Highs, Lows & Stories of 10 Years Brand Building - Dave Powell | Midnight Podcast Episode 41

Went to Ibiza for a lads holiday first night. Got back after the night out. Sean rings me, he's my business partner. Sit down. You need to hear this. Our warehouse is burnt down. Obviously it's not our warehouse, but it was where all our stock was. We're like 300, 400 grands worth of stock, which is everything we owned, burnt to the crisp. We're like, what, what, what are you actually meant to do when you've got a brand that's six years old, all your stock's now gone? We owe suppliers a ton of money. What, what you meant to do, do you just call it a day?

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Let's fucking go. Right then back with another episode of the Midnight Pod. I think episode 40, which is fucking mental. My dog is going crazy as usual. But we got David from 304 or Dave or Dom or Jack or something else that we're just saying big man City fan. So he's probably in a good mood for the next week or so, hung over and someone again that has been in My network for. Well been on my radar. We've never actually met, but we have like mutual friends and probably I feel like I followed you for like two, three years maybe. And Brad who sat over there, my creator genius that does all the shit for space and the pod. Now put us in touch originally. But yeah, I've been told that you've got an interesting story, so better not disappoint.

No, we're not disappoint.

Yeah, for sure. I guess. First question, as always, we'll dive into loads of shit because I'm already half a bottle of wine deep almost is. What do you do? Who are you? What's your background? Like how did it all start really? And we'll kind of go like chronologically.

Okay. So I, we started 304, which is the brand that I co founded, three of us, 10 years ago. It's our 10th year now back in Manchester, first year out of university. So myself and two friends I used to play football with at Liverpool came out and were like, we need to start doing something. Let's move into a nice flat like this one in Manchester and find something like exciting to actually do. That's. I studied architecture. My other two business partners, one was a physiotherapist and one was a doctor. So we were just like, we need to do something that's like outside the 9 to 5 essentially. And we just stumbled on making clothes and yeah, that was 10 years ago. I mean a lot has happened since. Yeah, yeah.

Did you go to uni thinking you were gonna not do what you did at uni? Because obviously to get like a degree like that, that's pretty like fucking high skilled. Like people would typically study that if they want to be an architect.

Yeah, no, not at all. We literally, I think it all stemmed from the fact that the three of us were just young 20 year old lads that had nothing to do in the flat. We had no money. We were on straight out of university, very poor wages, like I don't know, 20 grand or whatever a year. And we're like, we need some extra money. Facebook had just started. We were going to a festival. I don't know if you've ever been to it. Part life.

Yeah.

So we were like, right, we want to wear something that isn't top man hype. I think represented just started. So like there's a few like not Instagram brands because I hadn't started, but a few brands that were popping up me. Like, we need to wear something that's slightly different. So we went to H M bought some vests. I was in the, like the mindset still of I wanted to create. So I was at university, I used to love like making models in the architecture, like sphere. So I was cutting things out this, that and the other. And we just like. Right. Tumblr was the biggest social platform at the time.

Yeah, fucking big, big, big.

So, like Our name is 304Revolution. So we're just finding like loads of pictures of American dudes with skateboards wearing vests, slogan T shirts and stuff. And I found one that said Revolution on it with love written backwards. So I was like, I need to just make that because I couldn't find it on the Internet anywhere.

Yeah.

So I bought a load of felt, started cutting the letters out, scalpel, pen knife and stuff, iron them on the T shirts. And yeah, we made three vests. And I mean goes into the story of the brand then from here, if you want to hear that as well.

Yeah, yeah. There'd be loads of shit we're going to, but.

So you had like a proper grad.

Job then, like you all had proper grad jobs?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So did you just hate the job or was it more about money initially? Like you just need one to make some extra money and then you stumbled into like, fuck some. Maybe here.

Yeah, I think it's a bit of both. We all sort of. They were our first jobs outside of university, so we didn't necessarily hate them. But I think we'd come home from work, we'd hit the gym, we'd go for a few beers and we start talking about stuff that wasn't really architecture, which to a physiotherapist was boring.

Yeah.

Massaging an eight year old lady on the NHS wasn't exciting to me. And like, we just, we weren't talking about works, we started talking about other things that could sort of make us money. That we were in a really nice flat in Altrincham in Cheshire where we were like, oh, imagine being able to afford to buy this one day. We ain't gonna afford it on 20 grand a year that we're doing. Like, is there a progression that Sean, who's my business partner still, he's in 304. He was seven years deep at uni, so he's a PhD student. He was actually doing quite well. He had a good career, he liked it. Whereas myself and Joe, a little bit younger, we were just like, I don't think this is for us really. So, yeah, we didn't dislike the jobs, but we just, we Stumbled into sort of what became 304 and sort of saw the. The money coming in and the excitement of building a brand and the E. Comm burst or whatever you want to call it, Facebook, Instagram, 10 years ago. And it just happened from there, really.

So how long were you doing both? Until it went full time. Then we'll go back to, like, the start of the brand.

Okay.

Just quickly.

A good three years. We sort of call it like the apprenticeship years. Where for three years. Yeah, we were all posting things on our lunch break. We were doing things in the evening till two in the morning and all that sort of stuff. It wasn't a brand, it wasn't a business. It was literally selling. Selling T shirts. Yeah, yeah. Selling things through Facebook shop. Maybe two or three a day. It felt exciting. It was like the whole process of building the brand that we didn't know as a brand for maybe two, two and a half years, three years. And then it started to snowball and we were quite themed around, like, America. It was all like, travel slogan, colorful items at the time. Sean, who was the PhD student, is still my business partner. He used to work for an American pharmaceutical company. So he used to go to America for three months a year. Me and Joe used to fly over for about six weeks our, like, summer holiday. He'd pay for his company, would pay for it all. Like, he's quit now. It doesn't matter. Saying that they pay for it all, all expenses paid. We'd go around America, Vegas, Louisiana, traveling Route 66 and stuff. And we were like, touring the brand. And I came back from it and I was like, I think this is probably what I'd rather do than a computer designing floor plans or door plans or.

Yeah.

Buildings or whatever. It just. I think the penny dropped when we were in America. We're like, this could actually be a way of life here or what we could do full time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think everyone gets to that point. Yeah. Wait a minute. There could be something here. Yeah.

Yeah. The excitement hits.

Yeah. Fucking. I like Facebook ads and shit. I remember running a Facebook ad in 2015 and, like, I probably didn't realize the opportunity there was at hand back then. That was when I was in uni. But, yeah, that was like the first time I thought, fuck, I don't want to. I didn't finish uni. But that's when I realized, like, there's actually scope to do something else and not finish uni and, like, not be homeless and actually do it, like, viably. Yeah. So going back to the start of the brand then.

Yeah.

What was the story with that? Like, was it on Shopify? Like, how. How scrappy was it? I know you mentioned, like three years of, like, kind of hustle before it was real, but like, just like a whistle stop tour of that period.

So we. We did. We had a Facebook, I'll start with a part life party. So we. All my friends came. I lived in Manchester. All my friends are from the Midlands. All my friends.

A strange accent.

Yeah, it's like a mix of all three, man. Liverpool, everything. So my friends came down from Birmingham. We had a Facebook group called 304 Party or 3 or 4 After Party. And then we made all these vests. We had an apartment. We hung all these vests on the wall because we had no money for artwork. The flat was empty. Went to Park Life, came back. A load of people came back with us, had an after party. Next day, we all wake up, all the vests have gone off the wall and we're like. We made them to wear on day two, essentially, like, where the hell have they all gone? Piled down to park life. Day two, walking around the festival. Obviously all my mates, like 30 of us and stuff, are having this party by the. This, like, tree DJ area. We turned around and like, these people walked past us wearing the vests. I was like, what the hell's going on here? Walked over to him like, where'd you get them vests from? And they were like, oh, Facebook, apartment 304. I was like, it's my apartment. They're my vests. Didn't tell them at the time. I was just like, right, fucking bit of a penny dropped. I was like, right, okay, taking it from 304. They obviously like the vest.

Were they just random designs?

No, they didn't have three or four at a time. So we didn't have a name for the brand at this point. We were literally just making T shirts and writing slogans on it. So we had. The original ones were like, curls get girls. Very cheesy. Really, like American funny quotes. Revolution. She believed he lied. Like, all the stuff you saw on Tumblr, like 10 years ago, we were just sticking on a vest.

Angsty teenage shit.

Yeah, 100%. So about two, three weeks later, all our friends in Park Life were like, oh, would you mind making me one of them vests that we saw that girl wearing, that lad wearing? We're like, okay, fair enough. So we were making these vests after work. 20 quid, 25 quid. We're driving to the Trafford center, buying all the vests, these tri blend vests from H M. Yeah. Buying the felt from Ultragon market, cutting all these letters out one by one. Stencil. Probably taking three hours of vest charging 25 quid. And we're like.

So you're actually like stitching on. You weren't just like screen printing?

No, no screen. We were literally buying rolls of felt, creating individual letter stencils and physically cutting them out with a scalpel. Just because that was what I did at university. I was like, I quite enjoy still like getting involved, like late at night.

Proper arty.

Yeah. And we were probably making two or three a night. Taking us six hours from like eight o' clock till two in the morning after hitting the gym and like just having a chat with the lads. And we're like 75 quid, six hours, three of us. We're not really making any money. Maybe we need to start. The demand was growing. It was like we're getting maybe three messages a week to then from friends being like, there was five. And then friends were saying, actually, can you make me a vest that says this on it instead? So, like fully customized. And we were like, right, okay, maybe we need to make a website or Facebook store. Wasn't really.

How are you selling? Just Facebook store.

Just Facebook. Free DM on Facebook. Yeah, yeah. Or I think there was a Facebook shop at the time.

Yeah.

So we were doing it through there and then we made a. I think it was wix. I can't actually. It might have been wix. I can't remember the first that was. Yeah.

And then, you know, someone now knows no idea what they're doing when they use wix.

Yeah, yeah.

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So we made a website and we were like, right, okay, this is going on a little bit further now. But we waited three days for our first sale. Once we'd spent all this time building the website on wix or whatever else it was, and when it finally came through, we were like, yes, like the first ever sale, absolutely buzzing. 25 quid for a vest. Three hours later, we're still making it, thinking it's probably cost us 40 quid to make this thing. But we were just buzzing with like actually making something and selling it. And that was probably, yeah, six months into the brand. I still call it a brand. We didn't have a brand name at that point. It was still just three or four. We called it Revolution. The apartment we lived in was called, was number 304.

I was gonna say. Where did that come from?

Yeah, well, that was it. The apartment number was 304. So one of the founders who's not involved anymore, he, he, he set the Facebook group up, called it 304 after party part life and sort of 304 just. It just looked a nice number. It sounded good. It rolled off the tongue and stuff. So we were like, right, call it 304. The first ever vest said Revolution and inside Revolution it says love backwards. So we like highlighted like the love area in the, in the slogan and we stuck with that for probably three years before we moved to Magento when things were starting to, yeah, heat up. I'd say like. And then now we're on Shopify.

Yeah. So three years in that, like hustle trenches, like part time stage.

Yeah.

Was there like a specific point? Fucking hell, my slack's gone off. Was there a specific point when you decided and like, and I guess why, like you decided we need to go full time, do this properly. Was it just becoming too much or you saw like the potential for it to be way bigger?

Yeah, I think all of it, I think there was the potential for the brand was growing. We could like see every week we were going from whether it be like two sales to three, three to four to five. We could see the physical numbers being like, hold on, the demand's grow. Growing, but then also on a personal level, for me, I went full time first, out the three of us. I actually, I'm a massive Man City fan. I study architecture. I actually got seconded to work for man City for 12 months and like redeveloped the inside of the stadium, some of the bars. So I did that for 12 months. Then I went away to America with the lads for six weeks, did Route 66, Vegas, La and stuff. And I came back and I was.

Like.

I don't want to go back to work. And I was like, if I'm not excited to go back to work for Man City, who at the time I had no misses, I had no nothing. That was my, like, baby, that's what I loved the most. If I don't love my work, then I've got something else here that could potentially become what I love. So I remember speaking to my dad and I was just like, look, if I spent three years doing university, I'm working for Man City. This should be on paper, my dream job. Yeah, I'm not loving it. Should I give 304 go? My dad was like, yeah, just, just give it a go. What's the worst that can happen? You can, you've got your degree now if you do want to go back into architecture. I was only, what was I then, 23. You can go back and get another job like your 20s are to.

Yeah.

Mess around and see what you can do anyway, so.

And how about the other two guys with the same age and like, similar situation?

So Joe at the time, who. He's left 304 now. He left about five years ago. He was a physiotherapist, year younger than me. He ended up meeting a girl in America when we were doing these trips and sort of decided that he wanted to move to America and be with her. So he exited the brand and was like, look, you guys carry it on, you've built it, you're doing all the work. I want to go and build my life in America. So he left. Didn't really want to carry on the entrepreneurial side of it, so he left. That was six years ago now. Five or six years ago. Sean, four years older than me, so he's 37, 36 now. He'd done seven years at university, so that's where I met him in Liverpool Uni. He was a bit more. Not skeptical about going full time, but he had a lot more on the line in terms of a career and a job and money and stuff. So he massively helped fund the brand in the early years, because obviously I went full time on the brand and was earning nothing, essentially.

Yeah.

He was funding me to try and push. Push the brand on. So when I moved to London, jumping all over the timeline. So I moved to London four years ago, five years ago. Sorry. I said to Sean, I'm going to move to London, try and push the brand on a bit, but you need to come into the business full time within, like, 12 months.

So did you move to London when. When you went full time? Like, just, you know, take me to the next level.

No, no.

What was the crap with that?

I went full time with the brand when we still lived in Manchester for about 12 months. And then it got to the point where I still live with Joe. Sean. Joe wanted to move back home to the Midlands to save money to move to America. So we were like, right, we're gonna. The three of us are gonna break up here, so what do we do? Me and Sean either stayed together because I was earning no money through three or four. I moved back in with my dad in Cheshire. So I lived with my dad for probably. This was like my mid-20s to give it a good go. So Sean was obviously subsidizing me in terms of a wage, £800amonth. But I was also living at my dad's for 12 months. And then the brand was still growing at this point. So then I was like, right, I think we need to try and push the brand on now. I can't just live in my dad's house in Cheshire. Yeah, let's move to London. All my friends had migrated down from Liverpool and Manchester to London, so my network was down here. So I was like, right, I'm going to meet a load of people and the brand will push on. So that was probably year five. I moved down here to try and progress the brand. Yeah, I'm sorry. Jumping all over. It's quite hard trying to think of the 10 years, to be honest.

Yeah, definitely. So essentially five years in, there's two of you. You've come down to London, like, as a business at this point.

Yeah.

How did it look? Obviously, I imagine you're working remotely, like.

Yeah.

You're still making everything by hand. Like you're on Magenta now or Shopify or what.

When we moved to. When I moved to London, we moved from Magento to Shopify, which was obviously the best decision we ever made in terms of an E Comm brand.

I never even went on Magenta. To be fair.

It was horrendous. Sean, who my business partner is now, his best friend from school is a web developer. He was building websites for people at Aston Villa and like, big, big companies and just through that network, he was like, I'll build your website. It happened to be Magento, so it wasn't through us doing any research. He just said, I'll build your website. Happens to be on Magento. We couldn't do anything with it. It was. It did the job. But as soon as one of my good friends was the sort of coming boys job title was now, but he's worked at Gymshark. He was at. I think he's a 10th person through the door. So he was. He managed their website and was like, look, mate, you need to be on Shopify, essentially. So he convinced me when I moved to London. Get yourself on Shopify. Yeah, that was the best decision ever. We weren't making anything by hand at that point. We'd fully gone from sort of the bedroom brand process. For you to be the. What at the time was like. It was very like Lad Brandy.

Yeah.

Foot Asylum. Six silk. Jim King Silk Classic. Yeah, we went.

They're still going on.

Yeah, they're still. I'm sure they're still doing really, really well in, like, that sphere. But we sort of. It's another topic to get onto. But we. We got sort of led in certain directions that maybe deviated from the brand's values and missions that maybe we didn't even know early on that were our brand missions and values into these areas that we went into for a couple years at a time and. And sort of made the brand. Sorry, the brand pause and not develop as quickly as it should have, because we got. We just got led by other people before we should be doing this. This is doing well at the moment. And at that period when I went to London, we were really focusing on Right Foot, Asylum jd, asos. This is. These brands are smashing it. These lab brands.

That's a good way to put it.

They are. They were lad brands. There's nothing against them. There's so many that are still doing really sick now that have been on ASOS and sold into Asylum JD and smashed it. But we sort of saw their success and thought, oh, maybe we should be doing this. When really the brand's USP was that we were different. We were a unisex brand 10 years ago, which now. Oh, really? Yeah, we were.

Every product.

Every product's always been unisex other than now, obviously, we have women's activewear, which is women's. It's not. Men can wear it if they want, but it is women's products. We started as a brand that was meant to be. The whole tagline behind it was the girlfriend steals the boyfriend's sweater, which used to happen in, like, American College.

That was the brand, that whole college. Yeah.

And it's still that today. Like everything we ever shoot, whether it be a men's T shirt that's designed as a man's T shirt, it's shot on a girl, it's shot on a boy.

Ah, interesting. Yeah, I noticed that. I didn't think that was, like, intentional or like.

No, yeah, yeah. From the. From this. From. From the get go, really. Like, the brand that does it best now is collusion, I'd say on asos, which is their own brand, it's massive. But it was unintentional at the start. We just like, right, we're making T shirts for. We were three lads that wanted to make clothes for ourselves. But they were quite feminine in some ways, that they were quite cheesy. It was again, we started slightly before misguided. Who came through as the slogan brand when they first started? Yeah, by no means. They're a million times bigger than three or four. But we were sort of floating around when they started and.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting that you've done this for 10 years. Right. Because fucking up, it's a long time, firstly. But all my mates, I feel like. And I always come across people that like, fucking focused on one thing for so long. I'm the exact opposite of that. Freaking dotted around a billion different things. And that's probably why I've never, like, got to the level I want to get to yet. But this one I will. But, like, did you even. It sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, you started it because you were fucking interested in making shit.

Yeah.

And then it gradually became a business rather than, you know, maybe more people nowadays and maybe myself to an extent. But like, like, you know, E commerce, online business has become almost like a buzzword now, particularly like 2022, like post Covid. Whereas people would be like, I want to start a business rather than, I have a passion, I'm good at Summit. And then it becomes a business, you know, I mean, yeah, I guess to be fair, like, that's not true about me. Like, I saw, I got into E comms, I like designing logos originally. And then I was like, how do I monetize designing shit? So similar, but different. But, like, do you think that is the case? Like, you just wanted to make shit and then it gradually became. You sort of figured out.

Yeah.

How to actually monetize it.

Yeah. 100.

Obviously it didn't happen overnight because 10 years, a long time. It's a long time.

100 but literally we. For my course, if anyone's ever studied architecture, it's. You work late night, it's constantly like designing on computers or cutting things out and this, that and the other. When I finished the three years and I. I had a group of seven lads that we had our own building at the University of Liverpool where we'd sleep there, we'd drink there, we'd go to the gym and shower and like, it was such like a group, like a little bit of, like a family, like of these lads that when I went into living with Sean And Joe, if 9 to 5, come home, go to the gym, go to sleep, it felt different to what I would done for three years. So like when we came home from hitting the gym, whatever, at like 8:00', clock, I couldn't just sit there and watch TV. We're like, well, should we. Or even if it was just me, I don't, I don't, can't really remember the ins and outs of it, but I just, I remember being sat on Tumblr on my phone, being like, I need to keep looking at stuff that I used to look at when I was at university. Whether it be clothes or just design or good quotes. I used to really pride myself on how sick my Tumblr page looked. Like all these quotes and stuff.

Like Tumblrboys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was like, I need to make it into clothes. I don't know why it was close. I really. I can't answer that question, but just needed to make, carry on making stuff. And then it, it just went from there. It was never meant to be a business, it was never meant to be a brand. It was just meant to be something that kept the three of us busy, started making a little bit of money. Then we're like, well, if we're making money, I don't want to be busy and losing money. We might as well try and figure out how to actually make money.

Yeah.

And then it was like coming from that custom to being manufactured to selling into stores and then the E Comm Shopify and it just, you know what it's like.

Yeah.

Someone tells you you need to get onto this to do the next step to start making more money or. Yeah, build the brand further.

So on that, then, at what point did you start outsourcing the manufacturing? Firstly as in not making it by hand, but then also like running paid ads to acquire customers. Because I. Obviously they were like the golden days on like Facebook ads and shit, like five, six years ago. Was it before that? Was it around that sort of time?

Yeah, no, we outsourced. Well, it went from customizing our own clothes to then just buying blanks from American Apparel, printing them in a print shop in the Northern Quarter in Manchester. So I'd buy the blanks, deliver them to work, drive them to Manchester, print them, drive them back home, package them, ship them within like a 48 hour period. Yeah, we did Manchester Fashion Week, which was the most budget Fashion week thing you've ever seen, ever. There was like five brands on there. I think it cost us 250 quid. They did a catwalk. And not to be honest with you, it was very, very budget, very poor looking back at it. But we got introduced to a guy called Phil Pierce, who owned a brand called AKA Clothing, who at the time were doing 2,3 million on ASOS. They were like a very like gothic, really long line T shirts, skinny jeans, very in at the time.

I feel like I recognize that name.

Maybe it was very all saintsy. It was, it was mega, like jewels. A big fashion agent in London used to sell it and stuff. But anyway, he, he took a massive shine to the three of us and was like, look, you boys have got a pretty cool brand. It's called 304. I like it. It could be American. I'll help you out. And just. He just took a massive shine. So it's like you said earlier, like a bit of a mentor. We used to go around to his house once a week in, in Manchester and he just tell us all these stories about how things that he went through that went wrong, went right. What we should avoid, what we should do, but in a good way. And he's like, look, I'll put you in touch with my manufacturers in Turkey. Yeah, you need to start making T shirts for not £25. You need to start making them for six quid, five quid, four quid. Because there's a big difference here.

Yeah.

So he put us in touch and at that point I, I then quit my day job.

Yeah.

And started trying to figure out how you make clothes. But I had no interest in clothes. I had no interest in fabrics or anything. Like, being honest, I, I didn't really care. The weight of T shirts, the quality of the hoodies. I just, I liked how it looked. So the actual, like ad asset of how it looked on A person is what I cared about most for my degree. Like, you need to make sure this building looks good. Sick on the wall. The detail wasn't something that I really cared about. So for, like two years, we were manufacturing clothes that were absolutely dreadful, horrendous. Like an extra small would be an extra large. The stitching was red on a white T shirt. I didn't really care. And yeah, probably for a good two years, we sort of learned that process of someone needs to care how these clothes are because we're selling to our customers and the clothes need to be good. It doesn't just need to look good on a picture on the website. What actually makes a brand good is the quality product. So for two years I didn't have that sort of attention to it. But after two years, I quickly realized that someone needs to understand to make a good product. And then YouTube, everything else. You learn everything online, don't you?

Yeah. I actually had a clothing brand. I mean, I've probably spoken about a bit on the pod. Yeah, for like fucking nine months when I first dropped out of uni. Yeah.

How did you find it?

I mean, I was never, I, I. My conclusion on that was it was with Ollie, who's now an investor in my brand and was on the pod. Like, we were in uni. Like, he was a year below me. Had a fucking office, a regis office for 300 quid a month in Newcastle. Stopped going to uni at this point. So we started drop shipping jeans. Yeah, ripped jeans during the Geordie Shaw boom. Yeah, that was my first, like, ever, like, successful econ thing. And then we actually, like started making our own shit. And we had it in, in James and James Warehouse, actually the same one I'm using now, but it's called Dusk. But I just, I wasn't into fashion enough.

Yeah. Yeah.

I still wouldn't say I'm like that mad into fashion. Like, I fucking. I don't buy designer shit. Like, don't know. I think that's, I think that's, that's probably the problem.

Well, that's probably part of my problem as well, that the brand's probably never gone huge like some of the other massive brands, whether it be Represent or whoever else, that I wear quite plain clothes. I'm not that fashion forward and really loving the detail of the clothes. I just, I wear comfortable clothes. We make comfortable clothes as a brand and that's, that's as far as it goes, really. Like, we are a brand that makes hoodies, T shirts, joggers and that's that's it. The quality is great, the designs are good but it's not like a real fashion forward brand way. It's like you need to get into the details of. I see the like I've just mentioned there like represents the brand that I really like or kids.

Yeah. Where a lot of represent. These are represent.

The quality is amazing, the detail is really, really good and the price comes with it. Our price is a lot cheaper than that.

So yeah, fashion's an interesting one from the outside looking in. Yeah. Like I think there's quite a lot of snobbery and like more expensive fashion brands in there. Like I mean I don't really know anyone like running those sort of brands but I know a few clothing guys have been on. It's like this. Yeah. There's potentially massive scale there because I feel like it's probably the most competitive market in ecom. Arguably like a probably. Yeah maybe that and jewelry maybe recently. But yeah, it's interesting because it's a me it was just it was like a first like foray into like proper like on branding and shit. It was fucking. I was like 21 at the time. Didn't all the fuck I was doing. But yeah, it's mad because like I always say if I'd stuck with that, what could that have been?

Why did you been off?

Me and my mate fell out and like sort of fizzled out. We're like fuck, we don't know what we're doing. It was too soon. I want to go traveling.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

And then but it like we were making like Sherpa jackets.

Yeah.

Fear of God rip offs.

Was it D U S K. Yeah. So I feel like I can remember it from how many years ago was.

It like 2016, 17. We did like okay scale. We probably did like 200 grand in like nine months while I was at uni. I was like, I was like that's all right.

Yeah. I honestly feel like I can picture it. So if you show me after like.

Yeah, I think I can still sat there with like an Instagram post from like 2017. I've had so many of those where they just. Well that was like the first like relatively serious one that did decent numbers.

Yeah.

Like given how young we were. But yeah, it's just one of those things in it and then didn't stick with it. But you live and learn. If I can move on to the next one. So like paid media then like actually scaling the business that way. Like when did that firstly like cross your Mind and like become a thing. Like, how are you getting sales before? Obviously it was pretty casual to begin with.

Yeah, we.

But when you went full time, I.

Imagine that we had some success with like unpaid influencers, I'd say like early doors where I was quite big. Well, we started Instagram when Instagram started, so we had a couple of people that were really quick to being big on Instagram. So we had one of the One Direction lads. Girlfriend. No, not him.

All right, his Mrs. Is it Harry or.

No, no, no, it was Liam's Mrs. At the time. So yeah, she was constantly wearing 304 on X Factor.

Right. Just like organically.

Organically. We. I think she bought a few and then when they started the tags coming through and we were like waking up in the morning, we have like 20 sales or 30 sales, whatever it was. We're like, this has got to come from this girl who was called Danielle Pisa at the time. Yeah, this has got to come through her. So we started messaging them kind of people via email, being like, look, we can now send you a couple of vests. Would you wear it on the X Factor? Would you post about it? Not understanding the strength of influencer marketing at the time, as much as maybe we should have. And then a couple of other people, some Australian DJs, some big made in Chelsea stars, like really early started posting and we were getting for free 50 sales off a free Instagram post. This is actually mental. Like, this is brilliant.

When Was this? Like 2014, 13.

Yeah, it must have been around there. I still lived in Manchester, so Yeah, maybe like 2013, 2014. And it was mad. We were going to bed with one sale. Waking up with 35, 40 sales off one Instagram post in America. Like that's three weeks worth of cutting out our letters. Like, what are we gonna do? And then I don't think we started running paid ads until I moved to London, to be honest with you. We maybe have been slightly late to it because we, we didn't really see it as a brand still. We, albeit we were selling okay numbers we were doing, whether it be 300 quid a week or then 3,000 pound a week. We were, we never really still thought this is going to be a massive business or a brand until I moved to London. Then we're like, we need to, we need to give this a real kick up the ass.

And that's when you went full time?

That's when I went full time and started. I then started doing Facebook paid ads, self taught, giving it a go. And it Started to sort of grow and started to do quite well, which I then eventually passed on to when Sean came into the business. Passed on to him. A lot better with numbers, a lot better with data than I am. And I then went back to being like the creative side of things, designing the clothes, the marketing. And he did the paid ads and he's done them ever since. And yeah, you know yourself, the paid marketing sphere now is. Changes daily, but back then it was fruitful.

Did that take the business to like the next level then, do you think?

It was the bump up that you'd need in a business. It went from, like, I've heard a few people on the podcast where maybe it went from 300 quid a day to every three or three hundred quid a week. Sorry. When we were like thinking, where can this go to? Then 3,000 quid a week. Them sort of like incremental bumps, putting the money in. Saw you go to them next steps and yeah, since then we've never really looked back, really. Now paid spend is a lot more. You have to think about where you're going to spend it. But then it was just stick it in Facebook. Yeah. And you're gonna.

Any ad on Facebook would get you like £1 CPA. Yeah.

Yeah. Nuts. Absolutely nuts. Not the same anymore, but, yeah, that's life and it's business. Things change.

Yeah.

It's always a case of looking back. It's like, oh, if I'd known what I know now. I mean, like, it'd be a billionaire, whatever, but everything's changed.

Yeah. If I. If I knew how successful influencer marketing when we started was.

Yeah.

Because obviously, like I said before, we live in the Midlands by Gym Shark, who's probably the biggest influencer marketing brand has ever been.

Yeah.

I wish we took our, like, intuition at the time. I thought, you know, we're actually onto something with these influences, giving them something for free and getting 50 sales. I wish we'd double down on it back then, but that's life. We could have been a lot bigger than.

Yeah, we are. But I never had a success with influencer marketing, like across the board ever. Like the biggest, like, well, biggest loss on that. I did a thing with J Alvarez, you know that? Yeah, he's like a Tumblr guy. Like spent like 40 grand on that when I was running Midnight City like 3 years ago and it just brought in nothing.

Nothing.

I was like, not nothing, but, like. I mean, it probably technically did, but nothing noticeable. I was there thinking, it's going to bring in 300 grand in sales.

What brand was that?

My jewelry business. Midnight.

See, right, okay.

This was like would have been September 2019 around then. So like nearly three years ago. But that was a big pun. I was 23 at the time. And being on the phone to his.

Manager thinking, oh yeah, he's a cool kid as well.

Why are the funds? And like, yeah, it was, it was bad but just didn't work too well for me.

But we went through a stage of like paying influencers. Like when we were in the lab brand era with me thousand pound a post or 1500 quid a post.

Yeah, I did a lot of that.

As well and it worked really well. Like I remember doing. I'm not afraid to say we paid Alex Bowen 1500 quid for a post.

Yeah, I did a few of them.

On one Black Friday and we're like, it returned about 25 grand and you were like, me? This is absolutely. If you got that return on Facebook, you'd be absolutely buzzing off one hoodie the next year. You use the same guy on the same day at the same time. No traffic change.

There's so many brands. Like, what's another one? When I was in Newcastle, Hera, London were massive. Yeah, they were massive. In that sor sort of space.

Huge.

It was that all influencer marketing. I just, I mean I think it's changed, doesn't it? Like the whole game changes, it evolves. I just don't think you could do that like pay people for posts now. Like influencer marketing now I think is more like either long term sponsorships or it's like tick tock stuff where something might go viral. Yeah, it's not Instagram posts. Like the algorithm's fucked. Like Instagram just doesn't get reach anymore at all. It's a shame compared to two years ago.

Yeah, massively is a shame because like you build your brands up to have all these followers in this community. But yeah, without an email database or a text database or an app. Yeah, your social media doesn't really hit who it should be hitting. And it's the same for influencers, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure that they're good as well. That some of these influences have spent years building up their following and they'll post when it reaches 3%, 5%. You must be good as an influencer of thinking.

I actually tweeted about this other day. I think it's quite interesting point because obviously I launched this brand six weeks ago which is like roughly two years since I started scaling up Neon Beach.

Yeah.

And like this has got 3,000 followers, right, from ads in six weeks. Probably slightly like similar ad spend, I'd say in the first six weeks. But I remember Neon beach hit like, literally. I remember must have been 30k plus followers from ads in the first month. Like. And it was. People were accused me about 30 followers and I spent my life and never bought a fake Follower. It went 0 to 500k in like 6 months.

Wow.

It was fucking mad. Like the algorithm.

Yeah, yeah.

It just isn't possible now.

No.

So now I view like Instagram followers, at least for this brand. Giving it so news. I almost like a vanity metric.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, it's just not reflective of like website traffic, sales, whatever.

But I think people know that as.

Well, that the game has changed.

It used to be like, I remember when we used to pitch to people like ASOS and Nordstrom and these kind of like wholesalers, they were like, watch your social media following. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they don't ask that anymore because it doesn't really matter. You see brands now with a thousand followers that are sick. The products, brilliant cult following. It doesn't really matter. We've. We've got quite a few followers across all our platforms. But some of the platforms are. With our most followers are the. Probably the worst performing ones because they're so old now being around for 10.

Years, you get Facebook pages with 10 million likes and it gets like two likes.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's it.

I can't even get my head around that. But it's just everything moves on. There's like a timeline. Like Facebook was it, then it was Instagram. Now it's obviously tick tock. But then you start to think like, what's next?

Yeah, yeah.

Who's coming out with the next tick tock? And how do I spot it five years ahead? Because that's how you can fucking cash in. Just on you mentioned Gymshark and like, I'm getting pretty philosophical before I've even gone into a load of stuff. But do you think, like. Because I speak about this with my mates and stuff and obviously like, Gymshark's an easy example because massive UK brand, like textbook, like zero to whatever. Like, would you even want to run a business that big?

No.

Was that ever ago?

No, no.

Because I feel like everyone uses that as he's like, oh, I want to build the next Gymshark. But do you actually. Or do you want to build a lifestyle brand? Not that yours is a lifestyle brand, but like a lifestyle Business.

Yeah, yeah.

Which I think probably more people would be happier doing. Do you know what I mean? Like something that they can make a great amount of money doing something they love. You know, have location, time, creative freedom, whatever that looks like for them. That's probably more, 100% more fulfilling for most people.

Yeah.

Actually trying to build like, you know, unicorn.

I bet you if you ask someone like Ben Francis or everyone else involved in Gymshark, do you need the money? He's worth 990 million now. Yeah, you don't need that much money really. But he's obviously got a mission to build that brand into something really big, which is fair enough, but for three or four. When we first started the brand, it was always my friends coming up from Birmingham, Joe's friends coming up, just having a laugh. Like you've got your mates down there, like a community of people that are all sort of wanting a good time, enjoying yourself at the same time, making a bit of money. It was never like, oh, we want to be super millionaires or anything like that, because if that happens, fantastic. But your way of life is the most important thing and that was still is to today, like what we want the most from it. So, yeah, don't get me wrong, I would never turn around and say I don't want a billion dollar brand for.

Yeah.

I would not want the headaches that come with it. Knowing the headaches that I get at our scale. What a brand that size must be going through. Not for me, I don't think. Would you want it?

It's interesting because I know you replied to my tweet like maybe a few weeks ago and I was probably just fucking in the gym when I get like over excited and start. I always do that, by the way. I'll go for like a run. Get a massive like run as high.

Yeah.

And then like tweet some philosophical shit because my mind just has these ideas and I'm just way too public about my thoughts. But honestly, I mean, I would sway towards. I want to build a billion pound brand. And it's not even about the money. I promise you it's not.

Because what is it?

It's just like the desire to fucking have an impact and I don't know where that comes from.

Maybe an impact at a smaller scale to less people. If you had, if you had a brand that was tiny, whether it be like gifting clothes to homeless people and you impacted homeless people, that's an impact. So if it's a. What, what's.

It's an interesting Debate. Yeah.

If it's not the money, then what, what level?

I do want to get filthy rich.

Like, who doesn't? I mean, I'm just honest enough to say yeah, because I want to buy like a Cullen and a Bugatti. But, but, but even that, like I had a little taste of that and like money is more about freedom than money itself. But yeah, I don't know, I feel like if you want to. I think there's like a, a bit of a problem into like in like UK culture and like UK society or whatever where people obviously like tall popper syndrome in it. Like people like hate on, on like wealth or success. Whereas in America, like culturally it's kind of different. But I've always thought like ultimately if you build a massive thing and, and potentially make a load of money as a founder, you've had them as long as it's not like dodgy business. Like Jeff Bezos, for example, has made more millionaires and like given employment to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people.

Yeah.

Through what he's built. And like if you want to have a big, a big impact, you need I guess, like two things. By building a bigger business, you can physically impact more people because more people see a product, buy it, potentially love it, whatever. But also like you need money and capital and resource and ultimately like a solid, a solid business to fucking be able to scale it. So like reach those people.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cuz like I've always been very aware that I'm like a creative at heart. And it sounds like you kind of are as well. I was never like a businessman. Yeah, that I was always start fucking like designing logos and then gradually sort of going to E Comm and then whatever. Now I'm like fucking selling mushrooms online. But for me it was. I always was very aware that I didn't want to be like the starving artist. I don't want to be someone that's just like a creative but can never fucking monetize my passion.

Yeah.

And that's why I'm willing to go through and you'll be the same. Like there's a lot of fucking bullshit that comes with like people will look at like, oh, you got your own brand, it's so sick. But like, yeah, you have to deal with like fucking supply chain bullshit, customer service, finances. Like that's all I've been doing today. It's like nothing creative or.

Yeah.

But I'd rather do that and be able to put myself in a position so I can actually build some of that. I'm Passionate about. Even if 90% of it's kind of shit. Yeah, not shit, but, like, not as fun. I'm going on a tangent, but.

No, I know. You're saying, though, because I had a similar conversation with someone the other day, that if you're at the sharp end, at the top of a business, you own your own business or you've got a team of people, you end up doing a lot of the stuff that you never set out to do, which is the position I'm in at the moment, where we've got a team of like 10 and I was talking about fulfillment. We've got probably like four or five people that fulfill our orders in our warehouse. Then we've got a couple of people that do, like, the finance and the marketing and things. But the. The day to day, without sounding annoying, like the. That comes with you, with you, like the supply chain, whether it be missed payments or like you said earlier, like taking something four weeks to get to a certain country, it doesn't go to the staff. It always ends up coming to the top, you know? Yeah. I didn't start 10 years ago cutting out letters in my apartment for a freedom way of life, to be sat on my desk for nine hours talking to suppliers or FedEx or DPD or someone in China about why this T shirt's 2cm too short or the fabric's 10 grams too light. That's not why you started the Brand Force. And when. I know what you're saying about, would you want to build a unicorn business? Those problems, I can imagine just from my perspective, being on a completely different scale. I know a few people, obviously, being around gymshark and some other big brands that if you get. Sometimes maybe we'll get, I don't know, 300 hoodies delivered that are wrong. You send them back, it's worth quite a lot of money. But if you get Delivery that's worth 3 million of Black Friday delivery at someone of the scale of Gymshark and it's wrong, how would you sleep knowing shit, I've got £3 million I've got paid for to ship back. That's what worries me the most, is, like, those numbers get bigger and bigger and bigger and at the biggest scale, they stop being just the number on the screen. They get more stressful for me, I think, anyway.

Yeah. Yeah.

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Support the fucking pod. Let's go boys. Right halfway break left. It way too late. What was I saying about a billion pound brand? That's definitely a good point, I suppose, I guess just to bring it back and then we'll get back into like the nitty gritty. Because this is way too philosophical for halfway in compared to what we normally talk about. I don't know, I don't know what it is. In summary, like maybe I'm probably full of shit because I've never fucking, I've not built a billion pound brand, I've not even got close. But maybe it's just to prove to myself that I'm not a worthless piece of shit. Like because I thought I was like a fucking genius like two years ago when I was running two brands and like scaling the shit out of them and then life humbled me. So maybe it's just like, I don't.

Know what made you want to go from where you were two years ago when you had those brands both doing good, like very good to go into want more. Was it that chase of you wanting the billion dollar brand, was it always wanting something else or.

I think, well, probably two parts to that. Like firstly, ever since I was like 12 years old, I was like, I don't know, I just had this thing in me as I've got to fucking do something big. I don't know what the fuck it was like. But then I guess since that is like until I get. Until I surpass the numbers I was doing two years ago at least like revenue wise and shit. I feel like a fucking subpar human.

But you can see that you're like running Twitter. You're always trying to beat what you've done before. Yeah, something in that, that I was, I think I was similar in some ways until maybe two years ago where constantly thinking, shit, I need to bench higher, I need to run faster, I need to do this. Until I got to a point where it's like actually, there's actually never a point where you get to. Other than just I can't get any higher, you're not getting any happier or you're not getting any more successful unless you do get to the billion dollar brand or you get to that point where you set your target of million 500 million or 3 minute miles.

I know what you mean. Like, yeah, I don't know.

Like, it's good to set goals though.

When I was younger it was rowing, like I was like an elite athlete when I was like 16 and like, I guess my identity was always, I want to be a high performer and shit. Like in school I was really good and it's easy to be good in school in it. The bar's pretty low. But. And then, yeah, I guess like did pretty well in my early 20s and stuff. And then that gives you confidence. And then when I have my confidence knocked, as I spoke about a billion times, so I won't go too deep into that. But then it's like I've got to go to the next level. And then I suppose recently, yeah, like the whole fitness thing, running, which started just becoming a bit obsessed with really. Because I think I like that because it's like, it's like more, it's more obvious when it's like, it's, it's, it's quicker to see results in that than it is in like a business.

Yeah.

Because it's fucking physical and it's like I'm either pushing myself or I'm not.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I've always been very, very good at pushing myself physically. Like I fell out of love with like cardio for like three years, which is why fucking looking back at like early pods, I was a fat cunt. I wasn't actually a fat cunt, but I was like two stone heavier.

Yeah.

Like my face looked like shit. Yeah, I'm definitely better looking now.

Yeah.

Fucking just like chop, chop the weight off the face.

100%. Understand what you're saying that when through Covid, when it first happened back march, myself and a lad at three or four, my best mate John, we went on like a fitness diet like Brad said earlier, that went from 85kg down to 74. And it was like every week we were like, right, you need to decrease the calories. And it was like regimented and something about that, I think from the entrepreneurial side of things is like if you, if you have a target that you need to keep hitting, that's slightly better or slightly less in that sense.

Yeah.

You feel that sort of buzz about it. And like that massively kept us going through Covid and yeah, like you said about the running, like you.

Yeah, because I, I just, I was still going to the gym, like I've always gone to the gym but like I didn't have any like physical challenge and like I spent years like rowing as like a teenager and I was like obsessed with it. And like you say, because you can see results pretty quick like with physical training, like if you train, you know, in a week, you can see you're getting quicker fit or whatever it is. I suppose in like, obviously in like business, you know, it's never quite as linear. There's ups and downs that you might be looking at results more on like a monthly, quarterly, even yearly basis. But then I actually read David Goggins book like two months ago and it's called Can't Hurt Me. And I'm not a fucking David. Like reading. Like I'm trying to get not better at reading but like more consistent at reading every day. Yeah, yeah, I'm reading Psycho Cybernetics at the minute, but that's a bit of a drag to be honest, compared. But this David Goggins books, the first book I've read in like five years, but I didn't want to put it down. Right.

Okay.

And I just related to it so much.

Yeah.

I think like the whole, the general message from it was like pushing yourself to like ungodly levels physically basically translates into every area of life. And like it's kind of obvious, but I. Yeah, firstly, most people don't do it and like, secondly, like I just lost that part of me. And then I realized with like running it's like my new thing. I suppose I still go to the gym and shit but like I was like, hell, like I'm actually getting pretty good and that becomes like addictive.

Yeah. 100. Yeah.

So now I've like publicly said I'm going to run a sub 3 marathon this year. Which I've never run a marathon by the way, but I run a 1:30 half marathon my first attempt. I've never, never even ran that far before. So now I'm running like 75k a week, mate.

Big. I'm seeing it and I'm very impressed. I was doing running through Covid and you're smashing what I was doing, that's for sure. Yeah.

So now that's become like a new challenge and I suppose, I don't know, I just think like how you do one thing, it kind of translates into Other shit as well, isn't it?

So the discipline that goes of it is if you can keep disciplined again, I go back to Represent, not pushing another brand. But you see the owners that are so disciplined with 100% waking up, training.

He trains like a freak.

It's. It's not a coincidence that the brand is absolutely smashing it as a result of the discipline they put into the eating, training, everything else in the way of life. Whereas certain brands, you can see the owners going off and loving life a little bit too much and they lose focus. Yeah. But not even just brands, businesses in general. Like, it's. It happens.

It's definitely more of a mental thing for me. Like I was in a bad way the past few months, like last year, whatever. And like running just. It felt like it like helped me fight my demons, to be honest.

No, it's good to be dramatic. It's good for people to hear that, that they can if they're going through something similar that running. Because I did the same thing. I was, I played football to a good standard. Ish. I was always a sprinter. I couldn't ever run distance. And then through Covid, I started running a bit further and I was like, I can't do it, I can't do it. Started doing it and then I got the runners high at the end and you're like, it's literally.

It's better than cocaine.

This is mad. Like, yeah, this is nuts. At the end of a run, you finish, you're like, I'm thinking the harder it is, you're trying to like. I know you're hitting some silly times, but when I was trying to do like sub 4 minute kilometers, I was like, yeah, gunning for at the end. And you get it. You're like, this is mental. This is like, yeah, better than a great day of sales on Shopify. This is genuinely mega. And it's free. It's free and it's something that you can control and you can strive for. That's just. Don't eat too many burgers and go for a decent run.

Yeah, honestly, like rainbow dust. Not drinking. I drink on like Thursdays and running is a lethal combination.

Yeah, yeah. And it's all. Well, other than the rainbow dust, it's free.

Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, I think you mentioned like two years ago you stopped gunning for like that obsession. Like, why two years ago? Like, what happened? I didn't just get older or what.

I think it was. It was partly getting older. I think it's partly like the lifestyle changed when I Lived in London. I said earlier that I moved down there to try and push the brand on and network and stuff. It didn't necessarily happen. I think I met my now wife. That was a huge turning point for me in terms of my life and understanding what actually made me happy and what I wanted from life. That now my wife's pregnant and that sort of situation I find myself in now makes me 10 times happier than what I thought maybe I wanted when I was chasing three or four nights out in London and which don't get wrong, it was, it was great and I did love it. If I wasn't with my wife now I probably still love that sort of driving the business on but I understand now experiencing all aspects of it that that is actually what if I went from X amount of revenue now or profit to double now? Would I be any happier than I am with situation I'm in? I don't think I would be. It'd be slightly more comfortable with what we could do. But is that the be all and end all? Probably not. I don't think from my perspective that 304 is ever going to be a unicorn business or brand that it's not going to happen. So I'm in the sort of mindset of why pedal, pedal, pedal to try and get it to not even that close to it when currently the brand is doing. It's doing well, it's good, it's got 10 years longevity, it sells well. We've been in tons of decent stockists, we've got a great customer base. Do we need to keep pushing to get more and more. Our returning customer base is good, our new customer acquisition is good, it's in a good spot. We don't want the brand to die by becoming stagnant but it's doing well and I'm happy with where I'm at. So yeah, I don't know if I answered that question or not.

It is interesting because my parents always say this to me like particularly, particularly my dad and like more so when I was a bit younger to be fair.

They're like.

I think they were unfair in saying it but they were like I'll stop chasing money and like I wasn't chasing money, I was selling pink lights online. Like if I was chasing money I'd go get a job in the city and sell my soul. I mean like one I thought that was ironic itself but no, I got.

A lot of friends that work in a city and earn a lot more money than you could possibly earn in a brand that through profit. Like, again, like the revenue thing doesn't mean profit.

Exactly.

I've got friends earning decent money by working in the City that, yeah, if you want quick money, that's probably the best way to.

Yeah, 100%. And then, yeah, they always say to me like, like, remember what matters in life and shit. And it's funny because I've definitely got more of a perspective on like what matters to me. And as I've got older and blah, blah, blah, like you get these 18 year olds on Twitter or whatever, you know, like just talking about chasing the bag and shit and they've never paid a fucking bat bill. And the fucking like HMRC has entered the chat because I've got a registered business, all this shit. And like it's a stereotype, but it's actually accurate and it's true. And, and I was fucking probably that guy when I was a bit younger and you know, you heavily finance a car that fucking you think will get you girls, but actually just gets you parking tickets, but it's still cool.

Yeah.

But then you like realize that actually that shit leaves you feeling pretty empty. And it's like, my fucking dog probably makes me happier than that fucking stupid Ferrari did.

Yeah. Do you? Quick question.

Even though I like cars, but yeah.

Well, you've had some pretty nice cars in the past. Question for you is we went through many, like Black Fridays for example, where you see brands on Twitter, LinkedIn or whatever, it be like posting what they've done, how successful they're doing. Have you ever got swallowed up by the comparison of shit my brand's not doing what I've just seen of a brand's doing. Because that was one of my turning points maybe three years ago when we had our best ever Black Friday and I saw a couple of other founders on Instagram posting their Shopify sales and thinking with 10%, 20%, 30% off what they've done, we've had a bad one. But actually we just had our best ever Black Friday. But instantly I feel shit because we haven't done what they posted, which could be fake, it could be true. But the comparison that comes through, like you said, there's 18 year olds.

That's an interesting question because this is what I thought about a lot and have dealt with a lot over the years. And to give context on this, I like, I guess I was like, I've always been fortunate to have a good network, particularly from a young age and like lived with guys. I lived with Fred, who runs Sanouchi for two and a Half years, wherever it was. And I have a lot of mates doing like mad numbers who. A lot of which have been on the pod. But. And Fred won't mind me saying this, but we spoke about it face to face when all that shit. The biggest comparison thing for me was I lived with him. So when we met, we were doing almost identical numbers, right? And we were for like a While and then 2020, we were both fucking crushing it. It was almost identical. There's always comparison. We'd speak about numbers like, oh, I'm doing a million this month when it was fucking crazy numbers, really. But like, probably the hardest part of when all that shit went tits up. I don't know if I spoke about this on the podcast is. And again, I've said this to him, so don't mind me saying it. Like, we had the opposite of years, right. So all my. When tits up, all his went parabolic and X, Y and Z things happened then, if I can comment on the pod, you know, and. And that was like. So we basically had the exact same work routine. We've been. I've been working just as hard as you. Yeah, you know that. Because we fucking shared the time. But everything's gone tits up for me and everything's gone fucking perfect in my eyes for you. So, yeah, the comparison thing, definitely. And that was the most direct comparison because I was literally in the fucking room every day with him.

Yeah. Like.

And yeah, I don't feel that anymore because now I feel like I'm fucking work on shit that I'm way more excited by and you know, whatever.

But.

And I think broadly speaking, like other people. And it's the downside, I guess it's the one downside of having like, successful mates.

Yeah.

Especially mates that you've known from like the trenches when. But before they were like successful and is you compare your numbers to them. Like, loads of them have been on the pod, you know, Jordan from Mervase doing mad numbers, Adam Crown and Paul, mad numbers, Ollie and Joe who run Soul with us, making mad profits and their agency and shit. And like, I'd definitely rather be like the smaller fish in a big pond, so to speak.

Yeah.

But when you. When you've intentionally or otherwise put yourself in those circles, which is obviously a net benefit, but like, there are elements. It's like, fuck, when you're having a bad time, like I was last year, every fucking person in your room's doing better than you.

Yeah. I think like you said there though, having your close network of people that are doing well, is it is good. Like, I don't necessarily have a close network of people that are in the E comm space that do. Well, my. My problem was seeing people that I didn't particularly know that were posting stuff that I was like, ah, shit, I don't. At least yours are friends that are giving you the honor.

Yeah, I've had that as well.

That I was comparing to people that could be bullshitting, could be lying, could be doing better. Yeah. I found myself getting consumed by that. That when I finally checked myself and was like, it doesn't really matter. Well, doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter at all how well someone else is doing. It's. You need to become aligned with what actually makes you happy, what successful for you. Complete. Someone could be doing 20 million and be unhappy and someone could be doing a million and being really happy. You've got to find where you are. But you having that network of friends that are all driving you on, I think that's brilliant. I would be great to have that. When I moved to London, maybe that's one of the reasons why I thought I might move to London, to get that network of people that you surround yourself with, people that are doing similar things to you. You lift each other up.

Yeah.

Like, again, go back to the lads that live in the Midlands, that Rishabhara, the Able Boys, Tay Rock guys, Lewis Morgan, that they're all best mates and they all seem to be succeeding because they're all lifting each other up in their brands to do better. Similar to you and your pals. That I didn't necessarily.

Yeah.

It's the most common question I get, you know, off the back of this pod is like, how do I network?

Yeah.

And then I'm like, wait a minute. Yeah. I mean, I've got a great network, but it's never been fucking forced. Like, everyone I've ever met that I would consider a good mate, or like, in my network, whatever, I literally met them fucking getting pissed in some scenario. Whether that was in Bali, like London, wherever. He's like. It's not as some networking event where I'm fucking scripted what I'm gonna say and talking a lot of shit. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

But I think that's also because I'm just a pretty straightforward character. Like, the way I speak on the pod is the way I speak to anyone. I don't know. I'll do know. Yeah, that's good. I think, yeah. Maybe some people are trying to force it a little bit. Like, I don't know if I can go into events trying to meet people but like ultimately you meet people that are a similar, are interested in similar and if you're doing something cool, just put yourself out there.

100. Yeah.

Like go meet someone or like I don't know if I can speak to people on Instagram and meet up in person, whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah. Amazed it ends up. The opportunities are endless. I've seen it on Twitter now, like with your new brand, like it's, it's attracting so many people that to your brand because it's in a sphere that people are interested in and you're doing a good thing and like the brand's growing. Like it's. I'm seeing it from the outside and thinking people are swarming to it. Like you're seeing your numbers growing every day. Whether it be engagements on the tweets or I'm seeing it from the outside thinking it's not for you begging for someone to. It's people are interested in what you're saying, which is fantastic and fair play to you.

Yeah. I think it's just sharing like real in it.

Yeah.

I don't have any agenda with that sort of stuff, whereas I think a lot of people do.

Yeah.

But coming back to business end briefly, I feel like I love the philosophical. I can go into it so much. So I know you've got a big office warehouse set up. Where is that?

Kings Norton in Birmingham. That's where we're based.

So how does. How has the business looked over the past few years? And I guess that bringing us like kind of fairly up to speed like past two, three years maybe. And you said you got 10 people, you do all the fulfillment in house.

All fulfillment.

Which I've never done and maybe never would.

Yeah.

But there's obviously pros to that as well. We were saying off camera like, yeah, how is. How's the day to day look?

We. We sort of maybe got pushed into the situation we're in right now because back in2018 we were in a 3 PL called Cloud Fulfillment that burnt down. So there was. There was the two of us @ the time. So myself and Sean were both full time and my best friend at the time, we went to Ibiza for a holiday. He was about to start working for us as our first ever employee in the business. Went to Ibiza for a lads holiday first night. Got back after the night out. Sean rings me. He's my business partner. Sit down. You need to hear this. Our warehouse is burnt down. Obviously it's not our warehouse but it was where all our stock was. We're like 300, 400 grands worth of stock, which is everything we owned burnt to the crisp. We're like, what, what you actually meant to do when you've got a brand that's six years old, all your stock's now gone. We owe suppliers a shit ton of money. What, what are you meant to do? Do you just call it a day? Well, obviously on.

Holiday. John's just the worst time to hear.

That. Yeah, I mean you're not on holiday with your best mate who's just quit his decent job to come work for you. I've just persuaded him to quit his job and come work for us on a shit wage. The brand's over and he's thinking, I bet he's thinking, can I ring my old job and take the resignation back, like. But at the same time trying to be there for your mate. And I remember thinking, having the conversation with Sean, vaguely remember it being like, do we just call it a day? Like, is it? We owe people hundreds of thousands of pounds for stock that we can't now pay for and orders that we can't fulfill. What the hell do we do? Fast forwarding through the next like six to 12 months, which were absolute hell, trying to fulfill orders that we didn't have to stock for, speak to suppliers that we didn't have stock for. This was all when we were.

Manufacturing clothes, what happened to that stock that got burned down? Was it like insured by the Free.

Pl? It was insured by the Free Pl, but it was insured like the base cost price that we paid for that it took, I think it was 12 months to pay out and it was paid out in three installments. So we had suppliers that were desperate for money that we didn't have. The best payment, like deals with these people that you pay 30% up front. 30, 30 or whatever it was. We'd already paid some money towards the stock that had gone and we weren't then getting paid out for, for another 12 months. Our cash flow was absolutely fucked. We were like, what do we do? We've paid for stuff we haven't got, we got orders that we can't fulfill. All our stock's gone. Told our customer base the situation and we're like, do we just call it a.

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Spacegoods.com. Long story short, we were like, to all our suppliers, please support us or we're going bump. Essentially some of them supported us and we said, why can we start manufacturing blank clothes and we'll just print it in the uk? So instead of manufacturing lab brand tracksuits, polyester with panels down it and all these fancy zips like Jim King or whatever, we started making just blank tracksuits, black ones, gray ones, blue ones, and then getting them shipped in and printing them when they got to the uk and it started to sort of, we went from a brand that was like say there to there. It actually kicked us on.

That. Oh.

Really? The print on demand model, holding stock in bulk but not having like it tied up to one skew actually pushed us further on. So again, like when I've got a black T shirt on now, in the past we'd had to have bought maybe 100 or 300 of this exact design. We were buying a thousand plain blank T shirts on the goodwill of the factories and printing them once we'd sold one. So we'd ship them within 48 hours because we had the Equipment to do it and we just started to snowball from there and then we obviously got the office in Birmingham. I moved back to live with my wife now from London, set up the office and now the brands are fully print on demand model. So we've. Oh, really? We're completely three circle. So when we first started we were print on.

Demand. Yeah.

Yeah. Went to a lab brand, went to manufacturing, went to.

Ladbrand's. A good.

Sound. Yeah, I say it, but we weren't, we weren't a lad brand for a long time. But we, yeah, we tried it. We went into foot aside. I went to asos, went to Nordstrom, nearly got in jd done the full circle and then we went back to sort of being what we started. Now we're back on a print on demand business that's unisex, which is where we feel most comfortable and that's where we're. We're doing it now. So we, we hold all our stock in Sheffield Blank. Tracksuits, T shirts, everything blank. Twice a week we ship it into our studio in Birmingham. When the orders come in, we print them and we ship them out same day and that's where we're.

At. So the warehouse burning down basically pivoted the business and actually made things go better. You reckon like a silver lining to all hundred.

Percent? Yeah. Like it caused problems in terms of like the actual operations, the business and cash flow and everything that came from it being quite screwed with finances. It caused problems that were still. You can still see some problems as a result of that. Four years ago now that you're still trying to like work through because we owed so much money to people that we'd had stock for and insurance claims that we're probably just getting through it. But the actual brand and how we work, we got kicked forward massively and we learned how to operate lean as a business now where like the only. The brand that I know that works on a similar model to we do is Champion, who is massive brand. They do every college piece of clothing in America that you go into a Champion store in the us Everything's blank. They have custom stores all over the world that you just literally walk in, you buy a gray hoodie, all the logos are there, you print what you want and you walk out and you actually pay a slight premium for it because it's. You're printing what you want. So I've got a couple of hoodies for you and Brad that in the car that I printed today that.

Like. Oh.

Really? They're one of ones that that where we wanted to give our customers back to how we started, that maybe someone else will never have that hoodie because albeit the logos are available on the website, you can print it where you want, how you want it, on what color, and that's the usb and that came from the fire four years ago and we're still doing well for it.

Now. That's mad. Yeah, that is.

Mad. It's operationally, it's tough, but it's the USB of the brand.

Essentially. Do you think, does that put like a limit on the potential scale or are you happy where it.

Is? Yeah, it can't scale in terms of how we've got a custom build on the website. So you can actually go on the website, pick your hoodie, pick your logo, which there's a scale to that because you'd have to become a fully customizable website like Printerful or whatever, where it becomes a bit shit and you print it on Guildhands or whatever. That ours are our own manufactured goods, our own bespoke machines that printing the goods is printed by the team, it's sent out by the team. There is a probably scale to it before it starts getting quite messy, but we scaled through Covid quite well with the same size team and we're pretty happy with where it's at. It could probably go a little bit bigger again before we need to take the next step. But whether we want to take that next step or whether we can take that next step, next step is another question.

Really. You mentioned before that like having everything in house at one place, like a good atmosphere, good vibe. And that's something I've often thought about, like the whole people building brands online, etc. Like I've had off an office in the past, funnily enough, with Adam actually, from Crown and Poor when I was like.

22.

Yeah. I've never had an office since. I've always been fully remote, which that's like lots of pros to that. But I'm getting to the point now where I think just as like a lifestyle thing, I would definitely like to have an office with people in like long.

Term.

Yeah. Just for like my fucking, like mental health, like soul. Yeah. Even if you can scale to, I don't know, fucking 20 million quid online from a laptop, which, by the way, I think you probably could in certain markets and just have a remote.

Team.

Yep. The end of the day, you just sat a fucking laptop by yourself all day. Even if the digits on the.

Screen are big, it goes back to the number the screen goes from 2 million to 20 million or 2,000 to 2 million. I bet you're buzzing with it. But you're not as buzzing as you would be on that run outside because you get that run as high. Or you're speaking to your mates when you go for a meal at the end of the day and you're chatting to them like three or four. Now is. I've got Sean, who I started a business with, which is my friend from university, my best friend who was my best man. I was his best man. Who's our like first employee. His wife works for us. My best friend from school works for us. It's not everyone was hired as a specialist marketing director, whatever they were friends that were hired that that was the reason why we started the brand was because we wanted a, a way of life that we played. We played ping pong. We played ping pong on a Wednesday night at the local virtual because that's what we started at the office. And it might sound cheesy and you think, oh, brands playing ping pong with your mates and stuff, but I'd rather do that at our scale than go to 200 million and be a 300 person business where you're walking in and not knowing everyone, which, yeah, would be great. You'd have your personal relationships outside of work. Like I'll go back to Gymshark again. You've been Francis. But I like our team at being 10 and we do our fulfillment, we do everything. There's nothing we don't do in house other than a bit of web development which we've got an agency that worked with us in Birmingham that they're like an extension of the business.

Anyway. Yeah, I think there's actually a really interesting discussion point and I thought, I've thought about it a lot, particularly the past few months. I've got older and like I kind of got like a bit sick of just the idea of being able to travel because like did a lot of that when I was younger and like, yeah, the whole remote thing means I guess you could fucking go to Australia tomorrow. Yeah, I don't fucking want to anymore. Like I did when I was 22. But the whole like. Because I, like someone asked me the other day, like how many people are on your team? And I was like, I guess it's. Well, I don't really know but like that, that was my initial answer. But like there's like agencies and, and like freelancers and there's no like full time employees yet or.

Whatever. But did you have full time Employees before on the previous, I had like three of.

Them. It was fucking terrible timing. Just before shit went tits up and it fucking. He knows about this. That's a nightmare. But it's like the amount of money I'm even just paying an agency, for example, like an ads agency and they are a good ads agency. So I could probably get fucking two full time people in an office I could actually speak to, have like a personal relationship with and maybe go running with. Do you know what I.

Mean?

Yeah. So it's like there's a fine line between outsourcing everything and keeping it like remote. It's not even leaner necessarily. Like, obviously an office cost whatever, but like the people costs like the.

Same.

Yeah. Arguably more working with like certain agencies, but then like a line between that and actually how am I spending my time. Yeah, because like I've spent the past like three, four years working, grounded in like a nice London flat with a mate. But like I'm still just fucking working at home. And like obviously during COVID that was perfect because that was all, all I'd ever known anyway. It's like, I ain't doing this. I'm 35. Do you know what I.

Mean?

Yeah. Like no.

Way. Yeah, 100.

Agree. Yeah, I would, I definitely would like to obviously, like, it needs to make sense in terms of like space and like financials and because I'd like to have an office in like Fitzroy. That's like the perfect spot. Be like 20 grand a month for a small room, but work it.

Out. But it depends if that £20,000amonth actually doesn't always need to bring you an ROI on it. As long as that brings you as a founder and the sharp end of the business makes you more, I don't know, energized. It brings your relationships with your team stronger. Then it's worth the money. Like we, our warehouse now is. We've probably outgrown it, but we're not moving because we're like, well, we're all in the same. It's one big room. Brad's been there.

It's. Yeah, if we move, definitely same.

Picture. If we move to a bigger place and we split everyone up, like even I like John and stuff, we sit in the warehouse. So like, like I said before, I moaned about it, it's a little bit loud. You can't have private meetings, but at the same time you're in the same room as everyone. Someone's doing customer service, someone's printing the clothes. It feels like a family and that's what we want for the brand. So, yeah, what you want from your brand in your office, if you have to pay over the odds for it, as long as it's bringing you what you want that makes your business.

Success. Polished concrete floors. Yeah. Podcast.

Studio.

Yeah. Yeah. Like Scandinavian style Nordic furniture. Like, why not proper, like low, deep, shallow sofas and have this whole vision, but manifest it. Yeah. It's just. It's funny because I used to think having an office when I was like young girls, I want to be on the beach in Bali as a bollocks. But you can't do any work on a beach in Bali for. Whereas now my mindset has completely shifted. I'd rather be like, you know, I'm working for these two months and then have a.

Holiday. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so interesting though because like that whole culture of like Nomad, it's kind of sprouted in like the past five, six years, whatever. But I don't. I don't want to work in Bali on a beach. Go on a.

Holiday. Yeah. I've never done it. I've never. I went away on holiday last week with my wife and I went away on holiday to go on holiday. Like we could go away. Both of us are self. Well, technically self employed, that we could go away and work, but I'd actually rather go away on holiday and just chill out.

Yeah. I actually agree now. My view on that's completely changed again as I've just got a bit older. I don't know what it is.

But maybe it is just getting older. Like you're not old, but getting older. Like.

You. Yeah, just.

Perspectives. Perspectives. Yeah.

100%. Where do you want to take the business then? Because, I mean, there's probably so many fucking things we could have gone into or could still go into over 10 years. But it sounds like you've got to a point now where. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, you enjoy what you're doing. It's at a level that you like, that fits you as a.

Founder.

Yeah. You've got a good setup with people around you and shit. Which I think is probably fucking what 99% of society would love. Like, is there, like certain levels you want to take it to? Like, I don't know, potentially an exit plan, like an end goal with it? Or are you really just playing it.

By. I think there's a. There's probably a couple of bits that I think eventually I could probably see my life without three or four. Without being defined by our David made. Three or four, 10 years ago. He's always associated with it. But at the same time, when we started it, it was all about like going back to like that original beginning where all our friends came to the apartment. I would love to have a period of the brand where we had, whether it's permanent stores or pop up stores or tours where like again represent your sample sales. We tried to do it just before COVID hit where we did it at our office where our customers came printing their own clothes back to like the champion stores where they fully customizable. I would like to have a period of the brand where we could actually do that, where we could go out on the road and have our customers come meet us and print their own clothes with us. That's probably what I would like to do before either the brand ends, I exit the brand or whatever happens with it. But I wouldn't feel comfortable the brand finishing on me exiting before we've had that opportunity to do how it sort of started. Because we've, we've nearly done a 3,360. I think that would need to happen before I was fully finished with it, if you know what I mean. But I'm happy with where it's at now, like with the way of life. I'm pretty content with it. It'd be great if it grew a little bit. But I don't think it needs to go in that much bigger. We do. We've been in loads of stockists. It's done well, some stockists, it's not done well. Online's done well. Then it's gone down, then it's gone back up again. We've been through so many things that have gone well and gone bad. Hmm. I'm at the period now where not really sure what would be a surprise to us. Like we've had the ups, we've had the downs, we've had, yeah, stock is promised, millions of our stockists deliver millions. Then we've had. I'm not sure what else is yet to come. We've had fires in the warehouse, we've had offices break in. We've had everything you could think of that I'm actually at the point now where let's just enjoy the process. What happens in the next five years or ten years? We'll.

See. Do you ever think about other businesses that you want to go in or the brands that you want to start or do you think you're kind of done with that startup trenches stage and you want to just like say enjoy the process.

More? Yeah, I think from a personal Perspective. I don't think I'd want to go back into the trenches and start a brand like you have. I don't know how you've got the energy to do four or five times. I would like to maybe work with brands that are doing it and try and help them and sort of nurture and sort of work on a creative basis with them. Because there's certain things you can't do with certain brands. Like I'm sure you've had it before. You've done a jewelry brand and then a mushroom brand that there's certain creative things you can't do with certain brands that you have an idea and think it's not fit for clothes or it's not fit for space or it's not fit for this. That Maybe I'm only 33, probably got maybe 20, 30 years more left in working in a career that I'd like to work with other stuff, but I've not had that opportunity yet, so maybe, maybe not. We'll.

See. Have you had like exit offers before? You know, situations where you can sell the business and so on? I feel like, for me, and this is another interesting one, I've always thought that's like the fucking champions league of entrepreneurship, selling your.

Business. Yeah. We've had conversations with people that have expressed interest in buying the brand or buying equity in the brand and stuff, and we've spoke to people about it. But at the moment, I don't think necessarily what we'd get reflects what we feel like. We've maybe put in for 10 years. So maybe there is more work to do with be two years, five years to actually get the brand to be worth what we, myself and Sean and everyone else that's involved in it would reflect that it's actually worth what we've put into it. So right now we wouldn't.

Sell.

Yeah. But maybe in the future, or don't know, maybe in the future we just. The brand will run for forever. We don't know. Three or four could evolve into something else. If over the 10 years, like I said, it was a unisex vest brand, it was a lab brand and it was mainly wholesale. Then it was direct to consumer. Now it's back to a print on demand. A lot of brands do fall off after maybe two or three years, especially in.

Clothing. Yes. Do see it a.

Lot. We're at 10 years now. We're not saying we're a heritage brand by any means, but 10 years is a long time for the brand. There's a few brands that Started at a similar time that are still going. Whether it be like.

Hype.

Yeah. Represent misguided aren't really a brand as such. They're retailer but there's not many brands that started at the start of Instagram that's still going.

Now. Very.

True. They're probably bigger than us. There's a lot of brands that have gone well our sort of 10 years has been quite a slow gain. But there's brands that maybe Morvai and Six Silk Jim King that have shot past us. But it's not to say that they might not be in 10 years. They might exit or they might. The brand like shelf life might not be as long. Who knows. But we've had a slow rise for 10 years. That used to say that it can't go for another 20 and be a super dry. That just. It's.

Just. Yeah, very true, very true. Brands that have been around.

Forever.

Forever. What do you think's been the. The hardest thing in the past 10 years entrepreneurially, not necessarily like a specific event but like just the hardest, you know, challenge you've had to deal with because there's obviously lows, particularly in a ten year.

Period. The hardest thing over 10 years is probably staying motivated. I'd imagine like the again, I don't know whether you've been the similar situation where there comes a period where like in anything I guarantee in six months time you'll probably be like I can't keep pushing the runs, I can't keep pushing the gym that you have a slight dip off like anything in life, whether it be football team or business that over 10 years there's been so many periods where myself, my business partner and even John that probably thought I haven't got much left in me here to keep pushing to keep growing. And that constant cycle of trying to like re energize yourself to go again is tough mentally like to keep going probably. I'd probably say that to be honest. If you're just making sure you're continuously. Ten years is a long.

Time. Yeah, it's a long.

Time. Yeah. And then I'll be honest with you like as a. If any like new brands are starting understanding data and your cash cash flow. If we'd have known those two were so important at the beginning, life would have been a lot easier for.

Sure. A couple years everything makes sense looking back.

Right?

Yeah. All right, final question. I mean I feel like by the way we could. There's probably so much we haven't gone.

Into.

Yeah. But you probably wouldn't remember every detail. Ten years for a.

Start. And it's making me. It's like a therapy.

Session. Yeah, for sure. Three bits of advice to your, I guess for you like 20 year old self or 23 year old self when you started the business, knowing what you know now, what would they be? I've started asking that question. It's become a fucking cliche thing that I do on every episode but I think it's fucking interesting because free piece of advice, you just don't know until you have been through.

It. Try and figure out your values and your mission for the brand as early as possible. Don't get sidetracked by like what we did, where you get led by what other people say maybe you should be doing because you can go off on a tangent that's not aligned to what your core values are like your brand now you're so buzzing by it because it's what you want to do. Understand your data from the get go because it's free and it will grow your business and cash flow. Just understand it. Whether you have to get advice from someone else that understands cash flow in a business. You can try and grow a brand without sounding like demeaning to people. You can, anyone can grow a brand and push it, but it will stop quickly if you don't know where your cash.

Is. Yeah, fucking tell me about.

It. Very, very quick. So very true that I wish someone had told me in year one, have a cash flow planner. Understand where you're spending your money, your profit and what every penny spent because it will catch up on you further down the line.

Quickly. So true, so true. Bit boring, but no, it's actually so true. Like it's saying this every day to someone else. It's the boring stuff, I guess that fucking there's that saying like drive for show, put for.

Dough.

Yeah. More people, anyone could come up with an idea. Do like the enjoyable front end stuff. But it's the fucking back end, the boring shit, which is what I'm spending most my fucking time doing right now, by the.

Way. Yeah, but if someone taught you that from the get go or you had a business part that was like in the numbers, it understood it from the beginning. You would, your, your creative.

Process. You need, you just need a bit of experience to appreciate that, don't you? Like when I was getting started and fucking think about that. But now I think about it way more because I've got experience of shit going well and bad and I was like, that's, that's the number one thing that can end the.

Game. I bet that's why a lot of people's 3rd, 4th, 5th business succeed more than the first, because they actually understand all the things that have gone wrong. Whereas us, we're not letting go of number one. Yeah, we're still going with number.

One. Very true. Right. That was super interesting episode. I feel like we could go into a billion other things as usual, but every episode would be five hours if we did that. Yeah. I learned a lot about you and your story and life and shit. It's always good getting like an older.

Perspective. Yeah, I think. Not too.

Old. Not too old yet. Definitely not the oldest guest we've had. Probably close, but. Yeah. If you're enjoying the pod, subscribe as usual. This is episode 40. We've got 12 more till we get to the coveted one year 52 weeks point, which is pretty fucking mad. Time is going too quick. Drop a comment. What you want to see all that good shit and we'll see you in the next episode. Cheers for watching.

Peace, Sa.