Pirate moves, bold bets & stubborn scaling 🏴‍☠️ | Gus van Rijckevorsel

In business, there is nothing better than the appreciation of creation of value. The moment you feel that someone else will create more value than you for your business, then you have to leave. If you don't leave, you're not an entrepreneur anymore. You're just a business owner. And there is plenty of business owners who are super happy. They're not creating value anymore for the business. They just run the business. You're a business owner. An entrepreneur is there because he's the one, the person who's creating the most value for the company. The moment You see that someone else would do a better job than you, then you have to leave the stage.

This week's Millennial Master is Gus van Ryckevorsel, CEO at Ultra.

He's launched 7 companies by his 30s, survived spectacular failures, made brutal cuts when he had to, and bounced back to lead one of Europe's most ambitious gaming ventures.

Gus's style?

Pirate moves, bold bets, and a stubbornness that borders on superpower. In this episode, we talk about why most founders underestimate the risk of standing still, the real cost of scaling fast and why your peace of mind is always on the line, and how to spot your blind spots and survive brutal setbacks. Millennial Masters is brought to you by Jolt, fast, reliable web hosting built for founders. Whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling an app, Jolt gives your project a rock-solid home starting from just £3.95 a month. You'll get 99.99% uptime, support in under 30 seconds, and flexible payment options including Bitcoin and Amex, so you can rack up those points while you build. Get your first 3 months free at jolt.co.uk. Smart hosting for people building what's next.

Gus, welcome to Millennial Masters. How are you today?

Very good, nice to meet you. Very happy to be with you.

Delighted to have you on, and let's get straight into it because there's a lot to unpack. Because by your 30s, you've launched 7 companies with the classic mix of failures and big wins. So I'm wondering, what drew you to the entrepreneurial path in the first place?

Well, at the first place, I think it, it wasn't really much a choice. It was just the incapacity of working for someone else. That's very simple. So it wasn't courage or determination. It was just basic fact that I couldn't work for anybody else. And then of course, when you cannot work with anybody else, it's not a good place to be in as an entrepreneur either, because guess what? As an entrepreneur, you need to work with people. So at first, it was a, it was a happy journey, complicated, because then being an entrepreneur is like, at first it's like studying. It's, uh, you're just learning all the way. Every day it's a new, it's a new class. And, uh, and you're failing a lot of exams. Because it's a matter that you don't know and nobody's teaching you. So it's a lot of failure at first. Of course, you don't live that as a failure because as an entrepreneur, you've got, you've got this distortion of reality, right? It's a, there is people seeing your reality and you seeing it differently. Everybody says, well, it's impossible. You're never going to succeed in any way. You don't have money and you don't have the capacity and the market is not there. You don't know your clients and, and blah, blah, blah. And you as an entrepreneur, you just see the end and you say, yeah, I'm sure I'm going to succeed.

Some would call that the vision.

Exactly. The vision. And I call it the distortion of reality, meaning that it is a reality. You're just seeing it before it happening. Right. So, uh, it's very important with the maturity. You, um, it's important to know that you're living in the distortion of reality. So you can, uh, you know, deal with the present. Uh, a young entrepreneur is not really dealing much with the present. He's only seeing his vision. And it's important, otherwise you don't wake up, right? So it's, you, you have to live with this vision, but as, uh, with maturity, you have to live with the, with the, with the reality as well, somehow, right? And it's those two realities that you need to work with. So the first few years, only, I was only living with the vision and you're not, when you're not dealing with the present, then, uh, of course you've got problems, right? And, uh, so lots of failure, well, failure, lots of learnings. As we say, right?

Um, the best way to look at it.

Sorry?

The best way to look at it.

Exactly. On all different fields, goes from services to production to digital to all different things. And then, then yeah, then at some point you, you succeed one with a small capital, then you can reinvest in your, in the next, and then, uh, then it's a failure again. Well, so you have to restart from scratch and then And then after I've got now 41, it's been, fuck, it's been like 20 years, more than that, more than 20 years I'm launching business. At some point you need to, you know, one of the qualities of an entrepreneur, I guess it's stubbornness, right? It's, uh, and at some point it works if you never If you never, never leave the boat, at some point you, you, you're reaching somewhere.

So what was your first success and your first failure?

Well, it depends what you depend, you call it as a, a success, you know, uh, because success in your book, in my book, well, in my book, my first success, I would say, uh, well, my first success was EMF, European Master Forum. I, I live it as a success even though it didn't, it didn't work as, uh, as, as planned. Because it's, it's probably one of the first business I launched. It was basically, uh, it was a masterclass. It was common to all the different nationality and all the different type of studies. So a French was studying finance in France. It's got the same masterclass than a Greek who's studying history in Greece, right? And they were studying the problematics for a semester. And at the end, they're all joining at the European Commission. And it was a success because I managed to join 5 different European universities. There was like big ministry in my board and all this, but at the end it collapsed because I didn't receive the money I was supposed to receive and so on and so forth. But this notion of success is important is that basically what society is defining as a success is money, right? Is whether you're making money or not, right? As an entrepreneur, if you define money as a success. Well, you can very quickly be disappointed, right? You need to get other type of success along the way. And of course, at some point money will come because money needs to come at some point, right? Another success for me, for example, was when I launched Barefoot, what we call a startup studio back then. And it was my capacity to hiring people, to work with people and to see people happy to working with me, right? Uh, not every day, but most of the time, right? And it was a personal success because as I said, at first I I was incapable of working with anybody. And when I see myself in capacity to working with people and dealing with people, it was a success by itself. So, and, and, and everything that you do, you have to find a certain level of success. And of course, at some point, uh, the money is floating if the, the, the big success is, is there.

And your first failure?

My first failure? My first failure is barefoot. I really felt as a, as a failure. I failed for, for so many reasons. So many reasons. The, the first, first reason, well, the, um, not, not in, in the right order, but, um, one is a, is a massive cap table with a large, very large, uh, valuation. Never do that. You get fucked always, right? Because if you've got a large valuation, at some point you're going to devalue it, or you've got deals that your company— like, I, I give you the The reason it, one of the reasons it failed, uh, valued my company. I can't remember. I think it was $10 million back then, uh, something. The valuation was the sum of all the different ventures that was inside the, inside the startup studio. And I evaluate each of those. I don't know the valuation of it, but let's say that one, one of them was $2 million. And I say the sum of all this is $10 million. So my valuation is $10 million. Um, at some point I had a deal to sell one of the ventures where we literally put $200K and, uh, $100K in the, in the company. And after 6 months, we were able to sell it $1 million. So it was beautiful, you know, like a timestamp, you know, like in 6 months, it was the, the proof that the startup studio was going ahead and all this., and, uh, and my investor was against it because the valuation was too slow, too low, because I evaluate this venture the double of it to justify the global valuation. And I got stuck with it even though the deal was splendid, right? So the high valuation is a big mistake. Large, very large, uh, um, a cap table. At first, you always think that money is everything, but money is nothing. But of course, you need to start somewhere. So it's easy to say, because again, when you, uh, when you've got a certain maturity, people are ready to invest into you. Uh, when, when you start very young, you can only have fools and friends who's putting money in it. And, uh, and they, in general, those guys not putting a lot of money. So it's, uh, you've got large cap table, but it's, it's difficult. Then paying people peanuts, you get monkeys always. Uh, I remember Barefoot back then had hired, uh, you know, like interns, people for, for all different types of countries from Slovenia to Poland to Kazakhstan and all those guys, nobody was even speaking English and they, and offer them to sleep upstairs in the building. So they, they receiving water and bed. And they're working for free, basically. That was the deal, right? And, uh, but you get that, you've got nothing, right? So, uh, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. So, uh, you much rather to find very good people, just 3, and you're giving a proper salary and, uh, with good salary, but you've got good people.

So quality, not quantity when it comes to staff.

Exactly, exactly. And, and that's probably the thing that's your you always, you're always learning on this path is that the only thing that matters in business is people. That's the only thing that matters. It's not money. It's not tech. It's not nothing. It's just the people that you're having around you. That's the only thing that matters. And, and it's, uh, and you never, I mean, I'm still learning today how much this, it is true. So, uh, what else about my failure? Well, that's, uh, that's Business, fuck, it's emotion, man. It's a, it's a lot of emotion. And, uh, and I got, I got stuck in those emotions for, for, for, for a very long time. And it's, it's very, failure is, is, is hard as a, as an entrepreneur. And, uh, and you can, and if you look at that with maturity, you can get lots of things out of failure, lots of things, because, uh, it's, it's a way to, to, uh, to jump on another thing. And it's thanks to this that basically I left and, uh, launch the other, uh, the next company where I made a splendid exit with it and, uh, and so on and so forth. The, the moment you in the, in the trenches, uh, you have to fire like, uh, 50 people on the same day. And then your, your investors, like the week before, they were like seeing you as Zuckerberg. And the, the next day they seen you as a, as the most dumbass fuck and, uh, who stole the money. I mean, you. You know, going from the top to the bottom so fast with everyone, with your, with your, even, I mean, not your friends because your friends not judging you like this, but your people that you're surrounding, the press, whatever it is. And so you have to be ready that people's putting you from one day to another to the top. And it's very cool, but it can, if you from one day to another, you're on the top, you have to accept that from one day to another. You'll be on the bottom. That's the rule of the game, basically.

My question then is, how do you rebound when you reach the lowest of the low? Is it all in mindset?

I think it's different things. I guess being an entrepreneur, it always makes me a bit laugh when I see studies about entrepreneurship. I don't recall that anywhere. It doesn't, to me, doesn't make any sense. You can be, for example, studying to be a very good second hands on an entrepreneur. That's, that's studies that should be there because entrepreneurs need people around them. There is so much lacking point to find people that is able to work next to an entrepreneur. So basically the entrepreneur needs to train his team and then he's keeping his team from one ventures to another because it takes so much time to train your, your close people. So. Those studies should be there. Being trained to be an entrepreneur, I don't think it makes a lot of sense. So yes, it is in terms of mindsets, education, past, you know, like, uh, uh, you know, like scars in life where you have to prove stuff from yourself. I mean, whatever it is, but it, it's not something that you study. It's something that you've been, that life has made you somehow. Um, that's, that's, uh, that's one thing. The, the, um, the, the second thing that makes you rebound, it's the people that's around you. It's other entrepreneurs who's been there before you. And, uh, and when it's happening is not judging you. I remember the moment I announced that the, the company was collapsing at this, you know, like, um, investors meeting and every single investor, even close friends was like fucking throwing tomatoes to me. And if not tomato, they were trying to have a deal next to me and say, okay, I'm not going to vote against you, but you promised me to give you money, give me money for the next venture you're launching. And so everybody was trying to like, you, you, you're on the floor, you're pleading for every single part of your body and people trying still to take pieces of you. And, and there is one guy, a Flemish entrepreneur, a big, a big guy, the guy who made a biscuit factory here in Belgium. A billionaire, he stand up and he say, uh, he didn't vote anything. It was shut the entire thing. And at the end, he came to me. Nobody hate him, nothing. He came to me and say, I know it's difficult time. You will bounce. Everybody's going through this. Good luck. That's it. And that's the guy who put most of the money in the company. He never asked anything, never votes anything against nothing. So, uh, that's, that's definitely the type of, uh, of people you want to be next to you. And there is few guys like this, 2 or 3 entrepreneurs that was around me and never just watched me to see, I'm sure that you're gonna make it on the next company. And that's people you never forget. And at some point you give them back. Yeah, so yeah, I think it's what makes you rebound is is the character, being, you know, being an entrepreneur is a mindset and the surrounding. And of course it's life opportunity. I mean, you know, like it's always, but you know, you know what we say about opportunity, you have to catch them. They're not coming to you. So at some point, if you've got the character and the people that's there to, on the hard time, you make it happen.

Speaking of making it happen and creating new contacts and a good circle of people around you. Before Ultra, which is your current and biggest venture, which we're going to talk about in a second, your previous building, your previous business, you built it in Paris with zero local contacts. So you created and hosted a business TV show to hack your way into the right rooms. So I'm wondering, how did the idea come about? And what did you learn from interviewing all sorts of big name CEOs?

Well, I think that, so first, I think there is different type of entrepreneur. So we have to be careful to not put everybody in the same room, right? Because, uh, they, they, they all, I mean, they all got the same value, but there is different way to access to the, to the, to be an entrepreneur. There is an entrepreneur who are super techie, right? And they, they just develop things on their own. And, uh, and there is the, um, there's all different types of entrepreneur and there is the, my type of entrepreneur, the pirate's way, you know, like you, you, uh, you, you just a very good salesman. You've got vision. You've got different things. You've got a smart brain. You've got, you've got different things, but you need to, you need to be a pirate. You need to, you know, fuck the system somehow because the system is not waiting for you. And you know, you don't have like a large amount of money. You don't have a super expertise on something. You don't have a— want to build something out of nothing. So when you want to hack the system, you need to find a way to hack it. And the way I got into the consulting business is that one of, one of my investors became a big friend of mine as Jean-Christophe Condicello was in the capital of my previous company. And he, when I was fucking sweating and not making money and collapsing my business and all, he was having a business of consulting, right? And, and pumping money like, like nobody's business. And it was the third, second or third business in consultancy. I was like, man, that's not possible. So at some point I said, okay, I'm going to look at this business and see what can be done there. And, um, um, I was, was eager to find something that's where you've got a large margin. That's, that's important business. And where you can really make the difference and where it's impossible. That's different things. Uh, where I, I think, I think I can make the difference where the challenge is really big and, uh, there is a margin. And of course the strategy consulting firm is a, is a very interesting business to be in. It's a, but it's an impossible business to be in as well because the people there, you like tons of diploma. You know, in France, for example, if you're not coming from the big, uh, the big schools, nobody's talking to you. Um, you need to be part of the consulting firm before launching your own consulting firm. Otherwise nobody's listening to you. So there is plenty of different codes like private bankers, like, uh, big, uh, business lawyers. It's the same type of world, right? Very close. Uh, everybody knows each other. Uh, you've got very strict codes and, and, and all this. Uh, everybody's dressing the same way, speaking the same way, and then so on and so forth. And I decided to launch a business like that in, in, in there and, and being completely different in, in the style and the way you communicate. So the first thing you have to do is to be known. You have to be known, right? And the best way to be known is to, to flatter the ego of people. That's, that's the best way to, to, to be known, right? Look. This is what you're doing. Exactly. You're flattering my ego because I'm on your podcast. And then at some point people's going to say, oh, he's on the podcast. So he's known and see if he's known. I'm going to check who he is and so on and so forth. And seen on TV is working since the TV exists. I don't know if you've got, it's still the case in Belgium when you've got the ad, the shit ad for soap and and meat and for supermarkets on your, on your mailbox, on certain products, it's, it, there is a little banner that says seen on TV.

So it's still good.

So if the product is seen on TV means that it's good, you know, still now. So, and it works the same way on people. So you're inviting people on TV, people are flattered. They want to come on TV. So nobody's refusing an interview on TV. So you're coming on TV and if you're on TV with him, it means that you're important. And so you're building up your brands through this. And of course, when I'm seeing this, when I'm saying this, you cannot just be the dumb fuck who's got nothing to say. I mean, at some point there is, there is the forms and there is the la forme et le fond, I don't know how you say that in English, but the forms and the content, you know? So of course, at some point you need to bring content, you know, you cannot just be playing the clown and the, And it works, but you have to work with the rules of society and flattering ego of people. And so I invite big, big, uh, big boss on my, on my, on my show. They came, uh, and, and first what I did is I put myself to a very well-known journalist, right? Because then people is more flattered. It's not, they're not coming for Gus. They're coming for the well-known journalist on TV and I'm there. So I'm, you know, I'm hacking completely the thing and say, okay, see, if he's on TV next to a big journalist, he's important. And so on and so forth. And that's, uh, that's how you, you building a brand. One way to build a brand, let's say.

And then the opportunity for Ultra, which is your latest business. I've heard you first connected with the founders at your kids' school. So I'm wondering. How did a playground chat lead to you eventually taking over the lead of the business? And what did you see in Ultra that others might have missed? Because from my understanding, you are dubbing Ultra as the Netflix of gaming, and you can tell me all about that too.

Yeah, well, I think that's also something that makes an entrepreneur different is that there is no line between work and private life, and you've got just your life. And we were talking about opportunity, the thing, it's just that, uh, um, there is opportunity everywhere for an entrepreneur. It's every time he's meeting someone, someone, it's not, it's not work. It's just like opportunity to learn, opportunity to invest, opportunity to take risk, opportunity to have fun. You have plenty of things, but it's just every life situation is an opportunity. And, uh, so when you discuss, when, when you are at your, uh, at your kid's school and you, you just, you know, like discussing with the different moms and dads that, that's there. And, uh, there is the opportunity to find, uh, your next, uh, your next life partner, or you've got an opportunity to find, uh, your next business or your next, uh, tennis, uh, partner. I don't know, you know, who knows, right? So you're discussing there and you, what do you do? I'm playing padel. Okay, no problem. That's a, I'm probably gonna find something else. And then, and then you, uh, you, you, he's got a business. I got a business. I just sold my business. He asked that to ask me, how did you sell it? Do you think you can help me? And then, and then from one talk to another, at some point discover how much Ultra is a jewelry. And I was discussing about this different types of, uh, of, uh, of entrepreneur and those two founders are definitely the tech entrepreneur, right? Those big geeks who's developing things, but no sense of business. So those type of entrepreneurs, they're the product people, the development ones. Yeah, exactly. And those entrepreneurs with, with a vision, again, they've got everything about as an entrepreneur, they've got the vision, they've got, but they, they, they're on, on the product, right. And, and, and not on the business. And then, and it is really often the case in gaming that that's why the gaming is a very interesting industry. To be in as a business guy like me is that you can leverage a lot of your skills into it. So when, uh, when you got some other, uh, other, other businesses, uh, I don't know if you, if you look at the consolidation of pharmacy, for example, uh, you know, there is so many fucking businessmen has been looking at the business for the last 15 years trying to consolidate the markets. So you're going there, you're just one of the other. Who are trying to make pharmacy as a super, uh, uh, successful business. In gaming, most of people, most of leaders are tech. So this business layers is, is very much missing inside the industry. So as people like, for people like me, when you're getting it, and I'm, I'm advising business people like me to, to look at the gaming industry. Uh, there is very splendid things to do because your skills is, uh, can, can have drastic change, I would say. So, um, so yeah, I met those guys there, discover how much Ultra is a, is a hidden jewelry and, and start to, start to polish it basically.

And one of the first thing you started polishing when you joined Ultra is the leadership style. Because from my understanding, they had two co-CEOs before you joined. And you said one captain, one ship. So why do you feel so strongly about a single leader execution?

But you see, having two CEOs, that's typically people doesn't have the sense of business because it's impossible. It just doesn't work. I mean, and even for investors, who would invest in a company you've got two CEOs? I mean, I've been into the investment world for the last 20 years. None. I mean, this is the, like the biggest red flag ever. You look at the team, you see two CEOs, you say, okay, thanks. Next. I mean, it's, it's just not, not possible. It's not working. So, um, and of course you will find exceptions. I mean, uh, but, but, you know, like, exception is exceptional. And, uh, and in business at some point you need to work with statistics, right? And, um, so yeah, so yeah, so when I arrived, I took over the, the leadership of things and, and yeah, one CEO is essential and we work the organization. And I think, you know, Ultra has been working as a tech company for the last 7 years because it was an R&D company. So R&D companies got a certain organization way to work, right? And when you've got a business, it works in a different way, right? And, uh, and at some point a business can have an R&D department that works in a very specific way. But a business company needs to work in a, in a, in a, in a certain way. And that's the type of structure I implement right there, right.

And then something else you brought into Ultra is a high-stake, all-or-nothing. It's either going to go super big or it's going to go bust. Did you bring that one in a way like baggage from your previous business experience that you translated it into Ultra or was it a new approach for you?

Well, you know, at some point I think it's, uh, it's the problem is that we, we often mixing entrepreneur and independent. So the guy who's, you know, launching a little snack or, uh, you know, plenty of different business or little agency, uh, you know, it's not, you know, having, having a communication agency is not being an entrepreneur. You have a business and it's great. It's splendid. Right. But to me, at least in the notion of entrepreneur, there is the notion of scale. You scaling a business, meaning that it needs to be big. You can, you can do a small business, but it's being an entrepreneur. There is this thirst of being big. And of course, at every stage of being an entrepreneur, being big at first is having two snacks. You've got two snacks. And then the next step, being an entrepreneur, is to have 20 snacks. If you say, I'm happy with 2 snacks and I'm working like this, then you're not an entrepreneur. You're just a business owner who's leading a business and it's great. Right. Um, and so this notion of scaling is very important. I've got 20 years of entrepreneurship. So of course the thirst of scaling is bigger and bigger. You know, at first I would just want to have them. A business that's making $1 million revenue. To me, that was the scale. I was like, wow, making $1 million revenue. Now I want a billion company, uh, because, because there is 20 years that's, uh, that's behind. So that's, that's the first thing. The second thing is that makes the thing even bigger is it's the industry. Gaming, you cannot be small. You cannot have a game where you've got 1,000 players. I mean, it's just not working.

It's a global industry as well.

Exactly. It's impossible to be small. And you're going even further when you distribute in gaming. As a gaming distribution platform, you have to be massive. You don't have the choice. It's not like, uh, here it's not even the wish of, yeah, let's go big. No, it's we big or we nothing, you know. It's like those meal distribution guys. It's the winners take all. And that's what Steam did. Steam was big. It took it all, right? And now you've got a next generation of platform and the winner is going to take it all. That's, it's, it's simple as that. And when the winner, you can have 2 or 3 winners. Now the game, the industry is big enough to have few players here and there. You can, but few winners, it's a, I mean, Steam made $11 billion last year, right? On computer game distribution. So it's just to show you the, the scale of it, right? They were at $7 last year. They were at, at, at the, the, the previous year, they $11 now. It, uh, so it, it's, you have to be big. Of course, there is a room for few players, but even a small player, uh, is, is, uh, is massive. So yeah, the, the, the, the will of being big is first in my, in my, in my wishes at this stage, but most of anything is the reality of the, of the, the business of the industry.

So what's the, for those who don't know, what's the difference between Steam, which is a Big Name and Ultra. What does Ultra do differently or better than Steam?

Well, what Ultra will do differently and how much it will be different than Steam. Ultra, and is already, because all the tech is there, but the launch of the V2 platform is for next year. The, well, basically you have to see Steam as the email of Spotify., right? You might remember back then you go on eMule, downloading a song, playing play, and that's what you were doing. You're downloading torrents and so on and so forth, right?

Several other solutions, LimeWire and so everything else before, yeah.

Exactly. And back then we were super happy with it, right? Super happy because we were supposed to have a DVD and now you can just downloading songs straight on your computer. It was was great, right? So we're super happy. And all of a sudden Spotify came and there is no more downloading. No, no, just press play and the music is there. Right. And so what they, they changed is just the way you accessing to the content. They didn't change the song. A song is still a song. You, you were listening Mozart on Lime or Mozart in Spotify or Michael Jackson or whatever it is on the different thing, it's the same songs, right? It's just that the way you're accessing to the content has drastically changed. And because they changed so much the way you access to the contents, that the content itself started to change. Because back then, you were listening album, right? So you press play, and you were listening the entire album, right? Today, nobody is listening album. You're listening. A playlist where you're composing with plenty of things means that inside the album, you don't have need to have the same type of music where normally as an artist, you are coming with an album, you've got the same type of vibes all along the album. Now that you've got album with different type of vibes, because anyway, people's not listening your album, right? So it's, so now major artists coming with one song. Because anyway, it's just one song that's going to be added on the playlist, right? So now people's coming with fits. So two major artists was making things together. So all those things is make the content change because Spotify has changed the way you access to the content. Same with Netflix. You're not watching the same movie the same way. You're watching five movies at the same time. Press pause on the other place playing the thing. One is with your wife, the other one is with your kids, the other one is alone. And, and, and so on and so forth. And so small production start to come, series start to come because of Netflix. And we've got the same thing that needs to happen on the gaming.

Okay.

I'm not 100% convinced that Ultra is going to come, is going to succeed. I can't, you know, as a, as a, as an entrepreneur, you always taking, taking the risk to fail. It's possible. One thing that I'm 100% sure that a company will come to disrupt the gaming industry in terms of distribution. So the same thing will happen as Netflix did to the film industry, Spotify did to the music industry. Something will happen in the gaming industry because games deserve something else than just I'm downloading my game. I'm playing my game. No, the thing has changed completely and now it's completely cross-device. Now the father and the son is playing the same game. Now you're happy to play a little Kellogg's game, uh, on the morning and, and then, uh, playing Counter-Strike at night and you, you're just a gamer. And at some point you're gonna play Candy Crush and, and you don't mind to play shit little games and massive games. You're just a gamer all around. All along. So all those things has changed. Gaming become and be becoming concrete social aspects. As much as you sharing music, you sharing movies, now you sharing games. Gamers are not only the people's playing games. Now gamers are people's watching games, watching people's playing games. Gamers are people creating content and commenting games. All those guys are gamers, right? So There is so much thing that has changed in games, but the way you access to games, nothing. I mean, it's exactly the same platform that was there 20 years ago. And the users, the content, the technology has completely changed. So obviously things will change. And so this is why Ultra is there, is to say things has completely changed. So we're gonna take those change and make a platform that take those change consideration as much as for my users, then from the technology, then from the markets. Same thing.

And are we talking PC games, console games, or mobile device smartphone games?

Of course, Ultra needs to be mobile. Of course, you know, of course Ultra needs to be mobile. As I said, a gamer is someone who's playing games and I'm a gaming distribution platform. Back then, why it was making sense to have a computer game distribution platform because people was playing on computers. They was just playing on computers, you know? And when the little shit games was coming, they were like, oh, this is really shit. I'm a real gamer. So I'm playing on my computer. Today, when you've got a 12-year-old guy who's playing Counter-Strike, on the morning, he's gonna play a Kellogg's game, you know, with the little bees that have to jump and then, and that's it. And he's gonna play the Google thing. When you press space on your thing because you don't have internet, you know, like he's playing, that's it. So at the moment you've got a gamer that's playing everywhere. You have to be able to serve him wherever he is. So of course, Ultra needs to be a gaming, uh, needs to be mobile. And there is of course still games that need to be played behind a computer because it's complicated because you need to have, you know, your mouse, your keyboard, everything to make it a big screen to play. But still you want to have the mobile thing on your hands because you want to see what your friends did last night. You want to still talk to the team that's playing for the moment, but you can't. You want to see the last score of the championship that's happening. I mean, all this, you want to see what's happening. So even, even though that you're not playing on the, on the smartphone, you need the platform needs to be mobile. And of course we'll have mobile, mobile games on Ultra, of course.

One of the biggest challenges, and I'm assuming it will be for Ultra, just like it's been for major companies like Epic, are the gatekeepers in the technology space. Here we're talking Apple, we're talking Google, and we're talking also Microsoft and Sony for their consoles. How do you envision Ultra tackling this gatekeeper problem where they also want to get a cut of your revenue? Through their platform?

Well, you know, it's whom you can't kill, work with them. It's simple. You know, like, look what Spotify did, right? They couldn't kill Sony. They couldn't kill Warner. Well, they put them on the capital. That's it. And when they see, and those big guys, and we've got a discussion on the go, all the big guys in terms of production and distribution, Well, we welcome them into the capital. This, you know, like Ultra is a platform not only for the users, but for the producer, for the, for the, for the publisher. Steam's taking 30% out of the business. I mean, those guys not doing anything. They're not putting a penny in innovation. They're not producing—

Same for Apple, same for Google.

Exactly. You know, so, well, when you see Apple and Google, at least those guys trying to innovate. And putting money into the, into the thing. Steam is, to me, is really lacking responsibility of, um, monopoly. When you've got a monopoly, you've got responsibilities. To me, as a, as a macro fan in terms of economy, you know, they're not taking the responsibility. But let's put that aside. The, the, the, the big guys, you make them join the capital and, uh, and make the, the, the, the party even, uh, even funnier. And, and of course we'll have people, uh, ahead of us. And of course at some point they're going to try to block us. And honestly, frankly, it's a very, very good problem to be in.

I want to— in a way it's a compliment.

Exactly. I want, I want to have this problem. I want to have something that wakes me up at night and say, fuck, Google's tried to fuck me up. What am I going to do? That's a, that's a beautiful problem to be in. I'm wishing to be keeping awake at night because of that.

Speaking of scale.

Yeah.

I understand where you're coming from and every other entrepreneur will understand that you have to go big or go home in a way. You sold your last company after merging for scale, and now you're raising major funding for Ultra as well in order to scale. And with all your previous business ventures as well, I'm wondering What's your best tactical advice you have for founders about selling their business or landing their first big investment check? What's the key secret or tip for that?

Well, to me, it's, it's very simple. There is in business, there is nothing better than the appreciation of creation of value. The moment. You feel that someone else will create more value than you for your business, then you have to leave. If you don't leave, you're not an entrepreneur anymore. You're just a business owner. And there is plenty of business owners who are super happy. They're not creating value anymore for the business. They just run the business. You're a business owner. An entrepreneur is there because he's the one, the person who's creating the most value for the company. The moment he feels that someone else would do, would add more value at his place, he needs to leave the stage. As simple as that. So as an advisor, as an entrepreneur, is to say, whether you want to be a business owner or you want to keep being an entrepreneur, the moment you see that someone else would do a better job than you, then you have to leave the stage.

And when it comes to raising funds and investment for growing your business and scaling it. What are some of the tips from your experience that lead to success?

Well, first of all, avoid greediness, you know, uh, and, and take the risk as an— you have to, at some point you have to always, as like anything in deals, right? You have to put yourself in the shoes of the, on the other side of the table, right? Uh, when you sell to your investor, yeah, look, I've got a bit, uh, a business that makes 10 Tomorrow I'm gonna make hundreds. So I give you this amount of shares. You should be super happy. It's a good deal. They haven't made you a hundred, right? So you have to show inside the structure that if you don't do so, you're gonna lose your shares. You're gonna acquire shares if you're doing so. Yeah. It's a, there is plenty of way. It's the Musk structure. Yeah. It's, um, what Musk said, et cetera. Very simple. You don't believe me? Take all my shares. The moment it reached this level, you give me everything back. He got everything back. And as an entrepreneur, at the end, you're there to create value and you're promising a certain value. If you're not in capacity of delivering it, then it's normal that the investor is taking back the thing that you promised. I mean, it's a, it's the basic, you know, you're there to promise, you promise something, it's not there, then it's not, maybe not everything, but at least the part that you you know, you have to have the skin in the game. So, and, and that's often the mistakes of entrepreneurs, uh, is to be too emotionally attached and to say, yeah, but my investor wants to screw me over. No, I mean, you don't be attached to your business, right? Don't be attached to your business. If you attach to your business, again, you're a business owner. And at this moment, you're not an entrepreneur anymore. You, you, you have to be attached. To the success of your business, not to the ownership of your business. And if you attach to the success of your business, you should be ready to say, all my shares is on the middle of the table. The moment I'm delivering it, you give me everything back. In between, I'm ready to take my risk. I mean, I'm taking the, I'm exaggerating, of course, because it depends where you're standing. If you've got nothing, if you've got a business already, because again, when you, when you're fundraising big business, you are in between a business owner and an entrepreneur because you've got assets and those shouldn't be spoiled. You know, at some point you, if you've got a business that's making 10 million a year, you're a business owner, you own this, right? And then you, you're selling the scale of the hundreds, right? Well, the scale of the hundreds needs to be at stake. The thing that you own, then that's, that's a, uh, uh, That's a, that's a business owner attitude they should have with it. The scale, you should be able to put everything at—

Continuing along the line of managing a business to grow it and scale it. At Ultra now, you told me that you have around 50 employees and obviously a lot of the people will work remote and that's possibly quite different from your previous businesses that you've done in the last 20 years. So I'm wondering, how do you keep everybody aligned on the mission of Ultra and how do you manage productivity in remote and hybrid work situation?

Well, frankly, the, the, the level of remote at Ultra was a, was a problem, right? And it's something that I'm trying to solve step by step, right? I'm trying to reassemble the executive team to, uh, and the business team in a closer place between Brussels and Paris and making sure that those people can meet in a regular, in a regular. The full remote, it can, it doesn't work for nobody, even for developers, right? Even for geeks are just behind the computers. At the end, those guys are people. They want to, and you're working better when you know your fellow, you met him, you know, he's big, you know, he's tall, you know, he's, You know, you know, he talked about his holiday, about his wife. And of course you can do a chit chat on the web, but we animals, when we work, we working with smells, animals smelling literally each other. Humans, we need to do so. So at some point, the full remote is a problem and you have to find a way to, uh, to making sure that it is, uh, it's not a constraint into your business. And so I'm trying to put, you know, like the business team, making sure that they, they, they able to work together and the dev team, it's, it's there. So it's, it's a full remote thing. We'll organize company meetings to make sure those guys meeting together. You know, like the first thing I did when I joined Ultra is ask the executive team to, to, to come in Belgium. Those guys never met each other for the last 7 years. Never. I mean, it's, uh, and, uh, it's not healthy. It's not healthy. So yeah, as, uh, the full remote is something that I don't believe. So you have to, depending on the role of the people inside the company, you have to making sure that there is a frequency of physical meetings. When it's regarding business, it needs to be highly frequent. When it's developments, it can be a lower frequency, but still a frequency.

Speaking of Paris, Brussels, and the Europe tech ecosystem, I've seen on another podcast, you call Europe the Florence of gaming. Gaming's new renaissance. But many people are saying that Europe is falling behind on the tech scene, behind America, because it's not great at creating what they call unicorns, so billion-dollar-plus companies, and having the scale-up ecosystem. It's great, you can do a startup and get the initial funding for your business in Europe, But if you want to scale up and get more money to tackle a market in advance, that's when it becomes tricky. But you're a bit more optimistic, aren't you?

Yeah, I'm, I'm much more optimistic for a very simple reason. It's a macroeconomic reason. Europe needs to be, to work on its sovereignty. It needs to work on its sovereignty. And until now, Europe was the only continent that was playing the rules by just the rules that they, they wrote, playing the game by the rules they wrote, and nobody else was playing the same rules, right? And, um, and at the end, when you look at the markets, Europe has got a splendid market in terms of tech consumption. I mean, when you look at the money that the GAFA is making in Europe, it's tremendous, right? So the moment Europe makes decision to be more, to work on its technology sovereignty, then the market is there. And, and, and it's interesting to see, for example, the, the, uh, the guy from the Middle East built a fund only to invest on Europe technology. Why? Because they know that those markets at the moment it's gonna be a bit more protectionist. The market is there, so it's gonna boom. There is no, I mean, the market is there and the law's gonna say you can only use the, the product that's come from there. So it's, it's simple. I mean, it, it's just, uh, it's just, you know, it's simple physics. There is the, there's people needs it and there is a law that's gonna say you can only consume things that's coming, coming from there. Then, then the business is gonna work. So the, the, the macroeconomic. Context makes Europe a splendid place to be in because it's a desert in terms of technology. Mm-hmm. And the market is there and the law of protectionism is going to be more and more strong. So it can only grow. That's the, that's, it can only grow. One thing that needs to be, and I think that the moment and everything is there as well because billionaires are there, right? So the private money is here. It's not that we, we're continents where the money is not there. No, the private money is there. So the moment it's gonna, the, you know, like European Union is gonna say, well, you can, um, I don't know if you, if I take my example, right? Uh, the, the, the, the gaming platform distribution needs to be a cloud, uh, in Europe and the, uh, it needs to be European in terms of data. Otherwise, uh, Uh, you, you, we're putting a high tax on it. Well, then it's going to naturally come to me, right? Well, coming to, to gaming, uh, you've been gaming platform distribution and guess what? European investors are there. So the moment low is coming, investors are ready to, to put the money in. Why does investors are not ready to be, to put money in Europe for the moment? Well, simple is that all the other continents are much more helping for the business in terms of technology. So you've got no interest to put money here. And because of, and that's thanks to Trump, because of Trump, you have started to understand that nobody's friends, right? And you have to do something. So law is going to come and the moment law is going to come, um, money's going to come because investors are very cold. It's just, they look at the environment and say, Is there a market and is there enough, uh, uh, you know, like, uh, protection to, for, for my business to work? Well, the market is there. The protection for my business is there. I'm putting, putting money there. Simple. So yeah, I'm, I'm very positive for the, for the open market in terms of, of technology in general.

Something where the European market is also trying to catch up is AI. We obviously have, uh, uh, We have the big players in America who brought it over. And even, you know, if we're talking UK as part of Europe and DeepMind being sold to Google a few years back, but I'm wondering, how do you see AI changing game development and business? Because you're on both sides of the coin and personal productivity.

Well, to me, it's, uh, I mean, I still have to dig the situation. I'm giving my blunt reflection here. I'm a bit puzzled to see how much importance we're giving to AI where it becomes a commodity. The real aspect of AI is data. Look at the AI of Trump, which all of a sudden says that Hitler is the best guy to solve the problem of Texas floating. That's what the AI of Trump said, of Musk said, right? It's, this is the level of—

Trump, Musk, sometimes it's one of, it used to be one and the same at one point.

Exactly. You see the level of shit that comes from AI, and that's not the algorithm, it's the data you're filling in. So at some point, AI is just a commodity. What really matters is the data. The moment Europe is gonna, Europe is gonna be protectionist about its data. Well, the fucking thing is here. The, the gold mine is in Europe. It's the, the European data, the way European citizen is acting in the day-to-day life. This is the way we want our AI to be, you know, like to be react, right? For anything, for the way you, you training people for information, for so many things, you know, like there is a challenge of, of AI being built by, by men, for example. And it doesn't match with the, well, how much, uh, how much woman is there. So there is a gender thing in AI as well. So it, there is a major thing in terms of continent and culture about AI. So the data is the real shit. And at the end, how do we make sure that data is, is the real data? It's blockchain. When all those data is gonna be in, in blockchain. And at the end, and that's where Europe can, can go. It's, it's to say, basically, I want to protect my data. I want to make sure that this data is the real data. And this is the next level to me again, but, uh, I'm happy to discuss with anybody who thinks that this guy is just like tripping by his own. But the real thing is the data and the way this, we're gonna, you know, access to this data and making sure this data is true data. That's the future of AI. And when you see how much AI from US can go fucking nuts and, and we're still saying shit, we're late with our AI. Do we really want to have those AI, uh, being, uh, used in our business? Or at some point they can put data to say what the best, uh, the best thing is to pay people badly and, uh, and sell your business to, to, to an American. This is how you're going to be successful. You know, at some point, even the way you look, because AI now gets to the day-to-day life of workers.

Mm-hmm.

The way a worker is working in US and the way a worker is working in Europe is completely different. Completely. A European worker needs to treat plenty of different language, like plenty of different culture. An American is just one way and that's it, right? So just this is changing completely the advice of AI on this, right? And now how does AI is gonna interact with games? Well, AI can be everywhere in gaming, right? And it's from, you know, like advising you how to play, you know, you're shooting a bit too right, a bit too left, you're going too fast, or you— I mean, the AI can analyze the way you're playing games and giving you advice. AI can advise you to buy things to win better, right? To buy assets and and so on and so forth. AI can advise you the type of games you should play. And AI can, and at some point, you know, like, so the AI can go anywhere in gaming. So it's just a natural thing as internet can go anywhere in business, right? Now AI is the new internet. It's just back then we're asking a business owner and say, How do you think internet can help your business? Fuck, everywhere from contability to, uh, to, uh, from my, my clients to my stocks, from everything. Well, AI can help my business every way.

And how do you use AI in your day-to-day life and business?

Well, look, we, we, uh, we launching, uh, we're working on the casual games now. Uh, and back then, well, no, let's say in production games, even it's even true for, for Ashes of Mankind. The level of AI that we're using today is just, we're gaining months. You know, like something that we could have done in 4 months, we can do it in 2 weeks. That's simple. And of course it depends of what, of course, but if you ask, uh, to, you know, like to do like a surrounding of a game, right?

Yeah.

Back then, every single details was designed by a designer. Every little things. Now you ask AI to say, okay, give me, this is the first flow, or this is the first map. Give me an extension of my map. You press play, the extension is there. And of course you still need, uh, you know, artists to come next behind and working on it and all this. But the time you're gaining on this is just incredible, incredible. And it goes from there to plenty of things that will help you on on work on the, the, on the game mechanics to, to the, to, you know, like we've got all the, the, the smart contracts, all those things. It's, it's things that where AI is helping. So no, AI is already helping a lot.

And in your day-to-day life, do you use it for assisting you with ideas, consulting, even writing emails or not as much?

No, no, I'm, I'm, I'm using more personally, I'm, I'm using a lot. The, the, the AI, not much on, it's more to get, I'm using AI now as a, as, as much as I was using Google before.

Mm-hmm.

I was Googling something. Now I'm just putting that on my, on the AI and, and asking for things.

Uh, which one do you use? ChatGPT? Claude?

Uh, ChatGPT is the, the one I'm using the, using the most for writing things. Yes. Correct things. It's, it's more like correcting things because I still think that AI is good. The problem when you're asking AI is that it gives you something and it's good. So you're satisfied. And so your brain kind of got the answer, even though it's not the thing that you would have wrote. If I don't have to, you see what I mean? So if I'm asking you, if I'm asking a prompt to say, okay, can you write an email to Daniel Ionescu and say, thank you for this podcast, it was great. Is going to write something and I'm going to read it, I'm going to be happy, right? But if I'm writing it myself, I'm going to write something different. And so you, so it's, it's for me, it's a bit tricky to go there. So I'd rather to write something myself and then ask to say, okay, correct it and make it, uh, make it a bit better. And then he is making it better. That's how I'm using it for the moment.

And can Europe gain an advantage in the AI space only through protectionism, you think, and legislation?

Yeah, definitely. They can, they can, it can definitely have a big leverage in terms of data because the data of Europe is essential and crucial for, for, for any AI.

Right.

And so it's understanding the goldmine that we're having and being protectionist about it.

But aren't we too late? Haven't both OpenAI and Google hoovered all the internet and all the data that has been created so far?

Yeah, but what is the Google? What is the internet data? It's good to have ChatGPT who's telling you, well, did, I don't know, did the King Leopold III was born in, and then he's answering. Okay, good. Having the real data, that's what matters. The data of functioning of a day-to-day functioning of a factory. That's real data, right? Uh, the, the data of actual behavior on a day-to-day of users. That's the data, you know, it's the precise data that's going to make AI usable today. AI, it's cool. It's easy. I mean, it's a, it's like a Google, but look, I give you the data that can be very useful for me analyzing the gaming attitude. That's real data. That's where AI is going to be very precise and useful, right? And specific. But this data, you can protect it. You can say any game player that lives in Europe cannot give his data to an American company. It's simple. It's just a simple decision, meaning that the AI that wants to give advice to a gamer needs to be a European AI. It's, that's it. So it's to understand. That's the real shit in AI is data. The data that has been scrapped today, it's general data. It's good. You've got ChatGPT, uh, okay. Uh, zillion company because you replaced Google easier and it's, it's cool, but it's not, I mean, it's just like the 1.0 of what AI will be, uh, in the future.

Uh, we can talk about this at length, but we, we, we only have so much time, so on a, jump into a couple more introspective questions as we taper off our discussion, Gus. I'm wondering, 7 businesses in now, if you could go back in time to your younger self at 23 when you said you started your first business, what would be the advice you'd give yourself before launching business number 1?

Let me think. Surround yourself. I think I've been, and I'm still is, too arrogant about your competence. And at the end, the role of an entrepreneur is finding people that is smarter than you. That's it. And that's your role. That's your role. It's to find people that's going to do what you think you can do better. And I've been very, uh, arrogant in a way, in a way on, uh, of, of my, my competence on the, for, for, uh, and the faster you grow of the, the, the belief that you need to have people smarter than you around you, the faster you go. That's probably where I waste the most of time.

And also, Gus, you know it from your experience, there's no success without sacrifice. So I'm wondering, what were the biggest sacrifices you made to be where you are today?

Well, it's, it's, it's hard to say because at some point to me, it's not a sacrifice, you know. The moment it feels like a sacrifice, then I think it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, it means that at some point you're going to regret, but maybe I'm not really right on the, on the sacrifice, but I'm definitely, I definitely worked a lot in my life. I've got those friends that I put all my money in my business. I, I've got those friends who went, uh, went on holiday constantly, were, were having, partying constantly. And I worked a lot. That's for sure. And I didn't have much, you know, like peace in terms of sleep and say, okay, you know, like for honestly for until, fuck, until 35, every month I didn't know how to, this is just going to end. Am I going to have enough money to, to, to pay the rent? And of course, sometimes you insist it's better. And then, And then you get back on the, I don't know how it's going to end. Uh, this, I think the sacrifice is the peace of mind. There we go. That's, that's a sacrifice I did. And I knew it was a sacrifice. The, the notion of holidays and, and all this to me, it was not a real, a real sacrifice. The notion of peace of mind and being constantly on this position where you don't know what the future will be. It's, uh, it's a sacrifice. That you have to accept.

So when you get so busy and you work so much, endless hours, I know myself, do you have any daily habits or rituals that keep you focused and productive? How do you disconnect to connect with your business?

I guess to me, it's mostly at night. Me personally, I'm always, you know, doing things between, uh, uh, 11 at 1, you know, that's, uh, sleeping before 1 o'clock. It's, it's very difficult for me. And so the moment, but now I'm working a bit with the Canadian studio. So I still have meeting at 11, but normally that's the moment where I'm just doing shit. You know, I'm watching stupid shit, scrolling on my phone, writing stuff. Doing the dishes, preparing the table for the next day for the girls. I'm a single dad with two girls. I mean, it's those things that I'm doing at night where I've got nothing to think about. It's just, yeah.

That's your quiet time when you can focus on certain tasks.

Exactly. Exactly. That's the—

And one final question, Gus, for anybody tuning in. Who are trying to break through in their business and maybe they feel like stuck where they are. What do you think is the boldest move they should consider?

I guess in, in, as, as an entrepreneur, when, when you're stuck, it's like, uh, I wouldn't say the boldest move is to see the higher risk and the higher risk is to stay still. For any business, for any situation. And that's the, uh, it's, it's probably things that most of people don't see enough. They trying to see the bold move, but they don't see the bigger risk. And because the bold move, the difficulty with the bold move is that there is so, so much opportunity and you always to say, okay, maybe it's not the one because it's a, it's, it's too risky to take this bold move. So I'm going to take another one less risky. But you don't look at behind you, what is the elephant in the room, the high risk. And the higher risk today in business is to stay still. And honestly, that's very difficult for business because back then you had the time to build a business in 10 years, right? In 20 years, in 30 years, right? Today, if you're not managing to build a business in, in 4 years. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's an economical cycle. You fucked. I mean, it's impossible. And of course, I'm not saying your business is finished after 4 years. It's just that you've got maximum 4 years to prove that you've got something that really fucking rock it. Otherwise you, you dead, right? And then in between you've got other, you know, clocking, uh, ticking, you know? So it's this speed of business that's very difficult to, to see. And, uh, and the, to me, the higher risk, so it's not the, it's not answering your, your, your, uh, your, your questions. It's not the bolder move. It's the higher risk is to stay still. And so, so that's why I, you know, I made a lot of bets since I took Ultra. And, uh, honestly, I failed not most of them, but half of it, of my bets, right? And I was explaining to my team that it's, it's the only way to survive is to make bets. And I know that when I'm making bets. I'm going to fail some of them. It's sure by, uh, you know, like by hiring fast, by, uh, by taking decisions, you have to take decisions fast, but in both ways and to, to, uh, to, to plug and unplug those needs to be fast. And those, I mean, so, so the, when, uh, the bold moves you need to take is to, when you've got the conviction that it's going to, you think it's going to work. Fucking do it. For the worst, what? It's not working. And what? You're taking the next opportunity. When you've got no plan B, your plan A is your plan A, B, C, D. That's it.

That's a great spot to finish this conversation and let everybody know that they just have to keep on carrying on and continue on their path and never stop. Thank you so much, Gus, for sharing your story. Story and your wisdom and learning so far.

Well, it was a pleasure, Daniel. Thank you very much.

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