£ Million a Month with Lux Personal Shopping Brand - Jack Zambakides | Midnight Podcast Episode 26

Right, we're back with episode 25, I think of the Midnight Pod doing three this week. My hair has gone blonde yet again to many people's disdain. We've got Jack, second name is fucking complicated Zambakinis.

But just start.

Is that like Greek or some shit?

Yeah, Greek.

Good guess from LS Personal Shopper. And your jewellery brand, D Louise. Remind me.

Yeah, sick.

And yeah, I guess you were introduced through some. On my Instagram.

Right, yeah, someone on Instagram.

And you watched my pod through him?

Yeah, I watched a pod, got a bit hooked and then. Then here we are. But yeah, absolutely scavenged through all of them.

Love to see it, love to see it.

Part of the cult.

And now you're fucking in. Let's go. I guess first question as usual. And I mean people give me stick in the comments for this all the time because I never do any fucking research on my guests. But I feel like the actual episode is the genuine conversation and my own research. So first question, just tell us who you are, what you do, kind of your background, I guess, fairly chronologically and then we can dive into it.

So my name's Jack Zambuchini. I run a business called LS Personal Shopper where we sell designer clothes, all that jazz. And then I also run a more ecom brand which is D Louise, so we'd sell women's jewelry only actually been in the E Comm sort of space the last two years, but been buying, selling trainers since I was probably about 15. One of those little side hustles. I've had more failed businesses than, or probably like all of us who end up here. It's been a lot of, A lot of failures on the way, but sort of started my business career probably like 14, 15 flipping fake apple headphones which I didn't actually realize were on Aliexpress, being fake. Shot in them at school, then went into the old vintage clothing as I got older, try to start a cleaning company that didn't work. And then just sort of when I was at university I. I spent a bit of time being a bit of a nerd, just building websites and built one just selling trainers. And I tell this story. I remember being like extremely hungover in this place called Cafe Yolk, which was like the hangover club after a big uni night out, as typical as it sounds. And then I got a notification through my paper. I was like, whatever his name is, he sent me 366 pounds on paper. I thought, what the is going on here? Like, mate, I've had An absolute touch. Like my night, my night out has been funded and someone's like accidentally sent me this money. Click on it and it loads and it's like, mate, someone's bought something from my website. I was like, like, what is this? Like, how did he even find it? And then sort of from there a bit hooked and then just started spending, spending a lot of time looking into it, growing it. Actually left university and went into a job in the City as like an analyst and a real estate fund. Going down that whole like corporate nonsense route where you're looking at everyone next to you and thinking like, do I really want to spend 20 years and I'll start looking as bald and miserable as this bloke on my right. And then decided to quit that and then just thought, right, I'll give this, this trainer. Jazz. Jazz. A good go left that. And unfortunately scaled it really quick lockdown hit just as I took on like a showroom space thinking I was like, here we go. Then furlough money came in and everyone just started spending their money online. So Ecom just sort of went booming. So we managed to have really good growth. We sell to quite a few high net worth footballers, all that Jazz. But the main bulk of the business is actually the online which. Where we just sell to sort of like the everyday person. But yeah, also caught the trend that designer clothes is. It's almost like compulsory for, for most people nowadays and we, we luckily can supply that to them.

Yeah. So you only started in 2020 properly.

Yeah, properly 2020.

Fucking. Oh. Because I was following. Yeah, I had the page way older.

Yeah, no, I had had the page but we only. It was only when I sort of left my job where I was like, fuck. Like this is actually we need to grow. But I think I remember starting lockdown with like 20k followers. So then we've had some good growth. But I always say to people it's a lot harder for other businesses because we're setting like the stuff which like Instagram's all about. Do you know what I mean? Like the picture which gets all the likes is like the guy in Dubai wearing a Dior set on a yacht, like with girls and like loads of bottles of champagne. Like we're the one selling the Dior set. So we sort of, we're sort of on our way and like the whole algorithm I think sort of helps it. And then luckily with like a few influencers like footballers and all this, that hoo ha. They all, they all love it as well.

Yeah. So we can and Then the jewelry brand.

Yeah, jewelry brand to actually start.

How did that come in?

Started January last year.

So It's a business 2020 or 21?

Yeah, 2021.

Oh shit.

Yes. We started that recent then. I've had had a bit of like 10 testing Ecom stuff. We were just setting like rubbish men's bracelets and we were getting, getting a bit of tractions and CPA was quite low at the time unfortunately not as low now. But then I thought my girlfriend was basically in a job. I know everyone says don't start a business with your girlfriend but here we are. Yeah, she was not enjoying a job and I just thought like it. I thought if I put some money into this and she actually has like the, the drive and configure out all the marketing, do all the stuff I don't like doing, I could, we could actually do all right out of this. And yeah, that's been going literally a year but we did a million revenue in the first year which is good.

That is good. We had especially in jewelry. So crowded.

Yeah such a crowded market but we've managed to brand everything well. The product is really good, it's affordable, cool price point that's growing. That, that business actually I think is more scalable than, than LS Personal Shopper even though I've sort of been at it a bit longer. But yeah, the, the E Comm space is moving a bit crazy as we sort of said before this pod.

Yeah, yeah. And in terms of the two then how do you split time like if you have to pick one. Yeah, well I guess kind of two questions.

No, it is fucking. It is difficult. What I, I'm confident that was a.

Problem I had in 2020 when I was running two brands.

There's no right answer which you, you learn but my current technique as of about a week ago is, is to go my Monday, Wednesday, Friday on one brand and then Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday on the other. And that doesn't, that doesn't always work and particularly like with the, the LS Personal Shopper it's. I've got like a lot a good client list who are like, they'll be calling me now all sorts like having random requests for like birthdays and all that jazz. But I've been lucky that my main focus was which is just trying to build systems. So I've got a team who can handle most of it. So we've currently we've got five employees excluding myself in the, in the personal shopping business. Two of them full time salesman, one who's Basically just sourcing in, doing like logistics, one packing and then one more of like the E Comm, making sure the website's all up to date and that, that sort of stuff. So it is. I think the key is just building the system so you can just focus on the top level stuff. But yeah, it takes a bit of time to get there but it is a nightmare. It's not the right thing to do, my opinion. But we all end up doing it.

Yeah, yeah. And how about the jewelry stuff in terms of team size, is that just your girlfriend mainly?

Yeah, it's just my girlfriend. But the, the best thing about it is that we can just. We've got like teams. Like we've got full time customer service but they're obviously not in the uk. We've got like contracts with email marketers so we outsource that. We basically outsource everything. We've got a really good agency for the ads. We've got like a videographer who basically does a shoot every month, a photographer, all that crap. So we basically. I'm keen, like really keen not to start building a team with that because I think you can easily go down the route where you just go like helpful other reinvest, like get a fancy office and just start hiring left, right and center. But I think we're trying to keep things, things slim because I think you can operate well on that, that route. But you might have had similar success. But I've seen people scale to big levels just doing that. So I think I've definitely got a bit of room to grow.

Yeah, I think shit's changed now. It's like you don't need an office and pay employees. That's it and all that. Oh yeah, it's necessarily. There's probably a time and place for.

That and I think when you're just. When you're on that recruiting pool, like the person who runs our ads is in, in Portugal and lives in the countryside. And it's like when you're just recruiting in such a small bubble, even though we think London's such a big place, you're not. You want to be recruiting worldwide, finding the best talent, finding the people who actually like can do the best job. And also London's expensive. You have to pay well.

Yeah.

Paying someone in Portugal is a bit cheaper, let alone if you go down the old Asia route.

Yeah, Philippines. Philippines. Customer service.

Philippines is the one. I had a funny story. We with the personal shopping business, it was about November. We knew we'd be busy but we didn't Know how busy. And then orders started, like, running in and we were like, like, we're doing good here. But then we were like, I'm not sure we can handle it. And one of the boys, we're all just sort of jumping in on their old customer service. But it starts getting messy. Like, Zendesk was not in sight. And if it was, it was like it was looking like an absolute warfield. So we, like. Right. Getting on. We found an agency to outsource it. But I say it's funny, we learned lessons from it, but we basically outsourced a lot of the customer service. But it was just carnage because this bloke sold us the dream and it was just like, basically winging it. But I'm sure there's been a lot far worse than. You've probably got experiences like this whole. The customer service game is.

Yeah. Like, I'd like 35 people in the Philippines at one point.

35, yeah.

And that's when she was hitting the fan. You don't. I was like, hell, you don't know.

Like you're sort of just leaving them. Them to it.

Yeah, it was through an agency.

Yeah, I was in the same boat.

Philippine stuff.

Yeah. Because when they say, like, each person can reply to X amount of emails in a day, and I go, hang on a minute, I can probably do more than that.

Yeah, you definitely can.

Yeah. So it's like. It's like. So I'm being ripped off somewhere along the lines. But yeah, lessons were learned, which we're trying to put in place for this year, basically. So we can scale.

Yeah, for sure. So the personal shopping stuff then, because it's that competitive.

I feel like. Yeah, it is. The markets. The markets come crazy saturated.

The one account I used to see was that. Undivided.

Yeah, undivided.

I mean, I'm not. Yeah, space. I don't follow it that much.

Yeah, so. So they were sort of one of the originals themselves. And another page called crepeslocker. They basically caught that. You know, there's. In every field, there's a few people who caught that initial wave of, like, Instagram growth.

Yeah.

And they. They sort of set the level. And then the market has become. It is extremely saturated now. But where we sort of fall in is that most the people.

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

I think it's important with this sort of business that we're all selling the same product. So yeah, so the consumer, if you just want to be the cheapest and fair enough be the cheapest but your margins just can get absolutely hammered. So what you need to think about is what can we do which our competitors can't? So how can we make the consumer want to buy from us? And a lot of the people who sell this stuff are just like who I was like the 16, 17 year old like jumping on the tube who gives you your shoes in like a JD bag. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Whereas we're trying to fall into that level of like more professional, like the packaging's quite high level so it feels like more of an experience. You're going to get hit with emails, you're going to hopefully buy again. We're going to try run it like a, like a proper business and that's why we've sort of had that success because everyone's sort of just dealing with.

These.

These just young guys who are just trying to just shot and make like 50 quid here and there. Whereas they, they would actually would rather just be online pay by Klarna buy. It will come in like the next day and they've got a bit more of a seamless experience even if it does come at a bit more of a price. But look in whatever you do there's, there's different markets and you just sort of have to pick your market and go at it.

Yeah. And did this start because you were just like personally a massive designer clothing?

Not, not even massively all.

Was it more just an observation like?

Yeah, yeah it was, it was I was basically into trainers. And as I was growing up, that's.

Me, my toes out, my own clipped toenails. I really should have dressed better for this one.

No, no, I was sort of into trainers, but it was that, like, I've always been interested in business and interested in making money from a young age and not. I don't care about the money's just the value of or a determinant of, like, how well is something doing, you know, like, probably a lot of people, you know, not really doing it for the money anymore. It's just a gauge on how successful they are.

Yeah.

So I was always interested in that. And then as I was going like through the, like, 15, 16, 17, it was like, right, do I either, like, want to be working on, like, laboring, which I did for like six months, or do I want to. If I'd much rather go out and try buy and flip and sell and during wangle deals. So I sort of found trainers as a bit of a platform to do that. And like, I used to, like, sleep outside like, like Nike town and stuff like that to go get a shoe to like flip it for, like 60 quid. But in my head it would be like, man, I just made 60 quid. Or I could have, like, worked in bloody McDonald's or something.

Yeah.

So that's just sort of how my. My head processed it. And it was only sort of like I said, where I sort of started that website, not really thinking anything of it, that I really. It was the first thing where I really thought, right, if I'm just gonna go all in on this, and. And luckily it worked. But, yeah, like I said, I've had a lot of businesses which haven't worked, but I think it's, for me, the biggest failure for my opinion, is somebody doesn't try anything.

So, yeah, that's what I was saying. And I went on the podcast, 44 podcasts. I think I put it out as a bonus episode now. But, yeah, I was saying that. So true.

Yeah, you just can't be scared of failure. But I went. You go through that period where you're thinking, like, am I a bit delusional? Like, keep, like nothing, really. Yeah, yeah, I think you have to be. Nothing seems to be working that well. And everyone's not laughing at. Use the wrong word. But, like, like, I'm fortunate. And now that we. The business does very well, like, my life has changed all this jazz. But I've had, like, close family, close friends who, when it was like, coming up, when I told Them I was leaving this like, well paid job in the city and they like, like I remember one instance and someone like laughed in my face and then was like, so what, you're gonna sell trainers the rest of your life? And it's like now they're a bit like, oh, you're right. How are you doing? Sort of thing. So I think everyone does just sort of. Not everyone's gonna understand your YouTube, your vision and where you see things. But fortunately, I think I'm very much a believer that if you sort of go all in on something and don't, don't really stop until you make it happen a bit like with, with your new, new projects, if you just go like tunnel vision, like.

Yeah, it's just like if you don't get what I mean, you won't lose, basically.

Yeah, exactly.

But it's a lot harder to never.

Give up, you know, like. Yeah, exactly. It's a bit like if we, I'm. If we said it like we had a gun against the head and said, right, you guys have got to get together and you need to start a brand selling bloody toilet seats. Yeah, we could probably do it. Do you mean, I think in a lifetime we could probably build the best blade toilet seat the world's ever seen. But it's just a case of putting your mind like on it and sort of not stopping until you get there.

Yeah, definitely.

And that's just one of the many things I've learned so on this crazy business journey. But yeah, constantly it's interesting you actually.

Went into like the corporate world first. So you had businesses.

Have you ever been there?

No, I've done work experience like a desk job. I did. I wore a suit in Mayfair when I was 19, six months, which I spoke up for. But yeah, yeah. Is that like in, in the city?

Yeah, that was in the city. And I remember like, I. I learned a lot of very good things and a lot of the things I've tried to implement in business because I've sort of been on the or I am now in the level of where you have to employ. And it's not a case of like, not everyone's like just that entrepreneur and like can just crack on with stuff and will work late at do think about things 24 7, like obsessive. A lot of the people who you might have to employ aren't gonna have the same vision and same goals. But if we're all the same, then it'd be a crazy old world. So. Yeah, but I remember just being at my desk Once and I was like, right, just gonna go, like fancied a bit of air. It's like 11 o', clock, just fancy going on a walk and you get up to go to that. It's like, well, where are you going? Or like, where have you been? I just felt like saying like, do you know, you might as well get a metal chain and put it to my leg because there's just like an invisible one when you're like making those, those comments. Yeah, it is like. I think it is just sort of like a. A crazy. It is a crazy world and it's not to slate it because it is the right thing for a lot of people. But I think for me it was just like, it was a tough, tough. I don't know, I think it was like eight months. But yeah, I did. Yeah, I'd probably just. I think it's that society's pressure sort of just telling you, this is what you need to do. This is what you need to do. This is what you need to do. You can earn a shed ton of cash out of it, but I'd rather make half the money and yeah, freedom in it.

100, 100.

That's what it. Like.

How big was the business then when you quit, was it like, did you wait until it was.

Yeah, I was basically making the same. I was making the same money from, from the business as my job, which was just like a good few thousand pound a month, which I know is a lot of money, but it was still a risk because you're not just giving away, you're giving away your sort of career. But what I did is I've tried to think quite logically and I remember everyone was going like, well, what are you going to do when your business fails? And all this, like, negative. And well, I was like, well, I'll just go back to a job. And they're like, how do you know there's going to be a job job when you finish? So I just went to my boss and I was like, right, I'm not going to be here because I'm going to quit. Yeah. But theoretically, if I came back in a year's time, would you offer me a job? They were like, yeah. I was like, well, yeah, it's problem solved.

Asymmetric.

Yeah, it's like, well, I've got a. It's like, you know, I mean, I've gone onto the bookies and I've got a free bet, like you're going to use it to sort of took the free bet and then went all in. And then lucky everything, everything boomed. Obviously coronavirus is like did do the business wonders, as damaging as it was for other businesses. But yeah, luckily the two years actually.

Fucking hell mate. Like the past two years it's been a blur. I overthink this so much. Like we're just like looking back at how quick time's gone and like things that have changed or whatever. It's actually mad like particularly the past two years, like 2020 I think everyone thought that, you know, surely Covid's done and then 2021 fucking out. I'm in 2022. Jesus Christ.

Yeah, it has been a, it has been a crazy time but I think, I think hopefully we're at the tail end.

Yeah, for sure. So how did you actually start like sales wise then? Is it purely organic?

I basically only introduced the website in November 2020 so prior to that it was basically just hustling through Instagram dm.

Yeah.

Which is the business is actually really quite simple and I think people maybe in the, the. In like the industry over Complicate it. Complicate it. But basically what you're doing is you're selling a product people want. So that's. Jeremy, we don't have to market the latest shoes like yeah, Nike and all the other brands. You'll do that for us. So, so that, that's got a big tick. We just sort of need to make it look cool. So you basically need to just drive traffic and then you just need to try to convert the traffic. So we were basically just trying to, trying to grow the page, getting people to view it on Instagram. They were inquiring and then it's just about the conversion. But I think a lot of it for me is it's a high value good. So maybe like average order value for us is over 400 pound, just a fraction over. So people want to deal with someone they feel comfortable with so it's like getting their number, like becoming friends with them. And I do like legitimately probably a bit like you. A lot of the people I, I speak with on a daily basis because they can afford the products I sell or we sell a lot of then normally hugely successful in their field. So I'm lucky enough that a lot of the people I, I sell to have almost become or they are friends. So I built some really like good relationships off the back of it. But yeah, that's basically we basically just started there and then the website sort of added a new dynamic and it was only over lockdown where I was like, right, I'M just gonna. What's his Facebook ads business all about? Everyone just getting hammering on. Obviously everyone had loads of time. So I was like, right, this week, try to set myself a little weekly goal. I'm just going to watch an hour of. On whatever. Any Facebook ad video a day.

Yeah.

And I just got learning, learning. Eventually started pumping some money and then at the time, none of my competition. It was actually like, no Fear of God essentials. You know, it's got like the big essentials here. No one else was really running ads on them. And I was like. I was like, right, just see what this ads business, right. She ran like the most simple carousel ad and it basically had like looked so. But had trust pilot in the bottom left corner and then the clear pay client, absolute class it and it was like Fear of God essentials in stock now, blah, blah. But I was running it and it was getting like a five pound cost. Cpa.

It's a cost really. Jesus Christ.

Yeah, mate, it was locked down. Everyone wanted these hoodies and no one, there's no competition. Yeah. So then just started hammering it, that scaling that. I was like, mate, this ecom business is an absolute piece of pits.

Yeah.

Then obviously the whole market sort of caught on and we obviously had a bit of like logistics trying to get orders out the door. But I sort of saw the capability of it. Then it sort of then tinkered off. At the same time, I was trying to build like what I call the private side of the business, which is like where we're dealing with the, the high net worth. The people who are buying. Yeah. More regularly put in place. A couple like sales people. They're effectively like dealing. They've got a client list, they're sending out broadcasts of the latest stuff. They're making sure their clients are like, if they say, I'm going on holiday next week, we'll put like outfits together. They'll buy whatever they need for their holiday. Yeah. So it's sort of been trying to grow the two together because you need both as much as. As the other. But the E Com side is, is, yes, it's good. But the trouble we have is a lot of the. Because it's a high value. Good. Like the problem with all ecom is scaling is difficult with like your margins are tight and you have to invest a lot into stock. And if like, if you're selling a product which only cost you a few pounds, it's very different to if like a shoe might cost us 3, 4, 500 pounds. So stocking a Lot of it, yeah. Becomes difficult.

So why would. This might be shitty question but like why would someone come to you rather than just going to the brand? Is it availability or what?

Yeah. So most of it, if it's like a Nike trainer, it's the obviously just sold out. It goes on to the secondary market. Nike are just like pumping it at the minute. They really, they're trying to build their brand. So like any Jordans or stuff like that, it's just dunks, they're just selling out instantly. So then they have no choice but to buy it from the secondary market.

Yeah.

The designer stuff often it's a fraction cheaper through us but people want like a one stop shop. So even the person who buys like the Louis Vuitton hoodie also wants the Dior trainers and also wants the Amiri jeans but they don't want to have to sort of first of all like I think going to shops like the high street whilst if it's still an experience people still look like. I know first time people do it. Yeah. A lot of effort like driving into London, all that jazz. So people want, they just want it sorted and like they might have a contact at Dior and they might have a contact but they don't have to deal with like so many different people. They just want to go, they don't want to have to drive into London, get there for them to say oh sorry sir, it's all that.

Yeah.

When can you get it? It's like oh we don't know. They just want someone to, to basically take that away from paying for the ease. Yeah, it's just convenience, that's all. Like what business is a lot, that's what this service. It's just convenience. So I think that that's sort of where we fall and there is huge demand for the goods we sell so we basically just need to hopefully be the best at supplying it.

So how does it split in between like that like client side?

Yeah. At the minute is that over Christmas, the E commerce. I went like fucking nuts. We're selling a lot of PlayStations but we basically were just hammering. We're spending like 2k a day on Google Ads.

Yeah.

So we were just top of Google Ads and PlayStations. There was like a massive shortage.

We managed to even get the stock though if there's a shortage. I mean I literally don't know, I.

Can'T reveal all the tricks. But basically what happens is there's these kids who do like botting. So at least with the playstations like John Lewis releasing Them Argos were releasing them all these sort of places.

Yeah, the play.

It's not like Nike were releasing them, but not because Nike set up things against bots so they can't happen, but bots, yeah. Anyone who doesn't know is basically someone's created a software so as soon as something goes live, they can basically buy it. A lot of the time they can even set up the bot so it can be bought before it's even live on the website because it has to be backloaded, all this crazy stuff. But these. Yeah, there's things called cook groups, which is. It's a bit out of my remit, but obviously I know people who do it. But people were basically exploiting these websites, like John Lewis, Argos, all that jazz. Because they didn't really have any in place, like John Lewis. Like, they're never worried about, like a kettle selling out instantly, like the Gaggia kettle drops. Yeah, exactly. So they weren't that worried. Well, they didn't have anything in place. So people were basically being able to buy like hundreds. They were going on the secondary market and then we could. Could pick a lot of them up off them. It was actually at the point where we were the only we could. We basically dominated the market because we were the only buyer at bolt levels to say someone had a hundred. They would never normally want to have 100 because they wouldn't be able to, like, have the cash flow to deal with it. But we were just buying. We were selling like, we sold like, 2,000 in six weeks.

Yeah, yeah, we did.

Did do a lot of them, but we were like the only buyer in the market and we would have people, like, we've got a warehouse and we'd have people, like, turn up and we'd be like, have we already bought these? Like, we paid for them. And he was like, oh, no, no. My friend just told me you're buying loads and I have like a van full of like 40 of them. And we're like, how wicked. Yeah, yeah, but. But yeah, luckily, like, I know we'll get hate because people are like, oh, you people should just let them have for the people. But it's just sort of the way the market works. It's supply and demand. At the end of the day, that's just a free market we live in.

Yeah, sure.

But yeah, we did have, obviously a bit of hate saying, why have you charged so much for a PlayStation? You're ripping off my son and all that.

Yeah, I can imagine that.

But most of it was positive. Like, we had so many obviously happy customers who been buying from us again and again that we managed to get them on. So that's the main thing.

Okay. Yeah. So I'm learning a lot about this industry for sure, in terms of like the whole. Because I feel like one of the. One of the accounts I first saw actually. Is it a guy called Yella?

Yeah, yeah.

Is that a competition or what?

Yeah, yeah. He made the guy, I don't know him personally.

Anonymous, right?

Yeah, he's anonymous, but he made a genius, absolute marketing genius. He owns that clothing brand called Yellow World. Yeah, that's the one. Which have done like amazingly well. And I think they're probably only a few years old.

Yeah.

But yeah, he did sort of start this whole thing because at the time it was like, well, why are these guys selling stuff which you can just buying the shops.

Yeah.

But then the whole market sort of grew off the back of it. But I've even spoken to people in, like in the US in, in Europe, but there's not a huge here. There's obviously all these like loads of personal shoppers, people. Everyone has like, person who sorts them out all their stuff. But it's not the same in any other. Well, it's a bit amongst Europe, but in the US it's definitely not that way. But I think just at least in the uk, that the culture of Ford designer clothes is immense. Yeah, I've noticed that, mate. It's mad now, but it's almost like, like, I can't slate it because it's, it's stuff I sell and wear. Yeah. Like a pair of shoes for a thousand pounds is normal. Like it's absolutely normal for now. Like, like, whereas maybe even two, three years ago it was like at the 400 pound price mark and then it went up to 600, 700. And these brands are just pushing it and you know, there's someone like at the back of it going like, what the hell is going on here?

All these brands colluding the market just to raise the prices.

The market's quite interesting because when you think about it, the more expensive something is, the less people can afford it. So then the more. So then almost the people who can afford it want it even more because they're thinking, like, mate, if I've got that, that he'll know that I can afford that. So then it's like, I actually really fucking want that.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? It's like this whole thing, like, who can have the most expensive watch? Like, oh, he's wearing a Rolex is like, oh, mate, he's got an RM on. Do you mean then everyone just like sooner or later, his watch is worth like 5 million quid and it's like.

He'S got a Jacob custom something.

Yeah, yeah. And it's just like that comes from.

Like Instagram culture and just like love island culture.

I think, I think it must. And I think people look at it like, well, if you haven't got this stuff, you're not the. You're. You're not successful. But I've had, like, where I wear a lot of the designer stuff. Like, I've had conversations with people who are like, far more elite than me, like, in terms of the business world, like miles above. And I feel like a right fucking idiot because I'm there dressed like head to toe in all this gear and they're just in like that. They're like standard stuff. Probably thinking, like, what the fuck is this? Gee, they're doing, like wasting all this money. So there are like pros and cons, but I always say to people that there's a lot worse things you can spend your money on. And it, if it makes you feel.

Good to me, go, very true, very true.

But I've seen a lot of people say, oh, what a waste of money.

But I kind of say that.

Yeah, I know you say that's funny. But some of the people we sell to, most of the people, like, this isn't even like a touch of their wealth. It doesn't even touch the thing, actually.

Because I was gonna ask, like, I mean, maybe it's different with your clients, but like, broadly speaking, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say most people that wear designer clothing don't have money.

Yeah, I think, Yeah.

I look at someone head to toe in lv, I think they're probably. It was all on credit cards.

Yeah, you might be right.

But it probably depends where it is. Central London, I don't know.

In all honesty, I would disagree just on base of everything I've learned, like some of the people who do buy consistently, like whatever they do, like, they're, they're loaded.

Yeah.

I mean, it doesn't even like. Do you mean spending like 5, 10k doesn't like. I mean, it's not even days work. Yeah, it's like, I mean, the average.

Person, what sort of clients do you get, generally speaking, that would spend the most?

Yeah, just all sorts. In all honesty, I always say, to me, it's not. The people always think, awesome. How much did he spend? Talking about like footballers and stuff. But what you've got to remember is those footballers, they are like, they're elite level sportsmen. A lot of them are really committed to fill. They're not going to like libertine every single night. Whilst they might go like every now and then, they're not hammering the nights out. They're not like doing all this. They're normally probably just in like a night tracksuit. Whilst they might have nice stuff when they go on holiday. But yeah, there's all sorts of. We have people who are just like businessmen. Own, own, their own whatever. Even like just anyone who's sort of done well. A lot of young, young successful people. I've got a really good relationship with a lot of watch dealers and for them they're selling to like the rappers, they're selling to the every people. They sort of need to be wearing this stuff.

Yeah.

And I think even, even like footballers, like a lot of them now, they are like celebrities. Like, it's not like the Alan Shearer days are a bit over. Like where it's just like, mate, he's just gonna go on and boot wherever he can. Like now it's like who's got the most followers? Like. Yeah, because then they're getting better. Yeah, they're betting, getting better contract deals and they're thinking like, right after my career, it's like the David Beckham, I suppose, was the first one who sort of did it where he was bigger than football. Yeah, he's bigger than football, but I don't know the stats. I've never even looked at it. But if you looked at his career earnings versus his what he earns out, I don't even know. But I think FIFA paid him like tens of millions of his face on that in like 2020 or 2021, wherever it was. But his earnings would be crazy. But he built himself to be this light into his fashion brand. Yeah, his personal brand's crazy. So I think a lot of it's being recognized now that if you are like, like mbappe, people like that, they have, they want to look good all the time, every time they want the latest stuff. So they're, they are investing basically in themselves. Like the cost of having those new clothes, like wearing the new LV collection is like minor.

Yeah, very true.

And I know that's the top of the scale, but there is lower, lower levels to it. And people always like, if someone looks like the absolute part 24 7, like a brand's going to want to sponsor them. So, yeah, it's an interesting way of looking at it. But then likewise there's people who just go out to clubs and want to wear the latest Louis Vuitton jacket. But yeah, there's a real mixture.

Yeah, legit. Who's. Have you got an example of like what's the most someone's ever spent with you?

Yeah, excluding us.

Get mad. Some of the order values.

Yeah, it's like you. I remember when I got my first order, it was like things about big order. It was like 8K. I was like, jesus Christ. And it was basically a guy and he just wanted every easy. But I had someone like call me, you know, I won't mind me saying this, but it's basically a shoe, like an off white dunk. They're like between like 5 and 700 pound a pair. But Nike basically released 50 pairs. They're all slightly different. They're all pretty much the same apart from a few, yeah, different colored laces. This guy was like, I want every pair. It's like, mate, you sure? Like, do you mean you've only got two feet? No, I want every pair. So they're like 500 quid a pair. So that'd be like 25K's worth of shoes. But it's just like, yeah, minor. So that.

How do people pay for that? Because like people that don't do econ might not understand like the relevance of that. Because for example if someone puts that on card, could they just like charge that back?

No, we do have to. I've actually order values like that.

I often wonder that.

Yeah, we'll just invoice and they'll just send a straight back transfer.

Yeah. To avoid that.

Yeah.

Would you do like card payment on that?

Not at that level, no. And even at that level will take ID and stuff like that. But you do need to be fucking careful. Unfortunately the. I've been stung like when was it? Basically bitcoin was a 13,000 pound at the time. And someone however long ago, that year and a half, two years ago, someone was buying some stuff off me, claimed to pay bitcoin. I spoke to someone, I was like young, naive. I sold him loads of stuff, built a relationship with him, but turned up spent 13k bitcoin yet in my Coinbase wallet. Look, the next day it's not there. I'm like, here we go. It's basically some, some chargeback they basically figured called a double spend, you can't do it anymore. And actually recently got eliminated off the platform. But yeah, this fucking prick who's out there hopefully watching this and you got basically did a double spend. Yeah, took all. It came to our office, took all the staff. Yeah. Best mates. But like, yeah, money's with you. It's basically a loophole on the Coinbase network to make it look like you'd receive your money. But yeah, we get targeted. We always have people try stuff on like 247 and like we're fortunate enough that we don't need. If there's any element of like risk or slyness, we just can swerve it.

Yeah.

But yeah, like we get targeted heavy like our, our online Sage Pay account and obviously when people pay by card, if you don't know, just get some hampers.

Sage Pay.

Stripe. Do not like what you do. Stripe. No stripe. Not having it because most people would.

Use a strap by payments drive whatever.

Yeah, well they don't. Yeah. Neither of those let you do what we do on, on their platform because it's like we don't have the right to sell Nike and all that stuff. We're not an authorized reseller. Yeah. So we have to go down the Sage Pay route where it definitely hammers a bit of conversion because you have to go through that on all your stock then.

Is that like 3PO? I know we're getting to the jewelry stuff in a minute.

Yeah. No stock is. We've got a warehouse where we keep most of our stock. But how it basically works is we typically trying to increase it about 50, 60% of of orders we have in physical stocks. We can get to the customer the next day, but the remaining 40 are either sourced in, but we basically know someone who's got it already. So we have a good network of people who've got maybe similar stock levels. So like large amounts of stock who are like holding trainers, then we can basically get it in from them and, and sort of middleman the deal. But the thing with, with trainers is whilst there's a lot of downside, say like a Jordan comes out today, it might be 200 pound on the market, but in a year's time it's not like the watch market where second hand is still just like a normal thing, like second hand pair of shoes, the price just absolutely plummets. So in a year's time there's a lot less pairs in the market. If demand still the same, still in fashion, the price is just. They've gone from 200 to 400. So actually holding from the year is actually the end of the world. Yeah. So it's quite good. It's like most things like stock price Actually depreciates in this stock price. Can actually appreciate if you're clever. And I know people who make a living like a good living who've got like a few million quid. They're basically just hammer buy loads of shoes, just sit on them for like six months and they make like 20, 30% of the money. But if you, it's, it's good money if you're doing it over a few hundred grams.

Yeah, it's interesting concepts, mate.

The whole. I've, I've had crazy ideas with it.

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

But the trouble is is like storage, like it's probably a bit like wine. When you got into a big level you need to have a fucking massive seller. Do you know what I mean? You can't just be out of a like a little random storage unit or anything like that. So. Yeah, but is an interesting concept.

If you had to pick either the like personal shopping, like more client side or the E comm side and run with it. Which one would you pick and why?

It's got to be Ecom, to be honest. Just because the scalability. The personal shopping side is brilliant and it sort of got me where, where I am today. But it's, it's difficult because there's a lot of moving parts. You're constantly on your phone like you can't switch off. I think like where I used to be.

What's that must be.

Oh mate, it's a mess. I've got another phone which has got like six contacts and it just passed like eight o'. Clock. I just turn off that phone and I'm just, I'm on my one where I don't. I know no one's going to text me if it goes. I'm like, at least I know who it is, but yeah, it's a mess. But yeah, it'd have to be the ecom side just because of the scalability. But look there, there's pros and cons. I think I'm sort of past the point now where I'm like, oh, mate, just made another 200 quid and it's like, oh, boom. And it's like quick fires, like on the phone to him doing the deal. Like, I used to absolutely buzz off it, but now it's sort of like fatigue down where I'm getting into more E comm and it's more like. Do you mean it can be like a quiet Sunday, you haven't done too much work, but your Shopify is absolutely flying. So I think. I think that's got to be it just because of the scalability and I'm like, I'm not in a place where I want to just keep everything where it is and just float along. I'm trying to actively grow.

Yeah. And what do you think the biggest challenge is? To scale ecom? Because obviously doing decent scale.

Yeah, for me it was. We had a big level, we had a big issue, a cash flow issue, like probably where we were scaling over Christmas. Like, people don't understand that, like, if you're doing like a million pound turnover a month, like that money's got to go through somewhere. It's got to come out of your bank account for the product. Obviously there's a margin on it, basically bought. But if your margin is 10%, you've just moved.

Yeah. Shit.

Ton of money. So I think my ego. I don't know whether it's my ego, but I don't want to seek investment just because I like the control, like the way I run the business. You hear horror stories, but I suppose there's also a lot of positive stories, but it's probably just the cash side, cash flow side of things, to be honest. But I've got it this far and I feel like if you just continuously add, add, add. But obviously like, you've probably been. There's times when you feel like. Do you mean like you've got ton of money tied up in. In.

Yeah, I've had like multi. Six figures tied up in payment processes, mate. Just put reserves.

I'm having weird. Yeah, we had problems with the banks in December. Not that we did anything wrong, basically, just because of, like, activity. Just went absolutely through the roof and.

They'Re like, tell us xyz.

Yeah, exactly, like. And then they just decide to hold your money and Then all this, all this stuff. So I think that is the main issue. Well, the main hurdle. But I don't think it's. I don't know, what's your opinion on seeking investment all that?

Well, I've done it for this new.

One down that I suppose it relieves.

I spoke.

Relieves. It wasn't pressure.

I suppose it definitely wasn't for money. That's not the main reason. Yeah, it was for guidance. I mean I spoke about in more depth on I think two episodes that have gone out by now.

Yeah.

But yeah, it was really for stress sharing guidance and experience and really to give it more of a plan for where I want to take it.

Yeah.

Because it was more about the people that were coming on rather than the money.

Yeah. And that's important.

And that's also why I took investment rather than like a loan or you know, revenue. Yeah.

Because you could have got the money easily is what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah. Ultimately. So.

Yeah, no, I think, I think that is important. I suppose that comes to like building like a, an A team. Like people are on the same vision, people want to take it in the same path because you can't. I've learned you can't get far on your own.

Like. Yeah, I've learned that. Hardware.

Yeah. You try. Like I'm just gonna hammer this, I'm gonna figure out what this email marketing jazz is all about, be a piece of piss. And suddenly you like getting zero click throughs and you're like losing your subscribers. So I think, yeah, I think I listened to something interesting the other day a while ago which I've tried to like implement and basically this business, it's just about once you get to a level like once you've got a model which works, you've got people who want your product. It's just about a recruitment process. Yeah. If you can hire like the best in each field drumming, let them get on. You don't really need to know what's, what's going on. But if you can hire the best in each field, obviously just let them sort of flourish with it. Yeah, for sure. So I'm trying to adopt that. But yeah, teams, mate, it's so important.

Do you think having your own warehouse over like A three plus. I know you do for the other brand.

Yeah, yeah.

Is that like. Because I, I've never done that. I've always outsourced. I thought like, why don't have my own warehouse, how can I scale as quick, etc. Yeah.

So we basically I would put it in a three pill if we could but because of the stock turnover is so fast. Like the checking in the barcoding would absolutely like logistic nightmare.

Yeah.

Because there might be a new shoe release. We wouldn't have time to like check it into a three plus them to go like it's here where it's a high value. Good. Always worry like, do you know what I mean? Suddenly your shoe just goes missing. It's like, sorry, you like you get a email from someone saying this has been stolen.

Two pound conversation.

Exactly. Exactly. So I would if I could, but unfortunately we can't. But we had that same thing as you asked that what was the difficulty over Christmas we had like that was calling up if you're on my phone. But you probably got a call over Christmas being like, hi mate, I know you've been working like in a job a few years, but I don't suppose you got like spare hand like because they couldn't get enough people to package orders.

Really.

Yeah, but not in like a. We would. We were doing maybe let's say 250 orders leaving a day. But that actually takes a ton of time. Like if you've ever been to A3PL, like they've got a legit operation. Like our operation hopefully was good but it was like not as organized as what. What they're doing. So we were basically like all just figuring it out or jumping on board. But part, part of the growth, I suppose part of the fun of it.

How big do you want to make it then?

Like.

Because obviously everyone talks about scale, scale, scale, but then it's not always like the way. Because there's a lot of things that come with scaling more.

Yeah, no, and I've learned that, I've learned that recently.

Where would you want to take it? Relative?

I've learned that recently that scaling you've got to be fully committed and your margins will in my opinion get like dampened.

Oh for sure.

And like we operate off a small margin already like month on. Well it's only about 13 take home. So it's small.

Still pretty good for econ.

Yeah, it is, it is good. Pleased with it. But it's tight because if you want me, if you drop a few percent. Yeah. You suddenly could be gone like we start employing like mad. But yeah, I think, look, my. I'm extremely ambitious and I feel like growth is just part of like I feel like as I'm hopefully developing, the business will develop and that's sort of like showing my like the, the Month I. Or the. The year where I'm not growing at all and profits are the same and revenue is the same, is sort of like. That would just drive me crazy. Yeah, but I think it's sort of a bit like we, I think we spoke before. Like, it's not about the money, all this jazz. It's not about. It's just like how you monitor your success. But yeah, I, I think it is. I'd love to scale it and keep pushing it further, but unfortunately I feel like the market, at least in the trainers, I think it will continue to develop and change. And what I don't like about the market, which is why I'm sort of seeking other opportunities, is that a lot of it is sort of out of our control. So I can't predict trends. There always will be a trend, but I can't predict I'm not producing a product I'm in control of. So it's harder to. Like there could be a few or a few months where there's like been no good releases and our profits are just down. It's sort of out of our control residues. If you're running your own brand where you're making your own product, at least you can sort of like take full accountability for it. But yeah, I think I, I see there is, there is growth, but I think the scale of growth cannot be as quick as if you were just running like a simple econ brand.

Yeah, for sure. So many things want to go on to. But on the jewelry brand, I feel like we have to cover both, probably.

Yeah, yeah, we'll try to cover it.

So, yeah, a million quid first year. That's pretty much exactly what I did with Midnight City in the first year. And I feel like jewelry's so competitive now. That's probably more impressive on your side.

I think, because the market's got competitive. You were in the bar. Are you in the male market or both?

Slightly both. But 99% met. Well, 90% male.

Yeah. So we're strictly female. Which for anyone in the looking to get into the E Comm space, I.

Personally would recommend they just spend money when they're bored.

Yeah. I think girls just spend more money than men. At least if it's me, I'm like online, I think, like, yeah, 100% online. And I also feel like girls as boys are like. We look into things where girls are like, I'll just buy it and return it if I don't want it. The mentality, the mentality is different. So we're operating the Female market. We're a fair price point, like, say a necklace can be like 50 quid, probably. Is that a similar sort of. Yeah, yeah. So similar fair price point, like affordable. We've basically. Yeah, we've basically just seen. We saw really good results and the bat. The brand is scaling quick and that is basically the plan for this year to just try scale as quick as possible. But we're learning, we're learning fast. But I think it just comes down to key, at least for me. The key fundamental is just having a good product. Yeah. And I know people overlook and they look into this marketing. Whilst that is crazy important, you need people to buy it. But if you've got a good product and you've got customers returning, I think that's. That's the key. So I think just spending time on your product development, making sure it's actually something like legit, like good. Like if you received it, you'd be like, well, this is it.

Just stainless steel jewelry, I assume.

Yeah. Stainless steel jewelry product. Yeah.

It's a fucking man.

Yeah. Doesn't. Doesn't tarnish. Yeah, tarnish free. So we've got, like. We've got loads of arms, like waterproof, sweatproof, like finding your audience and basically just talk to them, making them feel like they need the product. But we've had, like. What I also feel like is important is like, you need that emotional connection. And the business basically is called deluise, which is based on my girlfriend who, her mum sadly passed away in 2017 of cancer, and it's named after her, Debbie Louise. But there is the whole point of the brand. It's more than just like, go buy your jewelry. It's like this whole, like, empowering woman. And it's like this. There's loads of emotional. And I won't go on, but it's just like the whole journey of. Of how she sort of left her job, which she hated or didn't enjoy, and now is like. Like, I actually run my own business. You know what I mean? It's just like this cool thing, like we're all here and we all sort of just take it for granted that, like, we can go do what we want, but realistically, like 99% of society can't. So it's sort of just like supporting that. But, yeah, the margins are good. Good room to scale. We've started selling a lot in America recently, so looking to go into 3PL out there. Q2, where the Americans buy more.

Is it primarily Instagram?

Yeah.

In terms of ads and.

Yeah.

Where Are you spending?

Yeah, basically. Facebook, Instagram, Google, we're actually doing really well on surprisingly. But I feel like Google's harder to like scale to a good level. That's at least what we're finding. But yeah, it's that whole thing like getting on the customer journey, like email marketing is crazy important, which I, I've only probably learned in the last. Yeah, seven, eight months.

That's fine. You've only been doing all this like two years.

Yeah, well, I have. I've been like, sort of dabbling along with it. But yeah, I sort of just sort of like went all in on it. My idea was that to do well in like a. You could be the best at what you do, but if the, if the, the industry or whatever you're doing is. Is on the downhill cycle, you'll never do that well. Whereas I sort of saw this like, yeah, E Comm is basically on the app, in my opinion, 100. And I think there's a. There's a huge. It's like. And that whole agency model that's also on the up. So the sort of thing, if I can get in here and even do a half good job, I remember like, we could do it and like, you know, I'm like getting to like the 10k a month profit isn't actually. I know it's not easy, it's not overnight success, but people can do it quite quick. If you actually put your mind to it and learn all the basic fundamentals, apply the right mindset, you can get there.

Yeah.

So I think I'd sort of learn that. And then now we're just sort of learning all the lessons of scaling, but just constantly. I think what some people maybe do wrong is they spend too much time working and less not enough time learning. So I do try focus to try just constantly, like read, listen to podcasts.

This podcast.

Yeah, this podcast in particular. Listen to every episode. You're a fucking idiot. Yeah, yeah, Listen, listen, listen to podcasts. All that jazz. And then, yeah, it's. It's luckily all sort of clicking together.

Do you think stock management's a for jewelry? Because that's one thing I used to find. I think I had like, literally, it's actually quite hilarious. I think There was like 55000 units of stock at one point and I was only selling like 5,000amonth. And I didn't even think. I was just like. Because the stock price was like unit cost.

Cheap.

Yeah, yeah.

So you had the money put on.

The Amex, like we'll just Stock up. But yeah, especially when you got a lot of skus because obviously, like sizing and shit. But I think I had like 250 SKUs and I was like, hell, that's too many.

Yeah, yeah, no, we have like 80.

Of sales with like 2 SKUs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, mate, it is a. It is a problem. Like, we've got lines like, just like something which happened last week is we bought like, there's a ring and a bracelet. We bought like 4,000 of them. We had it trademarked, checked. But basically, long story short is we can't sell them, but we've got like 4, 000 rings and a thing. And it's like, I know they didn't cost a lot, but still, like, what the are we gonna do with this then? Yeah, so you do have like, whilst they're being loads of difference because you can't have a website about three products even if those three products do just sell.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it is an issue, but you still get your head around. It's like we constantly have this debate. We luckily, like, done a bit of a cash flow planning, so as long as everything goes to plan, we're okay on when you order and all that. That Hoo ha. But you at times you're like, this is why we went to 3PL. We were like, how much room are we taking up? Because we've got like, yeah, like 70, 000 units in here. And I'm thinking like, Jesus Christ. Like Jermaine. Whilst there might only be. They're not hugely expensive. Not crazy money per unit. It's still like a lot of money tied up. Like. Yeah, it is a. Not a concerns or I'm worried. But you're thinking like, I hope this, like, do. I mean, hope sales can continue because we've got a huge amount of money. So it is like. I know it's one of the E. Com horrors that predicting yourselves is like extremely difficult. We had it over Black Friday where we saw way more than we ever thought. Then come like December, we've got most things out of stock. But it's not like, I know the clothing game takes ages to design. Like, and then you've got to get it to sample and then list like. Luckily jewelry is an easier design process.

Yeah.

So it's a bit quicker.

Do you use Tick Tock?

Yeah. Trying to push it.

I've been seeing, like, I've been on Twitter, like saying organic. Everyone's talking about TikTok ads.

I mean, how you can make 10k a month.

I've done it yet really to like did a little bit with neon, but never organically. Like this brands. I've seen that doing like grand a month. Organic.

Yeah, I know. It's like the new world and I feel like that's what people always say. It's like our Facebook's dead, but there's always gonna be a new thing.

Yeah, it's definitely not dead. It's just got more expensive. Yeah.

You just have to be constantly learning. Like you can't. You can never think, have that mindset of like, oh, I don't know anything about like, I'm not saying like, I know it's just hammering it and all. Like everyone's bored of it but like whole NFT crypto space. You can't have the mindset anymore of like I don't think about it like in case it is the next big thing. Like you can't or at least pick your battles and go like, right, I'm just gonna try to learn about this Tick Tock Joe's because some people having some success in it, like we, we put up our first video on Tick Tock was like a. It was like a 10 second clip of Mason Mount in our office. We have this thing called the Bin Challenge where you basically have to like boot a football into a bin which is on the other side of the warehouse. There's a Mason Mount just like doing Fukiyapi's doing it. Put it up like no editing, no sound, nothing. We've got like 350k views. And we were like, you couldn't get near all that on Instagram in a fraction. So we were like, Jesus Christ, this has to be powerful. So we've actually recently hired someone like a freelancer who's basically just hammering our TikTok. But even then you're getting like, like 10k views. Like a bad video.

Yeah.

Which you. Yeah. You can't get it elsewhere. But it's just learning all these platforms, just trying to utilize them shit with.

Like footballers then like Mason Mount. I was down at Chelsea the other weekend. I'm actually a Liverpool fan, but I've got a mate that is season tickets. So I was corrupted. I think you were there as well.

Yeah, yeah, I was.

There was a. You got a season ticket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How would you start? Obviously like someone like him, I assume they get bombarded by, you know, potential businesses. Have you built like a relationship with people like that?

Yeah, yeah. So.

And like how does that work?

Mason? I've actually been. I have, I've been Selling to him for a few years and it's only like I known him and then he broke through to the Chelsea team and he had like a crazy debut at Stamford Bridge. And then it's all sort of like, he's sort of grown as my business has sort of grown. But yeah, like, he's like. He's like the face of Chelsea now, isn't he? So he's. He's at the point now where brands are approaching him because they want him to wear. Wear their stuff. So there is that, that sort of flip. But people. It is just like word of mouth. Like, people want someone they trust. But yeah, they all like. Like every footballer who I've dealt with has been like an actual. Like, you think they're just gonna be like this absolute, like, arrogant. They're actually been like really good blokes, like most of them to get where they are actually really, like, switched on. And they, like, do take everything seriously. Like, people think, oh, they just mess about. Like, they're actually blood on it. They're just extremely talented. So, yeah, that's word of mouth is just the main thing across there.

Do people like that pay the same price or do they. They say like one discount because I'm promoting it.

No, no, they wouldn't. They just pay the exact same price.

Yeah, yeah. And this. Do you get players that spend like ridiculous amounts?

Yeah. I mean, yes, I know. Not like. Like I said, they're not the biggest spenders, to be honest, because they don't have huge amount. Do you mean like footballers? Like, I know people are going to select me for some saying this, but they're actually like. They don't have that huge amount of time off. And then their career. They are actually working a lot. Like, they basically get. They're like a racehorse. I mean, they're just like constantly like. Like they. They're playing like sometimes like five games in. In four weeks or three weeks. And I know it's like, oh, tough. Like really tough going into trend and I get that. But they, they are work bloody hard. So they don't actually have a huge amount of time off. Don't go out like 24, 7. Obviously there are like the pogbas of the world and I don't sell to him. But yeah, he would like. I'm sure he would have it off. But yeah, the normal footballers wants, like, nice stuff. Wants to look nice and all that.

Yeah, definitely, Definitely. How do you think your life has changed most? I'm changing, changing the pace in the fucking office to like two Years later. Yeah, obviously you had stuff before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a pretty drastic change.

Yeah, mate, most people know that like.

Doing similar scale have either never been. They've never been like corrupted by being stuck in like a corporate world.

Yeah, yeah.

Or they've done it for longer.

My life has changed. Like, do you have these ideas that, oh mate, I would just want to make that money and I just want that bloody black Range Rover and then like, do you know what I mean? And then you actually sort of get there and you're like, I know it's like really typical but like it's maybe a bad mindset but you're just constantly thinking about the next thing. Like, obviously like I love it and all that and. But it's not about the money. The money. Like once you get to a point where you can sort of eat what you want, you don't have to think about too much.

Like.

You, you just can you get to a point where it doesn't really make a difference, but it's just like you're just trying to do something, build something bigger than, than yourself. Yeah, that's the thing. Because you see it like I love like Ben Francis and you see him on an interview, he's wearing like the same gym shots. Yeah. I think he's in some like plimsolls. And you think, mate, you are the absolute one. You're worth like 800 million quid and you're just bopping around at the same, same bits and bobs. So it just like, do you know what I mean? He doesn't need like a bloody urus and all this. Like I'm sort of like not saying I'm the wisest and stuff, but do you mean I don't think if I got any of. Any like crazy would make me any happier. Like I bet if someone, hopefully in a few years time when you sell your business for 100 million, like you're not just gonna go on, right, move and buy like a 50 million pound pad. Where I might be wrong. You might. Yeah.

Maybe just 10.

Yeah. But then you think like white, mate. Why do you need eight bedrooms? Do you mean if it's just.

Yeah.

Is that. That whole mentality is in my head at the minute is like, mate, why do you actually. Why do you want that? Why do you want that house of like 10 bedrooms? Like, that's just. I always think it's got to be your ego in it.

Like a thought experiment. I' and I've said it to a few people, it's Quite interesting for anyone watching is like, if tomorrow you woke up with whatever that number is.

Yeah.

100 million quid cash in your bank.

Yeah, go on.

What would you do?

Yeah, mate, I don't think you might.

Do something different for a week, but I actually. What would you. What would you do for the next. Hopefully like 50, 60 years, whatever you got left.

Yeah.

And then I think you should probably think about what you would do and then actually do that.

Yeah.

Probably end up there figuring. Figuring something out. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, no, it's true.

Yeah. Like, everyone thinks they might do something massively different, but for me, I don't know, I probably just have a black badge, Colin, and maybe live in a bigger flat, have a house as well, somewhere, like.

Yeah, but you, like, you would still crack on, wouldn't you? You'd crack on with your business.

Yeah. And I think the same things would still make me sad. That's nothing to do with money. Like I was saying to you before, the same things would probably make me happy, like cuddling my dog and.

Yeah, yeah, mate, it's true. That's what, like, that's. I. I've had this. The exact same thought, but I. I have this vision of like, say if. Say if like a close friend or something just goes to you, like, hi, mate, mate, I'm. My life on this earth is done. Like, I've got to die, whatever. And here's here, I've got this money. I know I want to give it to you. I would actually be a bit pissed off now because I wanted. It's sort of like you might have grown up, but I was fortunate to grow up a lot of. Around, like a lot of successful people and they've obviously just given their kids shit ton. But it's not about like the kid. Anyone can get bought a Rolex, sure. I mean, anyone can get bought a nice car, bought a nice flat, but how many. You can actually do it for themselves.

100%.

So it's like Jermine, like, that's why.

I was such a cunt when I started to be able to afford cars, because I've never bought one. When I was younger and then I was like, it was like compensation. It was like, well, I earned this.

Yeah. But it is that. That feeling of.

And then that becomes fleeting itself.

But yeah, yeah, it's that same thing. It's like, do you mean, you know when, say if you're a kid and you. You lawn the garden or whatever, and then your parents give you a fiber and you go buy your Own sweets. It's better than. It feels better because you've earned it. And it is literally that on a. On a bigger scale. So it's like, I actually would be pissed off if someone just. If I wouldn't want to win the lottery. I know that sounds ridiculous.

Yeah, no, I've thought about this.

I think. I think I would. It would just corrupt me because I'd feel like I've been sort of given a head start. And it's like, then I start thinking, right, if I had all this hundreds of millions, like, I don't know, a single, like, billionaire or multi. Multi millionaire who's got normal kids. Like, I think they're all. Yeah. Like, basically, or. I'm not saying all. I'm saying 80%. So you got to gamble that your kid falls in that 20. But it's quite hard to do it if they're, like, going on yachts and not doing all this crazy stuff. And then, you know. I mean. Yeah, like. So I don't really want that, probably. I don't know what to do with it. Just try to do something crazy, give it away or whatever. So I don't think it's about past the point during. Money is just a number at the end of the day, but it's about trying to do well, for me, it's about trying to do something bigger. It's just like a number to, like, prove itself. Like, oh, I can do that. This whole thing is like, for all of us, this business world, wherever it is, it's just a challenge. Like, for me, it's like a big game in it. Yeah, it's like a big game. And then you're just constantly just trying to figure it out. Figure it out. But it's never ending. But, yeah, it's a crazy. Going back to the original question. Yeah, my life has changed massively, but I think it's got to the point now where it won't. I mean, I did go, like, get that car, get that watch, get that. Constantly buying all this guns and spending money, like, doing all that. And then quickly you realize, like, my overheads are building up now.

Last year.

Yeah, yeah. You're like, do I really need all this stuff? Do you mean, like. Yeah, but I think, look, if you can keep the business growing with it, then it's not the end of the world, I suppose.

Yeah. And obviously you mentioned working with your girlfriend.

Yeah.

And that sounds like it works for you.

Yeah.

How long have you been with her before you made that?

Yeah, yeah, I've been with her. For about four years. And it was only like. I was basically. I sort of understood the E Comm space quite well. And she was basically like, hated her job, locked down. Like, her job was always quite social, going out, all this, all that. She didn't really have any sort of major ambitions. But then she started, like, seeing what I was doing, it was going well and she was like, oh, I just want to be. Is that term like free? You know, when you're like, probably working in a job, you're like tied to like zoom calls and everyone's talking like, I used to hate it. So I used to work in real estate and we'll go to like a networking event. I mean, what a lot of shit that was. And people would talk like, oh, so I just did this massive deal and it's like, mate, can we actually just talk about things we all care about? Because let's be realistic, you don't give a fuck about this. Like, you're just talking about it. So he. You hope this, like, guy over here will overhear it. So I. She sort of thought like, oh, actually maybe I could start a business, all this sort of stuff. And I was basically like, well, what? What's the risk? And she was like, oh, I won't have any money. So I was like, right, if I just fund you six months salary, we're good to go. And then because I did have like true belief that if we could. We put our mind to it, we could figure it out. You'd race, just outwork, outsmart your competition and. And then luckily, here we are. But we were talking about it before this call for this podcast. Sorry. It's like, you can exit these brands, obviously you need to have good earnings, but you can get out of them easy. Like, there's a lot of buyers in the market.

Yeah.

So I think. Or the current plan is at least. No, mate, no one even knows this shit. You get stuff out of people on podcasts, don't you?

Don't even try. It's just a natural skill.

Yeah.

Everyone feels so at ease. Yeah.

But yeah, the current plan is just to have another at least year, probably year and a half's growth and then. And try exit because then hopefully connects it for a good sum and then we can sort of just. I don't know, like I said, just work on something else. I suppose after that, would you.

Would you plan to sell the jewelry business and keep the.

Yeah, yeah. LS yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be the current plan.

Yeah. For sure.

But that money needs in the idea is at least this current idea, which is constant, constantly changing. But that business needs cash because we're stocking high value goods. Hopefully the cash I can make from that put into this and then scale that up. But that's the current plan. Things change all the time, don't they?

Yeah. Do you think you would have had this level of success so far if you were single again? This is therapy for me because of.

The concept, you know, I actually don't think I would. No. Like excuse all the gay, but I've got a very good relationship with my girlfriend and it is that like constant level of support. Like, I've been through some recently. Not even like family stuff, like business stuff where we had like big things, like big problems, like big bad. And then you've got someone. It's like that with your business, you've got someone to sort of share the stress.

Yeah.

So I think that. Yeah, that helped. And then also, like where I'm so like divulged in, like, I wouldn't go on many nights. I don't even if I. I don't know how I'd meet a girl like now because I'm not active enough. I'm shit on my phone. Like, if you like, my friends will know. They'll be close friends and I just, I won't reply to them. It's not because I like, they know I'm not being rude because I'll just ring them. Like, if you need me, just ring me. I mean, I'll just ring you back. Yeah. I remember the days when you're like sliding into DMs and stuff. Like, I've got friends who are like active in the game drumming. Like they've got the personal profile, They've got like 10k followers. They're active. But I. No, I'm not. No. Definitely wouldn't go down that route. So I don't know how to meet anyone. She probably just think, who's this freak?

How did you meet?

We're at university. Yeah. Weirdly enough, just in like towards the very end, that whole uni is just a scam. So anyone needs.

Which one was it?

I went to Reading uni.

But I think you need a scam.

Uni as a whole is an absolute scam for most people. Yeah. I think you learn that afterwards that they actually just rip you off, charge you 9k and then see you later.

Yeah. Legit. Yeah.

You didn't go uni, did you?

I went uni. Did three different courses. I dropped out twice. I never finished.

Yeah.

Only Newcastle but yeah, but it's a scam. It is a scam. Yeah. It's funny you say that about being single, but do you think that's because she's a very supportive on the same page person? Yeah, I think, I think completely agree.

Yeah, I think she is. Because I've been in. I've been in toxic relationships before. Like, because this is obviously I've been in quite a few relationships and I haven't.

Just the one that ended recently.

Just the one. We'll get onto that after, I'm sure. Yeah, but I've been in a few sort of as like not my come up is the wrong word. But so even when I was like 17, 18, I was like doing like little things like hustling to making money. But it was sort of, as I look back, some people would look at it and at least like girlfriends might look at it and find it like a bit embarrassing and do you know what I mean? It's like, it's a bit like, you know when someone starts a YouTube, like, yeah, legit. You're.

And you know, you know what it.

Is and you're filming it and like the girlfriend's a bit like, oh, what you do? What are you doing? You're embarrassing like us and. But actually two years down the line he's got a bigger channel ever. And she's like, oh, I've always supported him since day one. Do you know what I mean? Like, I had relationships like that where they're like, well, why are you doing that? Like, you're only thingy just grow up. Like it's not all about like, like, oh, do you mean? And it's like you sort of go, Everyone goes on this like journey of like where you're like, you start. Well, I feel like you start reading maybe and you're like listening to podcasts. And she sort of like, I had girlfriends who would be like negative about it and then just be like, oh, why do you care so much about that? Then luckily got out of those relationships and now my girlfriend now would like it's fully supportive on everything. Obviously she grants her opinion, but it is like, yeah, she would never say, oh, I don't think you should do that. Or I started. Oh, that's a. It's just being like positive.

Yeah.

About.

Do you think you share like. I'll come on to the reason why I'm asking this. Do you think you share like the same fundamental values and beliefs.

Yeah.

Life vision in terms of you're on the same page and what's Important. What's not.

Yeah.

When it even like money and shit. I feel like that stuff maybe couples don't talk about. I mean, it depends what stages are, of course.

Yeah, mate. I think it's like, I've had a friend who actually broke up with his girlfriend not too long ago, but they were just on. On two totally different wavelengths. Like, he was super ambitious, wanted to do this, want to do that. And then she was like, oh, I don't want to leave. Wherever I live, this is all I want to do. This is what I want to achieve. And it just can't work. And it's not because they don't get on and they're not great people. But you sort of have to be tuned into the same radio station, I would assume, and you can't fight that to a degree. Yeah. So I do agree with you that you do need to be. Yeah, you do. We do share the same, same vision, same journey. She doesn't really, like, like, even if the business started doing millions of millions of pounds. We talked about this the other day. Like, if we exited for like millions and millions, like, I was like, what's up? Like, what are you going to do with your. Your chunk of money? And she was like, oh, I don't. I don't even care. Just like, make sure there's a few hundred pound in my Monza. And it's like, like, no, you do realize, like, you can go do whatever the fuck you want to do, but it's just like she doesn't even care about that. But whereas I'm like, the really meticulous one is live, like plans and strategies, like, why we need to do this, do that. So I think we sort of complement each other in other in aspects, but I think the whole thing is just like, don't take shit too seriously. Just support each other is obviously the main thing. Yeah, that's about it.

Do you think it's a better relationship because you met before you started making money?

Yeah, I think I would. Like, like most people, as you sort of get into money, your life does change. But like going to nice restaurants, doing all that jazz and it's, it's because I actually, like, I do stuff, enjoy. Like, I don't go clubs and spend stupid money. But that's not why I enjoy it. I don't enjoy getting absolutely slaughtered, but I do enjoy, like going to. Going to nice restaurants, like, actually like, buzz off, like, looking at the menu and like that. Going on crazy holidays, doing all that. I love all that stuff. So I think It. Yeah, I think meeting. She always says that. She's like, I was with you before you had anything. Blah, blah, blah. Like when I met her I like had this polo and I was driving halfway across London for like 50 quid or a pair of trainers. And at the time say if I was like 19, that is a bit like. Like I was hustling. Do you mean like what I. What my business used to be is like I was the equivalent of a drug dealer. But shoes in my polo, dropping them off like here, there and everywhere. So it is like people would look at you and they might be like, don't know. Another one of her friends might have a bloody boyfriend called Albert who's just got a job at JP Morgan. Like, who's this idiot? It's like, fuck you, Albert.

Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I said I wasn't going to say this on the podcast, but yeah, I was pissed off this week. I found out that my ex girlfriend got a new boyfriend like eight weeks later, which I thought was harsh.

Quick to. Yeah, yeah.

Just so cold. Like I don't know. And then I asked her about it and she gave me like a one line reply on text and I was like, that's cool given we live together for like a year.

Got the dog.

Yeah. I don't know, I think people, people.

Deal with things in different ways.

I mean I've never been through a breakup but like. And I don't think she had massively before. But yeah, I think. Is that your phone? Cut that out. Yeah. I really hope that's just a fucking. Right. I honestly think, and this is me just being super fucking honest on the podcast. I always am. I think that was more emotionally distressing for me than like the six months of losing like a million quid from Neon beach was.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Well, I think that says a lot about.

Rather it was more foreign. Like I don't know how to deal with this feeling.

Yeah, mate. I think that it is a like.

And they are very different things. But it's a deep.

But you might have got to the point where I sort of am.

At.

Least like business and least money in business. Like you actually you really care about. You don't. You probably got to the point in Neon beach like I've lost money like through doing stupid like all these sort of stories which you like lessons you learn in business, but they are just as long as you learn from and move on, move on. But you don't actually. You don't Give a about it anymore. Whereas the relationships like that, like human relationships. It's really hard. Yeah, it's deeper. Close cut. There's like emotion. Huge deep emotion. We actually realize like money. It doesn't matter, does it?

Yeah, absolutely. Because like I did a personality test yesterday for the first time ever and it was like so true. It was like 16 personalities dot com.

Yeah.

And there was like a relationship section like reading that shit. I'm not like into star signs and that, but this personality, this one was.

On the like absolute.

Yeah, it was just like, you care too much. Like, I don't know. The other person probably comes across that they don't care as much. Fucking. Yeah, but. Yeah. I don't know.

But I think my mentality. Well, as I. As I sort of. And the people I. The thing I say to friends and stuff. I'm not sure. I'm not sure like at least with a girlfriend or someone, if you're not 100% sure that she's the one you want to spend the rest of life with. Been it off.

I think.

Yeah. 100. That's. I think that's just a matter of fact, like if. If you are not categorically like, boom, done. Like if someone said gums your head, tell me, predict the future, I would know what the future is. What's the answer? Yes or no?

If.

If you think it's a no been off. And I think because otherwise you just ultimately might get divorced or whatever. Unless, like, I'm lucky that I'm in the position where like, I'm sure, like, I don't have any sort of desire to like take out other girls, all this sort of crap. Whereas previously I was like in relationships and maybe did so.

Yeah. I think the problem with like when breakups end, I mean, this is. This is literally just become a fucking breakup podcast. But because I know don's come relate watching it, like, you just look at everything with a rose tint a little bit. And then I'm such. Because I'm such a creative and probably a lot of entrepreneurs are like, you know, I just kind of put this brand on everything that wasn't never actually.

Never actually was there.

Yeah, you maybe was, but it wasn't.

To the same degree. Yeah, it's like you see what you want to see, not what's actually. Yeah, but that's the question.

Do I miss the reality? Do I miss what I think the reality was or could have been? And then it's just like, I'm a deep romantic emotional anyway.

Yeah, but you're the same as me. And I think a lot of people, like, we look into things. Things deep.

Oh, God. If I get a text that doesn't read right, that's. I'm not sleeping well, it depends who it's from. But, yeah, if it's from one specific person right now.

But yeah, yeah, but that's what I mean. Like, you look into things deep, but you do that the same in, like, maybe your business, like, every aspect of your life. Like, I don't. I'm assuming that, like, if you're gonna start, like, hitting the gym, you're gonna really look into, like, what style of training, when actually, you realize that, actually, I just need every exercise five days a week. Do you know what I mean? Like, when you probably, like, people like us, we might look into, like, right, I need this and then I need to do that, and I need to. When actually, it's like the. The fundamentals are very. So it can be like our. It can be your, like, your best trait and maybe you're worse at the same time.

Yeah, definitely. I always say that, like, my mind is my greatest gift and my biggest curse.

Yeah, definitely.

I don't know. Like, yeah, it definitely me up when shit's not good sometimes. But.

But yeah, that's my not in. No means to give advice, but I'd say If you're not 100, sure, you.

Probably are because you've been in a long, stable relationship. Yeah, a lot of people want. Because I definitely think it would be more productive for me to be in a stable relationship, which is ironic, saying that having just ended one that was pretty stable.

But maybe that's the answer, that she wasn't the right person. Well, I think that is the answer.

Well, interesting to find the right person eight weeks later. But, I mean, that's just a coping mechanism. I don't know.

Yeah, but I think, look, I think meeting. Meeting the right person is by no means easy, but without the cringe. I think you'll cringe on this podcast. Yeah, this is like, the norm. Yeah, you'll know.

I think.

I think you'll know. That's why we're gonna say is I think you'll know when you're like, oh, this person is actually proper. Sound, like supportive. Like, on the same vision. Do you mean you don't have to paint any of this. Like, I've got friends who are, like, scared. Oh, mate, I can't take my car. I'm gonna be going out with her. I'm gonna be having fajitas tonight. It's like, I mean, you forgot it's the Champions League final. You come into the, like, we're gonna be watching it. Whereas I'll just be like, sorry, forgot, Champions League final. And then just be like, done.

Do you know what I mean?

Whereas some of my friends are like, oh, but she's gonna kill me. Do you mean. It's just like, mate, life's don't take life. Do you know what I mean? Just like be like, nothing really matters. You know what I mean? Like not going to fajitas doesn't really matter. So you need. Maybe that's just my perspective on things. But like if something goes wrong, like, unless it's like your family, your health, like nothing really matters too much, doesn't it? Like the world can come pouring down as long as, like, if I lost everything, we would still be, I think, as good as relationship as we are now.

Yeah, that's the fucking bending now. It's just. I'm not making any assumptions about myself or her, but like. Yeah, because when I met. I mean, I've kind of said this before, but it's like not the opposite to you, but it's different to you. Yeah, because I met her when I was being like a peak idiot. Like peak money, peak spending, power, peak overhead.

And was it bad looking? Bad is the wrong word.

Was it excessive? Yeah, excessive, you know, 300 grand of cars in the garage, like finance and like.

Yeah, you hit. You hit it hard.

Living that penthouse over there, which was sick. It was ridiculous given the money that was coming in. But it was like. Yeah. And then I went through a stressful time and she was there for me with that. And then that's what I deep.

It's like, yeah, because you've gone through the.

I was like, things just getting better now this. But yeah, because. Yeah, because it's like, oh, well, no one in the futures, I hope no one will ever have to go through that with me again because I hope I don't go through that. And then it's like, maybe I just want that like, love story do. I mean, maybe that's. That's.

Maybe you're painting that picture in your head.

Yeah. And then a bit of me thinks, oh, did she off? Because I don't have the sick car anymore, which I don't think at all, by the way. But that's just, you know.

Yeah, it's there.

That's the. The devil's advocate in your mind is like, yeah, I mean, I'm not homeless, but you know.

I mean, yeah, but I think that's like anyone who has that perspective. The, the up thing with the society is, is like, if you've got that Rolls Royce or whatever it is, you want people to think you're like a better like person or whatever. But actually, like, I probably have a better time going to like a pub, drinking like beer with like opposing rave. If they're all just good blows. While we might have deep conversations about, like E. Com and stuff, like, actually enjoy. If they're all just good blows. It's way better than going to Nobu with a bunch of pricks.

100.

I mean, so that sort of like answers it in my head. And you've probably. When you had that Ferrari, you probably had like, there were fucking sick times when you're driving down, like, feeling like the man. But there are probably other times when you thought, like, everyone's looking at me and I feel like a bit of a prick.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, like, so it is just sort of like a. There's no right or wrong because you can get in your car and it can make you feel like.

You know what I think in hindsight with that, because I've always just loved cars and like.

Yeah, it's just a really.

It's a. It's like the obvious material thing and it's like more standout. Ish than a watch because obviously it's bigger and it moves. But like, I think people used to get the wrong idea of me, like, because I just loved cars. I was always petrated. I had like cars on my wall when I was 12 years old.

Yeah.

And then when you get a car like that, people, I don't know probably make assumptions about your character which aren't true at all.

Yeah.

Because like. Yeah, I don't know. And then you. You potentially open yourself up to attract the wrong sort of people. I'm not referring to my ex in that case, but like.

Yeah.

And like people just making weird assumptions when actually, like. Yeah, I'm probably like more interested in walking my dog in the countryside.

Yeah, that's what. That's what I mean, like the legit thing.

I've never been like the go to Novikov go to. I've done that, but it's never been.

Never been new. Yeah, that's the same with me. And I think people knowing people I like. Yeah, that's genuinely though. Yeah. Yeah. And have like.

I don't really appreciate fancy food that much. I like restaurants, but.

No, I mean, I'm into restaurant, but it's the same. It's Just about being with people. Like one thing I. Like, this is gonna sound stupid. Where I live in London, like there's a really cool, nice coffee shop and I get huge pleasure from just like twiddling on down there, like listening to whatever, like crap, getting a coffee. They know your name, you're really friendly to them. They're really friendly to learn. It's like this is what it's all fucking about. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's not about this like bollocks. And then, then I've been in times where like I'm amongst like the super wealthy and like the bill comes in. It's just like. You mean egos flying everywhere.

Yeah.

And it's just like, mate, this is not like I know these people. I, you know, those like mega rich and actually don't have any friends. They're just hanging out with like loads of other influencers who've got equally. Like they're all just rinsing them or whatever. Like none of that, it's like comes back to like the, the big housing. Like say if you had that 10 million pound house with like a huge kitchen, all that crap, like, what would you do there? Like just if it'd be like you and your girlfriend, it's like, oh yeah, we've got seven rooms. Just not actually doing anything. Like, should we go on a walk? Do you mean like. Yeah, it doesn't make you. Doesn't change who you are, doesn't make you any better. Do you mean. Doesn't really mean.

Yeah, yeah. I think, I think it takes people like to like they're like maybe like mid-20s or like to go through some shit to start to like get a more in depth perspective on like the world. I certainly feel like a much wiser cunt than I was even two years ago.

Yeah.

Pre pandemic.

But that's good. Yeah. Yeah. But that's because I think in this business world and especially the, the space we working, you're forced to fail quick. So, so maybe like whilst your upside was quick, so unfortunately was the, the downside. And it's the same with like everything. Like things can go up and things go down, but you come off a bear. You'd rather you like climb the mountain.

Yeah.

But there it's, it's a long journey we've got ahead, this life.

Yeah.

So I think we're learning a quick great. I think a lot of people might only figure this shit out. I don't know about you, but I have fears of just getting old and just Being like, what the fuck? I just wasted all that time. When actually you want a bit of.

A story that's definitely all about the story for sure. On that note, do you, like. Do you have a clear vision for what you actually want to do over the next few years? Decades. Fucking life.

I only really plan like a year ahead and even that just changes all the time. But I think, like, I think, yeah, just constant. I think if you're constantly looking to just better yourself, like better your. Everything around you, then it's not a bad mindset. So it's like constantly just trying to grow, like, trying to learn. I'm a big fan of. Have you read the Almanac of Novel, Ravika?

I haven't. To be fair, people tell me I need get that books in my bedroom. I've been trying to fucking read more.

Yeah.

Take my mind off of this.

Yeah. And get you get it on the Kindle or whatever it is.

I like paper books now.

Yeah. You're into it. Yeah. Yeah. Make that book. Naval is just the absolute goat. So anyone who hasn't read that book.

Just that I've seen a lot of.

On Twitter, mate, he's figured it all out. All this life we're talking about, Is.

It just about everything?

Mate, the lot. He's just figured it. He's just figured it all out. All I would say is Naval's done all the thinking for us kids. Just like read this and just execute.

It's called the.

The Almanac. The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. I've got a physical copy and I've got on my Kindle, so I'll send you my copy. Good for the environment, that jazz. Yeah.

No, I need to read that.

But yeah, that I'm a big believer in what? In everything. He sort of preaches in that book. And I think a lot of times where I'm like, you had business stresses. Like, I thought I really wanted to do that, but now I don't want to do that. And I mean constantly changing. But if you just come back to like basic principles and all this, like, one thing I have done, like anytime I've sort of made a mistake. Like an example is I did a deal with someone over a handshake. Cost me like 20k. It wasn't in contract. Bit messy, never got the money. But now I've got like a. Like all my lessons I try learn is right down. So one of the lessons is like, make sure you have a fucking contract. So it's like as long as you're learning over These things, like, if you're learning at a quick rate, you'll. You keep improving.

Yeah.

There's like loads of. Loads of shit on there. I think it's just when you make the same mistake back to. Back to back, where you're actually being a bit of an idiot. But I think for people that we. I think we're very lucky in that the world we live in that you can actually build successful businesses with, like, you can let. The Internet has allowed for, like, infinite leverage, effectively.

Yeah.

Facts like, the fact that you could even scale the business you did that quick is incredible.

Dramatically from, like, keyboards and shit. It's just like. That's the only input. Yeah.

How many employees were there by you or did you have, like.

No, no, actual employees?

That's fucking. That is. Do you mean it doesn't really add up? Do you mean, like, it doesn't actually make sense, the amount of turnover, the amount of thought, like, previously that would have to have been like a Pew office. And then.

Yeah.

Head of marketing. And then it's a New Yorker sort of like winging it. Like, probably watching like a YouTube, like. Like, you can just learn anything online now, can't you?

Yeah.

Spend a bit of effort.

Can't learn to understand girls.

No, no. That's one we're trying to make a course on. Yeah. And when we have figured out, link in the bio. 399 pounds. Yeah.

Legit. Jesus Christ. Sometimes spend way too much time thinking about. All right, final question.

Yeah, go on.

I've started fucking asking it in every pod now. So three bits of advice to your younger self when you first started. Probably when you first started anything entrepreneurial. So whenever that was. Yeah.

Three bits of advice. One, I think go all in. So I. I know I'm split between two businesses, but I see so many people who've got creative minds like ourselves, and they're just thinking, like, I could actually do that and I could make a bit money there. And then. Then they're doing that and then they're launching a clothing line and actually don't have that much passion about clothing. And then, like. Because they just think it's cool. Like when actually just, like these big decisions spend time thinking about them because, like, there could be your whole future ahead. Yeah. Rather than, like, you see so many people, like, jump between different things, like, all constantly. So I think advice to myself once, because I think I would have had a lot more success if I just pick one thing, even if it was just like a cleaning company or something like that. I don't think I would have just nailed it by now. Yeah. But it was that constant, like, you see. So see a bit of success, give it a go, move on. That's number one. I think one thing I'm trying to. Well, one thing which definitely change it for me was reading. And I know that's like the boring, like typical, but.

No, it's actually facts.

No, that's actually. Yeah, like that is, mate, that is literally a fact that if you, if you, if you gave someone and said like force them, Guns of the Head is like put a read for an hour a day, you'd be so far ahead in like say over 3, 4, 5. Yeah, like disgustingly far ahead. Because in a book you can basically get like these incredible people's perspectives in like what, a few hours, how long it takes to read. Yeah. And then I think the other thing on that, which off the back of reading, it's like actually reading and taking action. Not just being like, oh yeah, that was great. Just trying to take action off the back of it. Final one. I think it's. I've always had this like weird element of self belief in myself and like, I like you. You, you clearly have it too where you can tell people like, right, I want to build this business and exit hundred million. But people, some people will look at you, you've had a past, you've built things incredibly before. So, so now you've got people think, oh, he can do it. But previously before I had all this like flash stuff and started making good money, people looking, this guy's Jeremy, he's crazy. Like, why is he leaving? A. A really good job in the city so you can sell trainers. Like I had like a leaving drinks and everyone's like, you're doing. What do you mean? Like they couldn't get their head around it and now they're like in the Dems, like, hey mate, everything's going so well. Be great to link up. Do you know what I mean? I think it's just like you need to have that element of delusion where you, yeah. You believe that you can do it. So I suppose that comes under self belief. But yeah, I have, I have self belief in hopefully everything I think do. And I think there's very few. My idea behind that is there's very few people in the world. Like there's obviously like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who are just like, their brains are just like robots or whatever. But. But the very most people who, who make their money and, and do extremely well, they're not actually ridiculously intelligent. They just look sort of like quick learners. They're just, like, reacting. They just learn that. Pick that up drumming. They're just moving along, doddling. They're not like. None of them just got, like, straight A stars. Like, obviously there are, like, the Harvards and stuff like that, but normally it's just like. Yeah, they're just normal, normal people, like. Like you and I. So I think you need to have that element of self belief. Just. I think I can do it. That's it.

Yeah. Sweet. All right, we'll wrap it up. Fucking that went crazy. Over an hour and a half.

Bloody hell.

Yeah. Christ. Could probably go on for ages. Yeah. Hope you enjoyed the episode as usual. We're actually recording three this week, not that you'd know if you're watching. Fucking hell. We're getting some momentum with the party boys. I say, boys, it's literally 99% male audience. Yeah. If you're enjoying, subscribe, like, share it to, mate, all that good stuff. Appreciate the love on this, on the pod and we'll see you on the next one. Cheers for watching.

Peace.