Oliver Yonchev, Co-Founder @ Flight Story

Anyone who comes out with certainty and says this is how the world is going to play out, this is what's going to happen, they are full of shit.

This is Oliver Yonchev. He is an AI expert and the CEO of Flight Story, a global marketing company which he co-founded with Stephen Bartlett after getting in touch with him via Facebook Messenger. This is a must-watch for anybody interested in AI, entrepreneurship, or marketing. Welcome to The Graduate Guide. Welcome back to another episode of The Graduate Guide. Today, joined by Oliver. Oliver is the co-founder of Flight Story, and, uh, very lucky to have you on. Welcome.

Thank you. I'm, I'm really excited to have this conversation.

Yeah, so I think, um, as we said, a lot of different ways we could take this episode, but I want to start at the beginning. So you're at University of Huddersfield. I think you had aspirations of playing football professionally, like maybe that was where you thought your career journey was going to go at one point. And then obviously fast forward, you've done so much within the business world. But how did you see your career journey at the beginning while you were at university?

University— so before I got to university, I, uh, I've always been delusionally ambitious growing up in Barnsley. I'm gonna say it's a very low aspiration place. Um, I always found this sad that my friends, the height of their aspirations would be, I want to be a bricklayer. You know, when you're not supposed to know bounds or you're not supposed to have limitations, you're supposed to dream big. And there's nothing wrong with that, um, inherently, but I do believe that there's certain areas that don't breed aspiration. Um, I was really lucky. Um, parents really encouraged me to try lots of things. I was always playing football, I was boxing, I was drumming, I was just doing lots of activities. And through that, I always feel you steal a piece of those experiences. So when I was young, I was just going to be a football player. That was it. I played at a relatively high level. Um, and then I got to 15 and you have to start making these really seemingly important decisions where, what path am I going to go down? Do I go to college? Do I go, you know, further education? Do I get a job? At the time I was going to go semi-pro. It was the first time you could get paid to play football, which was amazing. Then I got injured. Um, at the time I was learning drumming. My mum took me to drum lessons and I thought, you know what, I'm going to give this music thing a try and fell in love with it. Did that for 2 years and joined a band, got a record deal, ended up being a failed indie rocker.

That's not on your LinkedIn.

No, it's not. I'd say failed indie rocker, but I had 3 fun years. Um, that suddenly came to an end and it was clearing at university and I was like, what do I know? I need to do something with my life and it was music. So that's how I ended up at a music course in Huddersfield. So if I reflect on my career, it's never been intentional. I always just wanted to do things that A, I was, I enjoyed and B, I found interesting and challenged. And that was always my North Star. But I never had, um, beyond being a football player and then beyond being a drummer, I, I kind of had one, one goal at different phases of my life. By the time I got to university, I had no idea. It was a confusing period.

I think you said that you're a naturally ambitious person, but I think your, your circumstances and your environment can like dictate the the extent to which you really believe in yourself and what's possible. And I think, you know, at university sometimes it's difficult to maybe surround yourself with people who are like-minded than that, but it's clear in your business journey, like, a lot of what you've done has been, you know, with very talented team members and co-founders. So I was wondering, in that initial, initial stage of university, how did you start actually surrounding yourself with people that are in the sort of industry of marketing and all the things you do at Flight Story? Like, how did you initially start finding your people?

Well, it was completely accidental and by chance. So the course I did was called Music and Promotion, and it was a very— it was a new course, and I picked it on the basis, A, I could get on it through Clearing. There was just a practical sense that there wasn't much time, didn't have a lot of choices, I didn't live too far, so I didn't have to uproot my life, etc. The second thing then, it was somewhat— it sounded somewhat interesting. There was a PR module, there was a design module, there was a marketing module, there was music law, there was music production, there was acoustics. There was all this kind of eclectic mix of experiences. And I remember going into that process and having my first marketing lesson, and it was all about learning about people and how to influence people. And we would study iconic campaigns throughout the history of advertising. And I found it really interesting, and that was my first exposure to a career in marketing. If you think I'd done— aspirationally always wanted to do sports, and I think through sports you learn a lot about yourself, character, taking losses, teamwork, you know, drive, competitiveness. You get a lot from those sort of endeavors. Then I spent a few years in a creative endeavor, you know, pursuing music. And again, you pick up— I believe creativity is a superpower. I'd gone through these kind of linear phases in chunks of my life. By the time I got to university, I was presented with this thing that was a business pursuit that was critical in the economy. Every company needs to promote themselves and market themselves. Um, and fundamentally it was a creative endeavor. So I kind of felt like I found a bit of a calling, um, did my university, joined a graduate program. It's a company called Bauer Media, um, which owned a lot of local radio stations, a lot of magazines, a lot of media properties. And that was just my first entry point into the world of media. Wasn't marketing per se, but it was somewhat loosely linked. So that was my segue from university into what ended up being a marketing career.

Yeah, and I guess where your marketing career really began to take off was at Social Chain, um, and you, you rose through the ranks in that company, becoming managing director at 26, was it? Um, which, you know, it's— well, congratulations on that. But, but also I'm very curious on, you know, when you get there, it's still an early growing company, but you grew with the company and you found your feet within it. And, you know, I think a lot of graduates really focus on that first step into a job and they kind of think like they've done it once they're in there. But yeah, how do you actually go on to excel and really carve your career within that company?

Yeah, it was interesting. So at the time, I'd, um, I was about 4 and a half years into a career at Bauer Media, um, and I was doing really well. Loved— I was very fortunate to have a mentor and a boss that I admired, learned a lot from. And that's so critical early on in your career. Who you work with is probably a bigger bearing on your outcomes than where you work. That person is so critical, those early mentors. So I was very fortunate there, um, but I'd got to a point where I'd started to set up my own businesses. I was buying domains left, right, and center. I was like, I had an idea for something, so I'd go build a website for it. Just, I had a graveyard of just domains that were getting built. So I knew I always wanted to do something independently myself. Um, and then at the time, I remember going on to Facebook one day, seeing a TED Talk from Stephen that was How I Built a Multi-Million Dollar Business Knowing Nothing About Business, and it was talking about the early days of Social Chain. Um, and I reached out to him and just said, uh, inspiring story. I had zero intent, zero intent. It was just, I thought it was a really interesting person. I thought his story was amazing. I was inspired, and I was kind of thinking about my own businesses, and it really gave me a spurt of inspiration. He said to me, um, come meet us, come join us. So I went in the room, um, met a few of the guys, and I just thought, you know what, this is a very entrepreneurial environment, it's very youthful. Um, it had— I remember at the time there was these like odd— there was something on the wall that there was only one rule, do not die. And, um, it was this crazy wacky office and it felt fresh. And I went in actually as probably the most ex— or one of the most experienced people in the room. Not that I was very experienced, but I'd had 4 years in a really well-structured media career Um, so I think that gave me some advantages when I went into an organization like that. Um, I, I'm a big believer that you can get a lot from, um, mature companies that are established that will give you the training and support that you just won't get in a startup. You need to build really robust foundations. I wouldn't have been capable of doing the things I did very quickly in that organization if I hadn't had a very strong, robust, you know, traditional National Graduate Programme. I would argue I maybe stuck around too long. I think if I was to give advice to my younger self, I think it's give it that 2, 3-year cycles, maximise the opportunity, um, then go into a more startup environment where you will be given more responsibilities, you'll be thrown in at the deep end. The path is uncharted, it's a little more unknown, you'll be more uncomfortable. Um, so I went through that process. Um, Company was at a moment where it was already really successful in a niche of the, uh, in the kind of social media was becoming increasingly important in the world. They had the reputation of being the kids that could make anything trend. Um, Steven, obviously phenomenal talent. Um, and then from there, uh, you know, became close friends quickly started to add value, um, and just given opportunities. Then eventually moved to the US, um, ran the US business. We had a reputation in the UK that was the world's biggest brands knocked on our door and wanted to work with us because of this, like, really irreverent— we stood for something. We were like the antithesis of the traditional way of doing marketing. And it's always good— people talk about having a really important mission in business. It's actually really important to have an adversary. What are you fighting against? We were just fighting against conventional norms, the way the office was set up, the way people behave, the way we recruited. Everything was done in a really naive manner, but it was a bit of a superpower, and there was a confidence that exists in the, in the walls of the organization. Went to the US and failed miserably for a year. Meaning like no one gave a fuck, if I'm allowed to swear. Um, no one cared. You go in and it was like just the most competitive environment in the world, in like a real hustle culture. No one knew who we were, and that was a really exciting challenge to build from grassroots. Within 3 years and building that business, it became the most profitable, the strongest. We had the biggest clients, and we really punched above our weight because we had all this hindsight of all the things that we thought we did exceptionally well, what we wanted to preserve, the culture, what was interesting. But we had this new challenge where we'd had more experience, more maturity, um, and, and that became a really important part. And then probably going into, you know, that whole journey was 5-year rocket ship, took the company public in 2019, did a reverse merger, just experienced so much. And then Stephen decided to, uh, quit as CEO. Um, and then about 8 months later, we— Stephen and I started something new.

Yeah, and I love how you said you managed to reach out to Stephen Bartlett through a Facebook post. I'm not sure that would be quite as possible anymore at this stage.

No, he's, he's, uh, yeah, he's, he's a little more popular these days than he was maybe back then.

But I would love to, you know, sort of be a fly on the wall of that first meeting where you said come in and, and just look at, you know, what was right about that, maybe the energy in that room, the office, what he was proposing to you within the company, and sort of, you know, knowing that you're co-founders of a business now together, like how that, that relationship is, you know, cultivating and growing into what it is now.

Yeah, so, so my, my first experience, I actually— some of my best friends today were all formed in that room, like my really good friends Um, something that I reflect on at that moment, it was just a place that felt like anything was possible. There was an arrogance in the air, genuinely, that, oh, we know better. That was kind of the center. It was very entrepreneurial. Idea would spark, very youthful. And I always think you have advantages when you're young. You have many disadvantages, by the way. Um, you don't have experience, you don't have reputation, you don't have as big a network. But you have way more advantages than you think you do.

It's that youthful naivety that I think—

100% infectious, right? Yeah. I call— I say one of the biggest barriers and invisible forces that exists in the world is the curse of knowledge. It's why organizations do rubbish marketing. They know everything about themselves, but they miss the wood for the trees because they know too much. And actually, naivety is a real— it's a real superpower. So that organization was exactly that. It was naive, it was confident, it was different. It was energizing for someone who'd come out. And again, I worked in media, so I used to take people to Nicki Minaj concerts and One Direction concerts and get them to spend money on advertising. Like, my job and world was always fun. I never did like really boring stuff. Yeah, but I went into that. I'd had this kind of entrepreneurial fan. It felt like a place where I could express that. Um, and then through that journey, it just became really good. Steve's one of my best friends now. Alongside many of the Social Chain team. And so many of those, um, early people have gone on to build amazing businesses, um, agencies, technology companies, you know, coffee companies, you name it. That was just an on— that was a magnet for entrepreneurship and young people. And it's amazing to see the journeys that people have gone on to in their post-Social Chain career. So it was definitely a I think, a special place. And I have to give massive credit to, you know, Stephen's maturity at the time and his obsession with culture, breeding this thing that— and it started from a very, I'm gonna say, a very earnest place. He wanted to build an environment that he wanted to work in. Sounds so simple. It sounds so simple. What do you want? Because you think if you— when you go in a professional endeavor, people behave in a certain way. You're not your true self when you walk in an office and you behave, you know. But that environment was as close to the real thing and people being themselves. And yeah, very special place.

And it's really refreshing to see that, you know, within, you know, even, even of a star, the CEO, or— sorry, like people like Grace Andrews being brought in at a young age and really growing the team, being empowered to do something which I think, you know, sometimes you can lack at university and when in younger life is you can get all the experience you want, but that experience doesn't necessarily like mean that you learn it or that you're actually taught it necessarily. So I think— sorry, there are different stages of, you know, your career in terms of where your learnings would have been heightened, but I don't think you can ever be ready, ready for like starting a business and entrepreneurship and being a co-founder.

You are never ready. And Grace is a wonderful example. She's incredibly talented, but her work ethic is relentless. That's also— and, you know, as a consequence of work ethic, talent, being in the right room, all of those things combining, her career progression has just escalated to where it has. Um, and there's really good— you know, you create your own opportunities in many respects. And look, you'll get that from certain startups. You'll get that from a startup, your opportunity. If you're looking for security and guidance— my career, I reflect, I'm very grateful to, again, go into a structured environment and be able to develop skills and tools that I needed to enable me to be effective in a startup. So, um, the thing that we all have is it's very hard to not be impatient, kind of want to get to the next step. There's a reality sometimes you're not ready for the next step, so just be really patient with yourself. You know, you're going to work for a long time, you know, um, hopefully you're going to work for a long time. So just, just make sure you're doing the right things, you're doing things for the right reasons, you're enjoying the process. It seems very gazy, you know, Instagram quote comments, but it's so true.

Yeah, I found that getting older can sometimes just be like those cringy Instagram quotes that you'd see when you're younger being like, oh, dismiss that, like, oh, surely that isn't what people generally think. But as you get older, you're like, oh, I understand why people actually say these. A lot of these have legs and I understand why they're saying them.

Yeah, though, look, there's, there's wisdom. Things are distilled down by the time they make it to this thing that goes viral. It means that society has connected with that idea. So there's wisdom and truth in that. Um, doesn't mean it doesn't make you feel a little sick sometimes reading these things, but there's wisdom in it, there's truth.

And, um, when you did decide to make that leap and, you know, launching and co-founding your business, I think the next challenge is then working out who you are within that business, because you can have the idea you know, that you can suffer from maybe wanting to do all of it, you know, and actually delegating within the team or between you and your co-founder, I think, is a really important skill. So how did you come to learn, you know, all your experience in your career in an actual, like, running a business sense where you, you know, where you fit in?

So there's two things. I think some people are really good at zero to one, that getting a company— if you think of the infancy of any organization, the number one thing you will do, you're selling. You're selling to people to be your clients. You're selling services and products. You're selling to people to join you on the journey. You're selling to suppliers to give you a discount. Like, you're selling. So I— you tend to find people that have developed skills around sales, and sales is usually characterized as a dirty word. The world revolves on sales. Sales is emotional intelligence, it's reading a room, it's understanding your product, it's knowing your services, it's being adaptable. It's such an important skill in life. And I think zero to one is— there's so much selling going on. Once you then go, then you have to start delegating. There's a bit of a falsehood, and I see this mistake often in entrepreneurship, in startups. They believe they have to be the CEO or the founder, that they're going to be in 4 years and they start doing that from day one. You don't. There's, there's 2 things at play: what you want to be and the practical commercial reality of where you are today. You know, the first, the most critical thing is like character of that starting 11. Think of it like a football team, you know, who's in your starting 11 that's a complementary set of skills in your early foundational team, because you will scale that. The standard you hold early will exponentially scale from there.

Yeah, and, uh, I'm curious, given that you have sort of been in the world of social media marketing for a long time in your career, the platform that I probably use the most and was very helpful to me as a student was LinkedIn. And you've, you've grown a substantial following on there, and it's a, it's a hard app to understand. When I first went on it as a student, I just saw it as sort of successful people congratulating other successful people, and I thought, where do I fit into this? Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, emojis were flying everywhere I'm not— it just— okay, how is this going to help me land a job?

And then did you find it intimidating when you—

yeah, of course.

I think like, okay, that's interesting.

I think, you know, there's cringe in anything of putting yourself out there for the first time, especially on a platform like that where you don't know where your personality fits in. And I think you have to find your own voice, your own way on it. Um, I'm curious, like, with your, your sort of experience using it, I mean, you probably have a different view on it now from when you first started using it. Yeah, but like, how do you see the platform? And if we look at it through the lens of a student, what would you say to them to actually make the most of it? Like, you know, how they can look at it in a healthy way.

Okay, putting yourself out into the world in any capacity— LinkedIn, any platform— is awful. You have to be a real narcissist, you have to be so insecure to, you know, just want to do that and get fulfillment, like need that. The biggest growth thing you can do For two reasons. A, no one cares about you as much as you care about yourself. So you're a fleeting thing in their life, so don't worry or don't overthink it. Two, the beauty of the world today in a social media world is we get feedback. If you have an idea, a thought, and you put it out into the world, the world will tell you whether that's a good idea or a bad idea, and that's critical for your development. I said this to you before we started, I'm a big believer in digital leverage. And if I have one bit of advice, and I haven't taken my own advice for a long time, by the way. I only started since I started Flight Story. That's the only time when I started to produce things on LinkedIn. So I've been 2 and a half years on a journey of going, fuck, I wish I started this sooner. I just wish I did this a long time ago because the opportunities, how it's fueled the business, all the things that come with it, and I find it fulfilling. And it does another thing, it forces me to learn. At a time now where my day is like relentless dealing with problem, exciting opportunities, something— there's just a lot going off at any one time. Um, having a commitment to create forces me to learn new things. I have to figure out new ideas. I need to be curious about this next technology. I need to challenge myself in new ways. So for that reason alone, regardless of how it helps your career, regardless of how it builds your profile, regardless of the commercial opportunities, for that reason alone get on LinkedIn, start talking to people, find your voice, but don't be inauthentic. There's two games you can play on LinkedIn: the algorithm game, which is you speak about things that are inherently shareable. Um, you know, there's a thing that happens often on LinkedIn, I call it, um, it's kind of the pursuit of being a victim. Real, real thing. People share their vulnerabilities online because it gets empathy, engagement, and that is the metric which most people measure their success. The problem I have with that is not because I don't appreciate people being vulnerable in public and sharing, because it can be a support system for others. The problem I have with it— people get addicted on the wrong thing. And actually, there's a reality that when you walk into a room, people judge you. And I'll see— and I'll speak about this— I see founders going in online and saying, I've made so many mistakes, I've like, I killed once, you know, in the bank, you know, my dog—

how you get canceled.

That's— you start— you— they, they reveal everything. And imagine I did the same thing. I walked into an office of 100 people and just started shouting, everybody, no money in the bank, it's over, nearly killed someone this morning. Just imagine, you would never do that. But for some reason, because you get that affirmation you're happy and willing to do that. And it's a dangerous trap being geared by algorithms. So my thesis is I want to talk and share ideas for the rest of my life. The only way I do that is I just talk about things I'm interested in, and that's business, technology, marketing, people, and whatever else comes into my life.

I was going to talk about AI and, you know, how you can sort of combat like the, the loss of authenticity that can come from it. Um, and if we use LinkedIn as, as an example, I think in my opinion it's a platform that maybe isn't harnessing it to its fullest capabilities. For example, I think outreach should always be personalized and tailored to the person, and immediately when you go to message someone, it'll be like, hey, we've been connected for a while, like, how are you? And, you know, I've— regardless, I think that there are really good uses of AI, especially when you look at careers and education. And I think, I know you're a relatively early adopter of, um, AI, and I've seen on other interviews, and I'd love to know your views on, you know, how it's— yeah, how it's come into the world now. And, you know, like, having sort of known about it for a while, what is your, your view on how people should use it? Maybe not in like an optimizing output sense, because we know it's good for that, but in terms of authenticity point, how should you you use AI to—

yeah. Okay, um, firstly, I'm not an early adopter of AI. AI, the term was coined back in 1967. Um, AI is not new. Generative AI has really had its moment in society when ChatGPT came into our lives, and people thought, wow, this is really different. If you think of these big technology waves that have been introduced into a search— put order to the internet, I can now find things based on crude keywords that I would search. That was wonderful. Social media connected us with people all around the world and made the world a smaller place. One of my favorite thoughts on this is you're 4 connections away from Jeff Bezos. Just think of that. You're like literally probably like 4 people away from Jeff Bezos, richest person in the world or whatever. So suddenly the world becomes smaller. It's huge, but it's also smaller. When I think about AI, generative AI is really interesting because it sets a new era where AI fundamentally— and we haven't achieved general intelligence, but fundamentally we are creating things in real time that have never existed before. And 3 things happen, um, as a consequence of that. Number 1, it means we have these incredible tools to lower the barrier to create anything. And when I say create anything, I mean, think of anything that was technical— code, video editing, changing your language, voice synthesis— anything that can help you build, market, grow, anything in the digital economy. That barrier to create has just been lowered significantly. So you have that piece, huge opportunity. I mentioned to you before digital leverage, and I talked about it in the context of having an audience and promoting yourself. Digital leverage is also knowing and understanding the thousands of possible tools that have been shipped on the market week after week and using it better than the incumbents. When you go into an organization and you understand how to leverage these AI tools in an effective way, you will accelerate your career. I guarantee it. If we have people in our organization that are highly proficient on these tools and systems they are 5 times more effective than their peers. They will be promoted and rewarded accordingly. So I'm the biggest believer that you have to lean in and dive into all these new opportunities. I will say to your first question, which is like the misuse of AI, I see that as an opportunity. Right now, when anything is new, um, there's always the misuse, there's always bad actors. And we're going through this like automation apocalypse where people are just doing lazy things. That's great because mediocrity is now free for everyone. So now if you are human, if you are a great creative, if you are a great writer, you will stand out. So I think in many respects these tools are phenomenal, but you have to remember that the best AI is always invisible. Meaning I interact with you, we have a— it's always invisible. Bad AI is ubiquitous. It feels— it's uncanny valley. It's all the things that we see. You kind of know it's some asshole with an automation bot commenting on your post. That is when— that's the misuse of AI. Um, but I'm a big believer, go make mistakes, go trial these tools, go understand them. The only thing you can do is play right now, because anyone who comes out with certainty and says this is how the world is going to play out, this is what's going to happen, This is how you do it. They are full of shit. This is— they are full of it. It's not true. We don't know what's coming next. This really is unprecedented, and there will be a new world order about to be written.

Love it. And I think, uh, you know, any students or recent graduates listen to this, uh, be a very inspiring episode, not just because of what you've achieved, but I think the, the demeanor and like I think you're very realistic about careers and, you know, seem to— yeah, you don't over-exaggerate things. And I think entrepreneurship can be made to seem quite scary and daunting by people at times, but you make it seem very accessible. And, and I think, yeah, what you were saying at the beginning, to go full circle a little bit in terms of nobody should be capped on their ambition, I think you've reinstalled our listeners' faith in that a little bit. So thanks for coming on, mate. Appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you, my man. Great conversation. Cheers!

Cheers!