Aaron Solomon, Founder @ Ambl

Aaron, welcome to the podcast. If you could just start off by telling us a little bit about your career so far and your company Ambul.

Sure, so Ambul basically was an idea that I had a couple of years ago when my manager asked me to find a last-minute table. You know that going on different sites, no times available, or typing on Google restaurants near me and then having to call around. And I just said out loud, why can't I just say '6 of us need a table,' and that broadcast out to nearby venues and then let the restaurants actually see the customers. So like Uber but for bars and restaurants. And then I basically started walking around London every day after work pitching restaurants my idea to try and attract them live and active customers. And that was the sort of start of Amble, and then we launched it at the end of last year.

Yeah, what is it you think, like, Amble— why do you think it stands out amongst its competitors? I mean, there aren't really anyone, anyone doing it exactly like you're doing it. But you know, you can go on Yelp, you can go on TripAdvisor or anything to find places. But what is it about Amble that makes it so easy and seamless to find where you want to go?

I think, I think it's a convenience. And I also think that we live in a, we live in a generation now where people just click stuff and it arrives, whether it be delivery or taxis or whatever it is, or Uber, right? So we wanted to make something where you were in that situation where you go, this is what I want, right now, for when you want it, and someone can come and give you that instant answer. And ultimately, we're just trying to save time finding great places, because everything else is almost a directory or a listing, and it's still leaving you to go and search, where actually we want the venues to come to you.

Yeah, and you started all this, well, you mentioned earlier, while you were in a corporate career, and you were doing it outside of hours. Was it more like the idea you wanted this to happen badly that like you just thought it was a necessity to do, or were you like, I wasn't happy in my corporate career, I wanted to become an entrepreneur, I wanted to create a business? Like, which way round was it?

No, I've always wanted to do my own thing and I've always sort of done something on the side, but I was in a very, very good job, very stable job, and I enjoyed it. But there's just— there's been this passion to go out and try and do something. And obviously we're in a tough market, we're in a marketplace that we're in hospitality mentality. It's a very tough industry as well, but you know, and you'll know from the success rates of these kind of businesses, is low. But if you make them work, then they could be something great. And I feel like that's the kind of pressure and passion I needed to combine to actually get this done. But in terms of leaving, it was like a non-negotiable. It was, well, I have to leave to get this to work. There isn't— this is not a sideline business. It's all or nothing.

What was the moment then that you were like, okay, I can actually pursue this full-time?

Well, I think I hired one of our sales guys after we first raised a bit of money, and he was just out getting venues and saying, "People really want this." And I knew that it was a custom, and I needed to, with my co-founder, pioneer that whole journey of how do we make this app amazing, and there are these venues that want it. And I just said, "We've got to go right now. We've both got to quit." And we just did. And it was the best decision we made because we then went and raised £2 million. And actually got out there and started to really get in and start building this thing.

Yeah, and you just mentioned your co-founder there, and I mean, any person you talk to that's doing a business, they say how important it is to have a co-founder, and well, not just have a co-founder, but that delegation of responsibilities within the company. And obviously when you're both like going to restaurants after your day-to-day jobs, and it's a very taxing, time-consuming thing, like how did you like keep each other accountable and work out who was better at doing what in terms of getting the business going.

He's my best mate, so I've known him for 18 years since we were 10. So I know what he's good at, he knows what I can do, and he's good at the processes and the building and the tech side and like quite the important stuff, whereas I just want to get out there, get my hands dirty and start growing. It complements each other really well though because I have ideas and he'll sort of filter them and make sure that we can execute them as well. So it's working really well, but it has been tough. We are working 16 hours, 17 hours a day with each other and we still got to maintain our friendship as well. Because everything we are just, you know, but at the moment everything is just about the business. All our conversations are just about the business. There's nothing else in our minds other than getting Amble out there, getting it to work.

Yeah, so when you first started, your main job was just making sure that restaurants were interested and then you can go from there. But like, what is actually your day-to-day job now? Like, what are you doing to try and make Amble grow to what you think it should be?

It's everything from tech development through to venue engagement through to UI designs through to marketing strategies, raising funds, investor relations. Teaching with the sales guys, the narrative of the business, things like this which are good to discuss and actually sort of get out there to a wide audience and tell the story about. So there's all these things that we've got to keep doing and keep it consistent. But I'm also learning. I've never launched a startup before. This is my first startup, so it's all a kind of an unknown. Only really, you know, we've been out for like, say, 6 months now, so it's only really now we're learning just how customers want this is apt to work and what they think about it, and building on that to make sure that we can get to where we need to be, which is obviously— now I want this to be a household name, this business. I want it to be the way that people book and discover venues. It's changing a behavior and is, is more of a mission to that, and it's definitely not an overnight thing. Yeah.

What did you think you took from your corporate career into— you know, you say you've never done a startup before, like this is the first time thing. Like, what— how do you think it helped prepare you for this? Because there's no one way of going into entrepreneurship. Some people start when they're really young or when they're much, much older. The way you get to it is never the same. What was your process of learning that I could do this?

I'm still figuring out if I can do it. I haven't proven anything yet. I've launched an app and people have downloaded it and people are using it. It's just about getting more and more to do so. I was in sales my whole working career and actually a lot of it is down to sales. Sales, well, you know, explaining how the product needs to work, getting your concept and why you're doing this across, especially with investors as well. It's like, it makes it easier to share the vision when you're that passionate and you genuinely can get that across to people, you know. So from that side, it's definitely helped. But the rest of it— hospitality, being a marketplace, tech— is all things I've just had to learn. But what I do, what I do know is that I'm much further ahead as a person than I think I would have been in a corporate job.

Yeah, I guess like with your job being, you know, going out to people every day and like you take that side of the business a bit more where you're actually speaking to the restaurants and the customers, you know, growing, like actually learning about yourself and, you know, like you were saying, like being steps ahead in that way is probably the most important thing, right? Like being relatable being approachable. And, you know, I wonder when you actually go into these, you know, restaurants, what is like the possible red flag or like the red tape for why people wouldn't ever take it? Because to me it's like a no-brainer that a restaurant would get involved. Like, it just brings in customers.

Yeah, it does. Um, but it's also still a startup, i.e., you know, some venues get a lot of bookings, some venues don't. You know, it's not been around long enough to be established enough. There's customers still learning the platform. You know, we've only got 370 restaurants in London, so you're not all over London yet, right? So there's so much work that needs to be done. And, you know, some venues, um, you know, to be honest, most of the venues have been fantastic, um, but it all just depends on how they want the business to work, which is why we pushed so much to make such a plug-and-play system where they can literally self-onboard within 10 minutes and start getting a business and using how they want to. it's completely optional for how they want it. They can either have everything on and drive as much as they want, or they can pick and choose when they want to take customers. So that's the kind of gap that we're trying to fill, and we need to keep improving it based on behavior to make sure that it can just adapt to a wider market. You know, when we launched, it was nothing like it is now. It was barely a product, but it's just something that we need to keep growing.

Yeah, how— I mean, for me, when I go on the app now, like, obviously I found it maybe a little bit later than your initial customers. There are loads of places and it seems like a very— like an app that I would genuinely use. Was it 360 places? Yeah, yeah, yeah. In London. And also not just like 360 places. Like, I'm curious as to your strategy when you're actually going about who do you want to onboard? Because I'd say they're probably more upmarket in general from what I see. And like, yeah, what was your process of like, okay, this is where we need to start? Start? Because you can't just like splatter gun all around London to anywhere, everywhere and anywhere.

No, no, we started in the city, Soho and Chelsea. So you've got a bit of residential and then obviously where people go, tourists, and then corporate, right? And then it was seeing how people behave using the app. Naturally, the higher end or sort of mid to premium venues are on it because obviously they've got expensive seats to fill, and it's just about showing that they are accessible even if you think they're not. But we are trying to get a mix of to suit everyone, i.e., we want people to just use our app to go out. We want actually people to go out more on their app because it's easier to do so. So there's a lot to it in terms of picking the right venues and also the places. Like, we can see what areas we're starting to get a lot of downloads in and try and get venues for them. You know, we want customers to almost tell us what venues that we want, we'll go and get it for them. You know, we want it to be a real, like, consumer-facing app.

Yeah, and that customer feedback is essential for any business.

It's the most important thing, which I haven't got business.

Yeah, I mean, and I guess like for anyone who's thinking about starting something, or, you know, it's more difficult maybe with the people that are trying to go into like the AI kind of fintech space. But if you can, you know, verify or like find out if this product is actually going to work, like, it just seems like obviously you, you made sure the product was good, you made sure the app worked and everything, but you did just kind of like start from the bottom and keep learning from what people are saying to you. What, yeah, what the customers think.

We listen to everything. I mean, there's an email that goes out from me after someone's made a couple of bookings to get their feedback on how it worked. And there's teething issues, you know, sometimes the booking hasn't gone through, or, you know, sometimes the app crashes. And these are all just small things, but then we make the updates and then you see them come back again and they have an amazing experience, like they'll get a free cocktail on arrival, or the app just works seamlessly and it saves them in that moment. And that's the kind of key sort of glimmers of product-market fit, which is the key thing that we need to keep pushing on. But it's a long, long road ahead, and it's tough.

Yeah, and one thing I'm curious about is that aside from the app and the ability to just book restaurants whenever you want, you've got these sort of events that you that you run, or like Amble, were they like partnered events, or—

Yeah.

What actually are they, and why do you do that, and like why—

Well, we're kind of testing with them, because there's a lot of really cool brands out there, cool concepts and experiences that are trying to drive their awareness, and we're getting a lot of like activity on the actual app, so the fact that an events business can almost make a pop-up event on there to then attract active people to is actually quite cool. So again, it's just a supplement from the Zeus app. Again, you've got everything in one place on an app. You've got your restaurants, your bars, your experiences, and then you've also got cool pop-up events. So it's kind of been a bit of a test. We've done a few of those. I think we've got one tonight as well.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting that this app has come out after COVID because, you know, it must be obviously a personal driver trying to get, you know, what you want to get back out there, going to restaurants, dining, socializing. And you're helping, you know, it is actually a very good cause, you think about it, because there are a lot of people that are still a bit like tentative, trying to regain their social abilities. And yeah, I mean, what is like your personal actual driver for why you do Amble, aside from the fact that it's convenient and you saw that it worked? Like, why do you think it's an idea that has to exist?

I think I think, look, I think where I go back to Uber, that sort of changed behaviour, i.e., I can land in any city now and someone's going to pick me up and I know it's going to happen. I feel like there's a lot of, ugh, finding something is a bit of a faff and it's a bit hard work and you end up just going to the same places and not actually seeing what else is out there. People don't want to think, they just want answers quickly, but from a venue side, there's the most amazing places being opened, and they have been hit hardest, I think, from train strikes to COVID, Brexit, all these things. And actually, there's some fantastic places and experiences that, like you said, if you can drive people to a place just to have a drink or a good meal, um, that's important. And, you know, for these venues, you know, another difference of ours is we're not like, if you pay more, you don't get seen more. It's a level playing field. So it really allows the venues to see active customers and go Yes, you can come here and invite you in and change that whole experience rather than just booking, turning up and whatever, you know. We want it to be where you get what you want, but then the venues can have all an equal opportunity to get to a customer.

Yeah, and obviously everyone wants to know more about Amble, but for the viewers, for the Graduate Guide, what might be very useful is looking at your LinkedIn, forgive me if I'm wrong, but you didn't go to university, right?

No.

Yeah, so you went straight from school into the working world?

Yeah, yeah.

What was your thought process behind that?

I didn't even think about going to uni.

Okay.

Like, I just was not going to go. I was done with—

Yeah.

I was straight— oh yeah, I just wanted to go and work and earn money. I was just tired of not being able to do what I wanted, and I just knew that I wanted to go out there and start selling and start doing something, and uni never crossed my mind. Not once. Didn't even consider it.

Yeah, well, it's interesting because I think there are a lot of people that might have done university and they had that, that thing, and they just never, like, they never excused it when they were, you know, 18, they had that choice.

I think it's, I mean, look, most of my friends went to uni. Yeah. Um, I think it's, you know, you've got to, if you, if you, you've got to, if you need to figure out what you're doing or know what you want to do, it's an important part of of it. Maybe I might have been ahead if I'd went to uni, I'll never know that, but didn't cross my mind.

Yeah, I mean, obviously before you started Amboy, you said you got to a very good point in your corporate career, you got to a very good company, and like obviously that was the process of working from like, you know, a person job to where you were then. But yeah, what was that whole process from the very beginning like As a piece of advice to anyone, even if it's straight out of university or, you know, say they're 18, like, how can they like rise through the ranks and just, just from hard work and, you know, a desire to progress and everything? What would be your advice to people to, you know, progress through your corporate career?

Advice? I'm not qualified to give advice like, yeah, but I think there's two things I think you You don't need to know what you want to do yet. That will happen. And I think if you do want to go into something like entrepreneurship or starting your own thing, forget about all the thousand things that you'll need to do to get it to work. Just start with the one thing today that might work, whether it's making a website or a logo or thinking about what it is or just researching a market or speaking to someone that's done it before. Just do something that gets you on that journey. And you start to sort of, you know, you start to uncover really what you actually care about. And that's the most important thing. It's like, don't get me wrong, doing this business is stressful. It's hard, but I'm passionate about making it work. So it means that I, you know, when I was in my job, yeah, it was 9 to 5, and I get to 4:30 and be like, I don't have an off switch with this because I care about it. And I think it's important that you try and find that, but you don't have to find it within the first year, 2 years. I mean, I'm 28 now, like, I've only now just found something that I want to do after 10 years of working. So there isn't a time limit to do that, but when you do do it, you'll know because nothing else matters apart from getting what you need to work, and it doesn't feel like work.

Yeah, and something maybe I can relate to, and I see—

Well, this, like what you're doing.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think what you're doing, and one of the reasons why, like, this is so beneficial to me and why there's no reason why I wouldn't continue to do it or why I wouldn't have started it, is that naivety that you have when you're young, or you're inexperienced in something. Like, even in your business, like you're saying, you've never done it before, you're not claiming to know everything. Even with your customer feedback relations, like, having no idea is sometimes appealing because it's not what, you know, what you know then, it's how you react, right? And even with your corporate career, like, you just started from 18, like, people, you know, they're not meant to take you seriously at that age, but that's like the time that you can like, um, you know, underground, like when people aren't seeing it, yeah, learn your trade. Yeah, what are your opinions on, on just— I mean, obviously you've, you've said that people should just start, but like how has that like naivety and like benefited you in your, in your business, for example?

Well, I just think I'm very open to learn and listen to the right people. I don't get me wrong, my app from the venue side has not been done by me or my co-founder, it's been by hospitality experts that know what they're talking about and know exactly how an app needs to work. Raising funds, where do you start? I need to go and ask people how to do that. You know, where do you start learning an app? Well, there's information to do that. It's all out there to just go and find if you're actually open to listen to it. And then you just soak in. Probably because I was young and still in that phase, you're just still absorbing everything. Like, I'm not, you know, shunting myself off to knowledge. I don't know, I need to navigate this. This world. I've never done it before, but there are hundreds of people that have and done it really well, and you just need to go out and find those people to help you. And most people do, and that's probably where we've actually got to this stage is because we've— it's not just been me and my co-founder going, right, we know you, we know best. It's everyone else knows best, let's go and get some information.

Yeah, that's definitely how I feel. Like, I mean, I've got a lot of imposter syndrome going to UCL, which is like, like, you know, you automatically get branded with like, oh, he must be academic, he must be clever. But like, for me, I kind of got carried through my history degree, I feel, by my mates. But there's almost a skill feeling that, right? Like, understanding what you're good at and what you're not. And that delegation in any facet of life, like, it's important to do. And I wonder, with Amble, like, you say one of the first things, the obvious next step would be to get people in sales, right? Because that's what makes the business function. But what other delegation have you done since then to, like, make your business run better?

Sales is important because— but the other thing with the sales guys is, you know, they're not selling a product that exists. So it's not like they're moving from one company to another to sell something. So there's a whole training and learning, and obviously the product's changing every week or improving every week, right? So there's more and more to sell. But that's one thing to delegate, because then they need to learn their craft in selling this. And when we grow, they're going to be the ones training up everyone else. There's a lot of delegation, but we, as founders, we're not big enough to just let things go or just let people run certain parts of the business, because it's not big enough yet to delegate per se. I mean, we all have our views on marketing, obviously, like the founder video that went out. You know, we were marketing and I was like to my co-founders, we need to tell people why we're here because they don't understand the app right now. You know, they're using it, but they don't know we're a startup. They don't know it's a few months old. They don't know why we're doing this. And I feel like if people understood that, then they might go, fair enough, and I'll use it. And obviously that's kind of the video that really pushed us and meant we did more content like that. So you kind of take a step back and get involved with everything, but finding people at the start is very difficult. Very difficult.

Yeah. I mean, the way I sort of see that in a weird way is that it's like the equivalent of, you know, when you get Forbes 30 Under 30, like people just put it all over their personal brand and it's like, 'Look, it's important for you to know that this isn't just like a business that's aged and old, or I've just been like given it or inherited it. Like, you're someone who's been doing this since young. Like, it's almost something, you know, a new bow to play with.' It's like, I think, yeah, it's very important for people to understand the journey. And when you're making these videos, because they are actually like, they're very, they're very good, like, they're engaging, they're captivating, and I I can't imagine that you were like, nothing in your job says that you were like a social media, like TikTok influencer.

No, never done it.

So was that just like learning yourself then, or how did that work?

Just give it a go.

Yeah.

See what works.

Yeah.

Not throw mud and see what sticks, but like, okay, we need to tell the story of why we did this business. Because every time we've told someone about it, they go, I get it. So how do we do that? 100,000 times. We need to make a short video that's engaging. So, you know, we find an expert who's good at making videos and we say, this is the message, and then you do that. So there's like, you can piece it together. You can't just say, how do we get our message across, and expect someone to solve that for you.

Yeah, and that's obviously getting across online, but I wonder, because you'll be going throughout your life, but especially now, probably a big thing for you is like networking, or it comes under all the time. Yeah, and is, you know, I'm finding it's just, it's so important. Like, you can have all the degrees and qualifications that you want, but like, it's not just knowing people, it's, you know, make sure people know the real you, the authentic you. Like, what would be your advice again to anyone who, you know, there's a lot of people at university who see these networking events as like, you know, just some suit and tie, you watch someone give a speech, it's like no one really says anything they actually think. Like, how Do you think?

Most of the time they are, but there's other people in the room trying to get the same thing out of it as you. You just got to be patient and find them. You know, you've got to go to these things, you've got to learn how to navigate these things. It's like you'll meet the best people out and about. Our business wouldn't work if we didn't sort of hit the streets and start selling and start talking to people, getting introduced to that person and that person. I mean, that's how we raise money as well, all through introductions, all through you know, you should meet this person. You've got to get out there still whilst everything tells you you can do everything from home. You can't. It doesn't work.

So one thing I find really interesting about businesses now is that, you know, they used to just be like you knew the business but not the founders.

Yeah.

And maybe like someone like Richard Branson pioneered this whole thing of like putting your name or a face to the brand and And with your business, like, you know, like we said earlier, it's not an AI brand. It's not something where you can just hide behind, like, the product. Like, you've got to put your face out there. And I wonder, with your own sort of personal branding, not just online but in person, like, how do you find it? Well, like, how do you know who you're talking to in a business sense or in a, uh, we're just mates? Like, yeah, are you able to switch that off?

And, and yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty the same all the way through, and it's gonna be hard to like, you know, uphold a certain image when it's not. But I think the main driver for doing things like this and talking about it is because I just want people to understand why we're doing it, because it'd be 10 times harder to push a product that, you know, it's all about the education of the why, you know, like no one really cares what it does until it benefits them. If they understand the why you're even doing it, then they might take a look. And that's the thing, that's the important thing is for me, it's like I need to get that message across and I got a team that can. But as a founder, you know, let's say there's 100 people in the room and I appeal to 10 people or 5 of them, then that's my audience. And now I know who to go after and now I know what to do. And those 5 people will influence, right? Not everyone's going to like what you do. Not everyone's going to like us or me or whatever, but you can't please everyone. But what you can do is the people you do please is work as hard as you can to build something that actually works and actually something that people use. And it's all about product-market fit. Are people going to use your app? And if talking about it is going to help that, then I'll do it all day.

Yeah, I think, well, one thing about Ambulance that stands out is, you know, you have got a pretty big following on Instagram and everything now, but It's more like if you go on the app, it's so well reviewed, like consistently well reviewed. And I think like making sure that user experience is great and obviously reviews are important to any company. But like for you personally, what is the most, you know, what verifies to you? Is it the Instagram shares of people on Amboy? Is it people coming to you and saying, hey, you really like sort me out yesterday, like I've I forgot. That's nice for our day though.

That's cool. I love that. It's waking up in the morning and seeing bookings. Yeah, like making money while I'm sleeping. Yeah, that's for me validation. And the same people coming back and using the app.

Yeah, the thing is you're probably helping out a lot of like—

I want to, mate. I was like, I don't want anyone to be walking around going, I need this, or going to another city and being like, well, do you know anything around here? Yeah, if we had something where you could just get your answer like that, then great. There's not any, you know, there's a few places doing discounts and free things, but that's all down to the venue to push it how they want. You know, it's just about you going, I need this, and getting it. And you just got to keep solving that problem.

Yeah, and you've got like a reward system, or like a point system?

We're going to be, yeah. The roadmap for the app is like, it's nowhere near where I want it to be. Like anywhere near finished. So there will be more of a reward where the more you go out, the more you'll earn effectively.

Yeah, well, I mean, I find that a lot as well doing this. It's like you've got a podcast, and at the moment it really is just a podcast, but there's so many things that, like, in my head I'm like, oh, it can be this, I want people to know it's this. Like, you just want to start releasing everything as quick as possible, but you also can't rush it, right? Like, you've got to make sure it's consistent with the quality you put everything else in. Yeah, well, I mean, how do you— how are you managing, like, you know, your expectations of where the app should be and actually just like making sure you're delivering and not like doing it all too quickly, basically?

I ain't trusting my founder Anaya's judgment. Yeah, like learning, listening, reviewing, not doing stuff because we think it's going to be a good idea or a quick fix, but like making those real. I'm very impulsive and he's not, so it's a good little balance. But they're the hardest decisions because you can't— if you get it wrong, they're either costly or you have to go back, and it's very hard to scale back after you've scaled up. So it's choosing the right time to do it. I mean, you know, when I was starting the business, we signed up over 1,000 venues on foot, but we've only got 360, 370 live. So we haven't got everything live yet because we haven't been ready to start rolling it out. You know, we've got 25,000 users on the app right now in the last 6 months. Still, we need loads more. Yeah, right. Loads and loads, hundreds of thousands to get it right. But the app's still developing, so it's a process that you've just got to manage and just be patient. And we couldn't be working harder if we tried. There is actually not enough hours in the day. Like, I get the first train in, last train home. Um, and all of that work falls into this pipeline that just starts to happen when you need it to, hopefully. But you just got to put that graft in and try and do the right things and just think and be level-headed.

I wonder, how are you, you know, preventing burnout then? Or just—

it's hard, man.

Yeah, I mean, what are you doing?

It's like, there's been time— I call my co-founder if I'm about to explode. I'll call him, say, Yeah, well, call me, I'll call him, yeah, and we'll just rant and shout, calm each other down, go to the gym, yeah, try to. I don't really like— I see a lot of the jobs wine and dining, but I don't like go out and drink and, you know, I did go to Ibiza 2 weeks ago, but like it's just keeping in with the business and Right now, you know, I feel like burnout is not an option because we are in the toughest phase, i.e., post-launch, raising, pushing the business out.

Most exciting as well though.

Yeah, it is, it is. You've got to enjoy it as well.

Yeah.

Otherwise it just becomes stress rather than passion. Stress is not healthy in any sense.

Yeah, I mean Yeah, I think for people at university or, you know, just like trying to start their own business, I think one thing that adds to the stress as well is that you're used to, whether it's at school or having your parents nearby, like having that accountability there. And when you're doing a business solo or just you and your co-founder, there's nobody to hold you accountable. If the business stops working, nobody else is going to fix it but you, like. And, and that's like a constant stress even when you're not in the office, so you I mean, how are you making sure, like, what is the actual practical steps that you and your co-founder are using to hold each other to account other than just like having that good relationship? Are you writing everything down? Are you like, or have you got other people?

Yeah, I mean, like yesterday, for example, Jed came round and we spent 9 hours writing our business plan for the next 3 months. And although the business plan's short, it's like just making sure we're aligned on every single detail. Who's doing this? When are you doing it? So you've just got this plan to execute. And it's very— you can forecast ahead, but it's very hard to go much more than sort of 6 months, in my opinion, because you don't— anything can happen. I mean, tech gets delayed, something happens. There's all these things. You can have a forecast of what the business will look like, but there's so much that can change. It might go viral, it might completely crash, there might be all sorts of things happen. But if we know what we want to achieve over the next few months, we could just align on that, like, you're going to be doing this and that, then, then it works. But there is this fine line between divide and conquer, but then you almost separate too much. And that's what happened, you know, a few months back. Jed was on one part of the business, I was another, and it didn't work because we were misaligned. We didn't know what side was going this side, you know, what the left hand's doing to the right hand. So right now we've got to be in the trenches together doing everything, and then it will start to pan out. We've got to be on everything as founders.

Yeah, and I mean, I think I probably relate more to you than your co-founder about like, you know, being spontaneous as a founder. Like, it is— did you think you learned the hard way that you actually had to start writing these things down? Because for me, like, I was like, I don't— I thought I could keep it all in my head and just tell people about it, but you can't.

No, I've got thousands of notes on my phone, and you could do it like that. I mean, literally, I'll write down in the morning, or if I have thoughts, write everything down. And over the week I'll have just this awful, grammatically terrible list, and I just put it into ChatGPT and it gives it to me nicely. Yeah, like you can do that now.

It's like a new employee.

It's ridiculous, mate. I'll be like, here's my brain fart, bang, here you go, that's sweet, there you go. So it works. That's, that's— there's things like that that can help, but you will forget. Like, you can't— you know, the founder videos and things like that, how I want that to be, I can't remember that a week later when I've then got the time to look at it. Gotta write everything down.

Yeah, and your actual working space is WeWorks, right?

No, we're at a different one now, which is just down the road, still in, still in Bank area.

But is it co-working space though?

It's— we've got an office.

You've got an office? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I mean, what did you— was there a reason why, like, you switched from co-working to that kind of thing?

Well, we had an office before, but WeWorks is expensive. So we found a good alternative. We've got to be in the office.

Yeah.

Everyone needs to know what's going on. Yeah, I think we haven't got time to waste waiting for things. We've got to move, be really quick about it and vigilant, and people need to be in there collaborating, you know. Yeah, we're a startup, we're not an established business, you know. Yeah, we, we're spending money, we've got to make money, and we, you know, we, we're only just sort of, you know, we're only building restaurants and it's only obviously You know, we're only charged when a customer visits a venue, so we've got to make sure that happens thousands and thousands and thousands of times a day, you know, and that's where we need to get it to.

I completely agree. And yeah, I think one of the benefits of, you know, everyone talks about building up a team and delegation and like hiring new jobs, but being streamlined is one of the best things actually for a company because it's like you don't need to go through all this red tape like, or like, should we do this? And then, you know, meetings about it. You just like, okay, act on it, and then you can actually solve the problem the quickest. Um, yeah, I mean, how, how do you want— like, do you want to keep it streamlined for as long as possible? Like, how have you found that experience of like keeping the team as small? Because you— the last thing you want to do as a startup is waste wages, waste money on wages that you don't need to, especially with ChatGPT and everything Yeah, and then that's the thing is, you know, you have to go through that though.

You have to not waste— it's the wrong word— but you have to learn. Otherwise you'll be thinking, 'Oh, if I did that.' And you've got to— some people can really be great and some people can detriment, and you've got to be quick about that and make sure that it doesn't catch you out. But you've got to hire people because you can't do it on your own, or else you will burn out and you won't be able to do it and you won't be able to think. And that's why you need people right now, is they'll help you get the job done. They'll actually maybe even help and give you ideas that you would never have. So it's hiring the right people, but you can't always get that bit right. I don't know any founder that's just got it all right hiring. I mean, I don't think that exists. It's hard. It's hard, but you've got to be really diligent with it.

Yeah, I'm interested in that first customer that you got. Like, well, I was like, who was that? Maybe you can give them a shout out, but also Like, how did you make that first? Was it like a close connection?

There's one guy that's been like there from day one. His name's James Bolton, I think. Yeah, James Bolton. And he's just all over our socials. I mean, he'll go to a venue and like just ping us a picture of him there. He must have done about 20-odd bookings by now. Like, he's just on it and it's wicked. It's nice to see. This is a guy we don't know. Yeah, I think he's from Brighton. I don't know, might be, but he just loves Amball and he's just been there, sends us an update, always do this, and he's just wicked. But that is the kind of like super user. There's others, but he's one that was like early doors, always commenting on our posts, and it's just nice to see.

Yeah, the same with the first restaurant as well. Like, who were they and how did you get them to make that first step when it was 'Cause normally it's way better, from experience, in sales, you go and somebody say, "These people are using it. These are the people who've already gone on board. You can join it." How do you make that first one? There's obviously probably more of a process of building a relationship with them personally and getting them to like you.

You've got to get these venues engaged. You might not even get them a booking. You're showing them a concept that you want to do. You can't guarantee anything, right? So you've got to get people that believe in— this goes back to telling the story— you've got to get people that believe in what you're doing and it's going to work and they're going to support you doing that. Because you can't have a venue on for a week and then they go off. You need to be engaged until you get the product to work. I mean, it's like the classic Uber, like they— when they went city to city, they had to pay drivers to be there until people came onto the app. And it's kind of like that now. We've got to keep the relationship there with the venues until our user base builds up and we've got the tech where we want. So it's like combining these 3 pillars to then achieve product-market fit. It's not an easy task, and that comes down to the relationship with the venues, listening to the customers, and just making sure that we can put it all into the tech.

Yeah, and as we come to the end of the episode, I always ask every guest this, and this—

gone. What? Build up.

Well, it's obviously a little bit of a— it is what you make of it, but I genuinely find it interesting because everyone's got such a different opinion on it, but obviously when you first, you know, went into the corporate world, you have this idea of what a successful career would look like to you, or achieving success, what that would be. And now, you know, even from when you first started Amble and where you're at now, I wonder what is your definition of success at this kind of time?

Not wanting to do or be anyone else, I'd say. I wouldn't want to change my life for anyone. I just know where I want to get to. I want my life in 5 years' time. That's what I want. I don't want anyone else's. I don't want anyone else's job. I don't want to be anyone else. I'm happy. That's what I'd say.

That's a great answer.

Is it?

Yeah, I like that one because I feel like, you know, my favorite episodes are where people are just completely, you know, objectively themselves. They don't try and say what they think people want to hear. And like, you've done that with every answer, you know. I think there's a lot that people can, you know, that's the reason we do this podcast is that there's so many different careers you can go down, so many different types of people in those careers, and like, you can't possibly try and be all of them. You just got to take your favorite bits of advice or elements of that person and bring it to yourself. So I think you've been, yeah, a great guest for anyone a lot like me, to be fair.

No, I appreciate it, mate. I think what you're doing is great. I really do. I think you need to keep it up. It's going to be hard, but keep it up.

Well, to me it's like, yeah, I'm similar with Amball, I'm sure. Like, this is what I feel happy and passionate doing. Like, you couldn't get me to sit down at an office doing maths, like, and I would be like one of the worst employees if it was that. But I could work endlessly doing this. So anyway, cheers for coming on, mate. Cheers.

Cheers, brother. Thank you.