I Bought a Giant 6 Meter Mushroom, Hiring an MD & New Pod Events Coming Soon - Doc the Journey Ep 36

Yo, what's going on? It has been a while. I haven't really done a doc journey last week. I don't know why, but then I feel like by definition I said I do it every week regardless of whether I feel like fucking doing it, regardless of whether the setup is good, whether my hair is looking good, certainly not. Or what's going on. I just felt incredibly busy, which is typical. But like more than fucking ever. I feel like I'm just not getting. Can't speak. I feel like I'm not getting anything I need to do done. So I just need to work more basically and be more efficient. And I suppose it is very much that stage. And for the first time in a long time I feel like I've sacked off. Not sacked off, but not been training to my full extent as well. And I've decided to delay the marathon because I've been pivoting to like a shitload of CrossFit and I'm probably gonna do like a training routine video or something that'll be quite interesting. But yeah, like in the past week I just didn't even hit my sessions. I just, yeah, took my foot off the gas and I just feel it and see it in myself when I look in the mirror. But I think we all have those times. It's about getting back on the horse and getting back to it. But yeah, what's going on? I always say I'll do an interesting episode and I screen share. This episode isn't one of those because I've forgotten to do it and I'm recording this on a Saturday and it's going out on the Saturday before the pod. But there has been quite a lot happening. To be fair, often feels like you're not doing too much and you're just fucking stuck in the everyday. But then I look back even just two weeks ago since I did the last episode and a lot has changed. So we have hired a full time social media, well I don't know what to call them, social media marketing exec, full time. So spent about probably three, four weeks trying to find the right person. Full time London based employee. So she's really good. I think she started last week or about a week and a half ago. So basically taking off. You know, I was doing all the all organic stuff myself and we weren't really doing much organic. When I say organic, I was doing like social media posts, all that shit myself. She's obviously now doing that. But she's also gonna be focusing on like influencer seeding which we weren't doing any of like gifting, organic like stunt stuff, basically everything that isn't paid marketing. She's kind of, it's very broad role but she's kind of responsible for. Not so much responsible for, but working on alongside me. So yeah, like influencer stuff, a shitload, new brand content stuff, just organic marketing basically. And the other thing I've started to think about is like basically how can we, how can we do shit that I, and I tweeted about it before but like what would we do if we couldn't run Instagram ads say because that's our biggest channel by far right now it's like 90% of spend. You know we're gonna keep running that. But I already feel like we've hit a bit of a ceiling in terms of scale, particularly in the UK with one sku. Obviously we launched Dream Dust recently. We only just started running ads for that literally in the past few days. Want to get an organic response previously and we didn't have much stock but yeah, just trying to think of ways we can scale marketing and eyeballs and sales generally without spending much money on it. And like that would make, bring that into the marketing mix. Viral stuff like stunts, loads more content marketing. Moonshots I'm calling it. So I've got this like new operation moonshot thing which is like the initiative amongst the team and we're just trying to think about how can we do things that potentially is like a 10 to 100x ROI. So one thing I'm doing is I've got a 6 meter inflatable mushroom coming from China with a very controversial statement all over it and I'm, yeah, I'm gonna do something with that. Get a bunch of like influencey influencer creator types to go out and start doing all this shit. So we've got a long load of stuff that's gonna be coming. Brands like Thursday Dating are really good at this sort of shit where it's like offline, out of home, guerrilla star marketing I guess. And I just think it takes some balls. Most brands aren't doing that sort of stuff. So yeah, loads of stuff coming in that sort of area which I just think is massively slept on, might not work, but if it doesn't work for marketing, it doesn't pop. Like worst case then it's great content. So it's kind of a win win in my opinion. And we're just like I said, think outside the box, doing a lot of stuff there, starting with a bunch of like street interviews and like a Few different things we're doing next week with a bunch of like small influences, so that should be pretty cool. Potential other hires that are going on. I'm looking at hiring an NPD person because right now these are two new samples, by the way, for Guess. Have a guess what this is. I need to shake this up, but the fucking lid has broken so I can't shake it. This is like a blue drink and this is like obviously a raspberry slash berry purpley red version. MPD I think is super fucking important. New product development. Obviously a launch of one product. We then launched another product. We got a bunch of new accessories which we launched a few months ago. And way more coming soon and then more coming after that as well. But I just feel like that's not getting the attention it deserves. It is something I want to work on. But like when I say mpd, I don't just mean like product ideas. I mean like literally working out the exact formulations, you know, calculating if it's. If customers like it. Like also epd, existing product development. These are all fucking terms that I've learned recently. In terms of improving the obviously Rainbow Dust version one. We've already improved it slightly. I just didn't call it version 2. Dream Dust probably needs certain improvements based on feedback. So like all just covering that side of the business because it's super fucking important. Whether that's a full time person at this stage, I dunno, probably not. But yeah, just bringing in someone that understands nutrition, like professionally, because I fucking don't. And I'm just winging it obviously like the main supplier that we work with does a lot of that in house, but I think. And obviously effectively charge a margin for it on the unit cost. But I think having my own person would help massively for that. Let me just show what's up. So yeah, that's another big thing that's going on. The other like major thing. I'm thinking this might be too soon, but it might not. And it's something. It's like a major lever that I could pull. And I got approached by a few people and a few recruiters. I spoke to a few potential candidates for this sort of thing. I think I mentioned in a previous episode, but like potentially hiring. I think I call it COO before. I think a better term is basically a managing director, which I'm always confused by like the politics of different names. But managing director is effectively a CEO for smaller business. Someone that is ultimately responsible for the P and L. Really drives growth. Very, very growth. Focus. There's a few candidates I'm looking at right now. They're like 10 years older than me, fuckload of experience in startups, particularly D2C startups. They've been there from the early days to exit in a few cases. And yeah, they would come in as effectively managing director but what that would mean I guess is that they'd be very growth focused. So driving the P and L, driving revenue targets, basically driving revenue targets and efficiency on the P and L would be like their main North Star. But then also obviously get involved in hiring, building systems, jump fucking shit at making the supply chain more efficient. That feels like a really big fucking deal because it is because getting that person wrong could be very detrimental. Although you obviously put like a six month probation in so it wouldn't be the end of the world. But getting them right could unlock like the next level. And I honestly feel like I'm just not that person. To fucking properly grow a business from where we're at now, which is like sort of 4mil run rate as of right now to like 10mil plus and then 20, 30mil plus which is where I want to go and think we can go in like the next two, three years. So I'm beyond hopefully to like Huel levels. Hundred mil plus. That might take like five years plus but I'm in it for that. So yeah, that's something I'm really, that's the big lever I'm looking at pulling. Getting a lot of advice on it, obviously speaking to multiple people, candidates and so on and just trying to see if there's a fit because a bit of me thinks it's too soon. But actually another big part of me thinks this is what I need to do if I want to actually start running a proper business rather than being a bedroom brand, which I obviously am kind of now not working from a bedroom living room. But yeah, I think that's if I want to get to where I want to go. I think I got to do things a bit differently and start thinking more long term and thinking about the value potentially in someone like that. And I think it's been a bit of imposter syndrome in the past thinking like why would someone 10 years older than me, way more experienced than me, ultimately better than me, at least at this, this side of things, why would they want to work for me? That's the voice in my head a lot of times. But I guess what I'm good at 0 to 1 and taking the risks and that's why I'm an Entrepreneur, not a, you know, not an MD in another business say. So I think that could be a lethal combination if they're the right person. So that is something I'm seriously considering and looking at options for. And it's probably a, you know, it's a few month process anyway to find that person. So yeah, that's like the biggest, the biggest thing right now. I'm really trying to focus on pulling levers that can make a massive fucking difference rather than, you know, instead of worrying about xyz, like mini things that are going on in the business, which there's many, it's like, well, what could solve a lot of these if I get it right is bringing in the right person who can then look after that and I can focus more on branding, content, products and less so on like the actual operations and running and kind of systemization of the business, which I definitely know we need more of. So yeah, that's what I'm thinking. The pod is moving to a proper studio, which I don't know how I feel about it because I wanted to formalize it. I'm also moving flat soon. So the setup's not as optimum for a pod. I mean, I haven't actually tried it there yet. It's a three bedroom, two of us moving there. We'll have like an office slash studio slash pod, whatever you want to call it. Pod studio. But I'm also using a studio in Shoreditch now. Don't know how I feel about it. I feel like it's not. It loses the cozy home vibes. But I also think it's better for having guests there. It's more of a formal setup. So we're trying that for a while. You'll see the next few episodes probably from next week after this has come out. We'll be in there. Actually, no, the first will be tomorrow. So yeah, that's happening. The first pod, I guess. Pool party, Social club. I want to say. I don't know, I need to probably get rid of that name because I just think it's over complicating the amount of like things I'm working on. Whereas really it's just a fucking pod Networking dinner. That's kind of what it is. That's what poor PPSC was always gonna be. It's gonna start as a dinner. I'm gonna do a proper event next time, a bigger venue, maybe dinner and like actual talks and shit. The thing with that is I have to start doing tickets and actually like charging people for it, obviously, because it's fucking like one venue I'm looking at, it's like 10 grand to book it for the night plus expenses on top of that and like drinks and so on. I obviously can't be fucking front in that myself. And then just hoping people will rock up and split the bill because yeah, that didn't really work. So yeah, the first one is tonight. Obviously tonight it's just super casual because I was just umming and iron about it and I was like fuck it, let's just do a dinner with a bunch of people, see who wants to come. I had like 300 messages of people saying they want to come. It's a 20 person venue so it was basically first come, first serve. But I think that'd be really fun tonight and we'll see what the appetite is on like more formal events. I guess I'm looking at this sick place called Pavilion Club in Knightsbridge. Like michelin star restaurant, higher out the whole fucking floor. Then potentially we've got like a private bank rooftop in central London from a guy I know that could get us in there. I want to start making this shit like some Bohemian Grove fucking cult spec. So let's see how it goes. We'll all start wearing crowns and wearing like fucking long jackets and shit. But yeah, at the end of the day it's just about bringing people together that may not otherwise meet each other and I suppose trying to use my platform and part of my network to make that happen. So yeah, honestly that's like the best thing to do off the back of this pod and the back of the people that watch this video is just bring them together and do real life shit. Because everyone's sick of being online all the time I think. So that's happening tonight. That'd be fun if you're coming. Yeah, it should be sick. Only 20 of us this time, like I said and like six of those are my mates. So people I already know, it's like 14 or 13 people that I've never met before coming and yeah, we'll see how that goes. Excited for that. And yeah, I think closing remarks is I really have no clue what the fuck I'm doing. Basically scaling this business. I'm trying to just bring in people that know what they are doing. And at the end of the day, like I said, if I keep doing shit I've always done, you know, the results will be the same. So whether that's with the pods, obviously trying to mix up the location, make it more formal, just brought in like a producer slash new editor. So he's gonna take that a lot more seriously than previous team, obviously. Doing the dinner, I'm always like, oh, should I do it? People gonna rock up. Fuck it, let's do it. Let's turn into a real thing. We'll do this. We'll make the next one ticketed. I got loads of mad ideas and sometimes I don't take my own advice and just act on them. So that's what I'm trying to do. And, yeah, space goes to the moon, the pod to the moon. That's basically my only two focuses. The next five, 10 years is the plan, to be honest. Certainly the next five years. Build the brand. Build the pod, which is kind of part of the brand in my mind, and bring people together with these events on the side. So, yeah, as always, appreciate you watching. I hope this was fucking recording. Yeah, I'll link to the next event down below. I'm gonna do, like, proper tickets and shit. I'll be on my Twitter and so on DM me if you want to come to that or actually don't just go and buy a ticket. I'll share that when it's going out. And, yeah, catch you next. Episod.