after just. And you're just. You spent the whole weekend dreading going into your job. Like it's just, it's just this is.

A way of me diverting into. I'm gonna monetize the out of the podcast and my personal brand which I've never done before. So we're going to launch a group, an updated course, VIP consulting, new sponsors. If I'm not driving a pink URIS by March, just off the pod. We're doing something wrong. Just put now that the course is in Dubai, by the way.

Yeah, I do.

So I do think education businesses get a bit of a bad rail.

They do. I think I'm jumping on that because.

There'S so many of them.

You've just got as long it's been.

Ruined by forex people basically.

And drop shipping.

Forex and drop shipping.

But as long as you build it from the point of. And you can. I think some of it comes from the fact that you can't guarantee success because you can give. You can take the horse to water but you can't make a drink kind of thing. Some people just physically cannot. Are not cut out for it. Yeah. And you can give them all the tools but they still won't do it. You get more the accountability in the world but they still won't make it work. So there's a factor of that. But I think if you prioritize good customer experience like with anything like it's a very tangible and like high value business in a way. Probably one of the most.

I really should kick it off more because then we can just justify hiring a full time videographer for the podcast. And I'll view this as a separate entity because it is.

Yeah. But yeah, it's kind of I think good. I think masterminds in person are cool as well. But that was good.

We did not like China does those my property mate. Because he invited me to speak speaker his recently and I was like what's this? But then I went and there was like 20 people that paid five grand to be there for two days.

Yeah.

And they all loved it. He just made like 100 grand.

So engaged.

I was like wait a minute.

But it makes sense, mate. Because if you've spent years trying to figure something out and you can just give it to them, that's what, five grand?

This is what Pool Pie Social club is going to be. It's this whole thing that I was playing around with and then I got too busy building the brand.

So expediate their learning process by not making the same mistakes you made. And you've made bare mistakes.

Yeah. Particularly me. Europe's most honest man.

You've got plenty of things to expediate that process with.

I couldn't even hire a personal brand agency because they'd be like, wait a minute, like there's too much wrong here. We can't promote this.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Need to think about that. So 20 years. Where do you see yourself sweeping on.

A beach.

That'S That's a long way away, to be fair.

That's a long way.

20 years, man.

46.

We're all gonna be. We're all gonna be unemployed over AI anyway in the next couple.

I literally went on that for the first time today.

Concurrent shopify changes, man.

You can, like. I can't see a coffee.

I think I was on the wrong thing, though, because it only kept having errors. Or is that. I don't know, is it, like, just not perfect?

Are you. Are you working on a copywriter?

No. Well, I've got an email guy, I guess, kind of. That.

Yeah, well, like, I. I can't. I was just. We were saying that we were having dinner there. I can't. I can just see that. That AI has basically already wiped out so much copyright and roles because you just. It's literally. It pumps it out. Didn't you say something?

All of the Philippines must be trembling because customer service. Genuinely.

Yeah, Customer service.

Say that. Tongue in cheek. But the customer service industry is a great example. We. Yeah, it's just perfect for that because it's repetitive stuff that needs to have an element of nuance, which this AI apparently can do.

It does. You can ask it to say. You can ask it to write statements. I saw someone asking it to write, like, a poem with a Yorkshire. With a Yorkshire twang. And it was like. It was perfect. It's so funny. But, yeah, there was other ones where it was like. There was a couple of threads on Twitter where it was like, people who. People who were helping, like, people who weren't good at English or like. But like, say there were tradesmen that weren't good at English. A little bit more wine. I guess that's already full.

I've ripped like a glass and a half of this grand reserve.

They were helping, like, people who weren't great at English start, like, businesses in sort of fencing and like, really basic, like, I guess, boring businesses. And they were just like, oh, use this tool to reply to customer service emails. And use this tool to, like, all, like, customer emails.

Oh, I saw that.

And they were just like, perfect.

There's a guy that couldn't type.

It was like he was typing in what he would have typed in English.

Yeah.

And it was like broken English. It was wrote this, like, beautifully put together paragraph and he just copy and pasted it. It's like, that's only been fed off. I don't know what it's been for. I had access to Twitter's, like, database and things, so we'll have loads of Information, but from. It's almost like from now to when it's mad sophisticated. Won't take as long as you think it will. Yeah, it never does, does it? I can't remember that.

Do you mean that's net beneficial for society on net negative?

I think they'll have to limit it.

Because I think it's going to be beneficial to smart people.

Yeah, yeah.

Like us that know how to leverage.

Yeah. It's going to be beneficial to the 1% or the 5% of the world like that's able to deliver support like for jobs and economy. I don't think it's going to be good at all.

I think they're gonna have to bring in universal basic income.

They'll either do that or they'll have to just regulate it and be like, we can't. Like we're not gonna replace those jobs. Someone asked it that question. Someone was like, where do you think? How do you think AI will impact society? They like gave three different answers. It was like one. It will either have to regulate it. So it can't like be like, oh, you can't use AI to do this oil.

I just don't see how that is the answer. I think universal basic income will be better.

That's in the Middle east already in a lot of places.

Didn't Elon Musk say it was?

There's quite a few. There's a really famous liberal politician in America who got quite, I think Andrew Yang, maybe I might have butchered that. He was a big proponent. But then putting it in place for a country that size, pretty odd.

But then it won't be labor and like don't need the, the labor to be done to actually keep the city of London.

Yeah.

Two different avenues. Like some people, it would allow them to pursue what they're physically passionate about. Yeah. Another 50 of society would just sit and play video games all day every.

Day and do probably sadly a larger proportion than we might expect.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

People would just. People would lose the ragman.

There's no purpose. Yeah.

Where is yourself in 20 years?

Billionaire, billionaire philanthropist. I'm joking. I'm not. Not bothered about being a billionaire. My general plan for the next few years, build that brand, get a fat ex. I would like to keep doing the POD and like that's why I restarted it. Because this has become like an outlet that didn't realize I enjoyed until I stopped doing it. Because I convinced myself, okay, I need to focus on just space goods. But actually I think the POD is net beneficial for that And I think having an element of a personal brand is going to almost become a requirement to be. To have like certain amount of leverage in life.

Yeah, yeah.

Would you think people like Iman have fucking nailed like this one example?

Absolutely.

Even. Even the creator created a smaller scale.

Like personal brand now is just a modern cv.

Yeah. So powerful. Yeah. I think creator led brands are some of the best brands as well. Like Emma Chamberlain's coffee company.

Yeah. So it's obviously another example.

There's that. There's that agency that specializes in making brands with creators such Beach House Group.

Is one of them. They did shreddy. Oh Jen. Florida Gen Plug did shredded in that beach house groups a bigger scale. I think I was reading about this. They did that moon with Kendall Jenner.

Yeah.

A bunch of other ones.

Just so, so clever. Just so simple but so clever.

There's a couple I know see a couple people on Twitter that are trying to launch brands like that. They're trying to launch. Yeah.

Yeah.

Trying to launch like the influencer.

Yeah.

Startup brand like the Gen flow model. But that's. That's a tough model as well.

It's massive leverage if you've got someone with a fat engaged audience already.

It's a bit late though as well. It's like clone brand. I mean like if you're not.

If yeah.

You either need experience or a shitload of cash to make that work.

You need to have.

Or you just have to pick the right person. Like the person has to be big enough for it to work.

You need to have all the connections. You need to have designers ready. You need to have supply chain factories ready like 3pls ready warehouse. You need to have the tax to imports.

You basically need a shitload of money and experience.

Or.

Or because that's the only way to get someone like Justin Bieber to even speak to you for example. Yeah.

All the network.

Yeah. Basically all three network experience.

Money I was actually looking at has Bulla's merch store yesterday.

Context is a great brand poster in the background. He's got a good personal brand. Probably not monetizing it as well as he could do.

Yeah. But probably like he's probably like hormones or someone who doesn't really sell anything because they don't sell anything. When they do, everyone buys it. Yeah. Unlike most personal brands who just shilling from day one. Yeah. Which. Which I'm not doing except when I drop something valuable. We're making million in a day from the podcast. Imagine. But yeah, I suppose I think it's a big build the brand sell it.

Personal brands are good like insurance policy as well. If anything goes wrong, you can leverage for your personal brand. Worst case scenario, it's never going to go anywhere.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

What platform do you see the person brand growing the most?

Well, thing is my whole personal brand about commerce is that I don't have a personal brand. It's just me fucking talking about the most transparent shit. Like talk about my ex girlfriend talking about my mental health, talking about my failed business.

Yeah.

Like it is what it is. I've literally got no skeletons.

Yeah.

But I've also done some cool and like there's evidence of that as well. So I think the pro. I think the problem with a lot of personal brands is they're so obviously disingenuous and clearly just not authentic basically.

Yeah.

Which works if you want to monetize it in the short term. But yeah, I think like personal brand is just you on a fucking scale that people can look at it. So yeah, probably. I mean Twitter is the one probably grows the most and I don't, I don't do threads or anything. I just tweet random shit.

He's got 10k followers today.

Yeah.

Big scoop.

Twitter blue verified. Fucking hell. Come on.

Eight hours a month.

Yeah. Such. That's just. It's gonna be cool now to not be verified.

I think YouTube will keep going. I think the podcast.

Yeah. I haven't even looked at it.

I haven't either. Just seen a lot of very.

Yeah, I think YouTube and the podcast will just. It's exponential growth and no one really doing it that much. And it's.

I'm also just doing it for me because I do the document in the journey. Like even looking back at that six months ago, it's quite interesting and I.

I just, I wish I'd done that, man.

You would never regret documenting more. Yeah. And I do regret not documenting more of the past five years. Another factor. Started doing it properly in the past six months.

I found myself on Casey Neistat's channel yesterday around.

Yeah, classic.

Seven years ago he put his first vlog out like going back seven years and he has 635 daily vlogs. Right. That. Something like that. That would be get to like 80. And you watch that when you're mid-30s all the time and so nice. There's so many things that you just like, I can't remember what I did last Tuesday. Yeah, I couldn't be able to be like, I did six things in a day. I'll be one.

I've got some vlogs from 2017, 18, well, 120 actually on my old channel, which is linked in this channel. And sometimes I just watch them. I'm like, that was like emotional.

Yeah, yeah.

Just the most basic because you're like, that was five years ago.

Yeah. So photos is one thing, but like videoing yourself and everything you do for a day, for two years is absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

So the podcast and yeah. The documenting the business thing hopefully. And it will only become classic like Kanye, when the brand's a billion dollars or whatever, then you're like, fuck me every week. Well, yeah, more than cancelled. He's been like, he's gone.

Yeah, that was mad tracking.

He's being controlled by some puppet and shit. Like.

But you know the last time Kanye, like when you look at it, the last time when Kanye was on a rampage, he became a billionaire just after that.

Yeah.

But he can't. He's no coming back from saying.

He's coming back from that pretty heavy.

You know when Alex Jones is uncomfortable when you're saying something you've probably ever said to line, the line's probably about five miles behind you.

Yeah, but will he just. I don't know, he's just.

I think he'll come back and do something. Yeah.

I normally ask three questions at the end of the pod and I've forgotten what those questions are because. Oh no, sorry. I remember the question and it's become a tradition now. I guess if you could ask. Sorry. If you could give three bits of advice to your 18 year old self, knowing what you know now, in hindsight, what would they be?

Three bits of advice to my 18 year old self. Number one would be don't put too much pressure on yourself to like fall into some society role that other people are hoping you fall into. Definitely. Number one. Number two would be it will all work out in the future, I think. And number three, get good friends, man. Just get a good network. Yeah, just get good, get good friends. Get a good network. Don't be you, you just, you just, you consciously know the friend group who is good and bad for you. Like just kind of go at your God and have your, your good friend group, like get yourself a good network.

What would you say actually now we're here, little semi guest co host never asked you.

You got put in the spot? No, man.

God. Probably start earlier. Start earlier. I think that's a good thing. I think similar. I don't know how to word it other than how you've word it. Like it'll all work out in the end. Like, don't over stress short term. Like, don't think you have to do everything a million miles an hour quickly. Like you've got more time than you think.

Yeah.

Because you always think you need to move at a million miles an hour. And really, if you zoom out on a longer time frame, you're pretty. You're always making more progress than you think. And then third, I think is like, be present. I think that's. That's. I think that's a big thing. I think the more present you can be in life, the better. It's really hard to do. Yeah, I'm pretty bad at it.

I'm never present.

Me neither, man.

Really bad.

I'm always thinking of some fucking girl from two weeks ago.

And it's like, when you actually spend time. I think it becomes even more important when you've actually had some success because you always, like, the carrot always moves. But when you. And it's like, if you're actually present, you realize that you've actually got it pretty good. In most cases. You're actually very lucky.

Yeah.

Where you are.

So I think that's a big thing. And even when. Even just like, like perspective and presence. I think perspectives big as well. Even if you think like, oh, I'm not like, not where I want to be. Still probably in a better position than a lot of people in society. Yeah, those probably three areas for me. What are yours? I don't even know yours.

Christ. I've answered this before, but it's a quite difficult question on the spot. Yeah. I think I echo what you said. I think the most important thing in life is who you hang around with. And I think it gets more and more important. It's literally the most important thing. And it's like free, I guess. And over time, you compound that because the people you hang around with to begin with will, like, frame how you think. And then how you think affects what you do, and what you do affects the outcomes. The more people you meet just affects the whole trajectory of your fucking life.

Yeah.

So it's like so true. So that's probably the first thing. I think. Just ignore people that try and give you advice that aren't doing what you want to do, which is a typical one, but it's just so painfully true. And that's probably your parents certainly was in my case. And like teachers and shit. Just try and listen to people, even if it's on a podcast, that are doing shit you want to do, because that's the leverage the Internet gives us. You don't have to listen to people next to you. You can listen to some cunt in Arizona. Just doing what you want to do. And I guess third, just. Yeah. Just think, work hard and don't give up. Just the fundamentals. Really. Yeah. Because it's hard to be good at anything. Yeah. But if you just. I think probably a bigger point is I think the best thing you focus on is winning the day, win the morning. Because you can scare yourself thinking how much you have to fucking do over even a year if you just win the day. At least try and win the day every day and do it 90% of the time over a year. You can do a lot of shit.

Yeah. Compound.

And by win the day I just mean fucking do the best. Move the needle on that day and then do the next day. Don't think about two years time.

Yeah, I agree. Win the morning when the day. Another one none of us mentioned is fitness and health.

Yeah.

That getting your diet in check and training is just like a different world mentally when you get that nail.

Yeah. I don't understand people that don't train at all. We kind of spoke about this on the previous episode. I went through a semi fleshy phase but I was still training. Just wasn't doing cardio.

I mean that phase at the moment.

I think everyone should try and do a sub 3 marathon.

It's quick though just to.

Just to realize what your body's actually capable of and your mind more importantly.

Yeah. Awesome. Sort of big physical challenge.

Yeah. Just some. Yeah. Some sort of intense physical challenge. Whether it's like a 2k row or whatever. But something 2k.er tired on a sub 3 marathon. Honestly do let's speed. Yeah, for sure. Any final comments?

No, I don't think so. Ali.

No. It's been an interesting three way dynamic.

Yeah. Sponsor first time trying this on that bombshell. Thanks for listening as always. Subscribe to the pod. There is actually consistent episodes coming in this episode. Like series 2.1. Whatever we're calling it. Series three. That's episode 51. We'll catch you next episode. Cheers for watching. Peace.