Remote vs In Person, My Founder Role, Hiring an MD, Personal Brand Debate - Doc the Journey Ep 86

I didn't realize I was actually recording. What am I talking about? I guess I'm just documenting the behind the scenes stuff. This seems to fucking wobble loads. It's not a great position to put it in in terms of filming. I am off into our office which is a four hour cowork for two interviews. We're hiring an influencer manager because we're cracking. Well, we're trying to crack that channel next. Fuck's sake. Far too much sun. Doesn't do well in the sun. And yet to be fair, I must be super bipolar but this is the sort of stuff I like doing in person, like meeting candidates and like selling the vision and yeah, I think ultimately there is benefit in being hybrid. You know, having a hub which for us is a small co workspace membership. We don't have a fixed office but we use like meeting rooms and shit for stuff that we do need our own room for. And then obviously having the freedom to not be fully in the office like five days a week. Although BitMe does think we're kind of not getting the benefit of either side. We're not fully in an office with everyone but we are largely hiring London based people or certainly UK based people, most people in London. So yeah, if you go fully remote you get the benefit of hiring anyone anywhere and being able to live anywhere, which does have pros and cons. But then if you go full office you get the benefit of obviously like building a culture, being focused on the same thing. Feel like we're kind of halfway between at the minute, which maybe works and maybe I'm over analyzing it. Fuck me, it's sunny. But yeah, sometimes I think we need to commit to either side. My preference is usually remote. I genuinely work better remotely, at least for the stuff I do. But right now I'm very much in a season where the business needs my attention in person for a lot of things that we've got a lot of new people starting. I do think in person time is useful, especially up front. We've hired like four new roles in the past two months and then I think two more come in now and maybe one more in a few months and then that's pretty much it. I'll be a team of like 15 full time for 2025 and then obviously a few agencies on top of that. I do think our OPEX is quite high. Not going to show exactly what that is. It's not bad. I think it's high compared to what I'm used to being, you know, basically founder plus a Few freelancers. But also we're very much hiring to grow, which does come with risks. But I think it's the right thing to do when we're trying to build a category leading brand. I mean I would say with a UK leader in terms of revenue and brand awareness, I mean people would think one of our competitors is bigger than us. I'm not naming their names but they're objectively not because I've seen the numbers or I've been told the numbers, provided they're correct. And now, yeah, obviously. Well, the vision now is to become European leader over the next few years with Germany being the first country we've gone into which is growing pretty quick. It's not growing quite as quick as the UK did, but I think that's kind of inevitable being where a UK team and translations and stuff and understanding the market there is definitely harder. So, yeah, fuck me, you can barely see. I'm just kind of rambling. I'm just going to film some shit while I'm driving in. I really should be getting the train in but I can charge my car right outside and it's pretty convenient. So that's what I'm doing. Although I'm cutting it fine because I'm going to get there 10 minutes before these interviews. And I don't mind London when it's sunny in winter, it's kind of nice, like cold and sun. It's the rain and gray that we normally get that really pisses me off. So yeah, that's one thing debating, you know, what's the best way to run it. I think you end up looking at what other people are doing. Depends who you speak to. I know founders of non investor backed brands and investor backed brands that do, you know, don't do remote. They have the team in one place or they do hybrid. I know a lot of examples of them of those where it clearly works really well. There's a lot of brands in London especially that seems to work really well with that and you get more of the office culture and it's more of like a, I don't know, you build more of a lifestyle around the business doing it that way. Whereas remote, it's kind of like you just buy yourself in a flat and the benefits of that seem reduced. Unless you're doing it in like a really sunny place. You get the benefit of not living in the UK in winter. So yeah, we're kind of halfway between. I know people that have made both sides work. Like I said, office and everything. I've seen that work really well for some people. Other I've also seen remote work really well for some people. So objectively in my experience, I think just in general both ways of running the business can work. You just have to make that way work. By I don't know if you're remote. I think meeting the team every month or every three months probably more realistically is super important in person, just get communication dialed in, which is obviously a downside of being fully remote as opposed to in person. You can definitely get stuff done quicker in person for creative stuff, particularly like product development and all that stuff. But I do also think you waste a lot of time just like small talk and chatting, whereas if you're remote, you know, just crack on and get stuff done. So yeah, maybe a bit of both is optimum and that's kind of what I'm doing right now. So yeah, the business is based in London. We do have team members and agencies that aren't in London or even the uk. And yeah, it's a dynamic, evolving thing basically. So what else is going on? Didn't really think about what the fuck I was going to talk about, but I do like to record stuff in the car. Feels quite a good time to speak my mind. Another big role we hired for, maybe this is a separate video, probably won't say too much about it, was an MD Again, some people that watch this channel will know me, will know I hired an MD before. It was just ultimately too soon and wasn't quite the right fit, which is fine. But this time around we've gone back to market. I spent like five months working with a headhunter to bring someone in and I think that that role is kind of twofold in intention. Like firstly, I'm ultimately a creative that became a semi competent generalist. But I would say most of what I do, honestly I don't really enjoy anymore. And as a result I'm also not spending enough time on the stuff that I guess only I or certainly I'm better at in the business. Like generally the product, creative brand stuff, which can sound a bit fluffy but at the same time that's everything you can't out market, you know, a poor offering. And I don't think we've given the brand and product range enough attention in the past year. Especially to be honest, since we raised money for the first time, I probably should have hired more people sooner. So we're definitely playing catch up a bit. And then the other part of that role is ultimately I'm running a venture backed brand. I understand the shape of that is different to running a fully bootstrapped business. It just is. Ultimately the goal is still the same. You want to build a big profitable business that is worth a lot of money and someday you can sell. But I do think having investors, especially very ambitious ones and very good ones as well, like I'm fortunate enough to have, means that ultimately an exit or some sort of liquidity event, either partially, midway along the way or like fully at some point does become more of a front and center goal, which isn't. You shouldn't run the business just thinking about an exit. You should run the business. Think about how can I build a category leading excellent big profitable business that might. Someone might want to buy one day. Don't think how can I build a business to sell? I think that's the wrong approach and I've definitely made the mistake of that with that mindset wise myself in the past. So yeah, bringing in an MD ultimately starts to build out like more of a leadership team that isn't just me. And as a solo founder it's quite rare. It was quite unusual relatively to be a solo founder in a venture backed consumer business. Like if you just look at the stats, most very successful businesses in cpg, especially venture backed ones, do have typically two founders if not three. So yeah, I view this role as someone kind of like a late stage, complementary, almost co founder type. Obviously they're not a co founder but that's the sort of dynamic I want to get from it. They're like a late stage co founder. They have very meaningful equity in the business provided it all goes well. So I've just seen an ad for health, an out of home ad for health. Don't know if I like that, that brand name health. It sounds like you got a lisp but I think we're actually listed on there. So yeah, Maryland joining in like a month. It's definitely like a learning curve for me to properly like onboard people and delegate and especially like more senior roles where they are genuinely competent and probably and hopefully a lot more competent than me at a lot of things, if not most things. So that's the learning curve. But I do recognise in myself that I am more of a zero to one guy. That's what I enjoy more and what I think I'm very good at that a larger percentage of people in the industry, not founders but just in general would be less good at. And I don't mean 0 to 1 million, I mean 0 to 1 being in my mind 0 to 1. The stage is like basically 0 to 10 million to be honest. Or around that. Like 0 to proper market fit in your key home market really. Yeah, I'm good at that stuff. Don't enjoy I guess the corporate admin as much of the later stage which we're now getting into, which is why I've hired an MD ultimately to help with that stuff. That's not to say I'm not willing to learn for the next stage. I'm still gonna be massively involved, but I've never long term seen myself as like a CEO. That's never been my goal. I think I'm a founder and I think there is a nuanced difference to that. You can be a founder CEO. Yes. But I do think the skill set is different and the CEO skill long term isn't necessarily something I feel like I have supernaturally. Well, I probably do to some extent. Maybe I'm downplaying, but it's not something I massively enjoy and I'd rather focus on ideation and vision, as fluffy as it sounds. But that is what I'm good at I think. Taking nothing and turning it into something. I've done it a few times, granted not hugely successfully yet in terms of my own finances, but I'm working on that part in the next few years. So yeah, that's the plan with that higher. What else? This is kind of a brain dump, which might be interesting to some people, might not be. What else? Yeah, I would talk about 2025 plans, but I feel like I kind of expose myself to competition and malicious intent from competitors. Just copying what we do if I do too much of that. But put it this way, like this year the big focus is on becoming more than just one product brand basically. I'm not going to go into too much detail specifically what that is yet, but this year is definitely about innovation. Mpd there's three ways to grow a business. Fundamentally it's new products, new channels and new markets. Very hard to do all three or even two at the same time. Well, in an early stage business and I think the one I recognize as the biggest opportunity is definitely new products. And it's obvious in hindsight, but I didn't really think about. I probably naively thought we could be the next athletic greens, ignoring the fact that firstly they're starting in America which is a much bigger market and secondly they've been around about 15 years pre iOS and pre heavy competition on Meta. So yeah, product's the biggest one but we are doing a bit of new channels with retail. I've mentioned which this year will probably be like 10% of revenue, give or take. Won't say what that is, but about 10% is the plan. And then a bit of new markets with German copy paste of our English website into Germany, but that's just. Etc. So yeah, new products is the main thing with the bit of new channels, bit of new markets. But yeah, we're not like full sending all three levers, we're full sending mpd. And yeah, I just hired what I hope is going to be a really fucking good MPD person who comes from some pretty sick brands, both entrepreneurial ones but also bigger ones. So kind of a good combination of experience. Me, I'm cutting it fine to get to these interviews on time. So yeah, that's another area. Ah fuck, I just missed that turning. It's funny, I often feel semi conflicted making these videos because I know, I know some of my investors watch these videos but I'm not saying anything that they don't already know. I just in general sometimes feel conflicted about making content when I'm running a venture backed brand. And how much do you want to share? Not just, you know, that might be viewed a certain way by investors or future investors or buyers or whatever, but also attracting competition from other brands that have raised money and stuff which has happened. Like we're not the only brand in the UK and the mushroom space that's got investors anymore. I think we're probably one of the earlier ones. Sometimes I feel conflicted about that but I'm pretty open with investors and stuff on that. And I actually personally think for me making content having some sort of presence is net beneficial. Like it's actually helped with hiring which might not be surprising or might be surprising now people say, I've watched your videos. I really like the vision, I want to be part of it. That's happened recently. Some someone we interviewed yesterday for example. I think it probably helps a bit with even just the brand content. Like a lot of ads, I'm still in not a huge amount of them because I don't want the brand to be about me. But it's more like these, you know, the brand isn't about me as the founder, but I am publicly the founder. So I think that's probably a net positive way to run it for a brand in 2025 to be honest. Oh dear, gonna get stuck. What are you putting your hands up for, you silly? Can't. Drivers in London are so angry all the time. Like I literally just drove past you and left you space to go by and this guy's like making gang signs in response. Very strange. There is often like a feeling that people in London or the uk, but I feel like London particularly are just fucking angry all the time or like grumpy and can't blame them, to be honest. Sometimes in winter. But I think it's a weird, like UK mindset or attitude where people just get angry at each other for no reason. Like, yeah, I'm driving down the road just like you and I'm not doing it anything wrong. But yeah, I digress. I do think my head definitely feels more like locked into work when I'm in a cold, wintery UK environment. Although at the same time I often think I get more deep work done if I'm in like Bali, in a villa, locked in, surrounded by other founders. Because that's the thing I do miss when I'm in the UK and like the office environment is most people aren't founders and it does feel quite lonely. But anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this video. I'll probably wrap it up. Rambled enough. Maybe I'll do a Q and A in the next one. If anyone's got any questions they want to know about some shit, see if I can answer them. And on that note, I'm going to go do these interviews. Big week and month and quarter, very big quarter ahead. Some upcoming plans which I may or may not share. Probably share them once they're done and yeah, catch you the next one. Cheers for watching. Subscribe to the POD Peace. New home office setup. Nobody did a tour of this. At some point we moved again for six months. A new base, got a hammer, Miller Aeron remastered large chair, probably the comfiest thing I've ever had. And I've got a little walking treadmill thing, which is quite good. So it's very optimized. Set up in here. It is just a spare bedroom, but that's what every home office is, right? I'm in the office this morning, weirdly, three hours with the new MD we've hired, who's starting in like two weeks, which is a big step. So we're doing like pre onboarding stuff, basically talking about the history of the business, challenges, performance, growth plans this year team and just try and get him up to speed basically before he starts, because it's such a big role that, you know, he's got a lot of pre reading to do and given the nature of the role, he's going to be working very closely with me. But eventually, you know, Be no one above him in the team, so to speak. And I'm still trying to figure out the dynamic of am I effectively the CEO even though I hate that term and he's the MD that reports into me or is he the MD which is effectively the CEO and I'm the founder, kind of on the right or left of him rather than above him in terms of reporting and so on. And like who will head of growth reporting to, who will product person reporting to? Haven't figured that one out entirely because basically it depends. Do I want to be the CEO and he's the MD that runs the stuff and reporting to me or do I want to be the product and brand guy and he runs the the day to day? Probably leaning more towards that, but it will depend how things go. And I haven't. Well, I have had an MD before actually, but I haven't hired an MD at this stage before now. The business is three or four times bigger than it was. So yeah, that'd be interesting. I always get a bit of imposter syndrome when I'm hiring people that are objectively better than me and quite a bit older than me and paying them more than me. But that's just part of being a founder, I suppose. I only need to get the over it basically. So yeah, I'll do that. Catch you in a bit. But this is a meme room in a fora we use Tintago house. It's like Vauxhall area opposite. Well, kind of near Chelsea Bridge, near where I used to live in Battersea. We booked these out. We don't actually have an office, we have a CO work so I don't come that often. Probably like once or twice a week if I'm in. But these meeting rooms are good. You end up spending almost as much as having a fixed office, to be honest, just to have a meeting room but you get all the amenities. So I'm in here for three hours this morning. Like I said, onboarding a very important new hire. Get them up to speed on everything. And yeah, like onboarding and hiring is something I've. Well, especially the onboarding part. How to deal with hires is probably not something I've been naturally very good at in the past, but it's critical to build a proper business, right, and build a proper team. So yeah, it's pretty minging today's days like this. A question, why do we base the business in London? But yeah, you can't even see it. That's where I used to live. But yeah, we also do like investor meetings in rooms like this. Pretty expensive way to do. I mean, with one person. Sorry, two people, one other person. Because it's an eight person room, but I booked it super last minute, so. Yeah, pretty cozy though. Obviously super clean. You get all the drinks and food and shit included and I'll present on that screen. So, yeah, that's what it's like. Yeah, it's just kind of a day in the life when I have a stay in the life. When I have like a more important meeting, I guess I book a room. We probably only spend like two grand a month total, two and a half maybe on co work memberships for like the core London team and then office rooms now and then for meetings. So it's very cheap as a percentage of revenue. You know, it's like less than 0.52% of revenue, which I think is pretty healthy at this stage. So, yeah, maybe there's an argument to get like a proper office in the future, like you basically have to weigh up the cost of the office, which, you know, for a decent sized one in London, you're probably looking at 6 to 10k a month, which is kind of crazy. Maybe a bit less. Six, maybe 6k a month. And then obviously like the time and cost to get in, but like it comes down to ultimately over like a year. Do you get more out of your team by them having a nice place to work? Potentially, yes. So you got to think a bit more logically. It's not just cost, it's like, what's the, what's the ROI on that? Basically? So, yeah, I'll do this meeting. I won't film any of it because don't film like actual. I'm doing. But yeah, thought it'd be interesting to show you where we, where we do stuff and I'll catch you a bit. Sam.