How to win at adult Monopoly 🎲 Peter Watson

The way I say to people now is adult Monopoly. All businesses, adult Monopoly. Got Monopoly bought out. I've sold Mayfair because I think I can get a full house over there. See, it's adult Monopoly. So I'm just in it for the love of the game. And what's the worst that can happen? Honestly, the worst thing that can happen is you just go and start again. Just have fun. People take entrepreneurship too seriously. Understand what you're doing. You're literally creating something from nothing. And you're in control of your whole destiny. And you can take it anywhere you want. You can go to the Dubai and do it there. We're honored to be British. You can pretty much go in any country you want to go. You can meet people, you can invest in things, pretty much do anything you want. And I think have trust in that.

This week's Millennial Master is Peter Watson, a serial entrepreneur who's been in the game since the age of 16. As managing partner of Featured Group, he's founded and exited multiple businesses. Currently, he's shaking things up with Velaar in the crypto space, Offwork for employee perks, and Zapped for AI-powered lead generation. In this episode, Pieter shares how he's disrupting traditional businesses and bringing them into the millennial mindset. He's using ADHD as his superpower and embracing neurodiversity as a game changer. And his vision for the future of marketing with AI and what it means for entrepreneurs. Millennial Masters is proudly sponsored by Jolt, the UK's top web hosting service. Every great project needs a reliable home, whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling up a custom app. Jolt has hosting plans starting at just £3.95 a month, with unbeatable deals on domain registrations too. Why Jolt? Well, it's a no-brainer. They have super fast support, so you can get help within 30 seconds on live chat, so there's no waiting around. They do flexible payments, so you can pay with Bitcoin, American Express, or whatever works best for you, all while racking up points. How good is that? And there's unbeatable uptime, so your site stays live no matter what. Ready to give it a go? Sign up today and enjoy your first 3 months free. Head to jolt.co.uk to get started. This episode is brought to you by Off off-work. Let's be real, the usual staff perks like gym memberships or gift cards just don't cut it anymore. And don't even get me started on free coffee and pizza Fridays. That's where OffWork comes in, the employee perk that actually gets used. With OffWork, your team gets something they already love: travel. They can book their own flights, pick their own hotels, and plan the perfect getaway. All with the travel fund you've set up for them. The best part? It's super easy. Just set the contributions and OffWork handles the rest. Better time off means less burnout, more motivation, and happier employees when they're back. Give your team a perk they'll actually love. Check out OffWork today on network.com.

Welcome to Millennial Masters, Pete.

Nice to be here. Thanks for having me on the show. Looking forward to it.

So you started your first business at 16, before even going to uni. What was driving you back then?

If I go right back to kind of my upbringing and kind of like my childhood and my parents, I think it all does link distinctly to all these different areas. So I remember when I was 16, 17 years old, a lot of my friends are getting their first cars. And I had a reasonably good upbringing. My dad was phenomenal, really great family man. But he was a, he was a single parent. My mom actually died when I was 7. So it was one payslip paying for the whole family. And of course, my dad wanted me to do everything that he could do. But in reality, 2 paychecks are always better than 1, right? So I was living down, down south in near Cambridge. And as I was close to getting to kind of 17 years old, you know, everyone started passing their driving tests, and everyone started kind of going through and getting their own cars and stuff. And every single one of my friends was getting cars bought for them. But every single one, there was, in fact, there was one friend that got two cars bought for him because the first one had some problem with the car in some way. So I knew that although my dad would have done everything he could have possibly done to get me to where I wanted to in life, if I wanted to get a car to the level that my friends were getting them, I had to go out and work really, really hard. So my dad was trying to start a company at the same time in the football space, which unfortunately didn't go particularly well. But in the meantime, whilst helping him do that, he went away and tried to start my first company. And the first company was called Adsa. And it was essentially a message board incorporating display advertising. And it was a complete utter disaster. I think it made like £50 max, actually nothing at all. But it, but it taught me a lot of things. It taught me how to build a website, what domains were, how to register companies, you know, how to pay invoices, all these things were, were things that it got me to do at a very, very, very young age. And then from that point, I then went on to the next company, the next company, the next company. And the one after that one was my first relative success business, which was called Just Audio Tips. And essentially was the largest how-to guides of car audio guides on YouTube. And I think around a peak, it was getting 20,000 views every single day. And we built a car audio shop online, which did pretty well. And I kind of grew it from that point. We had negotiations with some PLCs and different businesses to buy and sell products. And it was a good business. It was a solid business. If I go right back to the beginning days, I would say that was the initial point that gave me enough capital to then invest into the next one, into the next one, into the next one, because all I've done over the last decade now is take money from one business and put it into another one, and then take money from that business, put it into the next one. It's always just been like a multiplier effect. So that's kind of like the, I guess, the initial story. But yeah, just never really done anything else.

And I personally know you since you started Chatyim back in your second year at uni. How did the idea come about that one?

So when I was at university, I was still running just audio tips and still doing the online car shop and stuff. But it made a difference. I went to university and the first thing I tried to do was launch the first coupon site for Snapchat. So Snapchat came out. So I created a company called Snap Discount. And the idea was you'd follow a Snapchat account called Snap Discount. And every single day you'd receive a coupon through your Snapchat story. So I was building that and it was doing relatively well. And I did that for maybe the first year of uni or something. And then one of the clients we had, Eskimo Milkshakes, you'll know them well, was, was looking at, okay, Pete, thanks for doing this discount thing. It's, it's clearly working. Can you manage our social media accounts? And at the time, I had absolutely no interest in doing that at all. But, you know, I'll do anything to, to kind of grow the quote unquote empire. So I was like, yeah, sure. Span up a company called Chatty Imp, started working with a guy called Bradley McKinney, who was like my designer and like kind of right-hand man. And we got like 4, 5, 6 clients whilst being in the second year of university. And that's when Brad turned to me and said, Pete, I don't want to be a freelancer anymore. I want equity. And that's when Brad came on board as my business partner, who's now been my business partner for the last decade. And we built that business, you know, while at university, I think we had maybe 5 staff. I was missing lectures. My friends are like getting me in, signing into the lectures. So make sure I could get in the attendance, but also get the, get my, get my client work done. And Trident was really, I would say, the first turning point where my career made a big sharp turn into where it is today.

And fast forward to today, you're involved in 8 businesses, right?

I mean, it changes all the time. And it was 2 years ago, I think we were at 8. We've then sold a few different ones. We pivoted dramatically, if I'm honest with you, Daniel, we, you know, we are quite bearish and skeptical in the UK in general. We start looking more— started looking a lot more global. Myself, me and Brad now live in Dubai, started looking more global, started getting involved with more advanced technologies like AI and cryptocurrency. So like I said, this kind of distracted, chatty era that we touched on there is super, super early. I mean, that's like 2015, 2014 era of building an advertising agency. And the great thing about building an advertising agency was you get to work with lots of different brands, who's doing what right, who's doing things wrong, why are they doing it wrong, but you start understanding what makes a successful business successful. And running the advertising agency for the last 9 years or so was the best lessons in business I've ever had. And I really, for anyone who is in advertising agency, take that as your business lessons, because you know, you might have 50 clients, and you'll know which ones are good business owners, and you'll know what questions to ask them., and you'll understand what makes a good marketing campaign and why it works and why it didn't work. And once you take them, process that information, if you use it correctly, you can spin out a company. So we spun out about 7 from that point, from online mortgage companies to hair loss drugs, number 1 conveyancing business in the UK, to name a few, plus AI tools and cryptocurrency. But we've just kept rolling them out. And people often say to me, like, what are you looking for when you're launching a company? And we genuinely have no agenda. We don't really care. I think business is pretty simple. You know, if you understand how business works, and you understand how to go to market correctly, and you understand how to structure financially in a sound way, I think you can pretty much run and operate most businesses. Yes, you may have to bring some specialist skills in. So in our conveyancing business, for example, you know, our managing director is an extremely good conveyancer and business operator. So I don't have to know about conveyancing. I have to know go-to-market, operations, and financial management, right? Doesn't matter about the skill. The skill I can hire in. And that's what we did. We made— that's how we made basically most of our money was we'll do those 3 things, you bring the skill, and we'll scale it.

So what sort of criteria, say top 3, you have when you decide what type of business or industry you want to get involved in?

So not so much anymore. I mean, our whole ethos has changed a lot. But if I went back to the key pillar where we were really accelerating growth in the UK, the number one thing I focused on was, is it a predominantly boomer business? So is this a business where the old guard really have control? You know, it's probably grey suits there. They haven't really understood where the real world is going today. They haven't advanced technology. They're using very much traditional senses. So So that's number one, is it a boom or bust? And two, does digital marketing or some form of new age marketing technique, do we have a gap? And we break through, you know, are people using print advertising or out-of-home advertising? And can like Facebook ads or something be beneficial? And then three, it's, do we have anyone specializing in that sector that can give us a competitive edge? So if you can do those three things, you can pretty much go into any sector, any business.

So how much investment do you typically put into, like you said, revitalizing boomer businesses and moving them to a millennial model?

So I would say 50% of them we just built from the ground up. So for example, if we have like Rippled, for example, was our digital mortgage company. We literally just built that business from the ground up. That was very much focused on, we have some mortgage brokers that we know and trust. We have the technology, we can build the technology ourselves, and we know how to do gap route to market. So we didn't have to buy that business. Fletcher Longstaff, for example, and we bought from the administrators. So that business was a very good business. It was performing pretty, pretty well. However, operationally, it wasn't in a good place. So we bought that business knowing that if we kept the growth perspective right, but if we fixed it from a financial and operational standpoint and inserted a new managing director, we could probably turn that business around. And that's exactly what we did. That business is phenomenal, to be honest with you. And then if we look at our new business Offwork, Offwork is— we found a gap in the market. We believe that employee perks are pathetic these days in the UK. You know, people give you free coffees and free gym memberships, which is a joke when you think about it. And we believe that the average employee should have a free holiday every single year paid for by their member, by their, by their business. So we built a business that did that. And we built the tech infrastructure to make, to make that happen. And we've probably put quarter of a million pounds into that business because we truly believe that's the future. And we don't raise money where we self-fund everything. We've never raised one penny. And it all comes back from the car audio how-to guides. And this is literally, when you think about when you actually break it down, people listening to this need to understand that this is the definition of a snowball effect. Like me sitting here right now in Dubai is nothing short than a snowball effect. And I genuinely get chills sometimes really understanding like what I'm actually doing. You know, like last week I was talking at Bitcoin Amsterdam, like the biggest Bitcoin conference in Europe about where I believe the Bitcoin landscape's going. And you know this, Daniel, like 7 years ago, 8 years ago, I'd be stood in like the corner of a small theater in Lincoln, maybe like 5 people listen to me say anything about marketing. You know, it's like the definition of a snowball effect. So I'm just baffled that I'm here. But I'm just loving the journey and loving continuing on this path.

You also sold your first agency. So you entered a lot of businesses, but now you're getting to the stage where you're exiting businesses as well. How do you know when it's the right time to exit or sell off a business?

So we, we had a group of companies, I think it was around 6 or 7 around that time. And you could look at the companies and you knew which ones were adding stress to your life and which ones make your life easier. And the problem we actually had, if I'm being completely truthful, was Distract, which is the agency you're talking about, was so built on my brand that it was almost painful. And I could literally see moments where I would get involved with the business, we'd see growth, I would get out involved in business, and then we'd, we'd like, what's the word, like, nothing would really happen, you know. So I'd have to keep jumping in, push it, get out. And we brought in Stephanie and Hannah to manage the company whilst I moved to Dubai. And they did a great job of maintaining, but there was no— it was never going to accelerate again, it was never going to go to the next level. And if I look at the P&L of Featured, which is our group, Distract was bringing in profitable revenue, but it wasn't bringing in as easy revenue as other things we were doing. And at some point, as an entrepreneur, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and understand what are your ego moves and what aren't your ego moves. An ego move is everyone knows me as Distract. People talk about me as Distract. People think I'm the best at marketing in this region, whatever. Therefore, me keeping Distract alive keeps my ego alive. But in reality, me keeping Distract with me and connected to me was actually just restricting my potential growth and also the growth of our group. So I knew that I had to in some way pass the baton on to somebody else. And we'd had offers over like the last 3 years from various different like investment groups and whatever, like people try and merge agencies together. But I was always worried that this was my baby, you know, I built this thing for 9 years from university dorm rooms. And it's how me and Brad first met in terms of, you know, we're business partners still today, and really good partnership. I didn't want to just give it to the highest bidder, if I'm honest with you. I wanted to give it to somebody who I trusted, who I knew would look after the team, and who would look after the clients, and who would look after like the legacy that we had actually built. We spoke to Steve, who owned ThoughtMix, Steve Bryan, who's a really, really good friend of Brad's, good friend of mine, really good friend of Brad's, and said, like, we want to offer this to you. We've had offers elsewhere. But we like you and trust you to take this on and look after the team, look after the staff. So make us a decent offer. Like, don't screw us over, make us a decent offer. And he was like, yeah, cool. Here's the offer. I think it's fair. We're like, yep, we think it's fair. And we did the deal. Because for me, that was like the main business I actually gave a shit about, making sure it got passed over correctly. Because it's gonna be one I keep an eye on, of course. And if I can ever help, I always try and help. But it just came to the point where, as an entrepreneur, I think you have to understand when you've passed your level, or when you— or you think something's holding you within a level. And that's not to say I think I was too good for that. That's not to say that. I just think— I think that I'd learned what I needed to learn from that era in my journey, and I had done what I thought I could do in that level of my journey. And my time and my mental, like, strength was better used, in my opinion, elsewhere. So That's what we did. We basically put our brainpower elsewhere. We launched Zap.ai, which is an AI lead generation tool. We invested heavily in a project called Vela, which is a Bitcoin DeFi protocol, which I won't bore you with too much. And then we also— here, it's the fine— and then we've also invested into Offwork, which is an employee perks company. So complete change of direction. If you really think about it, these are all now technology businesses. These are all now global businesses. These are no longer regional or or kind of in-person agency models. And it just shows that, you know, we, we're in a position now we want to, we want to kind of roll the dice and see how far we can actually take this stuff.

If we're going to dial it a bit back to your first few businesses, what would you say, at what point in the growth journey should founders start paying themselves in your view?

So when we launched disrupts in second year of university. But the thing people forget about university is a lot of people say entrepreneurs don't go to university. I'm actually of the secondary opinion on this that goes against the grain slightly, which is going to university was the greatest thing that ever happened to me for my business journey because A, I met Brad, and but B, I didn't need to earn any money to live. Like I received my grant and my bursary you know, so I didn't have to worry about putting food on the table and have to worry about rent. I didn't have to worry about anything because I was getting paid, albeit through a loan, I was getting paid to survive. So what it meant was I could put all of my resources, every single pound and pence that came into that company, I could then pivot and put it into, into the agency. So me and Brad didn't pay ourselves for the whole time at university, of course, which meant that we could then invest that in teams, into infrastructure, into staff, into kind of getting the initial growth required. And then when we finished university, we obviously had to pay for rent and stuff. So we moved into a 2-bed flat, paid ourselves £700 each a month. And I don't know how long we did that for, maybe like, maybe like a year and a half, 2 years. So that's like, that's like, it's like 4 years probably of growth, you know, with a maximum income per month of like 700 quid each, you know, so like proper in the trenches, head down. And then that maybe took us to maybe 2018, 2019, let's say. And then I, you know, would get a nicer car, bought a flat, because we had, we had money. You need to understand, if you're not taking the money yourself, you are holding the money, and you can then invest that in whatever you want. When we got to COVID, we had an absolute war chest. But we had an absolute— like, like, I remember when COVID was happening, of course, it was very stressful. Because as a business owner at the time, it felt the world was falling around you. Like, it felt— I mean, you would know, Daniel, it's like, you know, you read— I was sat in my flat, like, so stressed, you know, like, because, you know, you'd have like, club random clients being like, we need to pause budget because we don't know what's gonna happen. Or, you know, and you couldn't see your team, and your team would just have a budget reduction, and you couldn't have compassion with them. You know, it was like a very difficult time. But we had built up a really nice war chest, which allowed us to then buy Fletcher Longstaff, which is probably right now my single best investment I've ever made in my life. And if we hadn't been on £700 a month for the last 2 years, 3 years, that I never would have been in the position to be able to buy cash Fletcher Longstaff, refund it, refloat it, invest in it, scale it out. So yeah, I mean, the answer to your question is actually, you should be asking the question of what is the minimum amount of money I can live on and then live on that. And then anything extra you put aside for either rainy day fund, because you'll need it in business or an investment opportunity. Because even today, you know, because we're in the Bitcoin crypto space right now and we're quite well, we're getting quite well known now. Like we're getting a lot of investment opportunities, a lot. And we can just say yes. We don't have to think, okay, if I don't pay for this this month, or if I don't do that, you just say yes. And the power of, the power of being liquid for when a deal and opportunity comes is completely and utterly underrated. Like you don't, you want to be able to make, if it's something good comes across your desk, you want to have the chance to say yes to it without thinking about it.. And that should be your number one aim as an entrepreneur. You should have your cash cow business, which is in our case at that time was that advertising agency. And it was paying for us, it was paying me to live, but also I was banking cash. But then when the, when the deal came over the table, which is a, which was a good deal, like Fletcher Longstaff, we say yes. You know, our hair loss business, unthinned.co.uk, we sold that in December. That business we probably put in 200K ourselves and our business partners probably put in the same 200K as well. But that was again, the same principle. It was a deal coming off my table. I didn't have to think about it. I just said yes, because it was the right deal at the right time, the right move. And I think, yeah, having that ability to just make the investment without worrying too much and affecting your standard of living makes you unbeatable and unplayable as an entrepreneur, I think.

So keeping the money in the business is key from that perspective.

Yeah, absolutely. We never took it out. We take little bits here and there, don't get me wrong, we weren't, we weren't dying. But the amount of money that we could have made, we didn't make for a good 4 or 5 years, you know, and it's actually quite, it's kind of quite sad in a way as well, which is, we've really had to sit down and have a conversation with ourselves now, which is we actually are earning money now, we can actually, you can actually live, you know, you don't have to worry that you want to buy a PlayStation 5, buy a PlayStation 5. I remember there was a time where I would work things out in my old, old, old hourly wage, like £5 an hour hourly wage and be like, oh, I don't want to pay that. It's like 25 hours of my hourly wage. This is like, this is really— so, you know, because this is how frugal we've been as entrepreneurs and how we built the businesses, actually unlocking that is also really hard. And I would only say, like, genuinely speaking, like, you know, I bought a nice car, bought a nice watch, but I would say genuinely speaking, like, last 3 years, I've really decided to be like, no, Pete, you can actually buy that. You've worked really, really hard for it. You can buy it. But if I wasn't like that, I would never— we would never be here. Like, we would have spent— we would have made the money in the advertising agency, and we spent money in the advertising agency, and we'd still be running an ad agency now, and we'd still be sat in the same city we were in, honestly speaking. But because we were super frugal and we didn't have an ego— like, people thought— I think the thing worth touching on, people always thought that I had an ego because of how I come across. I'm the least ego person of all time. I just front that way because you have to break through a mold. This is how we have to operate when you're millennials in business. You go to a sector, and nobody respects you. Nobody respects you because you're 23 years old, you're 22 years old, you're 31 years old, you're new into space. And Daniel, you know this, I came to the Lincolnshire business community at 22 years old, 21 years old. And people just thought another kid in the space. And it took us 2 to 3 years to take the whole space over pretty much. And it was simply because I came out with tenacity. Many, some people didn't like it. Some people did like it. Some people thought it was Marmite, fine, doesn't matter. You've got to stay true to yourself. Because when it really matters, you'll find out who's got an ego. When it really matters, we didn't have an ego. We weren't buying the flash Ferraris. We were literally putting in a bank account, put in a bank account, put in a bank account. And I remember there was one guy in the business community. I remember we were, we were growing pretty well. And we hadn't bought anything of note, like no one knew how well we were doing. And he came up to me and he was like, a senior guy in the ad agency world. And he said, Pete, it's okay, you can make money for yourself, you have to keep hiring people. He just didn't believe that we were doing well. He just didn't believe it because I didn't have the flash car, didn't have the flash watch. But what he didn't know is we were banking cash for investment opportunities to be done. You know, it's just, you gotta stay true to yourself and focus on the bigger picture.

And thinking one step ahead.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, let's, let's get to the real crux of it, Daniel. Like, it's 2024. Me and Brad left the UK 16 months ago, because we were predicting this was happening. This was not a joke. I remember when I did a tweet, I shared on my Instagram, I think it was 2 years ago, I did a tweet saying, capital— it was corporation tax, the double tax on entrepreneurs, because you do, you get corporation tax and you get income tax, it's double tax entrepreneurs. And I put, if they increase tax 1% more, I leave. And I think it was a month later, they increased corporation tax from 19% to 24 or 25%. And a week later, me and Brad left, like I wasn't joking. Because it was obvious, it's obvious the direction of travel in the West, it's going to be squeezing the people who create wealth in the country. And it's a disastrous problem. And if you get on this path of 39% capital gains tax and 25%, it's just a really bad path. So we predicted this is going to happen. And we left. Honestly, our whole trajectory has gone, it's gone so much better since leaving, honestly, met more global friends, understand more about the world, you know, I'm constantly seeing people from India or people from China or Russia, Ukraine, like everyone's friends over here, you know, it's kind of crazy. And you talk about business and you go to a bar and everyone's building the world's first something. And it may then it makes your whole brain just like explode to a whole new level, because you are unfortunately constrained by your environment. And it takes a very, very strong person to be in an environment that is restricted from like, thinking big and try and break through. You know, like if you are the person who wants to go and get it, wants to go and change the world, wants to do something big, but you're surrounded by people who don't, it's hard to break through. You can do it. But it's hard to break through. It's 25 million times easier to break through when you're around people who want to change the world, break through and make a big difference. So being in Dubai isn't just about no tax and great weather and lovely beaches and travel the world and meet great people. It's also about just having these— this worldview that everybody is in the same mindset. It's like finding your tribe, you know, people that want to, want to win. And you go on Instagram, you see all the influencers and all the people, they aren't here. Like, they're not like when you go into like, if you want to go on the Palm and like, go out every night, which I've been on two nights out the whole time in Dubai, you want to do that, be my guest, right? True. But if you want to go out and like actually see cool people and have good dinners and have thought-provoking conversations, then it's the best city in the world. It really is.

And what advantages does Dubai, say, give like for like with the UK? In your experience, now that you lived it a little bit there?

Well, the number one thing that everybody should understand is the idea of compound. So you don't appreciate how much tax can hurt a business. So let's say for example, you make 100k, and you're gonna lose, just say you lose 20% of it because of tax. So now you've got, let's say, 80k. Well, that's 20K less than you could invest in the next product. That's 20K less than you can invest in the stock market, or 20K less you can invest in Bitcoin, whatever. But you do that compounding with a reasonable return rate on that 20K, that's just— that's not including capital gains tax, that's not including VAT, that's not including— like, this is just— this is just corporate tax. Forget income tax at 45% or whatever. So the comp— the level of compound over a 5-year period, do the maths, It's truly insane. But if all you did as an entrepreneur was pick up your business, move to Dubai for 5 years, and then came back to the UK, you would be in a distinctly, hugely different position, more than double. So that's the base level is if someone, if you're looking to preserve and invest your capital in a more efficient way, that's number one. Number two is I think people, people, people from the UK a lot, right. And I can say this, I can say this because, you know, I shit on people from the UK a lot, but you— we're actually pretty liked. Like, I know this might surprise many people here, but as a global sense, British people are actually globally, statistically liked. If you ranked like liked and hated, the UK and British people would be near the top. And what that means is you can pretty much go to any global destination, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, you know, Dubai, anywhere, and you get a fair shot. You know, you get a pretty fair shot at life, you get a pretty fair shot in terms of English is our first language. So I think people underestimate the benefit and the benefit of being British. So you think, oh, I'm gonna leave the UK, it'll be harder for me to make friends, and it's gonna be harder for me to invest my money and harder for me to do— no, actually, it's actually dramatically easier. I've never found so many people that have been like-minded as me in Dubai, I've never been given so many shots than I have in this country. You know, like genuinely, like, fundamentally, it's better in that sense. But also just globally minded. You know, the UK is falling dramatically. It is a failed nation. If I'm going to get a bit political, it's complete. And I think in my opinion, it's the, the empire is in complete decline. I see no way back. Genuinely speaking, you look at places like India with 1.4 billion people, and some of the smartest tech minds in the world coming, coming through. The UK pretty much is finished. If you're making a bet on yourself, do you, do you sit in a nation that is dwindling to failure, knowing it's failing? I mean, let's be real, everyone in the UK knows it's failing. But the UK has some of the greatest minds in the world. So if you think you're good, if you back yourself, go and compete on a global stage. Dubai is a global stage, because anyone from the world can live in Dubai, it costs you roughly speaking $2,000. You're now resident in Dubai, you now can compete globally. So if you think the UK is failing, and you think you're good, you probably shouldn't be sitting on a train that is failing. You should probably think a bit bigger for yourself and be like, actually, maybe I should step out of my comfort zone. And before I've got kids, maybe before I'm married, and go and try it on an international level. So that was a bit of a jargon answer. But hopefully that encapsulates it.

Makes sense. So UK is not a global stage anymore, based on your description. But surely after a couple of years now in Dubai and the UAE, have you noticed any downsides? Or how would you compare life to the UK?

So I came back to the UK for 4 weeks, I think it was 4 weeks, and the stark realities of things that hit me in the face, and this is no disrespect to my boys and my friends and whatever, The stark reality is, is nobody does anything. If it's not a weekend, it's not happening. There's no Tuesday night, we're going into town to have some dinner and chat about life doesn't happen. In Dubai, pretty much every single night, you get a message saying, oh, Pete, do you want to go get some chicken? Do you want to get some shisha? And you go down there and you have an actual compelling conversation about whatever's happening in the world. You know, from multiple different viewpoints, not just from one, one, you know, British viewpoint, you might have some, like I said, I've had dinners with a Ukrainian and a Russian. And let's say myself, friends. And you realize pretty quickly that a lot of this stuff is happening in the world. It's not the people on the ground. Everyone's friends, everyone wants to be friends. So that thing, no one does anything in the evening. Second thing is in the UK, I think nobody wants to see anyone win. I'll be honest with you. I think it's one of the— I think it's a genuine nation that hates success. And I've just seen this more and more as I've gone through, that nobody wants someone to win in the UK. And I think you go to America, they want you to win. You come to Dubai, they want you to win. The UK doesn't want you to win. Like, I don't know if it's the people, I don't know if it's the culture. UK is a mindset, and nothing wants to— wants you to win. And I think I saw that. I'll be honest with you, I'll be bluntly on this podcast. Like, I think as I've got more and more successful, I just noticed more and more hate. I'll be honest. And I wasn't, you know me, I wasn't showboating it. But I saw more and more people like put up these random theories. When I moved to Dubai, there was someone was literally like, someone came up with a theory that I was, I was running away from a big tax bill, apparently. I'm just like, where's this stuff come from? And then when I sold Distract, everyone said that I was, I can't remember, some random thing about why I sold Distract. No, where are these things coming from? And it's because nobody wants to see someone win. And they definitely don't want to see someone young win. That's just not in the mindset of Brits. So the mindset of that is just, is another huge, huge problem. And also, I think that we have to start thinking really true about the UK. The UK is a very, very poor country attached to London. That's the reality of it. And there's nothing else to really say on that matter. Like, that is what it is. Now, also, Dubai, if they see that you live in the UK for 25 years or something like, you probably haven't seen the whole world, you haven't probably been to Hong Kong or Singapore or Thailand or Bali or Southeast Asia in general. I've traveled more in the last 12 months than I have my whole entire life, seen more of the world, met more people, understand more about life. You pick up random facts that you wouldn't even know about, about, and then you start understanding why places like Southeast Asia are struggling so much and why we have it super easy in the West. And how simple things like having a pound worth a pound is actually like one of the hardest things people in like Southeast Asia have. You saw I was in Sri Lanka for a week and I just wanted to go and work in a different place that wasn't Dubai. So I flew to Sri Lanka and I was, went to like a hotel and I got really close to the manager of the hotel and he spent like 2 hours telling me about how the Sri Lankan government was capitulating the currency. It was illegal to hold dollars in Sri Lanka anymore. If you came out and protested, you go to jail and complete and utter, like, you know, their currency is in freefall. They can't save money. What should they do? This is like a basic human need. The human requirement is like, you have money, you earn money, you exchange your time for money, and you want to spend that money on something. That's a basic level of, in my opinion, of like, you know, human need. But if you're, if you're putting your time for money, and the government is basically deleting the money through inflation, like you're basically, it's basically like killing your time. And if you live in the UK, or you live in the US, these are things that just like you get a dollar, you get a dollar and you have a dollar and you spend a dollar. Like Nigeria, my friend lives, my friend, owns an oil company in Nigeria, like a food, food oil company in Nigeria. He has a whole department in his company that focuses on what to do with the inflation in Nigeria. This is things that no one in the UK would even think about. So when you start zooming out and you start having conversations with somebody who has a company in Nigeria, and their number one issue is inflation, and then it's like, wait, how do you, how do you sort out staff wages when inflation is at 100%? And how do you sort out buying oil from America? And like, These are all conversations that you wouldn't have in the UK. These are conversations that we have every single day in Dubai because you're next to a guy that does this and a girl that does this and just fascinating, honestly.

So you started your round the world traveling after the pandemic. You said you wanted to discover more, experience more, and also see different corners of the world. You shared a few of your observations already, and you kind of like spotted where the UK sits on a global stage now. But so if we're personally like, as, as people from the UK here, how we seen as a business and trading nation?

Yeah, so I think, yeah, so what basically happened was COVID came, I was decided that, you know, I want to go travel the world. So I literally just got a flight to America and turned into Miami for a month. And just thought, I'll go to Miami for a month and see what happens. And I made so many friends in such a short period of time, you know, and most people like from Mexico, Argentina, you know, a couple of Americans. But what I realized was that you can turn up in a country and you can make friends, because a lot of people are worried about going, leaving their city in the UK, because they're gonna leave their childhood friends behind. So I was in America for a month. And I made 15 friends, like good friends, and we do stuff every single day together, you know, So I came back from that trip. And I thought to myself, that was easy to make friends. And I was there for a month. So it kind of like neutralized the level of leaving a country and making new friends from my whole entire life. And then it was only like a year later, I think that I had this concept of moving to Dubai with Brad. And I've made more friends in Dubai than in my whole entire life. Because you've got to remember, in Dubai, everybody comes here with no friends. Like, it's like, it's like an expat community. No one's come here before with 10 friends. You know, everyone's coming with, well, maybe one or two friends, no one's really coming with friends. So you make friends so quickly, because everyone's trying to find the tribe, you know, everyone's trying to find the football team they support, or find someone to go running with, or someone who's launching a business, you know, so you make friends really quickly here. If you're from the UK, you're definitely seen like somebody who understands like business, you know, look at, look at that, look at our heritage, you know, like we are, we literally, I mean, if you go back to 100 years ago, We were the reserve currency of the world. We basically built the entire infrastructure globally. And if you go to places like Hong Kong, it's all been built by British infrastructure. Singapore, same principle. So, so the level of trust is global because we've been, as the British Empire, you know, we have been in these countries and have been building their infrastructure. When they drive, they're driving on the left-hand side of the road for a reason. You know, when they go on a metro underground, it's because we built it because of what we learned from the underground in London. These are all British Empire stuff. So same plug level of— yeah, same plugs, device with the same plugs. And it's like, it's the level of trust is huge. And I think that, you know, the only people that sit and criticize the UK people are people that don't understand how the world works. We are liked because we don't really have any enemies. You know, we are friends with most of the world to a degree. We just sometimes follow America a bit too much.

You mentioned Brad as a key to your success and balancing out. And a lot of people tend to start on their own rather than finding a business partner they could rely on. What's your reflection? Were you able to do everything you've achieved so far if you didn't have a business partner?

Yeah, so when I first started out, let's say between the age of 16 and 21, I very much was the idea of you should have 100% of everything. You know, you have to control it all. Why would I work from splitting it? This was kind of like my, definitely my take. As I brought Brad in as a freelancer to work on some other projects, you know, I obviously saw the value that he brought to the table. But looking back, you know, I'm 31 now, looking, looking back and understanding the direction of travel, there is no way on this planet that I'd be where I am without Brad. And there's no way that Brad would be where he is without me. Like, we all bring, we all bring benefits and like flaws and benefits on either side of the table. Where we've won and where we've really won is because we fundamentally understand each other's benefits and flaws. Like fundamentally, I know what Brad can do and can't do. Brad knows what I can do and can't do. Because we've been working together for 10 years, it's not even a debate who's doing what. Like it's just, it's just a given. You know, we just know who's doing what. I remember the time in there, we're in, we were in Thailand, we're building out a new business plan for a drug company we're going to launch. And we had this concept, this idea, had this brand. And we both, and we're both like, right, should we just get this done? So we both opened our laptops, we were sat next to each other on a sofa. And we both just worked. And it was the most mad, I even said, I think Brad even wrote this on a LinkedIn post recently, it was like the most magical thing I've ever seen where this Google Doc and Google Sheet was just getting filled out in real time. And we didn't speak to each other for like an hour and a half, 2 hours, it just got done. Just got finished. Because he knew what I was doing. I knew what he was doing. We didn't have to speak because we've done it so many times over now. And I can't give more credit to the fact of just understanding and trusting your business partner and everything you ever do. I will trust Brad more than anybody in my life. If I got married tomorrow, and I was with them for 10 years, I would probably trust Brad more than that person that you understand, like, because there is, there is nobody that's been through more things in my life than Brad. I've had 2 girlfriends since me and Brad have been business partners. So he's lasted longer than my 2 girlfriends, you understand. So the level of trust, the level of depth is just far greater. People call us married couples all the time, because we just are like, we just, we just, we do everything together.

Business couple.

Yeah, absolutely. But it just works beautifully, you know. And so I think, but the one thing I will say is, somebody does have to have the final say. So me and Brad, our share split is slightly more weighted towards me, I have slightly more shares than Brad. But we've never ever had a disagreement. So what I mean by that is, although we both know, legally speaking, I can say no, we're doing this, I've never ever in my life put my foot down. You know, because we understand each other's benefits and flaws. I know what he will be better at, and he knows what I'm better at. Therefore, if I say this to this one thing, he knows to go, I trust Pete on that one thing. You know, I was an investment, there was an investment we were making maybe 6 months ago, like quite a big investment we're making. And Brad, it was completely out of his remit, like completely out of his remit. He had no idea about the sector, the investment, whatever. And he just said, I'll match your investment. And I said, bro, I said it could go to zero, like, because it was like a risky one, it was a high-risk investment. And he just said, you've done all right for me so far. You know, and that's kind of like where we're at, you know, like, it's the point where we've won together so many times, we've lost together sometimes, but the trust is just implicit. It's just insane.

So besides trust, how do you know, and now looking back, if you were looking for a person to start a business with or partner with, what would be the key qualities that they should be looking for?

Well, I think I landed on my feet. Everyone said— the amount of times that people have said to me, I need to find myself a Brad, would be more than I can count on my hands. But me and Brad are such polar opposites, like in every single sector of life. And like, anyone who knows me and Brad will know every sector, literally every sector of life. So it comes to the point that like you have to find somebody you gel with on a personal level, but can do the complete opposite things as you. Like Brad is super organized. I'm not. Brad can't do a keynote. I can. These are like, these are like key things that, that matter across every single aspect of business. We are complete opposite people. The only thing we pretty much agree on these days, like, is probably like the direction of travel of the world. Pretty much everything else we are opposites on, literally everything else. So it's the most gorgeous business relationship I've ever seen in my life. The challenge most people are going to have is Well, how do you— okay, Pete, cool. You've just said you had a business partner for 10, 11 years. How do I find one? Well, the reality is you probably have to kiss a lot of frogs to try and find the right one. The issue is, that's not, that's not what worked for us. What worked for us was the fact that I was hiring as a freelancer to do the, to do the roles that I couldn't do. That's the definite— that's why you hire a freelancer to do the things you can't do. So it was almost like by mistake, I hired him because he was the perfect business partner. I'm definitely opposed to the idea that two people come together and want to start a business and they go 50/50. That I'm definitely opposed to. Like, if for example, Daniel Ionescu came to me and said, 'P, let's start a business 50/50,' I would say, 'No,' because it just won't work. Because that's too forced, it's too equal, it's too— it's just wrong. You have to go into this knowing what you need to find in this person, having some level of trust with the individual through maybe you know them slightly, or you you've seen before. But also, I think someone has to have the 51%. Has to, because when it really comes down to it, someone has to be able to put the foot down. With the amount of businesses that go to zero just because two people just can't agree. Deadlocks, deadlocks, then what do you do? It's over.

Then when things get tough, inevitably you will get to that. How do you stay connected to your why I'm doing this? What, what keeps you going instead of just quitting?

At this point now, I'm in this for the love of the game. There's nothing else that matters to me, like, financially sound in a sense that I don't have to worry about basic necessities of life. I could travel the world and I can live in a flat in Dubai and I can have a nice— I don't have to worry about like the— like, living is fine. My investments have paid off. I've done good, good enough to know that life is fine. So now it's a sport. Now for me, it's like the— it's a sport. It's the fun of like starting something new and building it and investing it there. The way I say to people now is adult Monopoly. All businesses, adult Monopoly. And you know, I'm just looking at making the right investments, whether it be selling Distract or selling Unthin or, or launching Offwork. Like, this is me just on it. I've got Monopoly board out. And I've sold— I've sold Mayfair, because I think I can get a full house over there. You know, that this is like how I'm, how I see it, I just see it as a monopoly. So I'm just in it for the love of the game. You know, our investment in Vela, which is a Bitcoin protocol, was me understanding more about the crypto space. How can I understand more about that than just investing in it? Well, it's to invest such an amount that they bring me in a CMO. I'm in the trenches. Now I'm understanding what's happening about tokens, about unlocks, about how they're building this technology that's like the world's first stuff. So this is the chess move that I've made, because I'm looking at it in a 3-year future about what I can learn by doing this. So it's just like, it's just, it's just adult Monopoly. And it's just, it's just enjoying the game, enjoying the sport, not taking life too seriously. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? Honestly, the worst thing that can happen is you just go and start again. I've always been of this idea. I've always been this idea. I know I can live on £700 a month, £700 a month, because I've done it. So in reality, if all goes pétanque and goes to zero, I just go start again. But I'm in a position now where I've structured— me and Brad have structured our life so we won't ever go to zero again. But yeah, let's just have fun. People take entrepreneurship too seriously, I think, genuinely. Understand what you're doing. You're literally creating nothing— something from nothing. And you're in control of your whole destiny. And you can take it anywhere you want. You can go to Dubai and do it there. You can go into— we're honored to be British. You can probably go in any country. You can go to China and do it there if you want. You go to America, you want to go, you can meet people, you can invest in things. We pretty much do anything you want. And I think have trust in that. Like, have trust in your ability to make the right decision and to build from the ground up and meet good friends along the way and, and have fun. Like, you know, have fun. It may sound easier said than done in the early stages, or while you're fighting against the trenches and all these people shitting on you and why you're scraping the money together. But the parts of the journey that I think about the most are the early days. It's the picture of me and Brad in our first office, which was the smallest office of all time, like literally tiny. I got a picture of it. I just think that was so fun. It was so fun just having me and Brad in this tiny office, trying to figure out how to get our first 5 clients, you know, and skipping lectures to try and go to meetings. And I look back on them with real, with real great, great pride, because it was the building blocks that, that put me where I am today. And I'm not a quadrillionaire. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not the definition of success. But we've done all right, you know, and we've enjoyed it along the way.

Coming back to the scaling up a business part, you take on a business, and a lot of people have difficulties in deciding when to hire their first employee, what sort of qualities they should look into that first member of staff? What's your experience of it as you've dabbled in multiple businesses and multiple sectors?

So the number one thing is you have to realize what your standards and what is your weaknesses. So let's go to Distract, because that was the one that was the real ground up from zero where this truly mattered. So I knew that Brad was amazing at operations and design. That's what he was doing at that time. I knew that I could do the work and sell. My belief system at that time, and it's crazy looking back because you don't know it at the time, but you did it and then you realize it was the right decision, was if I do the work, I can't sell. And if I, if I hire someone to sell, it will cost me a lot of money because salesmen are expensive.. So what I did was I hired someone to do the day-to-day work, so then I could sell more. So my distinct belief is if you're an SME, the last role you should hire for is a salesperson or BD role. No one can sell your product, your dream like you can. No one can walk into a meeting with confidence or even fake confidence, because that is also a thing. You walk into a room and you, as long as you project your confidence, it's fine. You can be the most anxious wreck of all time. But in your mind, mentally, you've got to like look into— so I told someone this story the other day, it's like, anxiety and excitement have the same reactional effects on the body. So when you are anxious about a situation, rather than think, rather than saying, I'm worried about giving this keynote, you should say, I'm excited about giving this keynote. It's a real thing, it actually works. So you can fake your confidence, but either way, go into a room confident, and no one will sell like you can. You can't hire somebody that will sell like you can sell. You can never hire somebody who will sell a dream and a belief that you can. But you can have people to do the job and sit at the office and get it done. So our first hires at Distract were people to do the work. So I could maintain selling the work. And that was probably the— I mean, I did that pretty much the whole of Distract. I didn't ever really replace— I mean, I had a couple of VDs here and there that would pick up the work, but I was always the front-facing person. And that actually was, if you look, if you loop it back round to the endpoint, that was probably the downfall of why I had to get rid of Distract in the end, because I'd built this whole agency on the idea that you come to me, I Save Your Marketing Dreams and speak around the UK and Europe about marketing. And then all of a sudden, I'm now living in Dubai and investing in this other project. So, you know, it got us there. But then when I went to exit, it meant that we couldn't get probably a much bigger multiple than we could get. I mean, we did okay out of the deal, don't get me wrong. But like, on reflection, it was the greatest thing we did to get us where we were. But if you were trying to go for some multiplier, then it probably wasn't the best decision. But reality speaking, it did exactly what it needed us today.

So in your view, how could other founders in a way decouple themselves from the businesses that they built in their name and became reliant on their energy and founder-led sales, as we know are very important? Is there, is there a tip that you learned in the process of the other businesses that you've built that weren't as reliant on your vision and sales?

Yeah, so the other businesses that we've got now have all been built on marketing and branding, not on the individuals with a team. But if I go back to Distract, there was a guy, it was a really good friend from university, really good marketing guy. And he was like, we always used to say, we joke in the office that Tommy was like a blend between me and Brad, like he was perfect. And it was always the aim to bring Tommy through when we exited to be the guy he completely changed careers. Like, I'm never gonna say it was down to, you know, the reason we couldn't, we couldn't scale it another 10x was because Tommy wasn't there. But I think it would have been a different, different company if we had maintained with Tommy. What Tommy had is he brought through 8 years of understanding how we operated. He brought through trust and reliability because we'd known him through the whole of university. And then on top of that, he also could, could do speaking events and passion that I brought to the table. So I would say what you want to do is be trying to find an individual that kind of encompasses what you have and what your business partner have, if there's two of you, and then drive them through together. That's what I would do anyway. So, so Tommy was a good example of that, I distract. But I think if I was to, if I was to willingly know, like where I wanted to go and where I want to take this, then what I'd have actually have done is I'd have brought someone in about now. And then I'd have nurtured them for 3 years, 4 years, and I would have hired them pretty much all on personality. I'd have hired them pretty much on the idea that I needed to be someone who goes out into the world and networks. I need someone who can sell, I need someone who can stand on stage, I basically tried to find someone with my personality. And then I tried to mold them for 3 years to be like my exit plan. That's basically what I would have done.

But I couldn't be bothered, like, speaking of people changing careers and tracks, millennials are often criticized for job hopping and not sticking to one path. How do you see that mindset fitting with the entrepreneurs that you've met along the way?

I think millennials have it really, really difficult right now. Like, I don't know how most people get by genuinely. I think you've got a cost of living crisis. You've got highest industrial energy costs in the world in the UK right now. Prosperity is pretty much an all-time zero. If you want to earn serious money, I don't even think London does serious money on a global scale. If you, if you do the same job in London and you put it into America, it will be nowhere near the same. So my point is, the reason I raised all these things is because I believe all millennials trying to do is trying to get their worth. So they'll be in a career here for 2 years, and then they know they're gonna get a bigger pay rise if they just jump to another company for 2 years and jump into the community. Whereas back in the day, you would be with one company for 40 years, and they progress you through, and there'll be a decent enough pay jump every single time. And of course, like, people would normally stay in the same city they were in. But by the by, now I think people believe in the UK, the only way to actually graduate in a good enough manner is to move jobs. Right? I think that is the reality of it. If I'm looking ahead of time, and where I think this world actually goes, Globally, not even just in the UK, I think we see a massive move towards freelancers. I think we see individuals who would normally be, let's say, a PPC manager for an ad agency, rather than being on, I don't know, £35,000 a year in the UK, they actually go freelance and they work for 3 or 4 different agencies or 5 or 6 different clients and actually earn £50,000 or £60,000 a year with less security. But they get to travel the world, they get to work on their own time, and they get full control of their income because they can increase it based on getting more work in. I think actually, that's what's going to happen. I think we're going to see people who are actually employees right now understanding that they are the lifeblood of the business. They are the individuals that are being billed out at £200 an hour or whatever, and they are good at their job. Why wouldn't they go freelance? I think that's what we're gonna see. If I'm honest. But job hopping, unfortunately, is a thing now because there just isn't the growth potential within one single organization.

So would you equate freelancing to, say, solopreneurs?

I don't know. I don't think it's the same thing, if I'm honest, because a freelancer has a limit to it. Like, you've only got so many hours in a day. And also, like, I personally— I mean, I would use freelancers, don't get me wrong, but some people need a group of people like an agency or something to do So there is 100% a cap on your ability to make money and grow a business because the chance of you being a freelancer then growing to like a 25, 30-person agency when you've, when you've had that mindset model that I want to be a freelancer is not going to work. But do I see people going from being employees to being freelancers? Yeah, I think that is the move that's going to happen. Do I see solopreneurs moving to be entrepreneurs and having multiple different companies? Probably. So I think that we're not going to see like someone go from employee to being a fully fledged, you know, entrepreneur managing multiple different companies. But I think we'll see everyone just level up one, you know, an employee will be a freelancer, maybe a solopreneur will become an entrepreneur with multiple different companies. I think we'll see that because it's gonna get tough for people, it's gonna get tougher for people over the next 5 to 10 years. And people want to try and have more control over their life and their freedom. And I think people are realizing now that it is quite depressing living in a mid-range town or city in the UK, with very limited prosperity, very limited investment. And why wouldn't you want to go move to Lisbon? Or why wouldn't you want to go and move to Amsterdam? Like, why wouldn't you? Like, you can do this stuff. It's relatively the same price. And you can earn your money on the internet these days, which is complete freedom. If you can— people think Dubai is expensive. Dubai isn't expensive. It's expensive if you want it to be expensive. It can also be very, very cheap. You can also pay for $400 a month in rent if you wanted to. So people like when these countries start popping up and allow people to have the individuality and flexibility to happen, employees will want the flexibility that comes with that. And the easiest way to do that is to become a freelancer or is to be an entrepreneur.

What do you think is holding some people back who always were contemplating, I want to be entrepreneur, I want to start something, but I also have this role that kind of like in a way keeps me safe.

The number one problem people have is they, they, they get trapped by what they currently have. Rather than thinking what they could become, they get, they get a slightly better salary, which then they get a mortgage, maybe have kids, and now they're trapped because they can't take the risk that they could have taken when they didn't have wives and kids. So my answer to that question is always like, try and take the risk and the plunge before you have the things that the real commitments that actually matter in life. Like having a kid is a real commitment, a real matter. It matters, right? You shouldn't be taking ridiculous risks when you have somebody else solely relying on you. I don't think the government's gonna come and save you. So really, you know, look after yourself and try and build that. So if anyone is pre-kids, pre-married, this is your time to take every single risk under the sun. Like, I would define you as a loser. If you think you're an entrepreneur, and you haven't taken the risk without kids and without wife, like, what's the worst thing that can happen? You go back to your job. And it's like, it's like when I moved to Dubai, like, everyone's like, once you don't like it, like, fly home. I don't know, I just look at life pretty simply when it comes to like these decisions, which is start a company. Once it doesn't work, you go back to a job you had. Like, it's very easy to get a job in the UK. If you're good at what you do. So if you're good enough at your job to think you can become an entrepreneur, then you should think you're good enough to get the job back. So I think, I think, I think it's just either A, people don't really mean it. They don't really mean it. They're just saying it at the house parties. I used to call them wantrepreneurs. You know, I'd be at a house party, be at a house party. What are you doing? I was like, oh, I do this. And they'd be like, oh, I have my own company too. I'm like, oh, what do you do? Like, I sell t-shirts or something. Like, oh, cool. And I like look at their shop, check the company's house out, made like £12.80. And it's like, no, you're just a wantrepreneur. You have— you just want to talk about it. You want to be in the party talking about the business you have because it makes you seem more interesting at the party. You're a wantrepreneur. You're not an entrepreneur. You're never going to do it. You're not going to do it, right? It's just to make yourself get through the boring monogamous parts of life. That happens in Dubai quite a lot, actually. You'll go to an event, I'm actually an SDR. But I also have this thing. So you launched it yet? No, no, been working on it. Like it's coming out soon. I've been working for it 2 years. I'm like, you're not gonna do it. So I think there's this, this concept of entrepreneur, you're never gonna do it anyway. So just stop kidding yourself at this point. You're not gonna do it. So either you're an entrepreneur and just decide like, okay, cool, I've had this fakeness for a while now. Or understand the risk is what? And just do it anyway.. And if it fails, it's alright. Like, it doesn't matter if people fail. Like, it's not that big a deal. Like, who cares? Many people have failed and many people have won. But next time you'll, you'll, you'll win again. Like, maybe you go, maybe you have a job, maybe you save up 6 months of salary or something, you go and do the— you go and do your business and you fail. Well, go back to the job again. Like, get yourself bunkered down again, get yourself mentally prepared, and then go again. You can do that several times over before wiping kids. And it doesn't matter. And the problem is, people are looking at it and going, well, my friend's currently got a house. And he's got a car. And I haven't got a house and I haven't got a car, therefore he's further ahead than me. Do you understand how quickly that can go? That can change if you have one good business. And that's just like an afternoon, if in one good business, one good move, one correct decision. But if you stay being an employee, it's fine. It's not a problem. But the chance of you being able to do that is so far off the charts. That if you think you're an actual entrepreneur, you should probably roll the dice today, rather than wait a decade.

Would you say people should go full in, or try and do something on the side for a little while before they can jump straight in? Or is it important to be full steam ahead in your new vision and project?

I think it depends on everything. It depends on people's circumstances, because some people will be like, I have to look after my dad, or you know, I've got this, I have got a baby, or so everyone's gonna have different circumstances. And you can't really broad brush the, like, one size fits with everybody, because everyone's gonna have their own niche reasons or rhymes why they can't kind of go 100% all in. So it depends. If you can go all in, then why not? But if you can, like, maybe cover your minimum costs to then go all in, fine. Again, depends on your situation. I think it's always good to understand if the market wants— market's gonna win. If I was gonna launch a If I was going to launch an e-commerce business today, for example, I would create the e-commerce business, I would launch the business with products, and have nothing in stock. And what you would do is you'd realize what was getting the sales volume. And you'd obviously refund them, you wouldn't keep the money, of course you wouldn't keep the money, but you'd be like, sorry, this is out of stock now. But you start learning, oh, actually, everyone is buying this candle. No one is buying this water. And therefore I should buy the candle, not the water. But you've only figured that out because you've tested it for 6 months while being in your job, probably while doing your ads, and you've understood there's a product-market fit. The worst thing you could do in that case would be quit your job, buy the water, buy the candles, go to market, and they want none of them. So it depends on the business, it depends on the— on your situation. Like, if you're a consultant, let's say you're an accountant, it's distinctly different because you can probably get one or two clients before you go. And then you've probably covered your basic living costs, £700 a month, whatever. And then you know that you're going to be billing your time out as an accountant. So you can just go and do it. But if you're trying to build like a tech company or something, it's just again, distinctly different. So I think it depends on the circumstances.

Speaking of tech, in the last couple of years, AI has really picked up steam. What do you see AI as in the future of marketing, which is one of your specialties. Is AI the future of marketing? Or is it all steam?

One of the reasons we wanted to exit Distract in relatively quick speed is because I don't believe we're far from somebody going to Facebook, putting in the URL, Facebook creating the full creative, the full advert, all the optimization, pressing one button, and Meta just running it all for you. I don't think we're far away from 3 button clicks, no advertising agency required. I think the advertising agency model will move to strategic, like, you know, what should we put here and how we should put it there. But the doing, I think, was going to be pretty much all done by AI in the not too distant— I'm talking like really soon.. And I think you'll catch a lot of people out. A lot of people who have been selling ads, ad agencies on the doing, I think will get their rug pulled from underneath them. So you'll see a lot more of the bigger agencies be more strategic, and they'll focus more on the, on the advice, but you'll see the smaller ones probably get wiped out because the smaller agencies all made their money from doing, not staying. So yeah, I think, I think AI is gonna basically run all actual activity in marketing. I think you have to input it and you have to give some strategic advice and stuff. But I think the actual doing will be completely run and automated by AI. Our tool, Zap.ai, it basically— you put in your company, it will then find the exact audience that you want. It will then write emails to them and send emails. And based on who's interacting with those emails and what they're replying, you'll optimize the email outreach campaign with no human interaction. And as soon as someone replies with a positive sentiment, it comes to your email that you can reply to. And it's all done through AI, completely done, zap.ai. So I mean, that's like that, look, we create that business maybe a year ago now. So that's where we thought the world was going anyway.

One other buzzword in the industry besides AI is crypto. And you're also involved in it. What's the deal with crypto? Is it, is it for everybody?

Really difficult question, right? Because, you know, there's probably like 50,000 crypto tokens in the world, if not more. Most people won't go wrong with, say, Bitcoin, right? Other ones, you could probably make some bad decisions and end up losing a lot of money. The reality is nobody in the West understands how hard it is to survive in the East. Like, if you're from Southeast Asia, Let's just go for, let's just, let's just choose like, uh, Nigeria because I was talking about that a minute ago. Look at their currency to the dollar over the last decade. Just look at it. Let's go on it. One, if after this, have a look at it or look at the Zimbabwe, you know, the Zimbabwe, like trillion for a, yeah. Or back in Germany when the baskets were worth more than the currency, right? This is all inflation. And during COVID I think it was like 40% of the dollars ever in circulation were printed by the government. Right. And the problem with the dollar being printed is America gets all the value, but the whole world runs on dollars, which means that 40% is then spread, spread across the whole world. Hence why you saw global inflation, because if the thing we're measuring the GDP on, dollars, there's 40% added to it. That's 40% inflation across the whole world, just blended across. And it's going to hurt the poorest over the richest. That's how life works. Now, the reason gold has been so phenomenal over the last 1,000 years is because gold is an asset that is constantly sat there with value. And the more dollars that get printed, the more people want to put their money in dollars to keep it safe. So then therefore, as more people buy gold, the gold price of gold goes up, right? It's a store of value. Gold's always been a store of value. The problem with gold is that if I want to sell you gold today, I either have to get on a plane, fly over, give you the gold, take the cash, right? So all Bitcoin is essentially doing is creating the new world of gold. That's how I see it. It's a store of value that trades 24/7, 365, no days off. I can walk outside in Dubai and buy some. I can send you some today right now from my phone. I've instantly transferred wealth to you. There's only ever 21 million. There's never any more. No more can ever be printed. So it solves the inflation issue. And the value of anything is set by the value that everyone else puts in it. I think this bottle of water is 15p, which I know is surprising. But if you're in the UK, 15p for some water in Dubai. Now, if everyone wants to pay 25p for this water, it would be 25p. Just how life works. This is how Bitcoin works. Same principle. More people want to put their money in Bitcoin to save their money from the inflationary pressures we have today, then the price goes up. And right now, what else is there to buy? If you have $1 million today, you can either put it in real estate, and you can have land tax in America where you're paying 1, 2, 3% a year. So in literally in 30 years, you're now at zero, you know, because you paid the land tax. Or you can invest in the stock market. Sure, fine. There's not really many other places you can put the money. And the best thing with Bitcoin is I can literally send $1 million today and get Bitcoin. And my asset is now freely available. I don't have to wait to sell it. I can sell it a minute later. I can sell it a decade later. But also on top of that, you've got all the technical, technological advancements within that technology. The UAE is mining Bitcoin, which keeps the network secure, and they control 4% of the entire mining operation is based in the UAE right now. But also I can build on top of it, I can build entire financial ecosystems. And that's what the project we invested in is doing, is building the future of finance directly onto Bitcoin, the most secure network in the world. So Bitcoin, as a blanket statement, most people will not ever understand it. You could sit there and have audiobooks from the brightest minds in the world, and you still won't fundamentally understand it. The only thing you have to understand is it's the new gold. There's no point arguing it. There's no— and if you hold pounds or dollars over a long time horizon, it goes to zero. And the easiest way to look at that is just look at the price of gold versus the dollar, or the price of gold versus the pound. That is the definition of inflation. Why have house prices gone up so much in the UK? It's inflation, right? This is— it's not— what else has changed? The UK has not been more productive in the last 20 years. Nothing's changed apart from inflation. And the most— the biggest thing that woke most people up was COVID, because so much money was printed, you know, and it all went to the hands of the wealthy elite. And they all bought property and they all bought gold and they all bought stock markets, but it all went up. Obviously it's inflation. So yeah, I mean, that's what I did. I've been buying Bitcoin since 2017. I truly believe in it. I think it's the only way that most people will actually have freedom in this life. I think if you look at the price now at $65,000 or whatever, I think in 10 years' time you'll be like, I thought it was high then. He was off his fucking mind. But actually now it's worth, I don't know. $500,000 and I should have bought it. And that's been the same principle since it was launched in 2009 or whatever.

So would you distribute between property and Bitcoin or would you hedge your bets on one?

The problem with property is if I need the liquid capital, I've gotta, you know, put it on the market. I've gotta wait, gotta get conveyancing, and then someone falls out of a deal. Probably take you 3 to 6 months to do it. And I own a conveyancing company, like So I have a private one property in the UK right now. And I can't sell it because it's got cladding issues. I mean, like, what the— what is this world we're in? Like, I can't sell it because it's got some— because some developer decided to build a property with dodgy material. So now I can't sell it until it gets renovated, whatever, whatever. If I look at the yield it creates for me, obviously I get rent for it. It basically wipes its face once you get taxes out the way, because even if I live in Dubai, I still pay UK property tax, UK property tax. So it basically wipes its face. So I've got an asset, right, sat in the market, giving me nothing, no yields. If I'm bearish on the UK, and I think the UK is going the wrong way, then I think people will get poorer in the UK, which means by default rents will go down, and by default property prices will fall on an asset that I can't sell quickly. And then we all, we all know that the people who have multiple properties are going to be punished because They're gonna have to be, because there's not enough properties in the UK for the growth of the, of the population. So therefore, by default, we do know, like, we, let's use our brain, that they will start taxing people with multiple properties more. Yeah, but maybe not even now, like, this happened in 5 years, either way, it's gonna have to happen, you know, because of the way the world's going. So based on all that information, why do I want to own a property? And the other thing I will say is, I rent in Dubai. And I absolutely love renting. Because if there's something wrong, someone fixes it for me. And if I go, actually, do you know what, I want to go and travel to Southeast Asia, I just go and rent in Southeast Asia. The problem when you buy is you're restricted because most people can't just have a house in the UK and then travel. You know, most people have to have the house in the UK and live in the house in the UK. So if you rent, yes, it's gonna cost you more money, probably 30% more money than it would if you bought. But you know what you can do, you can get that job offer from Hong Kong, and you can fly a week later, and it's not a problem. Now, that for me, the level of freedom and the ability to be able to move at the great opportunity far outweighs the benefit of having a house that's gonna— we have a house crisis soon, you know. So what I would do if it was me, and this is not financial advice, and everyone's got their own risk thresholds, and, you know, I'm an entrepreneur by trade, that's what I've ever done my whole entire life. Yeah, I want to sell my property in the UK and put more money into Bitcoin. That's it.

Okay, that's some really interesting and useful thinking themes for a lot of people here in the UK and understanding where we stand in a global context. Sometimes we can be a bit blinkered and, as you said, look into our town and close circle of friends and not understand what's happening around us and how we're being driven by much bigger forces. But I want to, I want to go back to a bit of a personal level that I wanted to ask you if there's one particular routine or habit that keeps you sharp and focused when everything around you can be so hectic.

I think the number one thing that everybody has to do in entrepreneurship is go to the gym. I can't think of a more therapeutic thing in life than you can have. If you get up in the morning, and you go to the gym, whether you go for a 5K run, 10K run, or you just go and lift weights, nothing is harder for the rest of the day. You absolutely destroy yourself in the gym, you've ripped all the muscles going, you know, you've put yourself through pain and torment. Life's a breeze. Like, if you make sure that gym session's hard, life is easy after that. So I go to the gym every single day, pretty much, maybe the odd day here I don't. And it dramatically laser-focused my whole opinion. Another thing I did when I— my fastest growth and progression in my business career was when I didn't drink. I didn't drink alcohol for maybe 15 months, 16 months, around 2019, 2018, 2019. Just didn't drink any alcohol. And it was very easy to do. I just, you know, I just go out and party with my friends without drinking. It was absolutely fine. But what I noticed was when you're drinking alcohol, it does blur your, your thought processes. You don't have the cleanliness of thought. So I would say the biggest two things is going to be go to the gym, obviously eating healthy. And, and, and if you really need to laser in, and I'm not saying you have to be sober for your whole life, of course not, but there are certain times in life where you need to lock the fuck in. Like, you just have to lock in and you know it's gonna be like a tough 6 months. And the one thing you don't want to be doing is drinking a bottle of wine or drinking a beer every other day. You need to lock in. And that's what I did 2017, 2018, 2019-ish era. And that's where I saw the biggest, the biggest growth curve for sure. And then on top of that, like, we can be laser focused in our like, growth mode forever and try and build this, build that, build that. You need to have your group of friends that bring you back to reality. When I'm with my, when I'm with my boys from back home, like they, we are not talking about business. They don't even ask what companies I have anymore. Like genuinely, they don't even know what I fucking do anymore. I mean, I don't even know what I do anymore sometimes, you know, like, so, so it just brings you down to that sense of reality, you know, like you could be like trying to do the biggest thing in the world or trying to compete at the hardest level in the most competitive business of all time. But you still go and watch football with your boys, you know, and they still bring you to reality. And they still bring you down to their— and they still bully you the same way they did when you were 16 years old, you know, and I think that is, that is deeply required. And then having a really good partner, like, you know, I I will not. I've got two ex-girlfriends. Both were phenomenal for my business journey. Like, I happily say that, you know, both, both of them allow me to build, both allow me to focus, both allow me to lock in when I need to lock in. And if you've got some toxic partner that is constantly shitting on you all the time and isn't allowing you to grow and scale and do what you need to do, then it's going to bring your mentality down and you won't be able to lock in. So if you are in some form of toxic relationship, then that's probably slowing you down as a business growth as well. And I definitely, I definitely give some credit to the two girls because like they allowed me to build what I need to build.

You've also recently opened up in another interview that you've done about ADHD and how you've turned that one into your superpower for business. Could you tell me more about how you kept that at bay and turned it into something that drove you?

First and foremost, like, I actually hate the narrative behind ADHD right now. I think, I think it's a narrative that people— I mean, you won't— I don't say often, I don't write threads about it on LinkedIn, you know. I think it's a card now that people wave, oh, ADHD, like, look how great I am. I didn't have a clue about anything until probably the age of like 24. But it was very obvious in the way I acted and how I did things. And Brad would be like, my dad would be like, oh, he hasn't got ADHD, of course he hasn't got it. I can't focus on like nitty gritty tasks. Brad's perfect, you know, because he can lock in and get that done. But I just would, I didn't really, really understand what was going on. I just, I just saw it as my personality. You know, and I think we are so quick to try and label things as like ADHD or whatever, whatever, whatever. When in reality, it's just your personality. Congratulations, you have a good personality for stuff. You know, congratulations, you can get excited over nothing. Congratulations, you can go to a nightclub and not drink because you have energy. Congratulations, you can have a good conversation, you can never stop speaking. Congratulations. This is not a negative thing. This is your personality traits. And of course, what I'm going to say is there are some, you know, some small niche things against what I'm about to say, and I appreciate that. But why are we drugging our personalities? Like, why? Why all of a sudden have we gone, oh, ADHD, take this pill and dope yourself? Makes absolutely no sense to me. Like, makes zero sense to me at all. You know, you are who you are. Embrace who you are. That comes with flaws and that comes with benefits. But it's still you. And the day that we think we have to suppress who we are because it's not the norm, Who's to say? Who's to say I'm not the norm? Who's to say the person without ADHD is the weirdo? I don't know. Because for me, I'm the norm. So I think this whole concept of like, everyone's got ADHD now, wave the flag, wave the flag, give me a drug, let me normalize out, is stupid. And don't get me wrong, there will be people that need to have the drug. I'm talking as a broad brush. I would honestly say 80% of people are probably overdoped. And no, I would never, I would never, I would never take a tablet for it. I'll never suppress who I am. I think we're going to see in the next 10, 20 years, all these ADHD, autism, all these like neurodiversity stuff are going to be seen as absolute superpowers. I think people will be building teams based on these neurodiversities. They'll be like, okay, I have a sales guy. Let me find some ADHD. I have a data guy, let me find someone with whatever, you know, these are going to be genuine things people will build out teams for, because they are superpowers. And I just, I'm baffled this concept that people are changing their personality because somebody told them they have a thing. I just find it really strange to me. I'll never, I'll never do it.

How do you find those who use it as an excuse for their lack of performance in certain areas? Could you train your ADHD to be better at the things you're not?

If, if, if your neurodiversity skill set isn't working in the role you're doing, you're probably in the wrong role. There's a perfect role for every single person with these different skill sets. ADHD is a skill set, there's a role for you. You're probably in a role that doesn't work with your ADHD, whether it be a heavy, heavy data role, probably not right for you. So if you're complaining about you, if you say, oh, I can't do it because my performance, I would look at honestly change careers. What's what, why are you trying to fight it? This is you, your personality, people. This is not a problem. This is your personality. And I think we have this frame of mind with a lot of things in life where we try and see the negative, we see the negative when actually we can flip these things into positives. I'm very, very proud of who I am as a person and my personality traits. And I know there's benefits that come with who I am as an individual. I know there's problems with who I am as an individual. And it's my job as the operator of my brain and me to make sure that I'm playing the games that work best for me. And either hiring the people that, that pick up the pieces like Brad, for example, or choosing the industry that I'm going to operate best in. You know, we have to think, you are yourself, you are going to be working for 50 years, choose a skill set that works with you. You know, and I think that's just like, and if you want to complain about it, not my problem. Not my problem.

Based on this, what's the biggest sacrifice you've ever had to make to be where you are today?

I think the problem that I have, my biggest issue is I sometimes struggle to be in present. To be present. Because my brain is working at 100 miles an hour, for whatever tism it is, right? So we're 100 miles an hour. And I'm constantly locked into whatever we're trying to play, whatever game we're trying to play, whether it be building a new company, launching a company, understanding new technology, and constantly locked in. So I find it incredibly difficult to switch off, you know, whether it be like I'm watching a film, and my phone's out because I'm dual screening because I'm so excited about this thing we're working on. The films. I can do both. I think I can actually do both because I just, I don't know how my brain works. But for other people, that can be a pain in the ass because like, watch the film, like, well, I am watching the film, but I'm also deeply entrenched with this thing I'm trying to work on right now. And my brain won't switch off because of this. So I find it very difficult to switch off. It's definitely something that I've been working on a lot, like, and I think things like running are fantastic for it, or going to the gym are fantastic for it. You know, I've had a bit of meditation for a while. These are all things that you have to try and bring your level down. But I think it's going to be one of the things that I'll never switch off. I think genuinely, I'm almost to the point now where it's like, this is who I am. It's okay. It's okay to love what you do. It's okay to be excited. It's okay for your brain not to switch off. It's only weird that people who don't do it because it's not them. So I think people should embrace who they are more honestly, like, I think, and it's very hard, maybe if you're a young person, or you're a new entrepreneur, or you're maybe slightly like, I guess, like anxious about who you are. But the moment you realize, like, you are you, this is the hand you got dealt, you have benefits, you have flaws, but play your hand, play your hand. And it might mean that you can't get off your phone because you're too excited about the project you're working on. And it might be that sometimes you just zone out in the middle of a conversation because you're processing something really quickly. Or it might be that you can't focus at all. Either way, play your hand, you know, and people around you that love and care for you will appreciate— they'll be fine with that. They'll be, oh, Pete's just— Pete's in his zone again. Or did you get— did you hear that? You know, people who love and care for you, they don't care. But that is the— that is what I think more people should be doing is, yeah, just be yourself.

Do you think social media is contributing to this? In a way, anxiety and poor image that some people have of themselves without embracing all the flaws and advantages that they have.

I think we're good.

I think we're going through and have gone through the biggest wave of like anxiety-ridden people that we'll probably ever see, just from the curve we've seen, the growth of it. And I think it's probably not millennial generation, probably the one below. Probably, but it probably crosses slightly. It's really, really bad. Like, no one, no one backs themselves anymore. No one believes in themselves anymore. People are constantly looking for some sort of like reinforcement. And I think it's definitely down to social media. People have even down, even down to, let's go down, like even down to dating. I think these dating apps are the worst things ever happened for dating ever. You have like one argument with your other half, you open Tinder and find someone new. It's just kind of like crazy to me, you know, like, so I think like the social media generation, we're okay as millennials, because we've kind of seen both sides of it. We've seen the dial-up time where your dad has to be like, can you get off the internet? I need to call someone. Been there. We've seen that. We've seen that side of it. We've also seen this unlimited connectivity. So we can't understand both lives. I think the generation below is— honestly, I think like you've got— you've got to really like meditate and figure stuff out and understand who you are and try not to be judged by anyone. But I don't even know how you do that because I'm not in that generation. But I think we're going to have— the generation below is going to be one of the most anxiety-ridden, lack of concentration, ADHD-ridden generation we've ever seen. And that's really more of a challenge for you as an entrepreneur managing those teams.

The next workforce. So have you worked with a lot of Gen Z in that area? How can you manage the younger generation as your businesses grow and develop?

I think that generation are focused more on what things look like and experiences, and also career progression, because they are super hyper-aware that they aren't gonna get on the property ladder unless they're earning some good money. So I've noticed they jump, they career jump a lot more than even millennials, to be honest with you. So I think it's one of those where you have to keep taking people into the room to be like, I think you're doing an amazing job. You've got to reinforce so much more. You've got to offer them growth potential. And you've got to also make it look like they're doing a job that is good to the outside world. So then they can tell their friends about it and get the recognition and reward they deserve. Very, very difficult. I mean, very, very difficult. I mean, I'm thankfully I don't think we really have any in that generation right now working for us. Maybe a few, but not many. Not like at agency days, we have a lot of them.

Is there a legacy that Pete Watson wants to leave on this planet?

When I first started out in business, it was very much focused on like, how big can I build something? Can be the biggest, gonna be whatever, whatever. Maybe I'm old, maybe I'm getting older now, Daniel, I don't know. But all I ever want to do is chase happiness. And all I want to do is be the person that set up my future generation. So I want my future wife, future kids, future grandkids, all to do well, because I made some good decisions back in the day. You know, I set them up, I did relatively well. I didn't do them parties when I was 23. I didn't spend that money when I was 24. I invested well. And I just love the sport. I love the sport. I love getting up every single day and being able to do anything that I want that I think is right for our like group. But really, all I care about at this point is literally like future wife, future kids, future grandkids, legacy within that. I genuinely, and I mean this with all the respect to everybody who's listening to this, don't care about anybody else. Like I don't care about someone's opinion about who I am, what I am, why I'm doing it, what they think about me selling that company or buying this company. Or I mean, of course, I've wanted my friends and my loved ones to do well. But my ability to care about anyone's opinion about has Pete done a great legacy, has he done well, is honestly so far removed from reality now. Like, and don't get me wrong, like maybe 10 years ago, 8 years ago, 5 years ago, would would be a completely different story. But maybe it's because I'm like, where I need to be now. Maybe it's because I'm like, comfortable enough to not worry about this. And maybe I've grown up a lot. I don't really care about people who I don't know, like, and trust about the legacy I leave. I just honestly just want to have fun, want to be happy. I want to have people close to me do well.

You said that you didn't party as much as you could and enjoyed life as much as you could, especially in your 20s. And as an entrepreneur involved in so many things. Do you regret that? Or do you see it as the price you had to pay in order to be in the comfortable space you are now?

I partied a lot when I was like, first year of uni, second year of uni. And then I basically didn't go to— I didn't do university in the third year because we were so busy with the agency. I still had a good time partying, obviously, with my friends, whatever, but I didn't do it like everyone would now, like once a week or whatever. I don't regret it. I don't regret it at all. Because I like— you sweat in your 20s, you can live life in your 30s. You know, like I am in this fortunate position now where I can, if I wanted to go to anywhere in the world tomorrow, I could, no one could say otherwise. And that's a level of freedom that is like the greatest level of freedom in the world. You know, the freedom of doing what you want is all we're chasing for. Forget the earning $10, $20, $30, $40, $60 million all you should be chasing for is freedom. The best thing is, people don't understand how affordable freedom is. Like, if you wanted to, next week, you could move to Bangkok. And you could move into an apartment for probably $350, $400 a month, you could probably live on an extra $300 a month. So you probably all in for, let's say, $800 a month living like a king in Bangkok. And then you could go travel to Bali, you could go to— this, this idea that you have to earn $100 million to be free is is literally stupid. And you're almost setting yourself up for failure. Like, I have a friend of mine, he's a— lives in the UK. He's struggling to get by. He can go and get a call center job tomorrow in the UK that is remote. And he can live in Bangkok. And he would be like a millionaire there because he probably earned $2,000-$3,000 a month in the UK, paying $800 a month to live in Bangkok.. But right now, he's in the UK, just about getting by, having to take out credit card debt to get by, you know, standard UK story these days. But if all he did was go, actually, I'm in a rat race where I cannot win, you cannot win that rat race. There's no way that he can win in that scenario. What's he gonna do? Make $1,000? How? So, but if he just got a job that you can do on the internet, maybe like chat live chat or something. These jobs are— they do exist. And he moved to Bangkok, he'd live the freedom that he needs. And you don't need to have $1 million, $10 million to live a free life. And this is the thing, this is why I believe the UK and the West will fall, because people are waking up to reality that they can become a freelancer, PPC manager, work in the UK, but live in Bangkok. They can do that. And back to the point, because you're British, British is respected globally. It won't be a problem. And I think that people's idea is just— the idea of being a slave to the job in the UK now is very sad for me to see from the outside in. And I don't mean to say that to criticize anybody else, but I feel like I've unlocked the matrix in my head now. Now I've left and I've traveled the world a little bit. We— I feel like we just are hurting ourselves. Yeah. Unneeded as well, honestly.

Coming back to boss mode versus entrepreneur mode, working remotely or hybrid versus being in the office, what do you think builds the best culture in a business in the early days and in the later stages as well?

So this is a really interesting question actually, because I have always been an office person, as in, get the team together, they think more creatively together, more productive together. And also the depth of connection you have is phenomenal that you get to know their life and build relationships and everyone gets friends. And if you have friends, you won't leave it— leave as easily because you've got friends. And then remote, you can hire anyone globally in the world and get the best talent in the world at sometimes cheaper costs, depending on how you want to do it. You can either pay your wage and just give it to someone in Malaysia if you want to, or if you wanted to, you could pay Malaysian wage, up to you. But you can hire globally and then get better talent, because there is definitely a talent shortage in the UK, again, which is another point to make. So if, if I was doing it again, if I was building Distract again, because this is a good point, because Distract was fully in the office, full-time in Lincoln, I would 100% do it remote. 100%, fully remote. I'd hire people globally. I wouldn't hire people from the UK. I'd hire designers from Malaysia, probably. I'd hire some ad people from South America. You know, like, I'd have the account managers probably in the UK, but the actual team doing the work, I think I can find better people globally. And I think there will be very few— there will be some issues, which will be team bonding, probably. But in terms of like a grand scale of driving the company growth. I think it would be the best way of getting the best talent, the best team, because in Lincoln, there's a problem. We grow to a reasonable size. And you need to hire again, you know, who'd you hire? Unless you're in London or Manchester, who are you hiring? So now you have an issue of like a full talent shortage. And you have to become the person that's training them. So you have to go to the universities, get the staff in, and it takes like a year and a half to train them. Yeah, you have to preemptive the growth, because you need talent. So it's, yeah, if I was to do it again, I would do fully remote. The hybrid thing for me is like interesting, because like, you get to a point where it's like, the issue is they're not remote, and they're not, you know, they're both, you don't get the benefits of the, you know, remote working, you get some of the benefits of doing it in office. But the problem is the benefits of the remote working don't work when you're doing hybrid. Because I can't hire the guy from Malaysia. I can't hire the girl from Argentina, because they have to be in office 2 days a week. It just doesn't— I don't understand it. That to me doesn't make much sense.

So if you're not hiring remote workers, you're restricting yourself, the talent and the growth potential.

Yeah, because it's, it's a, it's a joke to think the best talent for your business are in your town. No, I'm sorry to say it, sorry to break it to you. But like, I don't think, I don't think I would hire an agency if they were a fixed office in one city, because it proved to me that their talent pool is only as good as their city.

And you have to be competitive in a global economy.

Yeah, of course, you have to be competitive with everyone. I mean, I want to hire the best talent for my business, wherever they are in the world. I don't want to be restricted to Newark. How is that possible? How can I grow the best company in the world, or even the best company in the UK, if I'm hiring from a 100th city in the UK? London, maybe Manchester, maybe Leeds, maybe— don't get me wrong, these are all— these are all— Newcastle, maybe. But if you're in like a second tier, then I just don't think it's possible to hire the best people in Sheffield. I just don't think you can build the best business.

That's an interesting spot to taper off our discussion. But I want also to leave with a couple of suggestions from you. How about a book that has changed your life recently?

The book that I wrote changed my life. So no, honestly, like, I really enjoyed writing my own book. So that was— I wrote that probably 2021. Bestseller for all of 4 days. It was called The Niche Influence.. And the whole concept was that basically, if you want to build a brand, you should build the brand around— you should build the actual marketing and branding around you. And that's how we built Distract. The whole of Distract was built around me as the individual, which drove it forward, because it's much easier to brand an individual than it is to brand a company. It's essentially the premise of the whole book. The other book that I absolutely love that everyone should read is The Lean Startup. The Lean Startup is a book that essentially talks you through how you should launch a company without— with limited funds.. And it's all about utilizing the MVP model, the minimum viable product model on the mid funds. And then the other one is, it's a Daniel Priestley book. So the book's called Oversubscribed. It's not his most popular book, actually. It's one of his like lesser known ones. But Oversubscribed is basically on the idea that you don't actually— if you're an individual, an agency or something, you only need 2 people to want your services, and then the price goes to $1 million because they're bidding against you. It's like an auction, right? So how do you get such high demand, so oversubscribed, that you can charge infinite money? So it's a really interesting book about supply and demand within like building a business. Yeah, Oversubscribed, Daniel Priestley. The Lean Startup is a good one. And then obviously my own book.

That's great.

I'll make sure I include all of them in the show notes. Thank you so much, Pete. Best of luck with the next move.

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