Gus Bartholomew, Co-Founder @ Leafr

Welcome back to another episode of The Graduate Guide. Today, joined by Gus. Gus, the founder of LEAFER, and he has worked in the construction industry and the sustainability industry, and we're very lucky to have, have you here.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, so I guess if we could just start off where it all began, University of Bristol, and while you were there, obviously you have to make a decision on how you're going to start your career. You're currently working heavily in the sustainability space, but your career started in construction.

Yeah.

Talk us through that initial step and why you would have made it.

Sure, yes, I think it probably all stems back from when I was about sort of 15, 16. And back then I was obsessed with buildings, especially with grand designs. Absolutely loved the idea of doing up old houses, bringing kind of a modern touch to them, extending them out. And so was kind of looking at, right, well, what do you do if you want to do that as a job? And the natural thing that kind of came back was, oh, you know, you need to be an architect. So I thought, okay, right, I'll go and have and explore what it takes to be an architect. I remember specifically going to a careers fair at about that age, organised by the school, and walking around, and there were a few, you know, people from banks, there were people from accountancy firms, all the usual suspects, and there was also an architect there, and it was a guy who was sort of long-haired, standing in sandals, and I got talking to him about being an architect. I said, I've got these dreams, I really want to build, extend old houses, it's going to be amazing. And he basically just completely shot the idea down. He said, "Well—" 7 years. Yeah, he said, "Look, it takes 7 years, and if you do make it, you know, you'll be the 0.1% that do if you're going to be a kind of Norman Foster. The majority of people end up just doing crappy extensions to houses, and you're going to get, you know, you're going to work seriously hard 'And it's going to be really tough, but you're going to be working on that kind of stuff, and you're not going to get paid very well either.' And so I thought, 'Oh well, I think I'll scrap that then.' And so I thought, 'Right, well, what can I do in terms of at least learning the nuts and bolts behind that?' And so I thought, 'Right, well, maybe engineering, civil engineering, to do with building, learn some kind of hard skills there.' And so I think What was interesting is, especially if you go down that kind of path of engineering, you make those decisions when you're kind of 15, 16, very poorly informed really, but you know, you've got to do maths, physics to be able to go and study that university. So, I look back and think, God, it was amazing how little information I had to actually make what is basically deciding the next kind of 7, 8 years of your education and then potentially career. So fast forward to Bristol and did 4 years of civil engineering there. Wouldn't say I was kind of completely infatuated by it. I think there were some elements that I found interesting, more on the kind of design side, but a lot of the stuff, the heavy maths, engineering maths, is just, you know, so abstract and challenging and not really what you want to be doing. Iterating on I-beam designs to get like an optimal shape was just, you know, pretty, pretty mind-numbing. And so the idea then of actually going into an engineering career was just a real kind of turn-off. And I think it's— there's something sad about that as well, because if I look at my cohort of people that studied civil engineering, all came in with a real desire to, to learn and study engineering, but just a tiny, tiny fraction of people that graduated ended up going into the profession. Majority of people ended up going and doing the usual grad schemes that are on offer. But so, I guess how my thinking evolved during that time was that I still really liked kind of construction as a sector in building, but just wasn't sure exactly kind of how I would break in to that. I didn't want to be doing the actual hard engineering was more interested in kind of development and that side of things. So started applying to a lot of businesses that were kind of in that space and pretty much got rejected from all of them because they all said, oh, we don't accept engineers, we need people with property degrees. And it just seemed kind of crazy that there wasn't any kind of overlap there. And so Searching and searching and searching, time I graduated it wasn't a very good job market at all, it was kind of post-financial crash, things were just still pretty iffy. Finally found one company which, hey, after weeks and weeks of research online, this is an incredible company, they were what they call like a heritage developer, they're buying up old buildings, old sanatoriums, old hospitals, amazing buildings, and then building them out and extending. And so managed to basically get a job with them, that was my first job. I was basically the second graduate they'd ever taken, it wasn't the sort of formal scheme, and I basically got chucked on site down in Midhurst, if you know, that is West Sussex, and sort of as a young 23-year-old grad I was working on site in Midhurst, you know, living in the sticks, not a lot going on in the week, and then I was shooting up to London to see mates on the weekend. But that's kind of, yeah, that was the start of my career. Didn't last very long there, kind of, it was frustrating in a lot of ways, but I think ultimately I wanted to be just more in the thick of it. So then ended up moving to a kind of property consultancy up in London that had a bit more of a structured graduate scheme, was working on a kind of broader range of topics, and saw that I could get kind of more professional qualifications and exposure there.

And before we like fully dive into that, because I'm super interested, when you look back at your career journey or like the early stages of it, I imagine, like, you know, you always kind of knew what you wanted to do, like, you know, and like you said, you picked your A-levels off what you wanted to do. You're then at university knowing what to do, and you probably weren't used to the feeling of feeling confused in that, like, you were very intentional from a young age. And I guess, how did you actually deal with the emotion of feeling confused in that period between, you know, graduating and actually going into your first job? Because, you know, especially coming over rejections you know, getting into University of Bristol, you're probably not, you're probably used to everything kind of being within your control, but then it's suddenly like, oh wow, it's not really fully in my control anymore.

Yeah, yeah, I remember that feeling very, very clearly, um, at the end of uni thinking, which direction could I go? Looking at, trying to desperately research, understand, you know, what it meant to, if you were going to go and be a management consultant, or if you were going to go on a on a graduate scheme, and I think the only things that I had heard about those were basically sort of second, third hand from, you know, brothers of mates who were a few years above you, or, um, you know, that kind of thing. And what it was, I think the overall feeling towards those things was very negative. No one was coming back saying, oh, it's amazing, you should like go and definitely do this graduate scheme, it's incredible, incredible. And so I think that was kind of quite tough, and you're desperately trying to find any information you could on, well, you know, this is all well and good what the glossy website says, but what's the actual reality of what does it mean to do this job?

That's why we do this podcast, it's so hidden, I think. And, you know, obviously there would have been a point, you know, where the next stage that you alluded to, where you probably felt that you were beginning to find your feet in the career world and starting to hone your craft to be what it is now. I mean, you are a founder, but you're also, you know, an expert in construction and sustainability by trade. So talk me through that, that next job and, and what that meant to you in a career sense, what it allowed you to do in terms of being where you are now, founder of Lethal.

Yeah, yeah. So I think with that, my— I come from an entrepreneurial family. My parents both started a business, and I'd sort of, you know, I looked up to them in terms of what they'd done and what they'd been able to kind of provide for our family. And I think that was always kind of within me, um, for an age, thinking I'd probably want to start my own business at some point, but kind of being pushed to just go and have a normal career for a bit. Um, I'd done lots of random jobs, little entrepreneurial things at school, and in the holidays. But I remember when I was in that first stage of my career being very, very disillusioned with work and thinking, I remember thinking like, if this is what work is, I really don't want to do this. I don't think I could do this for 40 years. And so it was almost out of that kind of, that feeling of how I kind of quite resented work that actually drove me to say, you know, this is actually the time that I think I'm gonna, I want to be doing my own thing, I want to be in control of my own destiny, I want to be actually challenging myself in a meaningful way. And so after doing that for a few years is when I thought, you know what, I don't think there's any time better than the present, let's just jump into doing your own thing, let's start a business. Obviously woefully underprepared and underqualified in, in so many ways at that stage. And, you know, people often say, if anyone told you what that journey of entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur, is going to be like, no one would, you know, how hard it's going to be, no one would ever do it. And so you do need that kind of level of naivety and just kind of just jumping into starting, starting a business. I mean, I would have been, what, 20 I think it was 26 doing that.

Yeah, so your first company is very different to the one you're doing now, both in terms of size, you know, what you scaled it to, the place it was in, which industry it was in. Talk us through that first one and maybe the differences between, you know, what it's like doing a more or less bootstrap company of Liefer and actually raising capital at such a young age for your startup.

Yeah, yeah, so it's, it's kind of crazy looking back at it. I mean, I think my, the start of my first business was very, very different to the majority of people's because we come up with this idea, we've, we said, oh, we've seen lots of businesses that are struggling to find, uh, good quality manufacturers to make their product. Lots of people wanting to start business, but they fall at this first hurdle. Where do I actually find a manufacturer. And we thought, you know, this was at the sort of very early stages of sustainability also being a thing in production. And so our kind of first, uh, you know, first, first thing that we sort of tasked ourselves with was let's go and find a bunch of sustainable manufacturers. And so at the very start of that business, basically bought a one-way plane ticket to India and based myself in, in Mumbai spent basically best part of 2 years on the ground just visiting, vetting, and verifying about 300 different factories across India and Sri Lanka, later in Europe, um, just like anywhere, basically rocking up to businesses saying, hey, look, we think we could potentially, uh, interested in doing work with you. Can we see your factory? Can we understand what you're doing? And we'll be able to kind of bring you business. That's kind of how it started. Yeah, I was working in a in a cafe in Bombay, no, no, like, you know, shiny co-working space in London or anything like that. And so that was a, that was amazing, amazing experience, and that kind of fully threw you kind of into the deep end when you were completely alone. And then it wasn't until we'd kind of done that initial phase of research that we actually kind of came back with all of our learnings, our customer insights, and then raised and yeah, raised from VCs off the back of that.

And just on you moving to India, like you were saying you were feeling a little bit disillusioned by the world of more corporate side of things and working for other people, and I think like that already will start to build up something within you where you're like, okay, yeah, I want to be a founder, but also like I'm willing to kind of do anything to make it happen, which, you know, moving to India like is a pretty crazy thing to do, like you said, just on your— by yourself. And I think like the flip side of that as well is that you do kind of need some kind of idea that you're going out there for. Yeah. So yeah, where did that idea come from then?

So I think it was just, it was just from kind of what you're hearing around. Like what I'd seen is so many other people who are starting businesses struggle with this problem, and you thought, well, that's a problem that I think that I could actually go out and solve. And, you know, as soon as you start to get a kind of reinforcing loop of talking to more people, validating that idea, and thinking, right, actually, I'm— this is at a point now where I'm willing to jump, and I'm gonna go and do it.

So you identify that there is a problem that you suspected. The next stage is then to actually do all the things that actually mean building a company, building a team, you know, raising investment, and, you know, everything, everything in between. So for a graduate who's, you know, maybe thinking, oh, I want to try out a career, but I also know that there's— there is that inner founder in me, what would you say to them if you're saying, okay, it's really difficult to be a founder, like, and if you, if you knew what it would be like, you might not have done it? What would you give them as a reassuring piece of advice that this is something you've got to try at least once in your life?

Yeah, so I think you kind of either have that desire or you don't. It kind of is strangely kind of built into you, I think. What I would say is you want to make sure that you prepare your— if you know that's going to happen at some point and it's just a matter of when, then what's the best experience that you can give yourself up until that point to make sure you've got a really broad skill set, you're going to be well suited to be able to do it. And I kind of look back on the start of my career now and think, how could have I done that better? What would have been the right way? And I think that there is— I actually might know that the advice that I'd give to graduates if they are sort of entrepreneurially minded is there's no rush. I think the average age of actual successful entrepreneurs is like basically around 40. Your career is long, you don't need to go and do it straight out of uni, and there's a huge amount of value that I think you can get from having that formal training that a reputable graduate scheme or reputable job can give you. If I could take myself back to being, you know, a 20, 21, 22-year-old graduate, I would have probably, um, I'd probably say go and, go and do 2 years at something like a management consultancy because they will just drill you. Like, they'll take their pound of flesh, but you'll get an amazing, um, skill set out the back of a way and a way of working that will pay dividends later down the line. Um, I think the challenge that I see with a lot of people is that when they start on that journey, even if they, you know, they can be in it and be miserable at the time, and then people just get stuck and they stay in it. But if you were very intentional about the way that you were approaching your career and you know that you're, you know, at some point, you know, you're going to start something, then what are the little pockets of time you can do in different businesses, different industries that are actually going to make you very rounded and able to be far more likely to succeed when you actually go and do it.

Yeah, and I don't want to speak to you on behalf of just my university or the London unis, but I think a lot of people do think, I will just go to a management consultancy, and everybody's in that rat race together. And like, if you are so lucky to do what you said, like, it there's no guarantee you're gonna get that graduate job. So I think people are even left desensitized by careers before then, and I think what's really admirable about, you know, and I feel bad for not touching on it already, but what your company now, LEFA, what you do is amazing for people wanting to have a career in the sustainability space. So if you could just sort of, yeah, explain to the listeners what LEFA does and your motivations behind it.

Yeah, of course. So what Lifa is, is a vetted marketplace of freelance sustainability consultants. So basically consultants that work, um, work independently. And so businesses come to us if they need help with anything within kind of the sustainability sphere, and whether that's kind of broad strategic help in terms of, right, how do we actually build out sustainability strategy and support the executive team there, through to very specific things like saying, okay, we actually need someone who can help us to actually execute this double materiality assessment or help us pick a carbon— the right carbon accounting software. So a huge kind of diverse range of things, but basically giving businesses access to experts that don't cost an arm and a leg. And because I think the— and yes, to kind of come on to the motivation there, and there's a lot that comes over from what I did with Supply Compass in terms of helping. I think everyone— I believe that people are inherently good, and if they have the ability to make the right choice, which often is the sustainable choice, then they will. But there are so many barriers in the way. One of those is often the cost of it. And so what we want to do is really kind of remove that barrier to entry, give all businesses the ability to actually bring in someone who can help transform your business into a better business. So that's what we're offering. Yeah, I think that's great.

That you do that not just for the freelance sustainability people that want work, but also for the businesses to understand why it is so important to care about sustainability in a business sense. One thing I'm curious about is the actual people that are on the platform as freelancers. What, generally speaking, is their makeup? Like, what makes them a really good freelancer, or, you know, what makes them admirable to a company to bring them on?

And stand out? Yeah, so all of the consultants that we represent are like heavily vetted, um, so we've had thousands and thousands of people apply to us and we've only accepted basically a small, small percentage of them, um, and really what we look for and what we look to be able to provide to businesses is people who have real-world experience actually being at the coalface doing that, uh, that role or that project before because what we want to be able to offer businesses is certainty that you're getting the right talent in, in an industry that is still very early. Um, it's very difficult to know what good looks like. Um, the kind of analogy that, that, that we use, uh, with it is that, yeah, it's not dissimilar to where software was 20 years ago, where it was this kind of black box skill set, and people don't really know, um, how it's going to integrate into their, their business. But The idea of just being like, oh, we'll go out and hire a software developer when you're, I don't know, you're working on pen and paper and in your accountancy firm in Reading, like, it's just completely alien to you. And that's a really difficult thing to do, you know. So you're looking at this thing saying, I know that we want to do something in this space, we want to bring software, we want to bring sustainability into our business, but 'Who do we hire? Who can we trust to actually help us?' And so that's what we're trying to do, give easy access to the right talent who can actually, you know, have been there, done that with a business that's like yours and can help transform it.

Yeah, and I think graduates would find it really useful if we use the case study of maybe one of your younger people that you've vetted to be on the platform of what their career journey might have looked like, because, you know, I— because I'm just inherently curious about all things careers, I have tried to look into how one would make a career in sustainability, but it's not immediately obvious how you do that. Like, and even companies, you might see that they have a head of ESG, but you don't see the trickle-down effect into the rest of the company, you know, especially on a sort of graduate entry-level job. And I guess the reason for that might be that you do want people who know what they're talking about, but where does that experience actually come from? How would you say a graduate can actually resemble someone who's been vetted and, yes, make that start in the sustainability industry?

Yeah, so I think it's really interesting to sort of look at the industry as a whole and looking at what, at least what we read in terms of the sentiment of graduates, a lot of graduates wanting to do something that is sustainability focus. Um, I think the reality is, is, is, is it is potentially quite, quite hard. Um, I think there are ways, ways through, but just to, just to give you like an idea of, uh, where it is, like, so where Lifa is really focused is more at the kind of executive senior level. Um, and in that, uh, in that area, the, the demand for sustainability skills outstrips supply by about 3 to 1 because there simply just aren't enough people that have been working in sustainability for 10 years, have worked with all these different types of businesses, have, you know, understood, have the knowledge on legislation and regulation and standards and the like. And so that's the kind of the problem that we're trying to solve. And then equally with that, I think 9 out of 10 businesses who do have sustainability teams, their sustainability teams or their sustainability initiatives are driven by either 1 or 0 people. So sustainability teams of 0 or 1 basically is the norm. So having, building out a junior team is definitely not on a lot of businesses' agenda, I think, at the moment because there's there's big budget constraints in that area. But I think it's not to say that that doesn't exist. I think that for graduates who want to get into the space, it's about identifying the businesses that really are at the forefront of this movement, that have got to a stage where there is real alignment between sustainability initiatives and commercial initiatives, because they're the ones that are really building out their teams. The other option is also to think about this, I guess, flipping back in terms of what we're saying in terms of like graduate scheme. There's also a huge number of sustainability consultancies that exist, and I know that they do have much more of a spread of kind of seniority in terms of their workforce. And I think what's nice, especially as a graduate, about going and doing that is just the variety of projects that you're going to get to work on, the exposure to different industries, to different methodologies, different projects, and ultimately I think that that's something that I always think about with kind of career and experience, like just get as much varied experience as you can, it pays dividends later on.

Yeah, I'd imagine the other entry point might be startups that are at the forefront of, you know, that what their actual whole mission is to play their part in solving the sustainability crisis that we're living in. You know, having built a startup yourself and, you know, being in charge of who you want to bring into the team, what kind of people are you looking for? You know, what kind of skills and person do they have to be to work in a startup? And And the other side to that question is, how would you like to manage them? How would you like to be perceived by your team that are working underneath you?

Yeah, so I think in terms of the skill sets that I look for from bringing people into the teams, it's people who are just inherently driven and motivated to get on and do the task at hand, flexible to just say, okay, cool, yeah, I'll pick that up. People, especially in an early-stage startup, the thing you don't have is time, and you know, lots of time to manage. So people who can just kind of pick something up and run with it and kind of go that extra mile, don't necessarily need to have that much management, is a really kind of valuable skill set. And I think that it kind of works both ways in terms of giving. I think if you can give anyone young a direction and say, look, this is broadly what we want, want to you to achieve, and you're not there to kind of micromanage them. I, I'm a huge believer that that is when people flourish the most. Um, you should just be there as a manager to just nudge and guide. But if you say, look, this is the, this is the one metric that we're aiming towards, I want you to just go and try whatever you can, whatever you think, um, is going to help us get there. I'm here to offer you any advice, like come to me for feedback or guidance and I'll provide it. But, you know, give them that ownership, and I think that that, you know, can be really beneficial. It takes me back to also thinking about how you can get in as a graduate or gain experience in this space. We took on, when I was in India, We actually took on two graduates from a Canadian university because they offered a kind of exchange program, and so two guys from Canada flew out to Mumbai, they based themselves there, we took them on the road, they did some amazing work. Often they were just left in the kind of office or working space that we were at whilst we were out on the road, and we just say, look, this is what we want you to try and work on for the next 2 weeks. And yeah, I think that was, it's a pretty cool experience.

Yeah, yeah, and I think we've covered nicely how someone who is already interested in the sustainability industry and sector, how they could get into it. But then the other side is, you know, there's a whole wave of people coming into university every year and sustainability is not something that Career Services like necessarily prompt or push you towards, maybe because it's just not well known by anyone how to do it. But for, you know, a 16, 17-year-old listening to this, what would you say is a reason they should be interested in sustainability? Obviously, we know, we see how important, you know, solving climate change is, but actually for your career to be solely, you know, motivated by that, what would you say to them?

So I guess the way that I view it is that sustainability is going to become an ingrained part of every single person's job, whether you are working in operations, sales, marketing, or, you know, specifically sustainability. And so I think going back to what I was saying about software and keeping up with technology and trends and understanding kind of at least how things are working, I think that would be the reason to to do it. You know, this is just— this is— there's only one direction of travel here. It is, you know, we are all fighting the same fight. It's the most important issue of our time. And so inevitably, you know, it is becoming more ingrained in businesses through both a want, through consumer pressure, and through legislation. And so I think we're just only going to see this kind of trickle down and it be something that everyone does really need to just have a grip of and understand in their day-to-day work.

Yeah, and something that potentially is quite a selfish question and something that I'm interested in because I am, you know, trying to build my own thing post-university. And, you know, you go through this weird, like, circle of life where at school you've got all this accountability and structure, and then at university you lose it completely and nobody cares about what you do, how you do it, like, what you get in your, your marks or anything, and, and it's all down to you. And then When you graduate, normally people are like craving almost back at that point from a graduate scheme, or, you know, to some extent people telling you do this, do that. And I think there must be learnings you've made along the way, you know, working both for people and yourself in, you know, different kinds of ways as a startup. But right now you've got a small core team and it's only going to be pushed forward by you at that at the end of the day, like, so you've got to hold yourself very accountable. And I think, you know, this, this would be interesting to both founders and also just students trying to get their work done and get their grades and everything like that. What would you say is your biggest piece of advice to keeping yourself accountable and actually achieving what you set out to? Yes, good question.

How do you keep yourself accountable? I think, I think making sure that you understand where your intrinsic motivation is coming from is a useful start. Like, what if you're working on a business? Have you actually thought about breaking that business down and thinking, what are the fundamental things that I really enjoy about this business and what gives me energy and what's going to keep me at it? Because you are going to have really, really tough times through that, and I think that being able to always reference back to, this is why I'm doing it, this is— I know that this is actually gonna, you know, give me a great feeling of achievement at the end. And I think, but well, at the end, but also making sure that you're actually enjoying the kind of the day-to-day, I think that's really, really important. And so I guess I always try and have both a kind of a lofty long-term goal, like sort of North Star of like, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing, as well as thinking like, how do I make sure that I'm actually enjoying the day-to-day and I'm doing enough of the things that I really like doing as well on that time?

I think this brings me on really nicely to my final question for you, which I ask every single one of my guests. And when you first, you know, were at University of Bristol, you're thinking, what am I going to do with my career? You would have had a certain idea of what a successful career would look like. Fast forward with all that you've learned, you know, living in India, trying different companies and working in different industries, I imagine you've got a different definition of success in your career. So what is your current definition of success and how has it changed?

Yeah, good question. Um, my current definition of it is definitely being able to do something for a sustained period of time that I continue to enjoy. I don't buy into the idea of like, oh well, you know, this is going to be really hard, but I'm only going to do it for 5 years and it's going to give me a big exit and, you know, then I can kick back and do nothing. I think that that's a very unsustainable way of kind of thinking about your career. I want to work on something that I care passionately about at the time, and I think that that's the thing that will make it a huge success. And you can decide to sell it then at the time or keep working on it and keep growing it. So I think success really comes to feeling, back to feeling fulfilled and actually enjoying what you're doing. I think people kind of neglect that fact a lot. And so for me, it's about being able to feel, you know, both fulfilled and from a professional level, and also give— having enough time for personal life and all of that, um, that comes with it as well. So having a much more kind of rounded approach to what success looks like.

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's, it's very clear on your career journey that that has been a bit of a guiding star for you in terms of just, uh, Yeah, if you're not feeling like what you're doing right now is fully you, just making that leap, making that jump, and you get the rewards for trying something new. And thanks so much for coming on today, it's been super awesome.

Thanks for having me. Great.