Ronan Harvey-Kelly, Co-Founder @ Haz

Welcome back to another episode of the Graduate Guide. Today we're joined by Ronan. Ronan is the founder of HaZ, and he was part of the founding team of Lottie. And we have a very special episode, and yeah, I'm excited to have you here, mate.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, so, uh, I guess let's start at the beginning then, um, before we get into what HaZ is and everything in that journey. Loughborough University, trying to make it as a professional hockey player— talk me through what you thought your career was going to be at that point.

Yeah, so I think it's worth actually going back a little bit further to then explain how I ended up in that situation of trying to make it as an international hockey player. So I grew up in a very kind of professional sporting environment. I actually went through the academy systems with football. So for those of you that watch football, I played in the same academy class as Reece James, Mason Mount at Chelsea. I then got told very early on that I wasn't good enough So I got dropped from Chelsea Academy at the age of around 10. I then had short stints with Fulham, who I support, my beloved Fulham, and then Reading as well, Reading Football Club, but quickly saw that that kind of academy football was tough. Obviously we've heard loads of people go on about it and had kind of firsthand experience of that at a very early age, but ultimately sport was the thing that I knew that I wanted to do when I was a kid, like most people. I then went to a secondary school that didn't play football and so pretty quickly had no choice to kind of really carry on football at any kind of serious sense. And so had a hockey stick shoved in my hand and kind of the first time I played was around 11, 12 years old and then from there kind of fell in love with the sport. It's obviously much smaller than football so it's nice because everyone seems to know each other. I tried getting into the England Under-16 side, I didn't get in, I tried getting into the England Under-18 side, I didn't get in, and then Loughborough took me on, actually on a hockey scholarship, where I eventually broke into the Great Britain Under-23 side there. So yeah, my time at Loughborough, I was juggling obviously academics and then also traveling across the UK, across Europe at times, and playing international hockey.

You know how professional sports players normally have to say you have to be all in on becoming a sports person. Obviously you've proven, you know, since trying to make it in that career that you are very capable in the business world, but like at that age where was your head at in terms of, you know, balancing education and, you know, a sporting career? Were you just like headstrong on sport and keeping education on the side, or were you very conscious that it's a very, you know, even if you do make it it's like there's it's not a sustainable career, necessarily, hockey, but—

Yeah, I mean, there's no money in hockey, so I always knew that the pinnacle was the Olympics. Again, you know, a great achievement, right, but there's no money in it. So I always knew eventually I would have to step away from the sport, I just wasn't sure when. It happened probably sooner than I would have liked, in all honesty, but that kind of balancing when you're studying and playing top-level sport is an interesting one. I remember in my first year halls at Loughborough, I had like a revision card stuck to my TV because I was addicted to FIFA, so I was there playing Xbox the whole time, but I had this Post-it note that kind of said, you know, stop playing Xbox, you're going to get dropped from the Great Britain squad. So it was kind of that, I think, summarises where my head was at, which was like trying to balance obviously academics, partying, and then also being an international athlete. You know, Loughborough is a great place to really focus on sport, you know, we had a nutritionist, S&C, I think at one point we had more support staff than actual injury-free players at one point, but it is a challenge. I always felt like my academics probably played second fiddle to the sporting side when I was at university, but then COVID hit, which actually, you know, a lot of bad things happened when COVID hit, but for me it actually was a blessing in disguise on an academic standpoint because all the sports stopped and so then I could focus on my studies. I ended up getting a first, so that was kind of one of the silver linings that came out of COVID yeah.

Yeah, and then you made a pretty significant first step. Well, I mean, I'm curious what kind of point Lossie was at the time, but, you know, straight out of university into, I imagine, a very fast-growing startup at the time, part of the founding team. Talk me through, you know, how the the Donnelly brothers, how you came across them and, and yeah, how you landed that job.

Yeah, so I think again I'm just going to backtrack one step to explain this a little bit better, but I actually had a placement year whilst I was at university and I was in a big corporate job, so a big American company, and the thing that that did for me was made me realise very early on that corporate wasn't for me. That's why I knew that stepping out of university and graduating I wanted to step into a startup. And so, as every student does, you're kind of there going, right, you know, where do I start here to try and get an interview? And then I saw a LinkedIn post from Chris Donnelly, and it basically said, you know, look, we've just set up this company, there's two of us. So Chris started Lottie with his brother Will, you know, we're looking for, for kind of applications, anyone who thinks that they'd be interested in being part of kind of a VC-backed hypergrowth startup. And then coincidentally, as I saw that LinkedIn, I actually got a message from one of my friends from university who knew the Donnelly brothers and said, basically screenshotted the LinkedIn post and said, you know, these guys are great and this might be one for you. And so at that point I was like, okay, I was interested in that post, a mate who I trust quite a lot sent it to me and said, you know, these guys are good. And so I knew that you know, this was very interesting. And so obviously I think the biggest bit of advice, or kind of looking back in hindsight, the best thing I did was not try and just apply quickly and then apply to 10 other jobs that same day. I went, you know what, I'm gonna go all in here on this application. And so spent the whole day, probably 6 to 8 hours, crafting kind of a best boat cover letter, looking at my CV obviously, and then I also put together a presentation which included 10 marketing ideas on how to launch Lottie across the UK. And so submitted that, and I think that's what ultimately made me stand out for the founders at the time. I got invited in, so kind of went into not too far from actually where this is being filmed in Bishopgate, so Liverpool Street, and just got on like a house on fire. And from that point onwards, kind of got offered the job, and then we, we never looked back.

Yeah, and I think what must have been pretty special about that role, especially compared to the big corporate you were in before, is that feeling of empowerment in a career sense, like what you're being tasked with, but then also the support of the founders that you had. Like, it's almost like the perfect place to like hone your craft as a founder in. So tell me sort of what it was like to, to be working in amongst that team, because obviously it's gone on to be— it's now a unicorn right now.

Uh, not, not quite, it's not quite a unicorn, but it's now, you know, 50 people, Series So it's, uh, yeah, it's not slowing down anytime soon.

Exactly, so yeah, just talk me through what it was like there and the biggest learnings you took from that.

Yeah, so I think when I get asked, you know, how do I find a startup to kind of have that first job in and what do you look for, I think for me it was a case of you have to believe in the idea to then be able to invest your time into a startup at that earlier stage. I think the second most important thing is do you get on with these people? You know, I knew when I went into that, that WeWork office, it didn't feel like an interview, it just felt like mates catching up, right? And so I knew, you know, if I'm going to lock myself in an office with just 4 of us at the time, you know, for 8, 10, 12 hours a day, you know, can I do it with these people? And I absolutely thought I could. I think people don't realize when you join a very early-stage startup, you know, you see these people more than your partner, your parents, your friends. And so it's important that you know that you can get on in both a professional sense, but also, you know, can you go for a drink after work and kind of relax a little bit, because it's really important in that kind of early-stage startup environment. And so, yeah, the early days were very full-on, it wasn't kind of a 9 to 5, 5 days a week, it was, you know, any hours, 7 days a week. There was only 4 of us for the first 6 months, and so it was very much a case of, you know, who can wear the most hats. We don't have dedicated teams yet, it's a case of this is a problem and who's kind of gonna tackle that, which is great, which is fun, and you get a lot of exposure to everything, which is what I loved. And then obviously we raised a seed round, so the next round of funding, and that's when kind of more people join the team and you kind of have to face slightly different challenges in scaling a team and getting on with colleagues that potentially don't know as well, but it was a great experience and honestly I think one of the best things graduates can do.

Yeah, and you know, if we use myself as an example and compare it to your, your story, obviously I started this, The Graduate, as a passion project at the time, um, and it's given me loads of amazing opportunities to work in various different companies in the startup world. And you know, I kind of wanted to— I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I tried to experience as many different industries as possible with like different founders. And I think ultimately I You know, I couldn't, like you said, commit myself to being in that close an environment with these people building an idea that I didn't truly believe in. And like, that's no discredit to them, like the founders, you know, there's a different feeling when it's your own, right? And obviously I kept having that in the back of my head, there was always this to come back to, like there's something here, I know there is. But I wonder with you, obviously you're in this team that's flying, like, you know, everything looks amazing and you've got this idea, or, you know, of Haas, sort of. I wonder what stage it was at, maybe when you joined, uh, Lottie, and how that idea progressed in terms of, I need to do this now or it's not going to happen.

Yes, spot on. I think ultimately the reason why I made the tough decision to depart was exactly that, is, you know, you love the company, you love the people, but ultimately it's not it's not your baby. And so if you have that kind of entrepreneurial itch, you can dedicate, I think, 1 to 2 years and learn a lot, but actually staying at a startup for, you know, 2, 3, 5, 10 years potentially is something that maybe isn't the best approach. I think it's worth noting that kind of within the first 3 to 6 months, I actually approached the Donnellys, so the co-founders, and said, look, I have this idea, I think it's good, I might leave to go and build it, or actually I'm happy to build it within Lottie. And this was a product that was called in the end Senior Care by Lottie. It was and is now the largest elder care employee benefit in the UK, and so it's a B2B enterprise SaaS product. I conceptualised that literally on a piece of paper. We then got the engineering team at Lottie to build it out, and then I spent kind of the last year of my time at Lottie, selling that into the likes of Unilever, Diageo, DHL, so some big companies. And I think that scratched the entrepreneurial itch enough for me to stay at the company for 2, 2 and a half years. But it was at the point that I realised, you know, I could step back here and this could carry on going in an upward trajectory, that I was like, okay, now it's probably a good time to go and look at something, and something that I could build and own myself. And so I think I think it was the last 6 months where I started thinking, okay, where do I want to build? What am I liking in terms of where technology can be applied, specifically AI, something that I'm passionate about? And so has kind of started being conceptualized those last 6 months at Lottie.

Yeah, and I think the difference with what you're building at Hazen and why you were able to raise as much as you did was because I feel like this space is very well known that there's a lot going on there and that, you know, there is room, like a big market there, right? You know, it's sustainable, it's forward-thinking, you know, it's digitalized, and this is all relatively new terms in terms of business. And I think, you know, I would love for you to explain what HAZR is from your side, but from the outside looking in, it really is that bringing that social element to what is just essentially trading and selling, you know, it's making it fun for people that that, like myself, that find it quite a mundane experience selling things.

Yeah, yeah, exactly that. Um, so I think in a nutshell, what we're trying to do here is basically take digital receipts that sit dormant in people's inboxes whenever they buy anything, and we're going to use AI to turn that into content for friends to consume. I think, um, if we just break down that sentence, that's exactly what Hazz as a business is. So obviously we have huge market incumbents in this space already. So we have eBay, we have Depop, we have Vinted that's just turned profitable, and there's all lots of kind of pricing wars that are going on between those competitors. What we're doing at HAZZ is trying to see how we can apply the latest AI technology to make the experience of buying and selling anything that you own, whether that's clothes, iPhones, tables, furniture, homeware, and can we make it much more efficient and easier to, one, list these for sale, and two, can we make it a social concept? Can we actually involve friendship groups who want to react on your latest purchases? Um, can we show people how the resale value of items are changing over time? I think one of the biggest issues in the secondhand space is a lack of knowledge. People don't know what things are worth. You know, you just think, okay, I've had this t-shirt for 2 years, um, you know, I've worn it so many times, it's probably not worth anything. And so we're trying to create almost an investment app for the things that you own, so you can track something from the price that you bought it for all the way down to, okay, I've had it for 2 years, it's now worth 73% less, but at least you know and you go, okay, I don't wear this anymore, I'm now gonna sell it. And that's really what we're trying to do, is create the next generation of secondhand with HAZZ.

Just generally speaking, it's taking that friction out of decision-making, isn't it? Which I think, you know, for anything, it just generally apps and when you go on your phone, like there are a lot of industries or apps that do have friction in it, and I think, yeah, this does sound like the next step in, yeah, in selling secondhand stuff. So, I mean, why for you are you so convinced in the idea though? Because that's what you want people to see it as, but for you, what does it mean to you?

Yeah, I mean, I had firsthand experience buying and selling secondhand actually using Depop in 2017. So one of the many business ventures that I've kind of started, uh, mainly kind of failed business ventures between pretty much the age of 7 all the way up to the age I am now, I was actually buying and selling clothes out of my university halls in first year at Loughborough. And so we were taking large boxes of clothes from across Europe in wholesale, and then we were kind of cleaning them up, distributing via Depop. And so that business taught me, one, how long it took to list things for sale, two, how kind of mundane and transactional it was. It was very much so a kind of side hustle, but it just was boring, lonely, and I felt like there must be a better way. So that's where kind of the seed was sown, I guess, in 2017. I then obviously got distracted, I guess, building Lottie, although that was a great experience. And then I kind of think, as I stepped away from Lottie, it was that seed that had grown, and that's why I stepped into that industry. So I think for us, you know, we didn't want to build in a space which kind of was just fun alone. We want to give people extra cash in their pockets, you know. We're entering an economic downturn, or we're in an economic downturn, and what are the kind of few things that people are actually interested in? It's making more cash. And so that's why we're building in this space. Obviously, we want to make it easier for people, you know. People have less and less time, and so we're trying to save people time, give them extra money, and we don't think there's kind of a better way of applying AI technology than in helping people sell their unwanted stuff.

I mean, I'm personally sold. I'm sure everyone else listening is as well. And, you know, one thing I'm always curious about in the podcast and just hearing your story and your journey so far in your career, it's that when do you know it's time to do something? You know, obviously sometimes it's out of your control. If we take COVID and, you know, your hockey career, for example, and other times it's such a deep burning feeling within you, but it's still, you know, you have to make that jump. It's a big, like, it's very— you have to feel very confident in yourself. And, you know, especially when you, you mentioned that you look at the market, the industry, you know, everybody says how difficult it's going to be to raise money at the moment, but you still went ahead and did it. So just for, yeah, for students listening, why do you think you know, people should believe in yourself at an early stage in their career, because it's clearly something that you've done many times in your career.

Yeah, I think it's obviously easy to look from the outside in and go, you know, he left his job, raised money, and is now building his own company. But actually, if we break that down for the kind of steps that people don't know to get into that point, you know, whilst at Lottie and then for a few months after leaving Lottie, myself and my business partner Glenn, we had no idea what we wanted to do, in all honesty. And so we just were two friends using any spare time that we had to build consumer apps. And so, you know, we built an app that was like TikTok but viewing properties. We built an app which was like TikTok but viewing spare rooms. We built a dating app. And so we're kind of there in, in the background pushing out these consumer apps that get 1,000 users, right? And, you know, it doesn't make a splash or anything like that, but ultimately these experiences are the things that give you that extra 10% of confidence every time you build an app and you go, okay, we learned this and we saw that people used this. And so it's basically building up the confidence by just doing before you're ready to try and take that next step. And in my case, it was obviously quitting my job, raising a £1.1 million investment, and then trying to, trying to build quite a large social consumer app. So I think it's important, again, you know, everything we see on social media is always the highlights, but actually there's a lot of people that have used their spare time and their passion initially to kind of build that confidence and that learning up before you're ready to take that big leap.

I'm curious, um, as someone who's, you know, recently sort of, let's say, announced yourself as a solo founder on LinkedIn, um, you know, you are working under two of the biggest creators in the UK in terms of having a personal brand on LinkedIn, and I imagine you would have seen the firsthand effects of how that helped grow their business. Um, how, how do you perceive LinkedIn as a platform and, and what do you plan to, you know, obviously we're filming this for TikTok now. I mean, I personally was never like, I was always someone who had a fear of cringe and like didn't post Instagram captions but realized the power of it, you know, and, and the connectivity of it. So yeah, how do you sort of view the platform and, and how you're going to build on it from now on?

Yeah, I, I think the world we live in right now is is crazy. Content is so important now. I am, yeah, like you say, number one in feeling cringe when you put yourself out there and you do anything slightly, you know, I guess perceived as not cool on TikTok, on LinkedIn, you know. Unfortunately, what I'm realizing is it is so important to try and film everything you do and document everything you do, you know. At worst, it's just nice to look back on. I know one of the biggest regrets at Lottie from the founders was not filming enough in the earlier stages, you know. There's a couple of Snapchat Snapchat selfies as the only bits of content that they have to remember kind of major milestones. And I think that's what pushed Chris Donnelly, who's obviously doing very well on LinkedIn, to now turn it into kind of a, a big, uh, full-time project of his. Um, I think it's just so important now, um, to just pick up your phone and start filming. Don't put too much pressure on yourself. Um, and if you feel comfortable enough to potentially push something out, you know, if you even want to create a side account and not connect with your friends or anything like that and start that way, I think that's a good way of getting over that initial hurdle of that fear of people judging you. And then you just get more and more used to it, you start seeing the results that content and social can bring, and I think all those fears kind of slowly melt away when you realize, you know, pretty much a thing getting in the way of me and my goals is, you know, content and getting the word out there on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn. Obviously for me, I'm a consumer founder, and so LinkedIn isn't where kind of our target audience, um, are going to be. But still, you know, it's important for investors, for future employees, that you are making a bit of noise on that platform. And then obviously on TikTok, um, basically making a fool of myself as much as I can to try and entertain people whilst also tying in kind of the story of, of HAZZ. And so I'm still getting there to get over that cringe of posting, but like you say, I've set up a camera here to potentially film some TikToks, and kind of that's where we're at the minute.

I think the ability to just go ahead and do something like that and put a camera up there, you are at the end of the day a product of your environment. And I think, and this is a lesson for students as well, where I think like, you know, whether it's like harnessing entrepreneurial ambition you kind of need the people around you, or like this, your business partner now that you play around with, and you don't treat it as too much of a chore. And I wonder for you what, you know, in a different stage of your life you would have been around, you know, whether it's more athletes and the hockey team, whatever. But do you notice the power of like who you're surrounding yourself with, and how did that sort of come into your decision-making when picking your co-founder ultimately?

Yeah, I think for me nothing bad has ever come out of seeing people pick up a phone and start shooting content. It's always good, you know, it's good news whenever someone starts filming their journey, whatever that may be, a sporting context, a business context. And so I think there's very few occasions when actually something bad has happened. It's always like, okay, wow, there's new opportunities, doors have opened because I'm putting myself out there. I think in terms of surrounding yourself by certain people, it's a skill. I think a lot of people just think, okay, uh, people just fall in circles, um, and they get lucky. No, I think networking is such an underrated skill and something that should be taught in schools. It's, you know, um, finding a group, learning from them, um, and then potentially providing value back, and then getting connected, um, with kind of the next person. In terms of how Glenn and I met, again, it's, it's, uh, a slightly I guess peculiar story. He built quite a well-known dating app called Blindly, which got a bit of PR coverage across TechCrunch, Forbes. I was still at Lottie at the time, but I just decided to reach out to him and kind of, I went, you know, should we grab a pint? I'm interested to hear, you know, how you built the app, how you found it, and pretty much from that point onwards 'You know, we just became friends and then now look, we're building a business together.' So it's those small messages where you just reach out on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram that might turn into kind of really big changes in your life.

Yeah, and networking is definitely something I've identified in my early stage of my career is like one of the cornerstones of, you know, achieving what you want to. And I think the other side of that, and whether that's like for, you know, within Lottie actually selling to two companies, this product that you built, or, you know, selling to investors when you're raising money, the power of selling. And I think that you can never learn that too early, you know, whether that's even in a job interview, you know, selling yourself. So what would you say is your sort of top 3 pieces of advice to a student that even maybe actionable steps they can take in becoming a better salesperson?

Yeah, I think specifically on the sales side, I think it's just being open to everything, and I know that's cliché, and that can start really small. That can start with, okay, I've got a recruiter messaging me, I'm straight out of university, they want to place me in a job. You know, most people push back from recruiters, but actually, you know, there's no harm in jumping on a 15-minute call with them and just to hear what they're seeing. You know, okay, the student job market is really difficult right now, we're seeing that students are doing very well in this space, and so the first thing is being open to everything you know, the opportunities that have been presented to myself and everyone I know through slightly unusual interactions. You know, I was at a pub and someone happened to be talking about something that led to me getting a job. You know, it happens more than, than we know in this world. And so the first is being open to everything. I think the second is realizing that nobody knows what they're doing. It's so easy as a grad to come out and think, you know, wow, these people are so comfortable in front of, you know, cameras or when speaking to other people when trying to sell something. Nobody has any idea what they're doing. Everyone is—

I can relate to that.

Yeah, everyone's nervous, everyone, you know, makes things up and kind of scrambles and then ultimately, you know, either fails or succeeds. So I think it's just really important realizing no matter where you're at, no matter how old you are, Nobody ever knows what they're doing. I really, you know, yes, I'm learning as we go, but still have no idea half the things I do on a daily basis. So I think it's important to realise that even though you're a student, you're a grad, you know, even 40, 50, 60-year-old bosses still have no idea what they're doing.

Yeah, I think it's that like repetitiveness and reiterating that brings that like confidence and delivery, as opposed to maybe knowing it more. Do you know what I mean? It's like just a little bit more, okay, I've had approval from someone that what I said then was correct, so let's play it, try it again on another person. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, mate, you've been, you've been a brilliant guest today, and I have my final question for you that I ask every single one of my guests. And it's, when you were at university, you know, again, you know, trying to make it in the sports world but also keeping your academics going, you would have had a certain idea of what a successful career would look like to you. And fast forward with all the success you've achieved in the startup world and, you know, raising money What is your sort of current definition of success and how has it changed from beforehand?

So I think, like most naive students, you think the definition of success is money. I still don't have any, but ultimately what we're trying to do here is build freedom. I think freedom is the definition of success. And so yes, there's some weeks where we're locked in a WeWork room 12 hours a day, but ultimately what we're trying to get to is building a business that provides myself and Glenn Eventually freedom, and also having the freedom to choose and make decisions and strategize. I think it's not just freedom in terms of how quickly can I sit on a beach, it's how quickly can you get to a point where you're able to choose on a daily basis, you know, decisions that impact your life. And ultimately, in kind of the longer stages, where you want to be, whether that's how much you own, how much you make. So I think freedom's the key to success.

Yeah, and I love that your, your quest for freedom is also in turn giving other people more freedom financially as well. So yeah, I think that's a really lovely definition of success. And, uh, yeah, thanks for coming on again.

Brilliant, thanks for having me. Thank you.