Selling the Brand, UK v Overseas, New Brand Ideas, Advice to Myself - Q&A - Doc The Journey Ep 68

Yo, we're back with episode. I always Forget. I think 69. I dropped the Journey. It's the last day in Bali. We're doing a Q and A. I put questions on Instagram and Twitter. Got a lot of them. We'll try and get through most of the good ones, see how far we get. Some might be terrible or duplicates. Tristan who I was on his podcast this time last year. Similar setup. I think this view's out. Doing the last one. He's gonna ask me the questions and then he's got some at the end from his audience. I think that we might go through as well, but hopefully it's useful or insightful to people and I'll try and be honest. And hopefully the wind doesn't fuck up these mics.

No, we'll edit it otherwise. All right, first question. Let's see.

And I look fat as fuck in this shirt. Realize I think I put on about three kilos in Bali, which is the opposite of my attention.

But anyway, this is a relevant one, one that you've been thinking about a lot. I feel like. What's your current thoughts on living abroad versus staying in the uk?

What, for me or for someone else?

You know, what's your current thoughts?

My current thoughts are. I've been in. I've lived in central London as a base for the past five years. I'm categorically done with central London. I don't know if that necessarily means I'm categorically done with the UK or Greater London as a base. I do think that it's quite good. I also don't think somewhere like Bali is going to be a good base. I wonder if we need the.

No, just hold it close. Just hold it close. All the clothes, if you have them. But I think we'll be fine.

I've got the wind things. Maybe don't need them.

Just hold the clothes will be fine.

All right, it. Yeah. Basically. I'm not sure. A lot of people flock to Dubai, which I used to not get. Now I get a bit more. I think, mental health wise, the UK is objectively bad for me during winter, having spent the last five winters there, which is a bit ironic. I think you've got to be based somewhere. Whether that base is London to me going forward, probably not. But I've got a flat in London for the next three months. I need to figure out where I'm going to base myself. But I do think there's pros and cons to every place, basically, and you've got to work out what's important to.

You, especially after today's reading. This might not be the.

Yeah, I went to see some spiritual masseuse today. I'm a massive skeptic with all that.

Bali's getting to it.

It actually blew my mind. She knew everything about my past and current situation and she didn't know who I was. So there's no way around that other than she's a witch and she didn't.

Like the idea of Bali.

Yeah.

Basically.

Yeah.

Thing is not for you.

I'm figuring it out, so. I know. I'm also sweating my ass off because I just had a shower. Thanks. 1.

Is it possible to be profitable on the first sale with a DTC brand that has an aov of under £60? Very specific.

Yeah, it definitely is.

Yeah. You can do it.

Objectively. I do think it's harder at scale and it's harder now than it used to be, but it definitely is. That's. That's the short answer. Yeah.

Yeah.

My.

My AOV is below 60, so if. Yeah, it. It is. I'm scaling as well. So you can do it. You just have to be creative.

You think you have to have a very good gross margin. Otherwise it's not going to work because you won't have enough cac. Yeah. To. Yeah. To make any money for sure.

Fastest route. Plus advice on how to go from ID to minimal viable product launch.

Watch all 150 plus episodes of my podcast and then just start.

Yeah.

I'd also probably say get around people that are doing similar shit. Bali is great for that. Especially if you're like a beginner because it'll put pressure on you and you'll realize that it is possible. But ultimately the best time to start something was 10 years ago. The second best time is now. So you just got to start.

Yeah, I agree. In the beginning you just. You can think of these big ideas, but it's better to just start and then figure it out than to think of the billion dollar ID and wait three years until you.

Yeah. I'd always something. Big fan of just launching something and figuring out rather than talking about it for seven years.

But some people are waiting for like the perfect opportunity but then they like the people that just start. Like outrun them in the long term.

Yeah, definitely. I don't know how quick. There's a lot of questions. I'm trying to keep the answers fairly. We'll go through them direct rather than rambling for 20 minutes.

Let's see. Advice to your 18 year old self.

Ignore anyone that's not doing or has done what you want to do largely within your reason. Get out of your hometown, unless that's where you want to be, which it probably isn't. If you're listening to these questions, get around as many people, even if it's online. So get on Twitter. I probably join a bunch of discords and even though a lot of them are. But I think it's beneficial for people that are like 18 and start something as soon as possible, even if it's tiny, if it's an agency, econ thing, whatever, just start something.

Get going.

Yeah.

Tips to overcome procrastination and keeping focus on a task from start to finish.

Subscribe to Rainbow Dust keeps the focus. I've genuinely found it harder to focus without having rainbows for the past month. I haven't had any mushroom ingredients for the past month because I've been in Bali and I'm scared to bring it over the border, even though I probably would have been fine because they sell Lion's man and here. That's a genuine bit of advice. The other bit of advice I think is just lock your phone away. And I mean everyone's guilty if we're procrastinating at times, including me very much. I think just knowing what. What you need to work on. Get good at making a list and then working through the list, you think. And also finishing tasks before starting other ones, which I'm terrible at.

All please.

Yeah, just like solve the problem in front of you, then solve the next one.

You procrastinate more here or in London you think.

Bit of both. A bit of both, yeah.

Has your own self identity ever conflicted with your goals? How did you overcome this?

That's a deep question. Yeah, I think it probably has in two ways because when I was younger my identity was like being a flash, arrogant cunt driving fast cars and stuff. And that doesn't really align with the goal of building a long term business because it's. It's like the opposite of delayed gratification. That's a period that I went through, I think a lot of people go through. The other side of that is when the previous business failed, I stopped feeling like I was capable of doing things which doesn't align with achieving goals, even though I got on with it and did it build the next thing. But until you get that momentum again, that was definitely a conflict. And then now probably to some extent I don't feel comfortable living like a corporate lifestyle, working in a corporate way. We can look back at the office video which I Don't know. And sometimes I think, well, how do I build a really big business if I don't want to live or work that way? But I do think you can do it your own way as well. But it's definitely unconventional to think you can build a big business and not have to be in an office five days a week or something. There's obviously people that have done it both ways. But sometimes I question how am I just maybe I'm more naturally like a nomad type. But then I also don't think that at the same time. So it's probably a middle ground somewhere that I need to figure out. It doesn't have to be full corporate, one place, live in London, be miserable. And it also doesn't have to be laptop lifestyle in Bali. It could be in between.

I agree.

So that answers the question, have you.

Been tempted to start another brand with a completely different product?

I'm always tempted. I've always got ideas. I think I'm very good at zero to one. Um, I, I don't know many people that have done zero to like a few million as, as many times as me but, but I also know plenty of people that have done zero to much bigger than me in one thing. So that's not to say I'm, I've got better skill set for doing that, but I think my skill set is very 0 to 1. I feel like I could do 0 to 1 in 20 different things, whereas a lot of people I don't think could. But then also a lot of people are better at 1 to 10, 10 to 100 than me evidently. Yeah, I do always get tempted. I always have ideas. But I learned from the past that trying to do multiple different things at once don't think really works.

It's also a self identity thing with ADHD brain of wanting to start something new versus building a big business, like kind of conflicting.

Yeah. I think the answer really is pivot and evolve the existing business rather than just fucking launch a new one.

Yeah.

And all the greatest returns in life come from compounding interest over probably a decade rather than two, three years. So that's what I'm trying to do with this one.

You're on your way. What are the drawbacks of building in public and how do you deal with them?

I think the drawbacks most simply are people copy you for two reasons. Firstly, when you're quite honest and I don't share explicit numbers and I probably never will because I think that's net negative and I also think it's Just quite. It lacks class. But I do share like, oh, things are going well. Obviously people can see the products. It's got a lot of customers, they can see it growing on social. They see the ads all the time, they see it in retail or whatever. So they objectively know it's working. So people are like, oh, well, that's working. And because the founder, me, they kind of. I think a lot of people follow you and like, think almost think you're. What you're doing is the only way to do it so that they just copy you instead of doing their own thing and doing it in their own way. Is anything is ever going to be as good or as far ahead as the person they're copying by definition. But it is annoying. And there's a few examples of people that watch this port and are probably watching right now that have pretty much like, for, like, copied my brand. And I know for a fact they have because I've seen the brand. That's probably the biggest drawback. I think the other potential drawback is. Well, it's maybe not a drawback, but it's something that has pros and cons, is you put a lot of pressure on yourself when you say you're going to do something and you're in the public domain. It's like if you don't do it or you don't reach the goals, you might look a bit stupid. But at the same time, I think pressure in that way is quite good. But there are plenty of positives. Like, I've met a lot of people. I've met investors through building in public. I've met people that I now employ that are on the team through like the pond and stuff. Yeah, there's pros and cons. I don't think it's for everyone. My style is very honest and authentic, which is probably a bit risky at times, but it's also the only way I could do it because if I wasn't being myself, then it would feel very fake, like most of YouTube.

So it's like selling your soul a little bit.

Yeah.

I think the benefits outweigh the negatives, though.

Yeah. Well, scaling is Doc the journey harder than me now.

Doc the journey is scaled.

I might have to trademark that. Think a lot of people now doing.

It, even if you don't sell a product, will bring so much back to you in many different ways. Like you said, friends, investors, people, events. We're doing a sick event.

Yeah. On the tickets below, if you want to join the yacht, there's a few.

Left little plug, like bringing people together, like it brings back a lot. And the people that copy you, you're always one step ahead.

Yeah.

So the next skill will be in your head and they don't know.

Yeah.

So they can copy your real time moves, but not what you're working on.

Yeah, exactly.

Pink URUS still coming probably.

But I'm kind of over that phase of my life, to be honest. Like, I've got a Tesla now. I'm probably going to get rid of that as well because I never drive it. I think it'd be cool to get a pink URUS just for content at some point, but if you push the.

Course a little bit.

Yeah, exactly. I'd have to get yours then. The practicalities of things come into my mind more than the flashiness because I've done the, the flashy car stuff when I was younger. I still really like cars, but I'm definitely over that a little bit. So I don't know, maybe at some point.

What's your biggest obstacle you face in business right now?

I think finding good people and trusting them to do a good enough job so that you can properly delegate. Because to scale big, you can't do it yourself. Obviously I'm not doing it myself, but I still feel like I do most things largely myself. Like most the needle moving things rely on me to some extent still. I think that's the hardest thing in growing any business is finding, managing and dealing with people. Basically something a lot of founders, especially like in the old D2C online space, you get so used to just being you and a laptop that the whole human element which is required as you scale to any level is quite alien to a lot of, to a lot of us, including me, in terms of like how to properly manage a team.

You think working with recruiters will help find talent?

Yeah, I've done that before. I've had good and bad experiences with recruiters. I do think a lot of them are very, very, very expensive for what they actually do, which is like make a few email intros. But yeah, ultimately, potentially is worth it.

Has your best talent come from the pond?

Honestly? Yeah.

That's crazy.

The best talent, but like the people I enjoy working with the most and. Well, yeah, probably the best talent to some extent. Yeah. Because I think with those relationships like that, if, if they come to you wanting to work with you or for you, like in these cases they did, it's, it's genuine. So it's not just like they want a job and they'll just take any job. They want to work for you specifically. So it's usually like they're more emotionally bought in.

Exactly. Is space goods where you want it to be at the moment? If not, what are the two main. What are the main levers you are pulling to get there?

I don't think it'll ever be where I want it to be because the goal post always move. I think if you're satisfied with your business, you're probably a bit too relaxed. I don't know. Or you're just happy and mentally sound like I'm not a lot of the time. Yeah. I mean, by most people's perceptions, it's doing pretty well. The biggest levers, I think are new products, which I've been really lazy on better people, and then scaling outside the uk, which I spoke about, which we are now doing a little bit.

So which one or all of them?

Europe mainly.

Yeah.

Germany in particular.

What would you change in your early 20s mindset if you could go back in time? Let's not do like a field business. The pod knows about that. Let's do them.

One thing that comes to mind is maybe just like, waste less money on stupid flash, but at the same time, I did what I. I did what I did at the time with information and the desires that I had at the time to like. I must have wasted six figures on. Well, I did on like cars and. But at the same time it's sick because I did it had good memories. Not that many people had a Ferrari of 24. I did. It's like stupid financially, but it was still cool.

So be less materialistic.

I mean, in hindsight, but. But I think you have to go through that at least. At least I did because that's just who I was. Maybe a. A better one is. I wish I stuck with one thing for longer, but again, that wasn't my character. I was very adhd. Like, I had to probably go through a few things to realize the value in sticking with one thing rather than multiple and so on. I am envious of people and people I know that have done one thing since they were 18 and they've definitely reaped the rewards of that, but that just wasn't me. So I'd maybe say try and meet even more people because I met good at work, but probably I probably got a bit lazy with like getting new experiences and opinions in the past few years, maybe. Probably thought I knew it all to some extent.

You mean, like get your people that you know involved or.

Well, as in, like, I was fortunate enough to like build a network of like, founders and stuff. In my early 20s, but after maybe the age of like 23, 24, I stopped meeting new people, really, because I thought I knew everyone I needed to know. Stopped going to events, stopped traveling as much. And maybe there would have been benefit if I'd gone to South Africa, for example, because I've never been there. So maybe I've settled down a little bit too early in terms of like where I was living, etc. But again, hindsight's 20 20.

Yeah.

You can't, you can't really have any regrets because by default you can't undo it.

Maybe the viewer can learn from it. So this guy asks a lot of questions. Would you consider selling space goods before hitting your number if that meant greater peace of mind?

Is this the entropy?

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know who this guy is. If you're watching DM me who the fuck you are, because you always have good tweets and you've got. You do like a lot of detailed questions. He clearly knows his. I wonder who he is. Is he some 18 year old genius? Is he some 50 year old PE fund manager? I don't know.

Would you consider selling space goods before hitting your number? If it would mean peace of mind?

The short answer is yes, potentially. But I don't. I'm not interested in selling it right now. And it's obviously only two years old. Is that the full question?

Yeah, if. If that meant greater peace of mind.

Yeah, potentially.

Which you value your money level more than peace of mind or not as.

Much as I used to?

Yeah.

No. When I was younger, I thought it was all about money, and now I know for a fact it's not. Because I've seen people that have made tens of millions and have said that. Yeah, so. Or they're just based on facts. It's not like they think that it might happen one day. They've said, like they regret focusing on just that.

Yeah. Why do you think you're so harsh on yourself?

The same guy?

No, another guy.

Didn't he have like three credits?

Yeah, but I'll have to open them up. Why do you think you're so harsh on yourself slash your mind state so often? Is it because you want growth to happen faster or in different areas of life? Like, why are you so hard on yourself? Do you know where it comes from?

Yeah, I think it comes from comparison because I know a lot of wildly successful people. That is statistically incredibly rare. But that's the downside to surrounding yourself with winners is that if you're winning slightly less. And how do you even define winning? I mean, I guess my problem is I probably do only value myself on like financial metrics or business metrics. Probably look past the fact that I don't have cancer, I'm healthy, I was born poorer than average. Other things that are like positives, but I just tend to focus on, well, my best mate's got more money than me, so there's that. I also think I'm just chronically ambitious, which combined with comparison and I've seen businesses go wrong as well. So that makes me a bit paranoid about wanting to get it right this time.

So that is still like a thing that scares you a little bit.

Yeah, I didn't used to have that fear at all. It's probably a good thing I do now to an extent, but I think sometimes it's a bit limiting. So let that fear take over.

So you speak a lot about your ups and downs with the brand and.

Life in general exposed.

Did a, did something change now? Like do you have any strategies or mindset to stabilize this for yourself or the business?

Ice baths and sun in Bali helps a lot. Does help. Yeah. I think I'm trying to just think longer term and get perspective on things. Think the challenge when you starting a new business in particular is you're basically like day trading every day. Like you know, you have one bad day, it ruins your mood. And every founder can probably relate to this, especially E commerce. You look at your numbers every day and it defines like your self worth. You have a bad day, you lose money or something, it's like this.

Yeah, I try not to look at it.

Yeah. So try and zoom out on things and look at things on a 30 day basis, a quarterly basis, which is very hard to start with because you can't afford to do that. But I can't afford to do that now. But I still get very bogged down in the, the minor details, which you probably always will as a founder to some extent. But yeah, I suppose try and get perspective on things. Look at those people that are less fortunate. Look at like there's people dying in. Gonna get the facts right now. Israel and stuff in Palestine. That's worse than an ad account having CAC slightly higher than usual.

A lot of good problems to have.

Yeah, yeah. Growing pains.

Yeah.

It's not shrinking bones. So.

So if you wouldn't have started Space Goods at the time, what else would you have started?

An ice bath brand.

Something you were actually thinking of though.

Something I was actually thinking of Well, a lot of people don't know this. I filmed a lot of this. Space Goods was going to be an oral care brand. I actually have footage I launched. Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to do like an eco friendly high smile.

Yeah.

And I just, it just goes to show like no one, everyone's winging it and figuring out because I launched that because I was so desperate to launch something. This was October 2021 to like 5 months before I launched the brand. At the end I bought a load of stock. I've got videos of me fat and ugly and depressed. Broke up my ex girlfriend that time at that. Like around that time I was packing stock into boxes myself because I didn't want to use a 3PL because I didn't want to commit to anything. So I wasn't sure if I was interested or not. Then one day I launched it. Did like 100 quid in the first day, tiny. And then said this. I'm not interested in oral care. I'm rushing this. Let's go back to the drawing board. And then about a week later I decided I was going to do mushrooms.

Product fits the name better.

Yeah. Just winging it really.

Yeah.

So that's when I was going to do. Other than that, there wasn't really anything. Anything I thought about at the time. In hindsight I was an ice bath.

But were you thinking into it very deeply back then or was it just whatever you feel like or you think will be nice or were you like looking at trends? No, because we get a lot of questions like how to start a brand new play.

Yeah. I mean I obviously had a good sense of intuition. I knew I wanted to do something consumable. I wanted something with good gross margin, something that was objectively working in America but hadn't really been done in the uk. Some brands were like dirty or so on. But wasn't huge competition in the UK or Europe. And then, yeah, just the whole trend of like wellness, high level, but then functional ingredients and mushrooms in particular felt like good timing and I think it was good timing. As good timing as you could get, really.

Is there anything you would add on to it? Because there's many questions like how do I start a brand lean, how do I do it? How do I bootstrap a brand? Like, is that one thing you would say is the most important thing, like look at the product or what you're going to sell?

Yeah, I think to find a winning.

Product first, for example, and then brand.

It, drop ship stuff to start until.

You find something that works.

I Didn't do that with this. In hindsight, maybe I should have done, but it worked out.

You went for stock straight away is what you're saying.

But, yeah, I probably would just. If I was starting now from scratch, I'd just try and find something that was so clearly a winning product and then try and build a brand off the back of that. But only when you've got proof points and only when you. You can generate, like, profitable sales.

Yeah, something I should have done. In hindsight, I got like, a winning niche and then I was like, I'll make it work, but it took me three years. Yeah, better to find a winning product first. How do you work with people who don't work as hard as you?

Well, I think, to be honest, people that don't work as hard as you is probably most people that work for you or on your team in reality. And you shouldn't expect them to work as hard as you. I guess it's hard to get your head around that sometimes. But again, it comes back to the hard thing about dealing with people is they're not machines or robots. Like, they all have their own lives and they care about. And, yeah, it's hard. I struggle with it now. How do you, like, genuinely motivate a team? How do you know that they are doing enough, especially if it's a remote team? And how do you keep them in, like, keep them motivated enough to want to work for the business longer term? Because that's what you need really, to grow something. You need ultimately people to deliver the plan.

So that's something you're trying to figure out still as you go. Something people don't realize is that even the people you look up to are just winging it.

I think everyone's winging it.

I always thought that people had figured it out, and I was like, if I'm there, like, I know it.

Yeah.

But then when I meet more and more people that are doing the thing I wanted to be doing, I'm like, ah, they're just doing the same thing as me.

Figuring out.

It's always a new problem, new thing to solve. All right. Those are the questions. I mean, I skipped through through some of them, but one that keeps coming back we should do is. How are you liking Bali this time?

Yeah, it's good. I've always had a soft spot for Bali. That's where I first came when I first dropped out of uni and met some people. There's always. It's always a small world out here. There's a lot of Interesting people. There's like zero NPCs. I mean in terms of like people that live here because by default they have to be doing something a bit different to be living out here. Yeah. I'm flying back tonight, so don't know how I feel about that. Quite looking forward to seeing my dog less. Looking forward to 13 degrees and gray skies. Should be better.

Should be better.

Should be. It should be back. It's nearly June you would think, but yeah, it's good. I just don't think I could live. Live here, to be honest. No, like full time. I don't know what it is. It just feels like a bit claustrophobic.

Yeah, I agree. It's a good two, three months. But yeah, for me, definitely no body. Better this time.

Had mild barley belly. It was nowhere near as bad as before. You get a little bit more barley belly. It was just like a Bali twinge.

Do you think Rainbow Dust, the main product, is going to get you to your goal with the brand or you think other products will be the main driver?

Well, it's a good question and it's one that I'm always debating. I do think largely that base product in different, improved versions, different formats, new countries, new, new, new everything could. Will be the main thing. Yeah, for now. But it won't be just the current version that you see. But I do think that as a. As a market like coffee upgrade is strong, the feedback's very good, the retention's good, people love the product, it could be better and we are improving it. But yeah, I don't think like gummies are a sleep product are ever going to be as big, to be honest. But there might be something I've not even thought about yet that overtakes it. There's loads of questions, though. I thought I sent mates.

Yeah, but there's a lot of repeat, a lot of repeat questions. This one is good. Quite kind of relevant.

You can ask your ones after.

Yeah, yeah. Anything about Tick Tock shop. So there's a guy. It's kind of relevant right now. Are you trying it?

Yeah, I've got someone running it and it's not going very well, to be completely honest. We've only been on it for like a few weeks. I don't know if it needs more time. So now it's like. Well, I don't know if we've given it a fair test. I don't know if the person running it, to be completely honest, is the best person to be running it. And should I try it myself and just go Balls deep on it for a month or do we just sack it off and focus like there's a lot to be said for focusing on one channel. I think just the headspace of doing new all the time I don't think is necessarily net beneficial but I do see it. I get, you know, I get shiny object syndrome. I see people on Twitter scaling the shit out of it. I'm not sure it's right for my price point, the product, but I am trying it but it's not working right.

You think you will give them a few months to do it or.

Don'T have. They're watching this but it's difficult to be paying someone a flat retainer when you're getting no results.

Yeah.

So currently I'm thinking something needs to change or someone else will do it.

We met some guy here that's doing great on TikTok shop.

Really?

The guy from Breeze?

Oh, Aaron. Yeah. Yeah.

He gave us some good insights.

Scaling the fuck out of here. That's a crazy brand.

It's cool to hear.

He's a very, very smart guy. He's someone that makes me feel very stupid, but nice guy. Nice and corny.

I'm trying to find this one guy. If you raise again, would you consider trying to lure strategics onto your cap table instead of traditional consumer CPG vc? So the benefit is their networks, I. E. Retail distribution that potential PE growth shops have connection to.

Yeah. I have spoke to some strategic angels before. I won't say the name, but one of them was an angel at the biggest food company in the world. I'll let people guess who that is, which would be like a typical strategic. I mean the answer is yes, potentially. I just haven't thought about it yet because I only raised like six months ago and I'm not planning on raising again anytime soon. But I do have. He actually came from the podcast. This is a guy that's an executive at a massive, massive like hundreds of billion pound company. It's a big win for the bug. And he's a customer because he'd watched the pause, something like that. You see my Twitter or something. He knew who I was and then I had a call with him. So yeah, potentially. Somebody thought about it in depth.

Why was this not the strategy for the second round.

Then? I just didn't happen. Yeah, I think I got very good investors. Are they calling that?

Yeah, but we'll see them coming.

Yeah.

You got very good investors.

Yeah. I mean anyone that, that knows the consumer VC space can just look online at who invested and yeah, they'll know they're pretty legit.

How soon are you planning on entering the US market? Seems the most logical step for space goods. There's high quality customers, deeper pockets, greater market awareness, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, it's something I personally thought about.

Hello, mindset. Is it for the. You pick up a little go jack break. Thank you, sir. So we were talking about the us.

Oh, yeah, the us. Basically everyone says that they're amazed how far I've managed to scale, even in just the uk. And it is kind of true because it's a really small market, especially with like, largely one skew. Didn't do us originally, though, because I wanted to be a UK and European leader because, I mean, there's a bigger opportunity to do that than there is to be another one of many in America. That was like the initial thinking and then I started focusing on the uk. I ended up with investors who are very European focused. And it does change a little bit when you get investors because it's not about just scaling everywhere as soon as possible. You kind of have to have like, the strategy behind it, like what we're trying to do. So right now I'm trying to be UK leader with a bit of Europe because the story is, well, if someone bought the business and we haven't even touched America yet, which might sound a bit weird to a lot of people that are like drop shippers and. But that does matter when the goal, I guess one day is to sell the business. So that's partly why. Also, America is way more competitive. The CAC's way higher. It's not as simple as just launching America. I could do it, but it's not doing it right now. It's a focus thing. But Jack from Purdy and Fig came on my pod. Much better founder than me. I think their business is doing like 50 million a year. They're just in the UK, just do meta ads, just online.

One product, one channel.

Yeah. What was literally like one product, one everything.

Yeah. And we're crushing it.

So they don't have to do us. I'm sure they could do it later. But I do think there's something to be said for dominating one market rather than being average in a few.

You don't worry about the ceiling.

I think there's a ceiling in the uk, which is why I've launched in. In Europe. I think Europe's a bigger opportunity than America right now. I really do. Way less competitive, lower cac. A CAC in Europe is lower than the UK already and we've got an English website.

Yeah.

So Europe is pretty much as big as America.

Yeah.

If you look at all the main countries, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, blah blah blah.

So Europe will be the next focus.

Instead of you dominate Europe, the US for now. Yeah. Basically that's just my view. I could be wrong as always, but.

Just trying to figure it out.

Yeah.

90 days to build a new product business. What are you doing and why?

Well, I'm drop shipping for a start. So there's way lower risk. Honestly I'd probably launch like a general store test a bunch of different, see quickly what works the best in terms of like the unit economics, the roas on ads, blah blah blah. Once you get an early sign of life, I'd probably double down on that. Then I'd probably start white labeling or custom branded drop shipping that product until I got decent volume. Then I'd probably go to custom bespoke products. I'd probably do it just on Meta to start with or TikTok shop. I haven't cracked TikTok shop myself, but I'd probably be quite single channel minded. I'd ignore everything else, probably pick one country, keep it as simple as possible and yeah, this sounds really easy. It's not really easy, but that's probably what I do. High level.

It's easy with the skills you now have. It wouldn't be easy if you start from zero.

Yeah.

What are you training for? Running, weights, current routine. You've been going hard here.

I probably don't like. I'm trying if anything right now I've been having too many cinnamon rolls from down the road.

We've been training hard though.

I'm really a bit lost in my training right now because I. I still have like gold medal syndrome from getting so shredded and going so quick in 2022, which is ridiculous. I sound like the old man that talks about the past and his entire life. But yeah, like I was doing some like semi ultra marathon stuff last year, then I got into high rocks a little bit but haven't really been training enough for that because I've not been consistently going to one gym in one place. I'm at the point now where I probably do need a personal trainer or something. I like running. I think there's always got to be some cardio and then running is the best cardio in my opinion, at least for me. So right now it's a bit up in the air. I've really been deep in the trenches to the point my physique has taken a Back seat, which is a shame, but you can get away with a slightly fleshy physique when you're tanned. You can't get away with that when you're white. So I might have to work on that a bit more the next few months.

The more nerdy one, something you talked or told me about, which you're happy with right now, is which 3 PL in the UK have you had the best experience with?

I probably shouldn't say this. I'm still in a contract with the old one, which is a bit controversial.

Oh, good.

I'm currently using Ship Bob. They've been good so far. If you go to them, say I spoke to you. I've not got a referral link, but I should do.

You'll set it up.

I'm currently using shipbob. It's only been like three months. They are pretty good. Way cheaper than the other ones. I think they're all largely the same. I would generally go for one that's the cheapest, to be honest. I think that's going to have the greatest benefit on the business than one that claims to be slightly better. Because ultimately they all have to do the same thing, which is products.

Yeah, so those are all of them. We'll do a few ones now for my channel.

All right, sweet.

Some more, probably.

Questions for me.

Yeah, yeah, I'll also answer them. So these are like Q A questions? Yeah, these are like Q and A questions. So you want to wrap it up.

So you're asking me this?

Yeah, and I'll also give my opinion. So these are. They asked me these questions, but I'll ask them to you and then I'll give my opinion.

Well, I'll probably put this in my. My video anyway.

Yeah, you can also put it in there.

Just keep it rolling.

Yeah. Right. Little bonus clip here, then. Little bonus question for the monthly Q and A together with Matt to start.

Out with these questions to you.

Yeah, to me, but I'll ask them to you and then give my opinion. Yeah, so one of them that comes up a lot, and I know you've talked about this before, is like, how do you meet people? Like, how do you get in this?

People asking you that now? Yeah, because you used to ask me that.

Exactly.

Go to Bali.

How did I do it?

Go to Bali and get on Twitter.

Get on Twitter. Be open, be honest. Don't try to act like someone you're not. Just share whatever the you're doing. When I came here the first time, it was like I told people I was going broken what I was trying to do and that's why everyone wanted to help me out because I wasn't trying to pretend to be someone I'm not. And I think the doctor journey has helped a lot with that because I'm like sharing things raw and honest. So I don't know, I don't know if this fits you guys but I always advocate for trying to share your journey. So share your journey. Be open and honest and go to places where you think you can find people like that. Do what you want. For us it's like econ people but maybe for you it's like fashion or just try to find the location where that's it. And go there. Let's see. Do you think ecommerce is still a great place to start as an entrepreneur and a vertical?

Yeah, I think it's the greatest entrepreneurial journey there is and I think it's also the hardest which is why most people go and do an agency or do only fans management like that. What is more all encompassing business skill wise than E commerce? I don't think there is anything really because you have to think about. These are gone black. Press it again. Maybe I'll have to pass him forward. Just hold it down, see if he comes back on. It was fully charged. Ah yeah. Okay, that one's dead. We're gonna have to pass this over. Yeah, econ's like product, finance, logistics, customer service, marketing, branding, everything like that. And it's also a place you can start with like drop shipping and and scale up from there. So I think it's like the ultimate crash course in entrepreneurship and also like personal development starting an E commerce store. So.

Yeah, I mean I agree. I don't think that what gurus are telling you these days is like true though where every guru is trying to convince you that their business model is like the best business model. For me ecom is good maybe for Matt too because we're more creatives. Like we want to create our own thing from scratch. Oh, is there lights? Oh, we got it. Oh yeah, that's vibes. We switch it up. So I don't believe in the whole there is one best business model. It works for me because I want to create my own thing. I'm way too like self minded to be like an agency and building other people's business. And the thing is with E comm it's probably one of the hardest business models because there's so much moving parts you have to know about supply chain. You have to figure out how to do customer service. How to do ads, how to do media buying. And so it is like you say, I think the best thing to learn it all. But you're also probably going to struggle the most to get it off the ground and to build something solid. But if you do manage, then you have something really good. Not even the business itself, but also the skill set that you built. So for me it's definitely, I think a great place to start, but I'm also very hard headed. So maybe you're like really into helping other people or like you're more of a people pleaser or like it's not good or bad. Right. But maybe serving other people works better for you? Me, I just, when I did my agency, you can go back to the videos, I was like, like I didn't like it at all. So I'm. Yeah, that is my opinion on it. You got anything more? What were some hardships that you've had and how have you persevered so specifically into let's say starting your first brand brand?

I think every issue under the sun, not having any money, ad accounts, getting disabled payment processes, getting disabled products arriving. Wrong. Doing customer service from a sweaty Spanish Airbnb by myself in 2017 in the literal scale closet. I think basically everything to be honest. Yeah, it's really hard to start which is why most people don't and can't sustain it. But you get better and stronger as you go on. Really. That's a pretty general answer, but I'll let you have a say.

It's some hardships. So for me I've recently realized, I think that a lot of the like next levels for you are like behind the things that you don't want to do. Right. So if you, Because I honestly I'm very lucky to say that I haven't had any like hardships that weren't self inflicted. Like I self inflicted dropping out of school, I self inflicted starting a business, I self inflicted going to Bali with no money. Like these are hardships but I'm like I don't really classify them as hardships because I chose to do them and I thought they were the best thing to do. So for me, I don't know, maybe trying to make my brand work for like three years without seeing any results I guess. But for me that was like no question. So I don't think I have had that many hardships. Just I have had to be very perseverant to like figure out with how much money did you, did you stop a normal job to start your own brand? So how much money did you have to start Midnight City? How much?

I mean, before that, like, I dropped out of uni with like, three grand to my name, so nothing.

The drop shipping was.

Yeah, this was way back in, like, 2017. But I just put my back against the wall and figured it out, really. So I think that's what you kind of have to do. And I flew to some event in Singapore which was like, the first time I ever met people doing other entrepreneurial. And I've repeatedly mentioned this because I credit it as the. The turning point from, like, potentially going down the road of, like, graduate job, uni that I didn't want to just actually go and all in. And then I never looked back. There's been plenty of ups and downs since then, but that was when it started. So, yeah, nothing really.

Yeah, same for me. And I have people always DMing me, like, how do you get money? This and that, like. And I always respond like, if you really want it, you'll make it work. I also didn't have money. I came to Bali with €5,000. That's where my first video started. So you can even go back and look at it. And at some point, I think I loaned maybe like €5,000 for my mom because I didn't have money anymore because I was spending it in Bali. And then I met someone that told me I could make ads work for my brand and I didn't have money to spend on ads. So then I loaned €5,000 for my mom, and that's what I spent on ads. And that's what I started with. So if you really want it, you'll find a way. And that's why it's good to start lean, like you say, like, start drop shipping. Start finding a product first that can make you some money, even if it's like €1,000, €3,000, €4,000 per month and then go from there. A more niche, specific one, but pretty interesting. How do you go about crafting your creatives? Is there, like, a specific structure that you use? Are you very involved in it? Is it all at an agency? Like, what is the general process?

Yeah, to be fair, I don't really touch, like, the ad creative process anymore. I probably should, but it's not necessarily my strong point. It's really analytical. Up to now, we've used a mixture of agency and doing it in house. We've now recently moved away from agencies. We're doing it all in house. It is a lot of systems and structure. I don't know how many creatives we Have a week. Probably like 20 or something. 20 new ones. Although I'm just guessing it's a lot of spreadsheets and Monday boards and I don't manage any of that really. But yeah, I think it's just data driven. It's a mixture of creativity, but also data and organization and ultimately having having someone, whether that's you or a team member running it and just churning out stuff every week. Which again probably sounds quite of a fluffy answer, but it's basically just volume. Like probably the most important thing other than the product these days is the creatives. So definitely worth getting, right?

And then is it a lot of new, like new angles and new concepts or a lot of iterations?

Mainly sharing a mic now it's both. So net new concepts. I think we actually need way more net new concepts right now to be pushing the same angles for fucking months. But iterations are probably where you find most success because something that's working and you can make it work better or make it keep working, change the hook, change the UGC creator, change the image, whatever it is. But yeah, I think it's a super important part of any business. Any E comm brand is something I'm trying to nail even more now with the team and so on. So yeah, don't sleep on creatives.

You should join one of the red line creative nights with us. Come up with a whole lot of new angles with some red ones. Yeah, it's a body style for me. I told you guys many times I'm working with a creative agency now. I'm still outperforming them, but actually this week they did find a winner. That's starting to outspend my own creatives. I'll add a little creative breakdown at the end of the this video. So we test about 30 concepts per week. Most are new concepts, some are iterations. Yeah, just look at reviews, look at competitors, look at comments. You can find all kinds of different angles and IDs there and then you can basically re edit. A lot of the good creatives these days are just good edits. So a copywriter or someone that comes up with a good angle to sell in a script and then an editor that knows how to make a creative that sells. What's the tips you have for someone who wants to leave the job and risk it all very general.

I would say burn the boats. If you want something bad enough like, and getting started is probably the hardest part, you do have to just burn the boats, genuinely. I keep saying it, but I'd probably go somewhere Like Bali, which is the opposite of kind of npc. I say that tongue in cheek, but it's also true, like NPC UK mindset, where 99 of people have a normal job and think you're stupid for starting something. Especially when you get started, you won't know other people doing stuff. So you need to get out of your normal place and go somewhere where everyone is doing something similar. Like Barley. That's what I did. I think ultimately you figure stuff out when you have to figure stuff out and there's no one that's done anything that wasn't in a similar position to start with. Unless they come from a rich family or something, which most people don't on balance. So yeah, I think a pretty general.

Truth that I've been holding myself onto and I've repeated many times as well. Little mosquitoes. If you want to risk it all, you probably want to do something different than the people like that are normal or doing normal things. Not saying it's good or bad. That means that whatever you're doing should be completely different from what they are doing. So if you look around and you can compare what you're doing to them, then you probably should think about if it's the right way to risk it all. Because you need to be back against the wall like Matt says, and completely go for your own thing. Block out all the people that tell you you are not doing the right thing. Because if you want something different, you need to be doing something different, your inputs need to be different. So just go for it, believe in yourself, make it work and then you can make it work. That's what we did. Coming to Bali for a month, how to get the best out of that time in terms of meeting people.

Get on Twitter. I think Twitter is a gold mine to meeting people. I really do. On every social media, put some, you know, have some sort of profile, you know, go to a co work space. I met some good mates like Flores we were with last night. I met him in tropical nomad in 2019, which was like a proper nomad, low scale nomad, co working space at the time, but join co working spaces. Don't spend all day in a villa, go to a cool gym. Ultimately you'll meet people, go to some sort of networking event. There's always something and it's a, it's a moment and thing. Can't speak. You meet someone, they introduce you to someone else. Which is how I met most of my early network was meeting one person, being introduced, etc. Etc. So yeah, get out of your comfort zone.

And then I think if you're going to be here for one month, you should kind of get rid of the thought that you're going to be very productive because meeting people will be productive even though it doesn't feel like being productive. So try to get to places like Medset where you can meet those people and don't worry too much about your productivity. Just try to get around cool people and then you're out here in a month anyways. So then start to do like work again. But if you come here to meet people, then really meet people. When I came here in the beginning, like Matt says, I went to my gym, I think was damn near more expensive than my rent. Like I was staying in a shithole guest house and I went to Body Factory and in Body Factory I started meeting the first like people because it's so expensive. Everyone in there was an entrepreneur. That was my reasoning. So I went there, start meeting people and then like Matt says, friends of friends of friends, you just start to put yourself out there and then at some point you kind of start to meet some like minded people. But Matt, you're 28 now and I'm a bit younger. So for me it's actually, for me it's actually only around now where I'm really starting to meet or be around the people and have the friends that I'm that I was looking for when I left out on this like adventure. So don't expect you to be a month in Bali and like have figured it out in terms of friends because you have to like keep the momentum like Matt says, and meet friends of friends and then that way you get introduced to people that are like like minded and connect with you more. Niche nerd 1. How do you find a good supplier when there are thousands selling the same product? Is there something you went about or was it luck or.

I mean it's different in the past because I used to always source from China, now I make everything in the uk. So let's just assume you're sourcing from China. Basic is use like trade assurance and like gold rated suppliers and Alibaba, that's the first thing. The next step is getting samples. The next step beyond that is visiting them. I probably wouldn't do that straight away, but there's a lot to be said for like building relationships with suppliers, then you can actually trust them. I mean there's so many suppliers in China that there's probably a thousand that could do something really well. You've just got to find the good ones and then pick one. There's not going to be one supplier that's better than everyone else. They might all say they are, but yeah, I'll just do basic due diligence. Don't pay by buying transfer to start with. I've done that in the past and got scammed. Pay on credit card, pay through Alibaba, get samples, try and get reviews or see who else they make stuff for, which is sometimes quite difficult. But yeah, just use common sense and yeah, order small amounts of stock to start with if you are doing that. I mean basic shit really. I've never done anything super complicated, but I do think visiting suppliers is like the final step in finding like legit people.

Yeah, I went to China. That was pretty. It was a pretty interesting experience. That's how I did it. So what I did was I gave a little bit of the orders to different Chinese suppliers that I found. And then through that through like shipping times and fulfillment times, like saw who kind of the best one was and I gave him more and more work and that's kind of how, how it started. Very general one. I'm not sure if you do, but best readings that you suggest or podcasts is there like in general one. I think you should listen to ours maybe, but.

I actually don't read a lot so I can't advise on that. I think Andy Frisella's podcast is the first one I ever listened to MSCO. It's got like 400 episodes. I think George Heaton said that's a great podcast as well. And I used to listen to that when I was like 20. Other than that, I think go listen to the Midnight Pod every single episode. I think there's some gems in there. Other podcasts, I mean for entrepreneurial ones, there's not that many good ones in my opinion. There's a lot of real fluffy ones. I think getting on Twitter you can learn a lot from that because there's founders of nine figure brands on there just like tweeting information for free. It's like the first generation where that's ever been a thing. But I would just say YouTube in general. Although there's a lot of fluff on YouTube trying to sell you a course and lying about the realities of stuff to sell you that course. Probably more of that than there is genuine stuff. But yeah, I think Twitter's a gold mine. Some podcasts are good, actually the operators pod is really good. But that's, that's definitely not for beginners. It's that higher level stuff. Because they're all like nine figure brand founders. So you probably can't really relate if you've just started listening to that. But yeah, start with the Midnight Pod. Go from there.

Start with the Midnight Pod and then start with my channel. And yeah, we're done. So I have one more I want to know and then. Then we're done. Start with my. Start with midnight. Start with my channel. Read Naval the Almanac. It's like the general way of philosophy and life and business and things that will help you out a lot. I think that's it. Yeah. Pretty cool. That's the last question. Only thing else you know I DM'd you that I'll one day be on the pod a long time ago. It's pretty cool, I think.

Full circle, the pod shrinking in view.

But I'm motivating Matt again to get on there guys. So should thank me. Do catch up again.

Right on that bombshell moment. I gotta go pack my bags, leave this beautiful place and subscribe to the pod. As always, more Doc. The journey coming soon episode 69 this has been. I think we'll do more Q and A's maybe once a month going forward. Peace, Bosch.