Georgia Gibson, Co-Founder @ Youni

Welcome back to another episode of The Graduate Guide. Today we're joined by our first returning guest on the podcast, Georgia. Georgia, welcome back.

Thank you for having me. I feel very honoured to be the first returner.

Yeah, well, I mean, a lot has changed and you're the co-founder of Uni. For those that don't know it, what is Uni?

Um, so Uni is an event-based social network for universities, and what that means is it shows students everything that's going on and who's going. So all the events, sports team matches, extracurricular club nights, whatever it may be, who's going, and you can buy tickets and sign up in-app. And then from the organizer's perspective, you can host, post, manage, do all of your kind of organizer admin in one place as well. And it integrates with tools like Instagram that you're probably already using.

And why is this such an important problem to solve? I mean, we've known each other for a while, and I really resonate with your mission, but you can't build a company like that. So, I mean, it's so difficult to replace a face, but you have to really have your why locked down for doing it. So what, what is that why for you?

Yeah, I really agree with that because it does get hard, and if you don't have that reason that you're like, "Oh, I have to do this because of that," then it, yeah, you would definitely give up in the process. But I would say there's kind of like two main reasons why we think this is so important. And the first is the kind of general state of the university system right now and the rates of loneliness, the rates of student isolation, all of that side is really, really devastating in terms of like student mental health. And I personally think that a big part of that is students not finding their community, their people, their passion, like their career. There's so much pressure on those years. It's like, oh my God, you gotta have the best years of your life. You gotta do all this. You gotta figure out exactly who it is you wanna be. And actually a lot of students just sort of do their degree and like stay in their room. And so, and in my university experience as well, I was very lucky to go to a good university and knew that there was all this stuff going on supposedly, like all of these bands, plays, et cetera, but just couldn't find it, or at least it took me so long to scroll on all these anti-social media platforms to find something social that I wanted to do. And I was like, this cannot be the fastest way to find my people, surely not. And so I wanted to make all of that activity, all that extracurricular incredible stuff where students get to pretend to be whoever they wanna be, and find different groups of people that they may not normally find, super, super accessible, no matter where you come from or what experience you have doing that thing before. So that was really, really key. Also, I think in general, the whole notion of what a university experience should be like is kind of under threat, under question, especially with the growth of different kinds of jobs and AI and everything. Like, why are you getting a degree? And for me, it's definitely about the person that you become doing the degree, not necessarily like the grade you get at the end, which isn't an innovative opinion, but it's one that I think needs to be restated. And then the second side is in general the state of social media and what those platforms that were previously the kings of the space have become. So I'm talking, you know, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. And I think that we can kind of all agree that these things have become very much leaning towards the media and less towards the social. I mean, so few people go on Instagram to even see what their friends are doing anymore. It's basically just a glorified ad board. It's just an evolution of like the outdoor billboards now online and you're scrolling and it's just all about, you know, reels and the like. And so I wanted to try and build a platform that maintained its social side rather than just have— just succumbing to being an advertising engine.

And if university is there to help make you who you are and, and bring that out of you, I think one thing we like to do in this podcast is really make everyone feel heard in a career sense by telling enough stories that everyone, you know, has someone to, you know, resonate with. And with that, I want to sort of take it back to even before university and just learn who that natural core self of Georgia is, like, who is, is young Georgia?

I'm not even sure she knows, um, but I think young George is— I always felt like quite different, um, which in itself isn't a different thing to feel, and I think that's really, really important to state. Like, in general, everyone feels that, but obviously you feel like you're the only one when you're small. But in my case, it was— I knew that I always wanted to like work crazy hours. Like, I got so focused, like obsessively focused by things, and could absolutely abandon other things just in pursuit of one goal, passion project. I was like that person selling stickers in the playground or organizing plays, projects, all of the time. Like exhausting for any of my friends. Could not come to a single party or holiday that wasn't like meticulously organized of an itinerary that was based on a book or like some random thing. Um, so I was kind of like obsessively doing, uh, potentially to avoid thinking. I think that that's quite a classic trope as well. Um, but I realized quite early on when I was about 11 or 12 or 13 what social media was kind of doing to my brain, which I think was quite premature. And I had a Facebook account and I got very into, you know, wanting to hit really high metrics on my like count, which I generally talk about it in that sort of weird marketing term now because I think it is just a marketing platform. And the fact that you would measure your own selfies against metrics that marketers are using to further their brand is just ridiculous to me. And I kind of realized this early on that I was just feeling such pressure to wear less clothes, to like pose in a certain way to get validation. And so I decided to, as all my friends were getting Instagram and TikTok and Snapchat and the like, I was like, I'm just not gonna get any of these platforms. Like, I don't want the pressure. I know that if I get them, I'm gonna wanna, I'm gonna be so into them. So I might as well just completely sort of remove myself. So I kind of challenged myself to do the whole of my teens and early 20s without any of these social media platforms. And that's quite a weird thing to do when it starts to become the kind of fundamental form of communication and flirting and dating and all of this kind of stuff. And I was like, felt very left out. Like, I wasn't sending Snapchat selfies, and that seemed like the number one way to get a boyfriend. And I was just like totally out of it. And it meant, it meant that when I would like show up at parties, like often people wouldn't know who— they didn't have any like pre-idea of who I was because everything was about stalking people on social media beforehand. And like no one would really know who I was. And so I think it put extra pressure on me. I always wanted to show up like super loudly in person and really make an impact. So I was like, this is all I have. People will not find me after this moment. I need to make sure everyone remembers me. I want to do this. It also forced me to like create loads of my experiences for myself and invite people to things because I was like, it just won't happen naturally. No one's going to scroll across a post I've made, like me, and then suddenly think I'm cool. Like, I need to be cool in other ways. Uh, so I think that, that early experience with social media kind of built the Georgia I am today with regards to wanting to build the platform that I kind of wish existed, that like, I think we're always doing what we, what our younger selves needed for ourselves, as it were. So it's like that. And then also just, I was just obsessively seeking community. Um, and so I think now the fact that I'm building a community platform is like not a far leap from that.

So pre-building Uni, You're at University of Oxford, which is, uh, you know, notoriously hard working. You know, like, the people there, like, I think, yeah, it's very, very focused on, on work and getting good grades. And probably for you, as someone who loved being with people and community, like, did you find that a, uh, pretty manic depressive feeling at first? Like, you know, like, having— like, you're, you're clearly very intelligent to get in and maybe could do that side, but that isn't everything for you. How did that feeling manifest itself at university?

Yeah, that's interesting actually. I weirdly didn't have that experience that a lot of people have at Oxford with regards to suddenly being like, "Oh, this is loads of work." I was like, "Finally." Like, I was a massive nerd and I think it's really important to overstate that because, I mean, not to unstate that in a sense, 'cause like, I, finally felt like it wasn't weird that I was working loads, and that's all I kind of wanted to do growing up and always felt so much pressure to balance wanting to be a social person, but also, I think there's this preconception about Oxford that it's only work, and to a certain extent, they definitely put too much emphasis on that in a kind of academic, traditional sense, but it is also just filled with lots of passionate, disciplined individuals. And it was only that side that I really leant into rather than just the like— And you kind of take Oxford with a pinch of salt. Like, it is a ridiculous place. And like, you just realize they like set you like reading this and you're like, well, obviously not. And I think it just learns, it teaches you how to question established traditions, which is kind of something I was already doing. Like, the way that Oxford imposes what you have to do, you just have to be like, this is what I'm gonna do with that information. There's loads of rules, but it's like, okay, no, I'm not going to read all those books. I'm not going to. And then you just piece together your own path. And that's what I think it taught me most, that like you don't need to do things that way, but you can find your way, which can still fit. And then the level of discipline often, like even really smart people when they put that on something like music, like the standard of music I found— I was part of a funk band and kind of ran the organization of it for few years, it was like so high and I, I kind of loved that. But yeah, I definitely felt like that was a conscious choice of mine to lean into that side, and if I didn't choose that, a lot of people I saw being sort of absorbed by just the degree focus.

Yeah, I think it's interesting for me with my experience, like going to UCL, um, I'm not a particularly academic person, or at least it doesn't come very naturally or easily to me. It's just get good grades without having to work. Um, and I found myself in the first two years, to the detriment of my career, purely assessing like myself and my general well-being and sense of achievement off what grade did I get in my history essay, like a subjective course. And I think I'm a big believer that you can't really start building your career until you have your personal life ducks in order and like all the right people in your life bringing out the best sides of you, which is, you know, really why I love what you're doing at uni so much. I think it's the first step of building your career is finding your tribe and all these kind of things, so.

I like that, we get people's ducks in order.

Yes, I mean, talk to me about, you know, pre-uni, but also with uni, like, attached onto it now, what building a good, like, crop of people around you looks like at university.

I think what you mentioned there is a really good point with regards to, like, how you measure success. And something that I've definite of all of these things, but something that I've definitely found is that if you don't define what success means to you, other people/society will do it for you. And so it's really important to hold true this idea of what is really important to me. And people often say like, "Oh, but how do you really know?" Often it's hard to know what is actually important to you. And I'd say a signal is what gives you the Sunday scaries? What are those? Recurring thoughts when you're like, "Oh, fuck, I haven't done enough of this. I'm worried about this." That's deep down what success means to you in those moments. And so often it's about retraining your brain to kind of, what is success right now to me compared to what is it in 10 years? And at university, it's this balance of being short-term/long-term focused. So success at university in the short term is really making the most of everything you have around you. And it's doing something which I call skill stacking. You just wanna basically get as many experiences underneath your belt as you can because choosing your career post-university is as much as knowing that you can cross things off as it is having certainty about what is the right way. So, because any career that you choose, you'll end up not liking a big part of it. I think that that's just inherent in the pursuit of anything. And in those moments, you need to be able to say to yourself, okay, well, I tried that and I know I definitely didn't like most of that. So for me, that was like finance, pure corporate. I did internships at hedge funds and there was so much pacing and earpieces and I was like, nope. But I do return to those moments and I'm like, shit, this founder stuff is hard. And I'm like, well, I know I don't want to be in that other world. So at university, for me, it was all about just being like, I wanna leave this place with a group of people, as you said, that are my ducks and that will really support me for who I am no matter what I do, basically. It's that. You just want people that let you be so that you can find out what you wanna do. And then just trying to get as many different experiences and skill stack and find what my spike is, which I'm now sharpening, as it were.

I think in this day and age of, you know, one of the biggest pieces of feedback you'll get if you don't get a job or you're looking for a job is that you just need to stand out. And I think a lot of people find that a really annoying thing to be told, because especially if like you've always kind of just done what you're told, you know, try and get into a good university, try and get good grades, you know, look for spring week, summer internships. But, you know, whether it was intentional or not, which I'm curious to know, your sort of work experience even at university was very eclectic, like it wasn't maybe the kind of brands you'd associate with an Oxford, you know, grad doing. Did you feel like an odd one out there, or what was the driver in doing such alternative experiences, and how has it rewarded you?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think there's a lot of pressure to kind of do work experience in spring weeks and grad programs at some of like the big names that are supposedly going to sparkle on your LinkedIn, and it's a cliché, but like really it's what you do in that period there rather than— because that's what's going to show way more in an interview rather than just a shiny label. You'll be able to tell if this is someone that actually had an impact on the place that they were in rather than just was like present in the room. And so I was very clear that I wanted to work in— I knew from a young age that I wanted to build my own thing in some capacity and I wanted to work in a small team where I'd have a big impact. So I sought out those small teams. And so for me, I mean, I very much started— I did, I did do a hedge fund internship more just to be like, just to know that it was a no. And then I've done— I worked like at the shop floor. I think working at a shop floor for anyone who's interested in marketing and sales, you know, you want to do that like door-to-door, like shop floor experience for sure. And I did it for Ralph Lauren and it just fascinating, like selling small things for big prices and the whole technique of that. And, and then I worked at a couple startups and during COVID was when I was literally like, I'm going to just get loads of internships. And because I could work remote, I did like, I think I did 3 or 4 kind of crash internships and just tried to— I basically summed what is the biggest impact I can have on this company in a small amount of time. And was just really creative. What I like about doing things in smaller companies is that they really need you to have sort of intuition and take responsibility of what you're doing and just like propose things to them. So I really want— I really wanted to train that skill because you have to have like a lot of self-confidence to be like, I think we should do this and I'm going to take control of it. So I wanted to practice that. So I would really recommend that if you can find something a place where you're actually going to have an impact and that you're going to be rewarded for just running with something. That for me was really important.

Um, because I think somebody might be listening to this going, okay, I definitely see the advantage of doing alternative things even if you want to go into corporate. But yeah, yeah, I think the actual process of finding them and then actually feeling like even if it is working on the shop floor that there is something to extract useful, like, that's useful for your career. Like, how did you actually, you know, or when did you start learning that there was a storytelling element to all these experiences and how they mesh together?

Well, I mean, I think perfect decisions, like, only exist in hindsight, so it's really easy to weave together a story of your career, like, now. Like, I can tell you exactly what I gained from every different experience, but this is a story I tell myself to kind of make sense of what the fuck I'm doing. So don't try and write the story that you're in at the moment that it's happening to you. And you can look back and then weave things together in a nice straight line for yourself. But I think that I— so I studied literature at university, languages and literature, and I was just fascinated with that, really just the extent to which everything comes down to storytelling. Like, I'm a big believer that you learn way more from fiction than you do from facts. With regard— I mean, you can think about huge historical events and you can look at death tolls, but then you read the story of two people who had a relationship during that time and you finally feel a connection with it rather than just sadly like a huge statistic. And it is just how humans can kind of process and digest information. So from a young age I was like, oh, that's where the power is. It's actually just not in these like facts. It's, it's in the fiction of them or just the connections, the relationships. And I, I actually just loved— I actually remember that I was like sort of 8. I would tell— I would gather people around me in the playground and like tell stories, like kind of a bit like medieval bard energies for me. Like, I don't really know. I was like on a soapbox, like, hear ye, hear ye. But I just really realized that you can just like stir so much in people. From that. And I think something that I'm really fascinated by is the evolution of storytelling. And I think it's quite a cool lens with which to view social media now, which is what I spend a lot of myself doing, ironically, having sort of gone off it for 10 years, is that if you start to see social media just as an evolution of the initial, you know, cave paintings and campfire stories to this medieval bard, this court jester, to theater, to books, to cinema, to TV shows, and now to Reels and TikToks, you're really realize that's all it is. Humans are just seeking, where can I find stories? And when you look at a reel and a TikTok and all these influencers being like, this is how you get the most views or clickbait, it's really not rocket science. It's literally what they were doing around the campfire of you engage people with a hook, you probably leave them with a cliffhanger. Like, did the saber-tooth tiger kill the caveman? We don't know yet. And you just stir some emotion in the middle. You know, hook, emotion, cliffhanger. That is storytelling since day dot. I mean, it's like what Charles Dickens was doing with his columns. It's been going for ages. There's nothing new here. People have just got it, made it way more immersive and intimate and immediate with social media. So I think that I have a lot of respect for the media side of social media as an evolution of storytelling. I don't think it's social. I think the extent to which it's social is the connection it can cultivate. But yeah, I think through creating community, studying literature, working in small companies and having to do lots of sales, and sales is storytelling, and then seeing the impact of social media, I was like, okay, storytelling, this is, this is where I want to be.

When I first met you, you were alongside building Uniti, you were doing another company called Burnature, which was more of a passion project, I guess, and like a creative outlet. Yeah, there came a time where, as much as you might have loved doing that, where you had to decide whether you're going to go full-time on this big sort of revolutionary tech project. Um, what was the, um, difficulty in, in that decision-making to go full-time on, on something, um, and really commit yourself? Because for me, when I was, you know, doing the Gradsguide, it was always the thing I did on the side. Like, I never let people in to go like, okay, no, I'm a I am a founder at a young age, or like proclaiming yourself as that. But what was that feeling in that moment and the struggles that came with sort of taking that parachute off and just really committing to something that, you know, it's no longer a passion project, it's— this is your business and your career?

Yeah, I think this is something that we talk about a lot, and we have over the last year with regards to kind of just, yeah, focusing. And it's— I don't think it's something that came that naturally to either of us. And it's fucking scary. I think furniture was an incredible experience. So furniture was a furniture company that I started that was all based on upcycling sort of scraps, and we would turn it into what I called functional art. It was like really cool, beautiful furniture that didn't really make sense. You could see the story as you looked at it. For me, it was almost an evolution of this idea of storytelling because we'd made like a you know, like a pinboard out of a piano and stuff like that. So you could be like, oh, that used to be a piano. And furniture for me as well was a way to learn from as many creatives as I could. I sort of assembled this, what I call this Avengers team of people from different parts of my life who had an array of skills from carpentry to graphic design to cinematography and was like, guys, let's all build like a furniture company. And everyone was like, that's really weird. And it was weird, but we managed to get some awards and go in shows. And it grew very quickly in a very short period of time. And it did come to this moment where I was beginning to hinder Burntshirt's growth by focusing on uni and hinder uni's growth by focusing on Burntshirt. So I had to be like, right, what do I wanna do? And I'm not technical. So the idea of focusing on a tech company didn't feel like it was gonna be part of my story. And I was a bit like, I need to make sense of why this is gonna be my full-term next chapter or rest of the book, hopefully. Um, and for me it was scale of impact I want to have. Um, and I realized that tech is one of the best ways to impact loads and loads of people, um, just in the way that the actual technology, technology scales compared to, you know, the sort of furniture I definitely want to return to that in the way that like people who have like done one career and had success with it make gin brands. But furniture is my gin brand.

Yeah.

So get ready for that. But I think, yeah, I realized that I needed to go all out on this because I was starting to just destruct it through not doing that. And it, and it was difficult. But I know that I also needed to have a bit of furniture. I needed to have that time of trying something completely creative, completely different to realize, okay, no, I want to bring that creative energy. And that, I would say, is slightly my, like, spikiness in this sort of tech space, is that I'm a very creative thinker and I wanted to bring that to an industry which I thought I could have a big impact on.

That focus point is interesting, and I want to just, uh, talk about that a little bit more because I think it's applicable whether you want to be a founder or just your career in general. And, you know, you've, you've just been on a UK tour of universities speaking to freshers starting at university, and I imagine amidst all the sort of like drinking and partying, there were people sort of asking for advice on their career, sort of like prepping themselves for what's to come. How do you sort of relay and give back advice based on what you've done to the younger generation on finding that focus in their career? And is it something you can put any timeline on, or is there anything you can you know, can you actually be proactive about it? Or, you know, what is, what is getting focused to, you know, even look like? How do you get to the point where you actually go, okay, no, this is me?

Yeah, I think focus is something that you need to find rather than just decide. And what I mean by that is if you think about the kind of camera metaphor, like it takes a moment to like come into focus of what is a subject, it's like all a bit blurry and then there's that like kind of zoom moment. And I think that the mind is a similar mechanism. So with regards to experiences, I said I think that you need to skill stack. So I think that you need to try and get this wide plethora of different experiences to find out what the connector is. And I would also say that these experiences that you collect to find your focus, to find your spike, don't all have to be professional. It can be like, oh, I'm the friend that everyone comes to for advice about X or whatever it may be. Or like, I organise fucking great parties. Like, what does that mean about me? Or even who you are as a sister, a friend, a brother, girlfriend, whatever it is. Like, in your life there will be certain patterns that have begun to emerge. Some negative, which you can make positive, and some positive, which may sometimes be negative. But if you start to look at those and be like, right, what's my biggest pro as a person? Like, what do people think about when they think of me. It's probably a flip side of your biggest flaw, which is fine. But I would really recommend even doing something as prosaic as writing shit down and trying to join it and being like, oh, okay, so I love to DJ, which means I know how to read a room. Okay, that's a really important skill for sales and presentation and stuff like that. And you can begin to bring it out because ultimately careers sort of present themselves as needing all this in-depth expertise in a certain area, but ultimately you can all bring it down to what is like the core human trait that's going to make me good at learning that shit quicker. So is it I need to be really open? Is it I need to be like really, I don't know, yeah, have the ability to learn about this, whatever it may be. And I think you can kind of narrow it down and then start to seek professional experiences based off what personally you found you're good at.

And Georgia, my final question to you, which I ask every single one of my guests, is when you first started building UniFi at university, you might have a certain idea of what success with the company, with your career, would go on to look like. Fast forward with everything you've learned and achieved along the way, what is your definition of success for your career in uni, and, and how has it changed?

Yeah, nice. I would say that right now my idea of success revolves around the concept that either the company is growing or the founder is. And very rarely are they at the same time. So, for example, I don't actually believe that you learn anything from success because it's so hard to pinpoint one decision to why that is success. And it can often lead to incorrect conclusions about why you succeed in that particular thing at that particular time. And it basically just puffs up your ego for a second. I think you only really learn from when things go wrong because it's often quite obvious why they went wrong and you can be like, right, well, I need to not do that. So what I've learned to— how I've learned to define my success is to think, right, which one of us is growing now? Is it uni? Are we like fucking scaling? In which case I don't really know what's going on, but I'm succeeding sort of numerically. I'm not necessarily learning anything. Or actually, is it a bit slower with my company? But what am I learning from that? Because those are the hardest periods. So success for me is growth in whatever way I can point at it, and not to try and think that both those things need to be happening at the same time.

Georgia, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.