Spending £1m, Relationships, Exit Plans, Mentors, Fitness & Life - Q+A | The Midnight Pod Ep 50

Right, we're back with episode 50, I believe of the midnight Pod. This time I think we're actually back half century. Yeah, it is. I did nine months in a row, then took a slight hiatus in summer, then restarted, but then found myself too busy and with a lack of passion for the pod temporarily. So we did six episodes and then a few half assed ones which never actually went live. And the wine is back. We're starting with what I believe is a very expensive one. I was gifted by Simon who's the finance guy for Space Goods. So thank you, Simon. If you're watching, which I feel like you probably are, it's good shit. We're back with the fucking pink lights, red wine, and somewhat of a co host in Oliver Hudson who plenty of money, Twitter, and whoever watches this pod probably seen on episode whatever it was like a year and a bit ago. The most loose episode of the Midnight Pod in history.

I'm surprised you managed to get the stain off the sofa from when I.

It's definitely still there.

Yeah, it definitely is. And then the most somber episode last time which was.

Yeah, yeah, that wasn't great. We tried to do an episode in 180 House thinking it'd be cool to switch it up, but then I realized that just trying to change variables that don't need to be changed and ultimately the cozy flat setup is really. Is really the one. So we're doing a bit of cop out episode because we've got loads of guests like next week which we'll probably do some of with you like co hosting and maybe some just me as well. We'll figure it out. Trying like a new format ish with like two post I guess. But we're doing like a Q and A to get started because that's what the people seem to want a lot of times. I think doing like a monthly Q and A or at least a bi monthly one is a good place to start. I'll sling some questions back at you, but I don't know, I think a lot of them are like maybe brand specific.

Yeah, there's a mixture. There's a lot that are ecom brand specific, some that are more general, life specific, some that are just rinses that are just coming at you for those orange trousers specifically. Yeah, so yeah, quite a big. A big range. Don't know where you want to start general or brand because that's. It's a pretty even.

You've got ones from Instagram and Twitter, right?

Yeah, yeah. So we'll dive in, I guess we'll start with something general. God, this is pretty deep. What your parents point of view on your career.

That's quite a good question actually because probably a question that many people don't answer or haven't been asked.

I feel like since I've known you it must have changed because I know early on to now surely.

But yeah, I mean I think in summary I remember first revealing my Shopify store. I think it would have been fucking loose garms at the time pre dusk back in like 2016 I remember showing my dad that I think Christmas 2016 and being like this is what I'm doing, I'm probably going to drop out. I think I dropped out officially at that point and I was like yeah this is, these are the numbers, it's real like this is what the fuck I'm doing. I think they probably always knew that I wasn't gonna follow a traditional path but until it's just generational thing innit. They haven't necessarily seen Especially because my parents aren't entrepreneurial at all. My uncle is but my parents aren't. So yeah I think they were pretty worried at first but that's probably just the way they should be and then eventually they just saw that it wasn't a fluke and I was gonna keep doing shit and even when I've had like ups and downs by that point I was way, way too far into the game. I was never gonna go back and get a fucking job or anything.

Do you think you understand it? Do they understand what you do? I feel that's a disconnect between generations is like yeah, even if you try you almost have to break it down in painstaking detail like how you make, how you come to sell all this stuff on the Internet.

I think my dad understands more than my mum. Not to sound sexist but just because he's like more his job involves like business whereas my mum doesn't. But yeah, it's not an E comm. I mean yeah he definitely understands more. I think the thing my parents don't understand and probably typical of most entrepreneurs parents is just like the entrepreneurial mindset and like they can't understand why I don't know like why I would even care about trying to build something, something.

Big like self motivation and not working someone else pursuing a bigger goal kind of.

Yeah, I think they, they just understand my brother who's a very interesting biological case maybe because he's my twin, not non identical so same womb, different eggs but it's a complete fucking opposite of me in every way. And like he has a much more typical worldview and he's definitely happier than me, but I just couldn't do what he does.

Yeah.

And live the way he does equally.

I'd say he's knowing him. Knowing. I don't. I wouldn't say I know him but I know of him. He's equally as kind of high performance in some other aspects, I guess.

Yeah. I think this Iron Man's and shit, he's better academically than me.

I was talking to someone about this today actually. Like it is possible to work a 9 to 5 and become ridiculously successful and wealthy.

Yeah. Most people would be a better choice.

So.

Yeah.

And it's not the wrong path. Like there's people who get in earlier, massive companies take share options, become wealthier than most people who start an online business ever would, get anywhere near 100%.

Oh shit.

No. You just spill red wine everywhere.

It's only a little bit. It's actually only a very small bit.

Surprisingly, it's not me this time at least.

We'll deal with that after. I've just. For anyone that's listening, I just kicked over that bottle of wine.

Yeah. People who are actually better at being an employee as well and some of those people become way more wealthy and successful than most people in some of the highest level of those individuals, like people who get into Uber early, people who get into startups early can leave with a ridiculous paycheck.

Yeah. I spoke to a guy that works at this fund now and he's like clearly minted. He was like early team at Deliveroo. I won't say his name but yeah, he's clearly cashed.

Yes. Yeah. There's people I've spoken to, people like triple Whale and stuff and they take share options and they're going to be, they're going to come out of that with if. If they get to a point of sale with stupid amounts of cash.

Yeah.

Different patterns. There's a follow on question that kind of relates to the. Well, it's loosely related. It's like if you had to work a traditional 9 to 5, what job would you want to do?

Honestly, I thought about this and it'd be a high end supercar salesman niche. Genuinely. I think it'd be sick. That's the only job I've ever looked at and thought that would actually be good.

Surely that's self employed though. If you're a high end, surely it's some.

Nah. But like if you work at, I don't know, Lamborghini Knightsbridge or whatever. That's a job. Or even just like Redline specialist cars or something. Where I used to buy those cars from I think is. I mean, firstly, I fucking love cars. I think that should be quite sick. But also you just meet a lot of.

Yeah, the network entrepreneurs and shit.

Wouldn't it? Because other people buying those cars.

Yeah, the network.

Or in something similar like yachts or jets. Something where you can network and just sell cool shit.

You'd also. And definitely feel like if you work that job you'd end up out of a 9 to 5. Just through the network effect. If you did it. Well.

Yeah.

You don't. You'd find some opportunity from some of the guys you're selling a car to or a yacht to.

Yeah.

That lead you to not doing a jet or a jet. There's so many car questions in here. So many. Like, what is the next car you're gonna get? Like, what's your dream car? The DeLorean. That'd be fun.

We're answering that now. Yeah.

You might as well, because I'm.

That's a bit of a next car. I mean. Christ, I've had like over a year off cars. I mean, I said it would be a Urus wrapped with a rainbow dust packaging and I'd still genuinely think that'll be the next one. I caught the unicorn truck and it'd be the perfect wrap. It would be the satin pink to purple, purple to pink.

The ultimate lifestyle design of.

Yeah, that's the plan. And put a QR code on it and park it illegally in Mayfair every weekend. Something like that. Yeah.

You've always been a car person. I do think that working as luxury car salesman would be the network. People underestimate the power of network. I feel.

Yeah, Definitely.

Biggest thing in a journey. I feel like getting. Getting into the room with the right people. We've felt over the last 12 months. You've obviously raised a lot of money through network. A lot of it. Early stage. What. Again, I'm sticking with like the general life questions and coming at you pretty fast.

What, am I gonna tilt these back on you as well?

Yeah, yeah, you can do. Someone would love to hear more on building a business when single versus in a relationship.

Fucking hell. Like reflected on these sort of questions a lot in the earlier pods where I used to. I can't speak about she who shall shall not be named on the pod anymore. There's been many different fucking romantic interactions since then that haven't gone it as long as have been just as high Stakes. Yeah. That is an interesting one actually. I think Iman spoke about this on. On. On that original classic episode and I've forgotten what his answer was. But in his mind, like having the right girl was better than being single. And I actually agree in many ways, but it's so rare in my opinion. But then he also said something along the lines of but it's better to be single than have, you know, the wrong girl or someone. That's just distracting because. Yeah. I don't know. Christ. I mean, I guess they're asking maybe my experiences with it. I've definitely more focused on business. Single. That's just a fact like based on my own experience, the correlation.

Yeah.

That's not to say you couldn't have a relationship and be super focused because there's plenty of cases of people I know or know of or don't know and have seen that way more successful than me that are in relationships or have been for a long time before. But I think it's how you are.

With the person, I guess whether you get the support, whether it takes mental energy, whether it's like this friction there that takes you focus. But if it's the right person, it shouldn't really do that.

You haven't got a girlfriend of you?

No. No.

You did for a while.

Yeah, I did.

So how was that for you?

It wasn't really.

Did anything change when she disappeared? No, not. She didn't disappear. She's still alive. But when you broke up.

Sounds. Yeah, no, not really. Not for me. No. Transparently it wasn't really any different. There's probably friction points whilst together because obviously you spend a lot of time. I feel like especially in the early stages, it takes so much of your attention and time that they can feel like they don't get that time from you. It's like that's the biggest thing that competes with you in terms of focus and time.

Yeah.

So I kind of agree with what Iman says. I guess it's kind of a good way to look at it because if you find the right person, they should kind of support with what what you do.

I was about to say that Warren's about to slip, so good job. He grabbed it.

Should support what you do and should be almost like make it easier and facilitate it. But if it's the wrong person, it's definitely. Probably, probably regardless of the business aspect, probably just the wrong person.

Yeah. I suppose the one caveat to it, just like final point is obviously when you're single, I don't know about You. But there's only fucking so long I can go without female interaction of some sort. Like, do you know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. I've never done like, monk mode for like too long. I definitely think there are seasons for it, like, particularly winter. It's kind of easier to do, like, not feeling the need to like, go and date girls or whatever or like socially just be out as much. But yeah. So arguably, in that sense, it's maybe more distracting unless you literally decide to put your like, love life on hold until you fucking make it or whatever. But that character always gonna move in it. So, yeah, it's finding the balance, which I try and do.

You've had some interesting experiences over the last 12 to 18 months. I feel like you've told. You've gone through them all.

Pretty.

It's quite funny.

Gone through my swim, I guess off.

The back of that, like, quite. There's a few people asking how you find the balance between enjoying yourself and the biz. I feel like it's probably something you've covered a few times. I feel like that's very unique to each person.

It's like, yeah, something. It's a hard question. It is.

I think I saw some. I. I think balance. Balance is like a concept that. I don't know. It's like usually people who feel like you have to have balance between the things, people who are building a business usually enjoy it. So it's like if you enjoy it, it's not really a question of balance. It's like you already enjoy yourself doing it. And it's like this balance between social life and business, it's like, it's very unique to each person, I feel. But then you get a lot of people who work 9 to 5 saying like, oh, you should take more time off, you should, etc. Etc. But what do you think?

Yeah, I think I've got the balance pretty, like, pretty almost perfect over like the past five years or whatever. Like my 20s. Because I don't think there's anything I've. I've not done that I wanted to do. We were like traveling, fucking cars and shit. Like stupid trips. I think seasons in it really, like winter definitely feels like more of a knuckle down. Get done. Yeah, exactly. And then I still travel loads. I say, like, seasons, like I've been. I've been on like nine trips this year and I'm going to Bali for New Year. And.

I think it gets to a point where you can set it up where you get more free time as well. Like early stages. You're always going to be. Need to be less balanced if you really want to make it work.

Yeah. And I do agree it's like balance on like a day to day is I genuinely have no desire to sit and watch like TV in the evening.

Yeah. It's like, I think, although having said.

That, we do love a good fucking prison film in this flat. As we've discovered recently. It's the only films I actually get off my phone and pay attention, just relate to it.

Prison films.

Yeah. Just like watch like three prison films recently. They fucking stick with you. I think about that shit when I'm in bed. I'm like, the trenches might be bad, but solitary confinement for five years is worse. So it's just a perspective.

I think someone we know, I think it was Adam tweeted about how he's. He felt like. What do you do when you get to a point when you saw that operations.

The obvious answer is scale at 10x no. Unless you don't want to do that.

It depends. I feel like you can. Some, some people could get to a point where they, even without them involved.

I don't feel like I've ever got to that point.

Like one of our agencies at the moment, like I, we've got a coo, we've got a sales team. Like, if I just cease to exist tomorrow, it would still grow without me, which is why I do other things around it.

Yeah.

But it's still, I still think there's an argument that if I just focus all my time on that, I would still grow quicker. Feels inevitable.

That was the logic in my head of why I like stopped the POD a few months ago. Because in my head, like the thinking was if I'm spending time on the pod, I'm not spending time working on the brand. But then I had a stark realization of firstly, the pod is the only fucking time I'm not looking at a screen. Basically unless I'm in the gym. It's the only time I get to speak to people. And like actually the pod is I think net beneficial for the business anyway because two of my biggest investors I met through the pod. It's good for like personal brand inverted commas. Even though my personal brand is just documenting the shit I'm doing, I don't really think it's a personal brand. But I even going through like the fundraising process now, I've had so many people reach out to me and not just like young guys or whatever, but like experienced investors, angels and shit. And like, oh, I've seen your podcast, blah blah blah. I really like the brand. So there is that sort of benefit. So I think with the POD like this, that's what I think maybe outsiders wouldn't expect. It's like, yeah, we haven't got a million subscribers, but you got, I don't know, a few thousand people watching this sort of content. That's long form. Yeah, I think that's more valuable than a million views on Tick Tock.

Yeah, definitely. It's hard. I'd rather have like 5,000 really engaged people than 5, like 5 million people who just watch.

Like half the people that watch this are like entrepreneurs or like investors and like, I guess like fairly high level people. Yeah, it's what the same intellectually and shit.

That's why it's more like stuff in this. Why like content with an e comm on YouTube is more monetizable than.

Yeah, exactly.

Like music or something very general. Because you go into an affluent audience, it's also within your vertical so connects you with people. And yeah. You say we can't just sit in front of a computer screen and build your brand 12 hours a day. I find that the bet. I also think when you do that, the best ideas come to me. Never when I'm working, ever.

That's very true.

If I go on a walk or if I'm like just doing something else, I'll get an idea that's implemented. That's like way better idea than if I'm trying to think about the exact problem site. A computer screen. So you do need some time where you don't just stare it.

I always get ideas when I'm in the gym or cycling back from the gym and then I have to quickly scramble a note in my phone.

Yeah. Today even happens so much like gym.

Must be something to do with like moving. Must be some signs.

Always. No. Yeah. Steve Jobs never took a meeting that wasn't a walk off. So someone did just always took meetings on walks.

That makes sense. Jack goes for walks like twice a day. It's probably why he's scaling harder than me.

Maybe that's the key.

I just sit in my fucking desk.

I think walks are sick. Walk with no phone as well. When you take the phone it defeats the point because you're still plugged in. Whereas if you go with no phone, it can't be.

So I need to do that on my dog walks. That's a good idea.

Yeah. But I think the POD is. Pod is pretty aligned. I can see why you would try and park it, though. I think singular focus on one business is always gonna. You are probably gonna end up growing faster. But I also think you can get to a point where I say you can.

The POD definitely, I realize, is like, net beneficial to do. And I feel like I have a duty to do it now. And I do enjoy doing it. Like, it's like my only fucking therapeutic outlet.

Just talking about your problems.

Yeah, exactly. That's also what the POD is. People think it's me interviewing people. It's just me. Me having an excuse to fucking air my problems to someone that thinks they're getting interviewed just in front of a thousand people. Yeah. Having a chat.

Like a little soundboard.

Yeah, exactly.

If you could go back, what's the most important change you would make for progress? Like, I don't know how far back this is gonna go, but.

Well, I'm gonna assume they're saying going back to when I started, when I was like 18, 19, 20, whatever.

Yeah, I think that. And maybe even like the start of your bigger E. Comm. Businesses. Because I feel like if you honestly.

One thing comes to mind, I would pick one thing.

Yeah.

Because I. Even when I was running Midnight and Neon in 2020, that was probably ultimately the root cause because I have a lot of problems, but I just never. I was never that guy that had one thing. Like, you know, I know plenty of people that much more successful than me, and they've definitely stood focus on one thing for slightly longer. I finally do feel like I can actually focus on the mushroom space and be my one thing. But. Yeah, but then I say that in hindsight, but I think I have to try different things to realize what I wasn't as bothered about. John Mean, yeah. Not everyone knows what they want to do for rest of life when they're fucking 18. In fact, most people don't.

Well, I think it's. I think, yeah, you probably would. I kind of agree with you. But I also, from my outside perspective, I disagree with you. Because Neon was a passion, whereas Midnight was a vehicle to get to a point of having cash flow so you could do what you want. Whereas Neon was very much like you, way more passionate about that brand than Midnight.

I think I've always just wanted an excuse to make, like, pink shit. Yeah.

Cool shit.

That's why I probably started the pod. You brought that aesthetic in. And obviously in all the space goods movies, particularly one of which is being filmed next week and would be fucking historic, it's just me indulging that aesthetic.

Yeah.

That's why the pod is pink and blue and like all this shit.

Yeah.

So like kind of where that comes from.

One thing is like from. From a neon beach perspective, probably slow down, slow down scale and.

Yeah, that as well.

Chase the right numbers, I guess.

In fact, yeah, they were point. Apart from focusing on probably more relevant point to everyone, I would just say, well, yes, slow down away. But just try and have better foundations and don't do everything yourself. Yeah.

Have the right people around you.

And by that I mean more like it's hard to do unless you've got a network. And at the time I definitely had less of one less context to acquire the right people. But yeah, like now I've gone down the exact opposite route because I didn't have experience around me at the time for that scale. And it felt normal to be doing a million a month from a kitchen then with like no employees and no people with any experience. But it's not normal.

No operations.

Yeah. Like no proper stuff. But that's what I say.

Go on. Sorry I didn't cut you off. I was going to say if someone's asked if, like, if you identify if you could pick up like, if you could go to like an expert in one skill that you think would have the biggest impact, they've worded it really weird, but they're basically trying to say if you could go for. If there's one skill you wanted, you could. You could fucking bloody hell. Can't even get it out.

You could get better at this.

If you could master one skill that you feel like would have the biggest impact on maybe your business or your life, what would you pick? They've worded it terribly, so I butchered that myself.

But I mean, is this something that I'm. I don't think I'm good at now.

That you think would have the biggest impact? Yeah.

Probably like hiring and team management. Because I do think I'm very good at what I'm best at, which is probably like zero to one brand. Yeah, I don't think I've mastered it, but definitely getting there. But like, yeah, I'm not. I'm not an operator in that I like to just be like borderline autistic and just not speak to people and just do my own on my computer. Even though I do, I do enjoy speaking to people more. It's just like the process of hiring someone new I find, like painful unless I know them and have like context. I'm like, oh, me. It is hard, like dealing with like.

Human souls that Tell you that we. We got. Right at the start of COVID we hired this guy on London wage and.

Throughout the whole London wage, as in, like, obviously we're based in Leeds. It's like a website.

So if you're based in. Yeah, if you're based in Leeds, you can pay people less than if you're in London because living costs way higher down here. Convinced us through the whole interview process he was based in London and then found out he was based in Kenya. Really? Yeah.

Gotta respect the hustle. But you didn't do any due diligence.

No, I did, I did, but like just was convinced he had a. He had a UK address, UK bank account, but he was just living in Kenya. And I only found out because I just had no idea that I found out because a client was like, are you outsourcing our work to Kenya? And then I went on. Do you know if you go on Facebook ad library, you can see where people are running your ads from? Yeah, just have Kenya. So where is his address from central London? Like somewhere.

How did he have that?

I don't know. I don't know. I didn't dig into it to be honest. I just got rid of him.

But was he an employee?

Yeah, yeah, payroll employee. But it's like so hard to hire. We've got it down now, I think I honestly fucking.

Yeah, I'm just not. Yeah, I would say I'm like borderline disabled when it comes to that.

Yeah, you are definitely.

I'll definitely just get someone to do it with me at the next hiring point.

I don't think you need many hires for Ecom Bront though, really.

Honestly, I said this on a call earlier to this fucking like angel investor and he asked me about team and I said, I honestly think I could. Could get to like 2 million a month with the same team I have now. Maybe one more person.

How many people you got?

5 and then me 6. But they're all freelance or part time as well. I don't have any. It doesn't. Doesn't need to be.

I think it's that Reese Wabara, he says you don't need more, you need better.

Yeah, I completely agree. I also like, and I won't name the brand, but there's some brand that been speaking to. Oh, I probably shouldn't say this because I don't know who I'm speaking about. There's some brand that I saw and basically I have some context on their numbers and they're much smaller than I originally thought. But then they're LinkedIn. They've got like 20 employees, actual employees, and you can just tell. And I don't know the full backstory, but it looks like a classic case of they've raised a load of money, they've got fuck all revenue. The founder is a certain type of founder, which I'm not gonna say because someone will work out who it is and they'll watch it or some shit. And it's just like their revenue, like annual revenue per employee must be like 10 grand or some bullshit. Not quite that low, but in my mind, I think as a lean ecom brand, you should be doing a million per year per person. Basically, as a general rule of thumb, maybe not quite as high in certain places. So, like if you've got a team of 10, you should be doing 10 million.

Yeah. Beyond a certain point. Well, it depends how much the price.

At least half a million per. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

If you own.

Because obviously if you're outsourcing 3 PL and shit, way lower like it.

Yeah, it depends on the setup of the company. But I think, yeah, you can do it really lean. You can do it lean if you've got killers, like. But you need like shit hot people.

Yes.

There's some companies we work with where you go in, you like, what are five people on this call even here for? Yeah, they don't say anything, they don't engage anything. They're just like.

It's actually so funny as well because I've been on like a few calls with like, I was looking at some headless commerce thing, for example, the other day, like some enterprise level software basically. And the first question I ask is like, can I ask your role in the company? I was like, I'm the founder. I feel like I do everything. Like, who do you think I was? Like this fractional fucking vice president of tech. Like, come on, I'm the founder. Shut up. Let's just get on with the meeting. I don't know, just like strange corporate shit. And like they knew, they knew the details of the business. It's like. You think they just Google it? Yeah.

There is so many people in companies that do fuck all. It's like Elon just laid off. So people Twitter.

So true.

Now Google are laying off loads of people. And now apparently he started to shift back towards like lower wages in tech because companies are realizing that most of the staff do nothing and they just don't offer them.

They like go to pottery class at 11:00am yeah, that's what started.

That's what started his big thing. Did you see that video? The Twitter employer is like, the day was just a joke.

Yeah, that's literally what I'm referencing. Yeah.

Yeah. Just like, what. It's just like so many people do often. So I think if you condense it down, you can keep it crazy lean and then just. Yeah. Bring the right people in if you've got the good enough people. And then lowers your risk. Keeps your overheads low. Yeah, I've touched on more, like, general questions. I'm just seeing if there's any more general questions.

Massey Costa Sera, Arabic, Amarone Classico. 15%. It's a vintage red Malbec from France. Is it from France? I don't know. Making that up.

Sommelier in the making.

We should start doing fucking wine reviews at the start of these episodes. Or mid episode, perhaps.

Maybe that's a sponsor. Let's get wines. But that's.

I still need to release the unicorn blood Midnight Pod custom wine. That'd be fucking chaos. Anyway, moving on.

Yeah, I'm just rattling through these questions. Started with the kind of general stuff, but there's a lot that are quite like, technical econ questions. I guess a good segue from, like, general to that is like one what someone's asked. Are you. Are you ever unsure on what the next step is to take the brand to the next level? Like, do you ever feel like you. You lack that vision or clarity on, like, what's the best next step?

I do think that's quite a good question, actually.

I think it's good question because I feel like not every. It's. I think it's hard sometimes. Like, not every lever you can pull is gonna have the most. It's the same output. So, like, something you might do might have, like 50x leverage. One might have, like, 5x. Like, I think making those decisions correctly over and over again over time is often what separates. Like, a brand that gets to a plateau and a brand that just scales. Because momentum's so big in business, if you lose momentum in growth, it becomes really hard.

I lost it with Midnight. Do you remember?

Yeah, yeah.

When I started focusing on Neon because the pendulum swung, Neon was going. And that was a classic case.

I think it's massive momentum. I think momentum is, like, one of the biggest things. It's so, like, when you. When you're. When you have, like, scaling momentum in business, like, you should just double down, even if it's through problems.

That's why it's so annoying running out of stock. So I've killed. I was literally Saying this earlier, we're killing momentum on ads. It's nice.

Yeah. Even.

Even temporarily. But yeah, it goes beyond that, doesn't it? It's like just the whole vibe of the business.

Because as you're getting better signals for an ad platform, your CPA is dropping, or you're getting more customers, like, you're going to get better cpm, it's like a positive flywheel effect. So, like, I think making strategic decisions on what thing to focus on to produce the most asymmetric returns is like one of the biggest things, but it is sometimes hard to do that from.

Yeah. What was the question exactly?

Do you ever find it? Are you ever unsure on what the next step is to take? To take. To take the brand to the next level?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I never. I never worked on a brand long enough in the past, funnily enough, to, like, think beyond the. Because I feel like, funnily enough, Jimmy Hill, hair burst. Who. I'm saying his full name because people search the episode. He said on the episode with him that he thinks that the zero to a million or a few million in revenue is the hardest part. And I stopped in my tracks and thought, fucking hell, if you think that's the hardest part, then I'm onto a Winix. I've done that like twice before and what, three times if you include, like drop shipping. And I found that the easiest part. My problem was I felt like I got to bedroom brand scale every time. And I've already done that again with space goods. Now, like a few million run rate. Fine. So, like, if you think that's. That's the hardest part, then, all right, cool, we're onto a winner. But for me, I suppose I'd never really thought beyond that because I always got. I never spent more than, I think 18 months on one brand without starting another fucking brand. Which sounds ridiculous, but I guess I'm still relatively young, so I've got time to fucking. I need to focus. I guess the first thought is, yes, I've never really gone long enough. So now I've thought from the start I need to go at least five years in this brand, no matter what the fuck happens. Or at least three. If someone comes and buys us in year three, fine. But. So, yeah, I suppose now, because I've got. Mainly because I've got investors, which is invaluable. Like, particularly like, probably Alex and Jimmy and then, yeah, probably those who I speak to most because they built and sold businesses and actually made a fuckload of money. Not like Money Twitter. I'm a guru. Money, like actual money from a real business, which is very different in my opinion because not. There's very few people that have actually done that like on Twitter. And all these, I don't know, bullshit spheres, people just flex. They're not actually rich, whereas these guys are actually rich. So yeah, and learning how they think about things has helped me think about it. What's the actual what match trying to achieve with the business? And yeah, I guess I've got a bit clearer on it. But like, what's the question? Like the next.

Are you ever unsure? Like say yeah, say you've got to a certain place, like what the. What the next step is to take to get to the next level.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, so it's quite hard.

It's quite a hard question because it's like there's usually not one thing that takes.

Yeah. So like there's so many things and it gradually goes to the next.

You don't just launch this campaign and go from X to Y in like one step. It's like your ecosystem lifts over time.

Do you know the one thing I will say then? I think this will come up in another question. And I've think about this before. I think the whole again, money, Twitter sphere and just like younger, newer, like E comm guys or whatever, they're starting businesses. I think they only think about ads. It's literally all they think about. Like that's why if you go on Twitter, there's only threads about ads. There's never threads about products, there's never threads about general broader strategy. There's never threads about basically anything else. And like the other things of what you should be thinking about because for example, I didn't think of Space goods as a D2C brand. I think of it as a brand that happens to currently be selling one SKU on D2C.

Well, you want to get it from as close to D2C to as close to SaaS as you can because you're a subscription product. Like you want to get to a point where your churn rates, like your churn rate and your subscription is at the level of a SaaS businesses. But you're probably going to get to that point.

But I meant more like I don't even think of it as an econ brand.

Right.

I think of it as a brand that is currently selling or more than just a brand. I think of it as like a vision or a mission. I was gonna say that is currently selling an E commerce product because what I mean by that is that I think longer term it could be more of like a fucking science company. Yeah like a compass, pathways or some shit. That might sound completely flippant and ridiculous but like when I'm speaking to like investors and shit recently which I've had bare calls like that's the sort of stuff they're asking me and I think yeah like it's interesting, it's difficult to step back from like the trenches so to speak and think about like what you're actually trying to achieve. And that's when the answers to that question do I ever think about what I'm doing next? That's where you get clear on that.

So I think it's useful.

I think it takes like a bit of experience and maturity to even think about that because most people are just so in the trenches and they're just thinking about ads.

Yeah, like two things. Firstly like a DTC run that goes from 0 to 1 to then from 1 to 10. Like your ecosystem changes. Like you very ads rely that you can take as a DC brand with a good product from zero to a million with a couple of landing pages, a few creatives, some paid channels and yeah a good offer. But then to go from 1 to 10 it's like you need, you want to move your alliance away from paid traffic, you want retention. Like there's so many things, I would.

Even say 0 to 10 million should just be the first category. Yeah, just simple certainly 0 to 3 to 5 million.

Yeah, you don't need much and that's why, that's how you test products really quickly as well. You just need, you don't need, you don't want to build like this mad ecosystem before you've got proof of concept then secondly, I think like we do a thing with quite a lot of our clients where you try and pull the business out to what we call like a 30,000 foot view. So I feel like when you're really in the trenches like you overcomplicate what you're actually doing. But like a successful E comm brand or a successful company is usually that you're usually doing like less tasks than you think really well is the key to getting to scale. So like an E commerce brand is like production, manufacturing, logistics, attention, conversion and retention. That's all it is. It's like you produce something, you, you fulfill it, you get attention on it, you convert the attention through a website slash landing page then you retain those customers. It's like you've fundamentally doing those five things and doing it well and if you do all of them well, then you kind of this little weasel in the corner.

I'm just gonna let this little cunt in.

Yeah, go on.

He's had his little 40 minute prison session. Come on, come on.

He's coming in, he's coming in.

Hey, come here, come here, come here, come here. Keep going.

I think like, yeah, when you pull it out to that kind of. When you, I think, simplify complexity and that allows you to then get this viewpoint of like, right, where's my bottleneck in this process? Process? Is it production? Is it logistics? Is it getting enough awareness? Is it getting conversion at a good enough point? Is it retaining customers? And then you just zoom in, fix it, then zoom out again. I think if you repeat that process, that's how we treat our agency growth. It's like, where do you, where is our bottleneck? Go in relentlessly, fix the bottleneck, zoom out, find the next bottleneck and the bot. That's all a business is. Like, what is your limitation on taking input to output? So for you it's like taking product to revenue. Mmm. Profitably. It's like if you can identify that bottleneck every time and focus on fixing it, then it's just gonna get more efficient as you put more input in and more out. Like, I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah, it does. Some Evans used to speak about that a lot. Yeah, for it, that's where I got a video.

That's literally the video. He's taking that video off YouTube so you can't reference it, make it.

That's so true. I have this like fucking God level Google sheet which is like, I think it's called Scale Unicorn Focus Planning. It's got like multiple tabs and like one of the tabs. What is the biggest problem right now? Yeah, and that's relevant to the question Jack mentioned earlier. And I guess the biggest problem right now is I don't have enough stock. So then it's like, okay, how do I fix that problem? I either buy more stock, find more suppliers, or, you know, find more suppliers, get more cash to buy bigger, bigger bunches of stock so it's less of a recurring problem. Or I like reduce the lead time. Yes. There's billion ways to look at it.

So I think that's an answer to that question, is that if, as long as you have some setup that allows you to identify what your bottleneck is, then you should never really be unsure of what the next step is. Like you might not know exactly what it is. So if you need more. It's harder in some areas. So if, say you need like you're. You've got. Everything else is going well. All you need to do is feed more people into the funnel. Then maybe you need to work out what the best channel or mechanism is to do that. But like, if you know that, like your conversion rates unreal, your retention's unreal, your product, your logistics is fine, then it gives you a focus of like.

Right.

How do I just increase the eyeballs on this?

Yeah. I think the one thing I learned from the previous businesses is now I'm just trying to make everything as beautifully simple as possible. I'm almost. I almost don't even want to launch fucking Dream Dust because it's a new product. Like, I have this vision that I could just get to 100 million revenue with just one SKU. Athletic greens have done it.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's just a case of going super deep and perfecting that one thing.

Yeah, they've done it so well. I do take athletic screens just fucking over there.

Every call I've had recently with investors and shit. I reference Huel and Athletic Greens because I think it's good to build up reference points for people like that because then they are. I can see the vision, but then also they. I'm subscribers to both and I think they're like the most beautiful businesses ever. Although I don't. Didn't get. When Huell went into clothing. I think that's odd, but that was.

Got too.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But particularly athletic greens, that's probably an even better example because they've got. I think they technically have more than one skew. They've got a few other accessories which I guess is similar to me, but one primary.

So complimentary though, like. So, yeah, I ordered from them and I got the accessories in a box and then the actual supplement in a different package, which I was like, you must be really.

I got the full box over there, which is like the full.

Weird.

Maybe this is pretty expensive. 80 quid a month.

Yeah, 79 quid a month.

But I feel like it works from. Keep mine.

Yeah. I don't know if it's placebo, but.

If it is, it still works.

Feels like it works.

So, yeah, simplicity is what I'm trying to do.

There any other brands like that? There's a couple of. One brand I'm really liking at the moment's Pure Sport. Have you follow those?

Yeah, I do. I've got that.

I think I mentioned them to you the other week, the other day.

I think I think they're a cool brand.

Yeah, they're a cool brand in the supplement space. I like the community. I think any brand that has a really strong community aspect is a real winner. It will be a real winner because it spreads like word of mouth. Like word of mouth is so powerful.

Yeah.

So any brand that you get referred to, word of mouth is. Is like a sign of a good brand that you're doing something right. They're an example. Yeah.

I'm trying to think, is there anything I've seen that I really like anything recently? Pure spot of cool. I mean in terms of simplicity. There's not many businesses that get that big with so much so little skus, which is what I've always. Whenever I saw authentic greens, I was just like. Something about it just clicked.

Yeah.

And I ripped their landing page for my Black Friday offer.

Did you?

Yeah.

Did it convert?

Yeah, pretty good.

Love it.

So I mean just it's, you know, they're not a competitor so it's like it felt ethical areas, you're in a.

Different lane to them. You're going to very different people. Theirs is very like cut and dry, black and white. Like, like yours is more creative. Yeah, way more creative. I think though. Yeah. They've grown so fast. It's crazy.

I mean it's like 12 years old to be fair.

Yeah. But yeah, that's what. I guess I didn't even know that. That's, that's a sign of. You think that's an example where you think it's overnight success but then the work is.

Actually I've never heard of them. Until about a year ago I, I.

Only heard of him off the podcast. I'd. So they started ripping and then, then when I'd heard of him, I couldn't get him.

I couldn't get away from same.

It's like getting like 12 frequency a day off. Just them.

Yes.

Socials. But yeah, I think like a good way to approach business is always try and get a 30 foot thousand view. Like 30, 30, 000 foot view. I can't remember who told me that saying. Like try and just step as far back as possible and simplify everything because usually you think it's more complex than it actually is. When you actually pull out, it's like you are usually just doing five like macro things that have loads of little subtasks. Well, yeah.

Life is simple. Humans make it complicated.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just like get out of the weeds and focus on what matters and you'll probably beat most people.

Yeah. Nice question.

What do you think of the best business models for 2030, 2023? I don't know if that's even a good question.

I'm gonna explain why I hate this sort of question, right, Because I think it comes from the classic mindset of people that are forcing themselves to start a business, whereas I always think that's the wrong way around. Like, for me, for example, like, I just got into E commerce. I like designing logos. That was it. Maybe that's way more romantic and fucking cute than other people's examples. But, like, I don't know people that start an agency because they watched a certain person's YouTube video. It was a bit forced. I was discussing. And that question, I imagine, comes from someone who's in that mindset. I want to start a business because I want to be like, X person.

Well, that comes from that probably.

It's not coming from a place of actual interest or passion.

See, that probably comes from a mindset of, like, what's the easiest way for me to make money? That's where that's come from. How do I start a business that's going to succeed? But I think I look at it two ways. Like, you can. Either you can go the way you said, which is like, right. Write down what you're interested in and try and find a business off that which is chasing your passions. But if you're. If you're wanting to get out of like nine to five, I don't actually think there's anything wrong with finding the best vehicle, getting to a point where you've earned enough money to get. You get the time to then pivot into what you want to do. Because I think, like, fundamentally there is some businesses that are easier to start than others. Yeah, Easier to get to a point of making maybe 5k a month take home, which then gives you time and freedom to then pivot into what you're actually interested in.

Yeah. So with that said, yeah, I agree, because it's funny because chasing. I can never cite exactly how I even got into E commerce. It, like, happened so gradually and like this, I took ages to do it. Compared to all these TikTok millionaires that flex their Cartier watches and shit and naming their names. But, yeah, I do agree.

I think chasing your passions is fundamentally.

I think starting an agency is way easier than starting a brand. Yeah, maybe not way easier. It's way less risky financially, I suppose. Probably better way to put it. But, like, that is why, if we're completely Honest, there is 20 agency owners to every Brand owner, probably more at least certainly on Twitter. And I get it because it's a cash flow business a lot. And, and it makes sense. It's basically any business you can start that or drop shipping if you have no money. And drop shipping is a lot harder, at least from what I know.

You've got to separate a true agency from one person in a bedroom.

Yeah, that's very true.

So like freelancer versus agency, like you're glorified freelancer. So you have an in house team of people servicing businesses at high level that don't leave you after two months. Yeah, that's when you become an agency and when you get word of mouth like snowball.

Yeah, sick of all these inverted commas. Agencies, which is like an 18 year old in their bedroom and I respect the hustle but sending like automated emails when you have no experience trying to sign people to pay a 5 gram retainer, it's like daylight robbery.

You should do free trials in my opinion until you get a case study. That's how we grew. Do a free trial, prove you actually do what you do. Charge the person for the free trial, then use the case study. There's proof of concepts if I sign more clients. But everyone shuns case studies and they're like oh, go charge, go. Everyone shuns free trials. But it's not ethical to go to a business owner who has to spend their money on Facebook through you and say like I'm going to get you these results when you've never done it before.

Yeah, I agree. That's how you got sight in it.

Yeah, did free trials for a couple of companies.

You have to, it's like, it's just like go work. You have to get your hands dirty.

Yeah, go work.

Free arena.

And if you're good at it, you'll only have to work for free for 30 to 60 days and then you can put in a contract or when if we hit X target then you'll pay us anyway. So it's like a time based trial.

Yeah. I could ramble on about the agency space so long but like I think the problem is all these, not, not that everyone is 18 year old and whatever but like the typical 18 year old that's finished school or 21 year old finished union wants to start a business, they go to agency but then they watch certain YouTubers and they think oh they're multi millionaires. So I need to be a multi millionaire within a year. So I'm gonna charge as much as I can for the most subpar service and Pretend I'm making way, way more, way much more, much more money than I am. Like a lot of people on Twitter, yeah. Who like fucking seem to think that everyone makes 500 grand a month, lives in Marbella. And like there's a lot of examples of this, whereas it's like that's not the reality of starting a business that you started a year ago. Like there's so many people, particularly on Twitter as well, that have been in business a year. I think they're like the fucking go to the industry and it's just like disrespectful.

So yeah, to get to a point of like a true agency that's mature, we've got like 30, like nearly 30 team members. Like once you get to that size, like you're not going to make more than 30. Like a good agency makes 30% profit margin on that. Like good. Like that. And again like it at that point it becomes a people business. Like you're selling people's time. It's a very much a culture play. Like what, what takes you, again, what takes you from 0 to 1, doesn't take you from 1 to 10 for like a serve. Even a service based business you can earn. If your goal is to take home 5 to 10k a month, you should be a freelancer. You shouldn't try and build an agency. You should go and sell your own time.

Yeah.

Get ridiculously good at one skill and then go sell it to people like you and go be like, oh, I'll do your media buying across three platforms to 5K a month. But I'll absolutely kill it as one person. And like loads of companies would hire that person. Yeah.

The key thing there is absolutely kill it and be good at it.

Yeah.

There's too many people that actually aren't very good at what they do, trying to charge loads.

But we would always rather provide more value than what we charge for than like that. That's just like undercharge over deliver. Like not undercharge. Like you don't want to underprice your service but like always over deliver, always go further than you actually. Like if we're contracted to do Facebook ads, we'll consult on like, CRO will consult on like content. But we're fundamentally paid to just do the media buying. But like you over, you over deliver and then you get more opportunities and that's how you should. To answer his question, the best business model, if you're just getting started, is definitely service based. Like I think it's because you, because you're Just selling your time.

Yeah.

You don't have to have any cash. That could be anything. Like one opportunity that I think is really good right now is doing TikTok marketing for local businesses. Because everybody uses TikTok as a search engine for local. Like if you're going to London, for example, you'll be like, oh, I won't search Google anymore. I'll search on Tick Tock. You could do content for local businesses. Charge them like a grand a month each for restaurants and bars and. And just do the. Do the Tick Tock content and SEO.

Yeah, I'm still trying to find an agency to do Tick Tock organic properly. Yeah. To manage it. I actually paid an agency two months ago five grand and they still haven't published a video. There's a few that. A bit of that was my fault because the stock didn't arrive. But anyway, I'm not going to go into it because I'm letting them redeem themselves. But it's a classic case of I just got fucking upsold on a call and made me make the payment on the call. Shouldn't have paid until product had arrived with the creator, all this shit. And like two months later they've been paid eight weeks ago and I haven't received anything yet.

Yeah.

And it's like, wait a minute, I'm just, I'm a mug in this situation.

Yeah.

I'm being too nice about this.

You are, definitely. I just want to answer his question with another podcast that you should go listen to. Tom West. You should go and listen to it. There's a podcast called My First Million. There's a guy called Andrew Wilkinson just did an episode. He's a billionaire. He has a portfolio of maybe like 50 companies. He owns everything from brick and mortar to SaaS all the way through E Com, service based. And he does an episode on the best businesses to start based on his experience. So he's probably the most well placed.

Yeah, this pod's very ecom focused, but there's a lot of shit that isn't ecom and might actually be better for a lot of people.

He's the most well placed person in the world. He literally spends 40 minutes talking about it. Go listen to that. You'll get a lot of value. Yeah, there's some interesting questions here. One of them is what is the biggest issue we face when building a subscription model? I think you've kind of, you've kind of already spoken about that, in a sense, your current biggest issue, stock. But what do you envision your biggest Issue to be maybe 24 months, two, three years down the line subscription based. I think it's always going to be churned.

Yes. I mean just stopping people canceling. I guess ultimately, if you know the average lifetime, like right now it's like 4.4 months or something. That's with one product. As long as your LTV to CAC ratio works out over like six months or a year. And you know, the churn. I think the biggest problem would be churn suddenly massively increasing. Then suddenly your numbers as a business don't make sense.

Yeah. Through recession or something.

Yeah.

Because that's what the first. One of the first things to go through recession is subscriptions. Like people just got cancelling shit. Just factually. I think the key to Churn as a subscription company is usually like SaaS is obviously your one product now. And I think this becomes easier as you get bigger with more funding and especially in the vertical you're in if people are subscribed to your products. But they see you doing such rapid innovation and being like the leader in this space and bringing out new products like rapidly then. And adding value to them from like a. Not even just like obviously they subscribe to maybe space like like a core sku, but you're adding value to them through information or events. Like there's. So like when you get to that size, it becomes easier for someone. It's ultimately a value add. Like if you're adding value beyond the price point of the subscription.

Yeah, exactly.

You're not gonna leave perceived.

That's why I think you have to not compete on price.

Yeah.

So I just mean, oh, you're more expensive than this brand. Is that a problem? It's like. No, I don't think it is. Because I think particularly with subscription. Yeah. It's all about value and like trying to build a brand. Like I want to be in a position where we could double prices and people still stay.

Yeah.

I mean that's for an extreme example. But it's all gone.

Yeah. Think that's realistic. Like, I think there's some subscriptions that people are subscribed to right now.

That. Right.

So if you add your phone. If you had your phone contract and every single phone provider in the world was just like, we're doubling prices today. There's no way you'd contract. You'd know where you cancel it because the perceived value of your phone is higher than.

Yeah.

Is higher. Is that what you. The utility you get from that?

There's definitely a lot of subscriptions. I have That I probably don't even know I have. Yeah, I haven't bothered to look.

There's loads of people who would who say, watch Netflix loads. If Netflix. Like, there's a lot of people who cancel, but there's a lot of people who. Other people whose perceived value of Netflix is worth doubled price.

Yeah.

It's like, it's very unique to each person. It's very hard to predict because each person's characteristics and behavior and price sensitivity is different. But it's all about, like, whether. And it can shift with economic climate and things like that can change the perceived value of something, but it's ultimately keeping that perceived value of your subscription higher than the product price. Like what, the bed. The net benefit of them being subscribed higher than the product price. That doesn't just have to come from the product.

Yeah, exactly. Like, even if you're part of a.

Community or something, or even just.

They like the fucking packaging. So they keep the packaging when it's done. Like little things like that. People are fucking weird, you know, I mean, like, you're ultimately selling an experience.

Yeah.

With anything.

So.

Yeah, I think that's very true. God, there must be some on Twitter as well. There's loads.

I'm just reading past a few to see if they're any. If they're worth asking.

It's got a bit of fear in there. My dog is chewing a red pen marker.

He's a chaotic little, little hound.

His face right now, he's crooked.

He's enjoying it. He's loving it.

He can have it.

How are you finding the second capital raise plans and what are your plans on deploying it, if you've got those?

Yeah, that's quite a good question, actually, because I'm the world's most transparent man. I'll just be up front about it. So I'm trying to raise a million quid at a 10 million pound pre money valuation, which if. And I'm confident I can do that, by the way. If I could do that eight months into the business and that's a pretty good result on paper. Very good sign for me and every investor, including you. Yeah, you're fucking 5x or whatever. 6x. I don't know. Yeah, 6x, I think, on paper, but still that's kind of what most valuations are. So, yeah, this kind of came around quicker than I maybe anticipated because people started approaching me, namely funds started approaching me over the past few months. And then I spoke to like Simon and Alex or whatever and we're just like well, it's kind of in the model that we need to do a smaller fundraise, like next year anyway. Yeah. In fact, there's another question on here which I think will link to this. We'll answer that separately. There's a question about the value of a business rather than the profit of a business. I want to go into that. Something's interesting, but we'll answer that next because it's relevant to what I'm saying. And I've reverse engineered this business from the start from what I think is a good perspective and, and the knowledge I've built, but also more importantly, the input I've had from investors and advisors etc, who are actually rich. So I listen to them and they've done what I'm trying to do. And ultimately fundraising is part of that process to get to where I want to be. And I think the thing that scares people with fundraising is, oh, but then I've got to give away equity and so on. And. Yes, but like, in one sentence, I'd rather have 50% of 100 million than 100% of 10 million.

Great saying, I'd rather have a slice of a watermelon than the whole grape.

Yeah, I've heard that. Plus, same shit.

Same shit. Yeah, same.

That, in a nutshell, is the logic behind let's fundraise to go bigger as soon as possible. So, yeah, the plan is a million quid at 10 million pre money. Which. Which means that pre money, for anyone that doesn't. Don't understand, means. Essentially it means that a million quid doesn't get 10%. Exactly. It'll end up being like 9.61% or some bullshit because you have to create new shares. That's why it's called pre money and post money. So the post money valuation might technically be like 10.72 million or something.

I'm going to have to take that felt tip off him. He's through the lid.

He's through. He's through the lid. The felt tip puppy. Yeah. He's filth. He's such a crook. He needs his ball. I don't know where the. His ball's gone. Anyway, don't knock that over.

Yeah, slice and check.

So how's that process been? Yes, my logic was make a pitch deck, which I hadn't done properly in a while. So I whipped a 35 pager up, which basically I had like a teaser version, a full version on Pitch.com, which I'd recommend, by the way, might get them to sponsor whips that up in A weekend having no experience really making pitch decks. Apparently it was quite good. I think it looks good. I then put a post on LinkedIn and Twitter, everything with like the numbers and ships. Basically like a, a teaser to get people intrigued because ultimately like the more eyeballs the better in my view. And I was happy to share the pitch deck with anyone. A lot of people are so secretive about oh, but it's got the numbers in or like, like the basic numbers in. And so I was like it's net beneficial to share that with anyone that wants to see it.

Yeah.

So obviously put it through the pod etc and I had basically like a fuckload of leads if you like like angels and funds. And I've just spoken to a lot of them over like the past three weeks and yeah, I think it's going well. I'm confident I can close it by the end of Jan quick, which apparently would be pretty impressive in this market if I actually can do that by the end of Jan at that valuation this soon. But yeah, like the plan is essentially some existing shareholders will put some more money in. That's part of their preemption rights, which just means their legal right to put more money into prevent dilution. And then some angels have probably come in. The question is whether I get a fund involved or just do it with angels. And I'm still having conversations about that.

So yeah, pros and cons today.

Yeah, I mean it's very tiring speaking to a lot of people about your business all the time, but it's also very. I do enjoy it a lot. To be fair.

We're going through the same process this for the app.

Oh yeah.

We're trying to raise 3 mil.

Different ball game app.

Yeah, very different ball game. I know ours is like fundamentally pre rev. Like it's got nothing but mvp. You're almost selling the, the vision and even more so selling the vision of this. Like what this can be with like models and like obviously like best case scenario, middle ground, worst case scenario to vcs. We've only had one interview. We've had one in person interview. Sorry, one in person pitch with two guys who were worth like 100 mil plus each. Which was interesting. Never done an in person pitch before. It's quite good.

Yeah.

It'S not that complex. I just put a slide deck together and go speak to him. I think I like the idea.

The thing I've found, maybe it's just my character and it's definitely the feedback I've had. Like I can tell when like I think I'm very good on these sort of calls because A, I don't script anything. I mean, I've just never have ever, I've never been that sort of person.

Yeah.

B, I, I clearly I'm passionate about the business and it's all I fucking think about. So any question I ask is just not instinctively answered. Like, it's not like I'm on Dragon's end, I have to prepare a lot of numbers and I might forget them. I just know it because it, it's all I fucking do anyway. And finally I think, I think I try. And one thing I probably naturally I'm quite good at is I try and just create like a connection with anyone, whether there's some. Like I spoke to someone that's meant to be a billionaire today and they're an investor in one of my investors businesses and like within like two minutes I was speaking about like my struggle with depression when I was younger and because I could just tell that that's the way this was going to go and I could tell within five minutes he was in and like. And it was probably going to be something that would convert. Like even if you're knowing how to read people and just play and lead the conversation based on the sort of questions they're asking and it's harder to do on like zoom calls and shit. Which is all I've done.

Yeah, you can't.

Well, I think it's a fun process to be fair. Like people grilling you on your business and to be honest, in like early calls, it's not that anyway, it's not like they're going through due diligence and shit. Although some people are now doing that like later stages. It's more ultimately people are buying into the vision for the business, but primarily you.

Yeah, that's why we invest, why a lot of people invest in that angel round with you first round, because they buy into you, they've seen your track record even at that stage, even with what we're doing as well. Like a large proportion of that pitch deck that you put together is you. Maybe not the second, your second stage now, but like there's still going to be an element of you in there. There has to be.

Yeah.

And the binding to you and like it's your vision, it's your journey that you. They're gonna go on with you. I think transparency. I can't remember who I was listening to. I think it was the guy who founded Bebo. I can't remember someone like that.

Oh yeah, like American, Asian, Guy.

Yeah. Sean Peary hosts. He hosts my first million, I think. I can't remember if it was him or someone else.

It's not him, but I know you mean.

And he was talking about like how you should go into a pitch meeting and you should be like, these are all the reasons you shouldn't invest in my business. And like just get out on the table. Like, this is like all of the things I think that could go wrong.

Yeah. One of the first things I mentioned is when they asked my background, I emphasized the fact that I up one of my previous businesses. And that is always a positive because A, they're glad that you're honest and you're not just fucking virtue signaling.

Yeah.

B, they're like, all right, so you've got some experience.

Yep.

So it's like a win win.

Yeah, exactly.

It seems to go down well.

It's like it. What you think it'll come across a negative, but by getting those cards out on the table, it's almost like they have nothing else to talk about. So yeah, you've got, you've got ahead of them, but exactly, yeah, I think like. So his question was, how are you finding it and what are your plans on deploying it? Where are you gonna put it?

Yes, I mean obviously all investors ask me that and ultimately the business isn't profitable yet because I'm trying to acquire as many subscribers, what customers, but namely subscribers as possible as soon as possible to get like a critical mass, I guess. And this leads on to maybe a question a guy asked later about something about value and how you plan on selling it if you're not profitable, blah, blah, blah. So I guess ultimately there's a cash gap in the model at some point. So it firstly plugs that. But the cash gap comes from spending more money on basically two things, like more stock and more ads to acquire customers. Especially when you're on a subscription model like in six months, we know that the LTB of a subscriber is 154quid. And this is in the deck, which probably plenty of people that have watched it have maybe seen, listening. They've seen. Yeah, but our CAC on subscribers is like 60 quid. So worth it then. But we know that we're not break even or profitable on that order until like month top of my fucking head with wine. Probably like month three or some shit. But then you have to figure out how to plug that gap and obviously over time that'll become less problematic as you've got more repeat subscribers and. Etc. But when you're trying to grow super quick and especially when you're buying stock alongside that, that has a three month lead time and you're paying 50, 50 terms, blah blah, blah, you just need more cash to chuck on the fire basically. And yes, a lot of people say why don't you go and get debt financing? Well yeah, you can do that with a waveflyer or whatever, but they'll only fund you about a month's worth of revenue based on six month average revenue. Which when you're fucking start up the seven months old isn't that isn't really that much cash compared to what you're trying to do. So yeah, like that's where the money be spent basically. Very simple really. And I also think there's an element of raising funds is like social proof for a potential future investor or acquirer. Because if you've gone through funding rounds and again this is advice I've had, I'm not just making this up, but it makes sense in my head. It's like you've gone through rounds of due diligence previously, you've set a intrinsic value on the business which is the funding round, which granted it might have been acquired at this price right now, but it's the price of the business based on how much has been put in for an X percentage. And it makes sense. It just lines up with that journey of all right, so maybe we raise some. So basically my plan is to raise a million now, do like 8 million plus next year in the first full year. Maybe at that point, especially with Mads, maybe we get to like 600k MRI or something by the end of the year. I don't know, maybe more then we maybe and this is in the model we try and raise at that point either 3 to 5 million, it's like a proper venture round or something. And then try and get it to like 20 mil plus. And then you're entering like strategic acquisition territory.

Yeah.

Which comes on to the question this guy asked. And I find this topic so interesting because I've always been interested in acquisitions and I read about all this for fun anyway. But then obviously a lot of my investors have actually built off businesses. Not like some course business, actual business.

We're launching subscription for the company that I've evolved even with the CM as a CMO next year, which is pretty big pivot from where we are like currently. We just do single, single purchase product. Romantic little moment there. Yeah, we're moving, we're gonna launch subscription because our rcr, repeat customer Rate has been climbing so fast over the last few months for.

On the tav.

Yeah, it's just a really strong offer. It's just a really strong offer. Hard to. If you. If you buy something that's cheaper than the premium alternative, you have a good experience. What's the. Where is the logic to move back to the premium alternative, especially through economic climate? I actually think it's the perfect business to thrive in a recession as well.

Yeah.

Saving money, fundamentally, that's the offer. It's like, save money. Once you get people to try it, they're convinced that they still have the same experience and they save money. Like, why? Where's your motive to go back? Yeah, so we're trying. We're going to try and pivot more towards subscription because we've just been really heavy on acquisition through this year. To be interesting to see how that goes from a subscription point of view. I'm trying to find this question that you mentioned.

It was definitely. I mean, it was on Instagram. I'm. I'm 99% sure it was on Instagram. So one of those screenshots.

Yeah, I'm scrolling down.

It was something to do with. I mean, you'll see it. Something to do with who would buy it. What's the logic? I think you mentioned another pod that I'd spoke about.

I think you must have cut it. You must have cut that one off. You sent me a screenshot with the WI fi password.

Yeah, I re. Screenshot that because I was screenshot and as you requested, the WI fi definitely on there somewhere.

I'm struggling.

It's on Twitter.

It's not on Twitter. I've just checked. No, it's definitely not on here.

I must have cut it out.

Must have cut it out by accident. But what was the general gist of it?

The question was broadly, who do you.

Think will buy the business?

Basically it was something like, if I could get the question right now, these guys watching it was like, what is the thinking and general logic behind scaling a business unprofitably with the view to getting strategically acquired at a certain point in the future? That was basically the question. And in layman's terms, he was asking, how do you get. How do you think you get to the point where you get strategically acquired? He's basically saying, how do you get. How do you get to the point point where you get acquired for a fuckload of money without even necessarily being profitable?

That happens to so many business, which.

Is what all the biggest acquisitions are basically like. So especially it's and people so miss this entirely.

Less so in E comm I think.

Definitely less in E comm. It's way more B2B sassy sass like SaaS.

HubSpot's a great example. If you go and look through. I've read into this. If you look through. HubSpot is a. Is a ridiculous business. The size and scale of it is ridiculous. I can't remember how much the guy sold it for. He nearly died. The guy who sold HubSpot nearly died in a ski. A snowmobile accident three days after he sold it.

Really?

Yeah, he snowmobiled off a cliff into a tree.

Fucking hell. That must been a loose post.

Exit party with his son and then had like one bar service. If he hadn't won one bar service would have died. It's pretty mad. Anyway, tangent. But they acquired. They've acquired loads of things but they all. They acquire audience.

They acquired my first million in there.

No, they acquired the Hustle. They did acquire. They acquired the Hustle as well. Which one of the people who sounds like I just do like. I do like that part. Yeah. He run the Hustle which, which is like a. It's like a premium subscription newsletter which is basically like business ideas and shit. But they acquired that. But they are not acquiring that for the value of that. They're acquiring it for the value of the audience that is part of that eco like that bringing that audience into the ecosystem. Being able to sell their products as part of that funnel. Basically acquiring a funnel of customers to their product that they know are high value individuals who are in the sector that they're in. So I think like E comms a little bit different because it's. I feel like it's harder to push someone from one brand to another. It's in like that. It is from a SaaS that fundamentally solves their needs. Yeah, it's not as. I don't know, maybe that's not true.

I also think the broader view like people typically think and I'm definitely just regurgitating what much wiser and richer and more experienced people have said to me. So I think this is me trying to give advice because I'm fucking clueless. But this is what I've learned. This way of thinking about it is like a business or a brand or an acquisition. You have to kind of understand how money works and like how these private money markets work. Because generally if you're selling a business for a load of money, unless you're ipoing which let's assume you're not. You're being bought by a private equity fund of VC fund. Essentially just a bunch of my dogs. Listen, another pen. Let's let him have it. You're basically, you're being acquired by a fund which is a collective of private money from investors, angels, family offices, whatever it is. Essentially ultimately what they wanted to do when they invest or acquire a business, which is probably your most likely exit scenario or my investment scenario if I get a fund involved is they want to put 10 million quid in and in three years it's worth 30 million quid.

Yeah.

Because the asset is potentially worth that to the next fund or the next exit scenario or an IPO situation. So that doesn't necessarily mean they're not buying the P L. They're buying ultimately like and this is one thing my uncle said to me who is an entrepreneur, he said to me this to me like two months ago. And this is something I think about all the time anyway. And it was just the fact he said it as well is so true. All you should ultimately care about as an entrepreneur, particularly if you're trying to build like a long term business is the ev, the enterprise value. What is the business worth? EBITDA is. Is irrelevant. It's not irrelevant entirely. But that's not. That's the thing everyone focuses on when they get started. How much profit does the business make? And that's fine. But the EBITDA is one factor that influences the ev.

I think you even see this at big scale. So like a really good example of this is Klarna and Shopify, right? Yeah. Klarna until recently was only available on Shopify stores. But Shopify stock was worth less than Klarna because Shopify went through the COVID boom and then its growth rate dropped and, and then. But that's what like public stocks are. A lot of public stocks are such a factor of the growth rate. If the growth rate drops then the whole value of the stock falls. Yeah, enterprise value is definitely true.

It's also a timing thing and enterprise.

Value is probably very. It's very complex thing to calculate. I feel like enterprise value put a value on that is.

Yeah, I mean I'm definitely not an expert on that. But ultimately like the point is your focus should be on what is the business worth and improving the things that yeah. Boost how much is worth. So for example like growth rate is 1. How much of a market leader is it seen as how much future potential does it still have that it hasn't even explored yet? Like how many new products could be launched we haven't even touched yet. Like is this a trend or is it like a legitimate thing that's growing? All these are things that influence the value of something. And I have very much reverse engineered why I've gone into the mushroom space because I want to, I ultimately want to build a business that can be acquired for fucking multiple of revenue.

Yeah.

Not for a 2x of EBITDA, like some fucking Flipper acquisition.

Yeah.

And like bedroom brands go for that and you don't want to be playing in that and that arena. And this is another thing that, that Jimmy told me and it kind of made sense. If you want to get strategically acquired, which is when they'll pay 20x profit or multiple of revenue, you need to be 20, 20 million plus revenue. And I read loads of threads on this because when you enter that realm because there's so few brands actually doing that, you then become like the big dog in that space. And like every brand, every customer probably knows you. Like everyone in that space knows that brand. And suddenly you could be worth a multiple of revenue rather than just you're another brand in the space. You look like everyone else. You're a cookie cutter brand.

Household names.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah. Because then your brand equity, look at.

All the biggest ever acquisitions, they're never a little multiple of profit.

So yeah, maybe some exceptions, but very rarely ring doorbell. That's a good example. That's fucking Maddock acquisition.

Yeah. But then timing as well, because right now it's probably a shit time seller business. Two years ago, it's probably a great time. A year ago is probably decent time. But then there's economic cycles. So like arguably building a business now and again. This is what people have said to me and I hope it's true. If you can grow a business in recession, arguably a shit market, then when it's a good market again, probably three, four, five years time. Three years time, hopefully then A, you'll be flying. But B your valuation. Be mad if you've built a decent business because wow, you survived that.

All the best businesses are built in recession because people aren't just loose as on money.

Yeah.

Like you see so many tech companies that get massive investment and they start spending money on absolute ballers.

I think I read about fast, fast checkout spending a million quid on like chains makers. Yeah.

It's like, it's just like you just got too much coin and you just start making stupid decisions. There's a few examples out in the D.C. space, like funding events that you just don't need to do like. It's just stupid. Stupid decision. Fundamentally stupid.

Yeah. Spending money on fluff because you can.

Just have access to funds.

Yeah.

And then. But then when you don't have access to funds, you run it like a bootstrap business. And that's how every business should be ram. Like.

Yeah.

Every employee is judged on their output. Like, every decisions judged on like the impact on bottom line, things like that. Like. But you get past that point at certain scale and people just start being idiots.

Yeah.

Some people have asked you some exotic life questions.

Exotic.

Like where do you see yourself in five years? But different versions, someone actually did ask you that, do you see yourself living in London? And what do you see yourself working on in five years? Was. That was one of them. Which is a deep question.

There are two questions or one that was like. It was.

Well, I. I added the.

Yeah, I do see what's up in London. I find the hatred for London on Twitter and rather comical because it comes from people that have A, never traveled, B, you're about 19 and C, only think Dubai is good because certain YouTubers live there.

I hate Dubai.

Like, I understand the logic in winter, granted, it's sunny, but like the whole rhetoric and like the whole narrative of London's, you just get stabbed in London. I've literally never felt unsafe in London. Maybe you just need to go to the gym more. Something. I don't know, maybe just living in a shithole. I need to upgrade your. So, yeah, yeah, we do live in a bit of a bubble, but I also think the majority of places in the world where you feel nice and safe, a bit of a bubble.

Like we live in Camden. There's some characters. But I don't feel unsafe.

Everywhere has unsafe places. Unsafe places.

I think Dubai is like. I just. I like the idea of Dubai, but.

I just feel like I like the idea of it, but the reality of it, and I've been there plenty of times and for me it's just very fake.

There's also people in the UK that.

I enjoy and it's also the UAE.

Yeah.

A place that till about 10 years ago, like chop people's arms off stealing shit. And like people that think it's like Westernized.

Yeah.

Just wrong. It's got a western front and I think it's cool. But I won't live there. So the answer is I'll definitely be based in London. So.

Yeah.

But I'll just travel. I've no plans to leave London as a base though.

Find the based community where they're just like, yeah, moved by. Suck off all your mates that you've known for us like 10 years of your life because you're better than them now. It's just like, yeah, just like have some personality and don't.

It's the ultimate cope in my opinion. It's just cookie cutter people can't think for themselves. And if anyone's listening to this, you probably know who you are and you should probably take my opinion with maybe some consideration. I do find it's great for some people, but decide if you like it.

I do find it really painful when like, there's a lot of it on Twitter where like instantly when you make money, you're better than every other person you've ever met in life who doesn't do the same thing as you.

And you've also been running the business for six months. So it's like, let's do it for five years.

It's like people cannot make loads of money and still be someone that adds value to your life. Yeah, it's not that hard to find.

Just like it's the new money Twitter sphere. People get a few stripe invoices paid and think they're fucking Bill Gates.

Yeah. In like. I like them. I've only been here about three months, so.

Yeah, true.

In terms of like the guy asked. I added the location question. The guy that I read asked, where do you reckon you'll be in five years? Well, yeah, he has five, 10 and 15, which is a long time. I don't really.

It's a good question. Five years, it's max. A lot can change in five years. I look back five years, it's like, what was I doing five years ago?

A lot can change in 12 months.

Yeah. Yeah, it can. Look at my physique. 12 months ago.

Fleshy.

Yeah. What's my dog eating now? What was I doing five years ago? I'm trying to think, what's the date now? December 2020.

Doing drop shipping.

December 2017. I would have been. December 2017, I would have just gone to that event in Singapore which changed my life. So that's quite mad. So in five years time consuming Ben Miles.

Course.

Yeah. Honestly. Yeah, yeah. In five years time, I hope when I plan to have made set for life cash from this brand and probably working on either. Either space goods still or something in the. The mushroom psychedelic space. Maybe still doing the pod that's got a million subscribers. Maybe have a future wife that's pending.

That'd be a lot of consistency if.

You managed to run a sub two marathon.

God.

Kipchoge is asking me for advice at 86 kilos. Yeah. Sub two at 86. That'd be fucked.

That'll be quick.

How about you? What about five years?

I struggled to think more than three years in advance. Three years. Like fucking 12. If you said 12 months ago that I was gonna be living in London doing, like, two other business.

I think looking back 12 months is actually quite important for perspective. Because sometimes you think. I think every day, like, oh, nothing's changed. I'm fucking moving too slow. I didn't even have the idea for Space goods. Yes. I was gonna do toothpaste tablets.

Yeah, you were. I remember that phase.

That's actually mad.

It is 12 months in a long time. I feel like reflection's important as well. Not enough people reflect.

Very true.

And it can be. It can be quite productive. It's again, linking to what I said about business earlier. Like, it's easy to get in the weeds and not realize how. Not realize what the problem is. It's also easy to get in the weeds of life and not realize how much progress you've made over a period of time.

That's beautiful. That's getting clipped.

It definitely is. Definitely is. I'm trying to. Your screenshots has vanished. Because when you zoom out, you always make more progress than you think. Way more progress. I feel like we've gone into, like, a deep area now, so I can't go back to Ecom.

Yeah, Just ask, like, one or two them. I'll wrap it up.

Right. One minute. Get bear with me. I'm loading Twitter again. This guy is just relentless.

He does get very weird with every guest. I think he says, like, it's a new person.

He's intrigued.

Where's his obsession with. He's just broken that pen as well. Where'd he get that pen from? I think it was Jack's. So your first time using a trackpad? Yeah.

Sick.

You've been using a mouse for the past few years.

Is it better?

Mouse screams poverty.

Are they actually better? Yeah, I've always thought. I've never tried them.

Honestly, when I started using a trackpad, like, three years ago. So much quicker.

Really?

Yeah, I swear it is. Yeah. Like, you can just like, flick your finger like a fucking. Like you. Like a conductor or some shit. Like. Whereas a mouse is like symphony orchestra of scale. Yeah. You can also. You can set it to be quicker as well.

Mad.

You've not done that yet. Yeah. Go to Settings trackpad. It's also got click hardness. You can change everything.

God. Would you rather be.

This is. I'll probably edit this myself to go out on Sunday, by the way, because bribe won't do this in time.

Would you rather be an anxious genius or a joyful fool?

An anxious genius any day of the week.

That's a pretty mad question.

That's what I am.

Yeah, I think that's. I think that's what a lot of people.

That's what any genius probably is.

I've read some. Have you read that thing about how 50% of a probably. I don't know if I'm back into this, but have you read that thing about how 50% of people don't have an internal monologue? How fucking mad is that?

Wait, what?

So 50% of people. There's NPCs don't have actually an internal monologue. Do you know?

So you speak to yourself all the time?

All day, every day.

I don't speak to myself. Have you filmed in my head, it's.

Like 50 of people have no internal model. I've met some and I've spoken to them and it's. It just blow.

Did they tell you before you met them that they had. No, no.

I've asked them this question. They've been like, oh, I don't have an internal monologue.

Well, so you've met NPCs and they've revealed that they're an NPC in person to you? They've just been. Must be a software Update.

You're on iOS 10.

Yeah. Hos. Human operating system.

What is that like not having a limitation.

What, so they. They consciously told you they don't have one?

They don't have. They speak, they don't like think before. Like, I don't. They don't have like this constant thoughts in their mind, which I have all the time. Jack, do you have that? Do you have an internal monologue?

Yeah, yeah.

Anyone that's smart does just floating through life.

Yeah, I reckon. Anyone that does their own shit, people don't have it. Yeah.

Or you worst. Or your worst enemy.

I literally speak to myself and visualize situations in my head all the time.

Yeah. 50 of people don't do that. They don't have anything between the eyes. So. Yeah, it's so mad. I thought I was crazy. Did you see that AI thing? I sent you this. Do you not really click? You know what clicked?

I looked at it.

I did. It's mad. It's an AI that can have a conversation with you and it admits its own mistakes and it's mad.

Can it do other things with you?

Yeah, we can. I don't know what you mean by that because.

No, because that sort of technology is probably dangerous.

I think, like, AI is mad. Like, where do you, like, AI will replace so much in the next 15, 20 years?

Oh, he put his head down.

Cute in it. But yeah, it's like a chat bot where you can. It's like a. It's chat a. It's like CPT or something.

My dog's sucking you off.

It's like, it's open AI, they did another one. But you can, like, you can put. You can put a piece of code in that's wrong and it'll send you the right one and it'll explain why it was wrong and how to get to the right answer.

Is this part of, like that Dali thing from Sam Oliver?

Yeah, it's the same thing. Same, same thing.

He's probably gonna be a trillionaire from that.

Yeah. AI will destroy. Like, there'll be no people running Facebook ads. When AI gets to a point of.

Being like, yeah, you'll just say, make me profitable. Thanks.

Yeah, just. Just plug it in.

Yeah. Fuck.

A lot. That's what I think. Like, that's the biggest problem for, like, service based businesses that don't take too much, like, creativity. The thing with Facebook ads is you got creative feedback and stuff, but, like, things that are very, like, black and white.

Right.

Like fundamentally, like yes or no answers. Just gonna get replaced so quick. That was it.

Yeah. I was reading.

I was reading a thread on it today. It was nuts. So nuts. I sent you it.

But that is mad. I didn't read the full thing.

Too busy smashing through P interviews. Yeah, I'm trying to find more questions. The rest of them are just not.

We've done like an hour and a half, pretty much. Maybe one more. Or I can ask you one.

Or we can wrap up one more.

Good.

One. Two at once are pretty dead, to be honest. One of them is. What did you eat for breakfast?

I get Bear. Sorry, I get not bear. I get barely any engagement on Q and A. Stuff on Twitter. It's always Instagram. Weirdly. Yeah. Way more on Instagram.

Still really use Instagram. You smash Instagram? Actually, do you want me to ask you what the favorite childhood memory is?

Yeah, go on then. Because I've actually got one I'm not favorite, but one that sticks to me the most.

I've got a few that sticks with you. All right.

I've got one that sticks to me, so.

All right, I'll Ask you final. Final question for the pod.

It's a niche question. Deep.

It's niche. It's general. What was your favorite childhood memory and what made it memorable? Or what was a. I guess you can just remove the favorite. But what was like a memorable childhood memory?

Honestly, the only thing I consistently think about, maybe it's just because I'm like OCD and autistic or whatever. But one memory I jumped to is winning the national schools and rowing when I was 16. I guess I wasn't a kid. But in my childhood with David Bruce, who came on the pod, he rode the Atlantic. And I still know the exact splits that we were ahead of our competition every 500 meters. It was 1.5, 1.1.9. We won by 0.9 seconds. Because that was the first time I ever realized in my life. It's probably why it stuck with me that if you work hard, you can be the best. And that sounds dramatic and shit, but genuinely at the time, that was like my entire world.

Yeah.

And I still think back to that and think I did that when I was 16. Why can't I do something else? And there's a similar mentality without the marathon and shit. That's probably why I like like sporting events, because it reminds me of that time.

Yeah. We covered that last. The last one. Like someone asked you a question.

I don't know why it is so profound. Maybe it's because it literally, like. Maybe it changed my identity because I went from thinking I'm just a normal bloke to actually, I can be a winner. Yeah. On a big scale. And there's probably things like that that happen to everyone along the way that suddenly give them the confidence to think they can be somebody or whatever.

Like transformational moments.

Yeah. How about you?

I didn't think you're gonna flip that around of me. I actually don't have anything off the top of my head. God.

It wasn't coxing the university books for down that.

Down that threatening street.

No one watching this will know what that means.

I don't know. I have like random family members, but nothing in this scale of that I don't have anything to give you there. It's pretty shit answer.

No, that's all right.

Someone asked you. Someone asked in this on that whether. Again, so we answered this the last episode about the fitness versus business and whether there's correlation. But there definitely is. And it's definitely.

There's definitely a correlation. Yeah, I saw that question more than.

It'S fundamentals that come from it rather than.

There's obviously exceptions. There's plenty of exceptions. But yeah. I would urge anyone that isn't in shape to just go and get in like ridiculous shape and I think you'll definitely find that you just work better and you build the discipline in it. Really go and run a sub 3 marathon. Come back to me.

Go rub it harder than sub 630.

Yeah. I was actually thinking this. This is really gone off tangent then we'll wrap up. What do you reckon the equivalent is rowing wise on. On the erg to do a sub three marathon for the average person.

What were your top 1%?

Yeah, probably 6.

36, 26. No like heavyweight.

Yeah. I guess it's all relevant to if you're so what's. Because as a rower it's different in it.

What's the top 1% for a heavyweight rower?

Probably no idea. Yeah if you got. Yeah probably if you got everyone in society that isn't a rower just like random people.

Maybe not sub 620. Probably sub 620 is like top 1010 of the rowers. So probably like sub 6 30.

Yeah.

I don't know enough about rowing 6 comment but it's a niche one. But what's the. What's the equivalent in E commerce?

You know what's funny that I was actually. This is a big tangent but I feel like running a sub three marathon is harder than scaling to a seven figure brand. For sure. Yeah. And I obviously have to say I sound like I'm smoke. I feel like that was actually so hard.

Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to. It's hard to compare because more people.

It's very hard to compare.

More people run, try and run marathons than try and build e comm stores.

Yeah. And there's way more variables outside your control in econ and entrepreneurship which is why I liked running to be fair because it's just.

You be interesting to see how many people who started them if you put. If you gave them all the tools. How many people from the London marathon could get to a million a month, a million a year in sales.

I reckon more people than another subset of society that wasn't in the marathon for sure. Because the principals. Yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah. What tangent? I'll let you wrap up.

Yeah. I guess with that said, we're back with the fucking midnight pod. It's episode 50. The wine is back, the ping lights are back. I actually have like three episodes booked next week.

I think Lucy booked them for me.

The guests are back. So. Yeah man I always, I always said it really fucking annoyed me because I said from, from day one, I said I'd do 52 episodes in 52 weeks. I didn't do that. I did 48 episodes in 48 weeks and then took a strange like two month hiatus. Six more episodes. No, sorry, it wasn't even 48. 48. It was like 44 and 44 and 48 in like 55 or some. But anyway, sometimes life gets in the way. But I still think the podcast has been more consistent than 99 of podcasts, arguably. And me doing a podcast is a lot more work than people think. It's more commitment, though. And I think that's part of why I wanted to do it again, because it's like I said I'd do it. Let's get back on it. It's always a cozy vibe.

Bit of structure, a bit of commitment. 52 episodes in 52 weeks.

The only, the only, the only of the two episodes ever spilled wine with the Iman episode, the most viewed episode of all time. And I look like a fucking ugly fat piece of shit because I was in a bad place that was almost bang on a year ago. That's very strange. And the episode with you where he spilled, I think like a whole bottle.

I spilled like three quarters of a bottle.

Whereas this one's just a little stain. I might have to get a carpet cleaner in here before I move out because I don't know.

It's damage.

It's damage. But yeah, yeah, if you enjoy the pod, subscribe, there is more coming back. Recommend it to a friend. All that good shit. Click all the fucking links below. Need to monetize this fucking audience.

More sponsors come in. Sponsors.

Yeah, exactly. We'll see in the next episode. Cheers for watching. Peace.