#341. Dubai Entrepreneur's £33 Million Business Blueprint - William Brown

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And I think more and more people are learning now that if they've got a skill or a talent or some specialist knowledge, they can sell it to other people.

So give me an example of your last month turnover.

So right now we're doing about 600k a month.

Bloody hell. That's, that's, that's. That's unheard of. So did you move to Dubai on purpose that you wouldn't have to pay tax?

Yes, I moved here for two reasons. To not pay tax and for the weather. It's just a city built for entrepreneurs.

Just feels like this place is just rising at such a rate where the UK is skipping at such a rate. How Would you turn entrepreneurship into a business?

There's so many ways to do it. Like some.

What's the easiest way?

This sounds so stupid. Even I think I'm a knob for, for saying this, but that 10 month.

Period when selling the company took me through that.

It was the number one most stressful time of my entire life ever. I was like, if this doesn't close, I do not know what I'm going to do. Man, this is a weird industry because you can make a lot of cash quite fast. It's the best thing in the world, man. It's so fun to make good money, work with good people. You can teach almost anything. I know a guy doing about 70k a month teaching wildlife photography. All the cash I've ever collected through the payment processor the other day, it's about, I think it's $33.1 million.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host, Dodge, and I'm the founder of Bournemouth Sevens, the world's largest sport and music festival. On this podcast, I speak to proper characters of all lived eventful lives. Do us a favor and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at DodgeWoodle, where we've now had over 100 million views. Where do you live? You went, I actually live in Dubai and Bali and okay, great. I said, when you come to England next, come down to Bournemouth and we'll get you on the show. And you phoned her back about 10 minutes later and went, how's about I fly you out to Dubai, put you up at business class and put you up in five star, then we come to show you. I was like done timed it with Dubai Sevens this weekend. So we're finally here. So thank you very much. It's a very kind offer of you pleasure. Yeah. So this roll all the way back. Who is William Brown?

I would say, oh, God, I've done so many weird things across my life. I mean, I kind of got into entrepreneurship when I was pretty young, so I used to, for example, I was skateboarding with my friends, but I would film and edit skateboard videos and try and sell them. Then I got into graffiti and started a magazine and got that stocked in UK art stores and stuff. Graffiti led me to music, which was my first ever proper career. So I was making electronic music and DJing, played in over 45 countries all around the world. So that was very fun.

Is that right?

Yep.

Oh, wow.

And then because of how shit the money was as. As a musician.

Yep.

I started trading financial markets.

Yeah.

And that one day I had a little Twitter account with like 200 followers. One day somebody messaged me and asked for my help. And that was the start of my E Learning company that I. That I built and sold. That guy gave me £50, came to my mum's house, sat next to me for three hours, walked away with a word doc. I proceeded to sell that word doc to other people and that was the start of the education company. So I built the education company, grew that sold it, moved to Dubai in the kind of middle of that, started the consulting business that I run now, bought some real estate along the way. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. So just a entrepreneur slash founder, I guess.

Good for you. So let's roll away back. What age were you when you were DJ in that period there?

About 19 to 25.

Okay, okay. And where, what sort of countries are you traveling to?

Everywhere, man, everywhere. So I DJ'd in America and Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia or all over Europe. Just, just everywhere, man.

It was great and all dance music.

Yeah, just electronic music, essentially.

Yeah, amazing. Yeah, amazing. And then you got to a point where you met that person. What was the bit when you, what, how old were you when you set up your company that you actually end up selling in the end?

Yeah, well, what happened was, so I was about 25 ish, 25, 26 years old, and I still live with my parents. I had a few thousand to my name, I don't know, 3, 4, 5, 5K. And my friends were starting to get married, have kids, buy their first house. And I was like, honestly, I felt like a bit of a broke loser, to be honest. And it was so weird because people thought I was doing really well because I had lots of followers and I was DJing all over the world and stuff. But the truth of it was I was getting paid like five or six hundred pounds a show and doing sometimes one show a month or three shows a month. Sometimes I do a tour and do 12 shows in a month, then no shows in a month, then two shows in a month. So if anything, it taught me capital management for. For damn sure, because I made such sporadic money and look, I had a decent car on finance and stuff like that to try and make myself feel better, I guess. All for show or more or less. Yeah, yeah. And I just started thinking to myself, shit, like, I don't have the money to move out, I don't have the money to buy the car that I want. I can't go on like, very nice holidays. I can't fly business class. I can't buy my own house. I couldn't even really rent a nice apartment or house. And things just started to get financially real when I was 25, 26, when I was seeing these things happen. And I started thinking, well, I've kind of got two options. I can, like, try and grow the music career. Which, honestly, I didn't want to do. I was getting so tired of traveling.

Very difficult as well.

Lonely on. On the road. I couldn't afford to take my girlfriend with me and pay for. Because if I paid for an extra flight, my fees gone. Yeah, for God's sakes. So I just remember feeling super like, what the do I do? And I remember thinking I was applying for a job at a motorway service station to get a bit more money and I felt like such a loser, you know, and. But it was, it was so weird because I was like, famous a bit on the one hand to the outside world, broke as on the inside. Living with my parents and trying to make sure no one found that out. Yeah, it was weird. And then I found. I remember I was DJing in London at this club called Fabric. Right?

What a club.

Great club. And then I came home the next day and I literally, I remember this so clearly. I got home and there was a trading documentary on tv. Super glamorized. Not real life whatsoever, but following a mix of traders. And it looked like they were making loads of money very easily from home. So I was like, wow, that was my first ever time learning that you can make money on the Internet.

Yeah, okay.

I never knew that you could make money from a computer before them. And that blew me away. So straight away I went on Google. The first broker that I found, I put £500 in an account. Off I went as, as a trader, I grew that 500 up to about 6 or 7k over about half a year. Lost almost all of it in a day, which is like a very, very common story for. For the traders. And at that stage, I took a little bit of money out that I had left. I remember buying a course from this guy called, called Chris. I learned to trade properly, started a Twitter account where I would chat to my friends and other traders and stuff, which is still there to this day. Fast forward six or seven months. This random guy messages me one day and says, hey, I've been following your Twitter. It looks like you're doing well. Can I pay you for some help? He PayPal me 50 pounds or 50 whatever. It was came to my, my mom's house and that was the start of the business. And that was about 2018. Yeah. That that first customer came into the business and that company started.

And what was that company?

So it was a e learning company in the trading education space and it evolved a lot over the years. I owned it for about five and a half years before I sold it to private equity last year.

Okay.

Across the five years we did 16.4 million in total. So a lot changed.

Pounds, Dollars.

Dollars. Okay. So a lot changed.

Yeah.

From my mum's house selling a 50 word document to selling a company to private equity, which is crazy.

Did you own 100 of that company?

Yes.

Good for you.

Yeah. And that's the journey. Yeah. Five years later we'd built it and sold it.

And what was that journey like? It's quite easy to say we built a business over five years, but within that five years of building a business, you know, I've been lucky enough to exited two businesses. There's a lot of hard graph. There's times when you, you're thinking, is this really going to work?

Yeah.

You're employing loads of people, you're just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks and what works. What's that journey like for you? Actually emotionally and physically?

Crazy.

Yeah.

It was such a, such a story. I, I remember when that first guy paid me, my first thought was, hold on a minute, people will pay me just to tell them stuff. And that blew my mind. Yeah. I couldn't believe someone would give me money to just tell them stuff. And then I thought, well, I kept a copy of that and I thought if I messaged some of my other followers maybe they will buy it. And two or three did. And I was like, wow, that was like £200 for basically nothing.

Yeah.

Just to give them information. And then that year it was 2018, it turned from a word doc into a much longer kind of ebook and then an ebook with a Dropbox folder of videos. And I slowly raised the price. That first year I made about 22 grand pounds turnover. Yeah, turnover. Cash. Just, just me on my own. The next year I realized that, hold on a minute. If people find me on Twitter and follow me, they get to know me, they like me, they trust me and they want help. So what if I start a YouTube channel, drive that traffic to Twitter and get more people and hopefully more sales in year two through doing that alone, we did about a quarter of a million pound pounds cash that second year.

Yeah.

At the end of the second Year that was more money than I'd ever seen in my bloody life. So that, that alone was. Was amazing.

And in that second year, you built up from 22 grand turnover to quarter of a million pound turnover. How many staff would you have had for that?

Oh, dude, I had, I had one support guy and one coach. Okay. Yeah. So the margin was, was absolutely massive. No paid ads, nothing like that. And then at the end of the second year, I bought a coaching program from this guy, Alex Becker, and I learned all about like paid ads and proper pricing and sales funnels and stuff like that. And then in January 2020, I. I'll never forget this. We, we turned on paid ads for the first time. And then that third year we did £1.1 million. Y saw a massive jump just from paid ads. Basically we just built this like webinar that people would watch and we ran paid ads to this webinar that would tell them who I am, what I do and stuff. And then they could buy a 2K program at the end of it. And that got us to about a quarter of a million a month by really the start of year four.

Okay, so you went from 20 grand to a quarter of a mil to 1.2 mil. How much to get to that? 1.2 mil. How much roughly did you spend on paid ads?

We were, back then, we were about, we about 4x. So we'll have spent about a quarter of a million on ads to do about 1.1. Yeah, okay, we did so.

Okay, brilliant.

Yeah.

And then what was the journey after that?

So the journey after that was. Well, I moved to Dubai there, but the point there.

So you did 1.1, say roughly turnover. Where's the point when you go, now's the right time to sell for sure.

So year three was when we did 1.1 into year four and we did 2.7 pounds. And we actually changed the model in the fourth year. We went from a webinar to a sales team and that's when the company got a lot bigger. We were constantly hiring sales reps and appointment setters and stuff and building much more of a kind of professional infrastructure. We had a few different products by that stage that were much more expensive as well. We were spending a lot of bloody money on ads. We were spending our height. We were spending about 7,000 a day. A day on, on paid ads. That was the, the height of the company. Year four. Year five. Yes. And by year five, I'd. This sounds so strange to say, but I'd achieved all my financial Dreams, you know, I'd made like millions of pounds. I'd bought loads of property by, by that stage. And I remember I was sat in the cafe of the building that I'm in. Right. Right now. Yeah. In Dubai. The address. And I was writing in my journal one day, just thinking, what am I going to do for the next one or two or three years? And I felt like I'd outgrown the company because this stage I'd stopped trading. So I felt out of alignment with the customers. I'd made more money than I could have ever bloody dreamed of on dividends. Well, I'd moved the company to Dubai.

Yeah.

By that stage. So we'd, we'd restructured it.

Fantastic.

Right, we can talk about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm intrigued. Intrigued. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Moving to Dubai.

So did you move to Dubai on purpose that you wouldn't have to pay tax?

Yes. Yeah. I, I moved here for two reasons. To not pay tax and for the weather. Yeah. Those were the two reasons that got me here.

Two very good reasons.

Very good reasons. And we can talk about how I ended up. Yeah, yeah, in a sec. But I moved to Dubai. Oh, God. When was it? It was May 2021.

And how old would you have been roughly then?

30.

30. Okay.

Yeah, so I was 30. That was when we were doing about a quarter of a million a month. Yeah. Because I remember the month after I moved, everything started to fucking break in the business. Like the ads weren't as profitable, the funnel wasn't working, all this stuff. And that's when we moved from the webinar to the sales team. Raised prices, started building more of an infrastructure like a real business.

By that stage, do you regret any of that point? Because it seemed like you're really enjoying it. But we've all been there. When you get you hiring too many people, it gets too big, it gets too confusing, it gets too much. And this time you're sitting there going, what am I doing with this?

For 100%. Yeah, 100%. That's when things started to change for the better and for the worse. Okay, for the better. Because we grew the business so much. We grew from about 250 to almost 800k per month.

Yeah.

Because of the sales team. So that's great.

So we're looking at 2mil, roughly 2mil turnover to roughly 8 or 10mil turnover at the end of the year for the.

Oh, yeah, we, we were tracking for. I don't have the exact number. We were tracking for about 11 million a year. Pounds US dollars.

US dollars. Okay.

The year that I signed the LOI to. To sell the company. LOI letter of intent. Yep. Yep. So, yeah, for the. The good was the money and the growth. The bad was my number one worst thing that I enjoy, which is team and management and hiring and firing and meetings. Oh, God. It was becoming like a corporation by the end of that company, and I just hated it. And I remember thinking, I wish I could go back to. To the. To the. Maybe the. The third year was the best. It was like me and a coach and a support guy making honestly, like just insane amounts of liquid cash. It's just crazy.

Roughly.

I reckon year three, with a little bit of ads, the margin must have been 71, 2, 3% net profit. Net profit.

My God.

Yeah.

Why would you want to. Why would you want to change it?

Is it.

Is that a case of. I'm so happy with this because you look back now and we look back and we think 71% net profit. We'll all jump on that. All day long.

Yeah.

You must look at that and go, were you at a point going, no, no, no, no. If I grow a bigger sales team and I get more people, we could take this to whatever. Whatever figure we want to take it. But then you realize by having all these more people, your net profits goes down, becomes more headache.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Like, dude.

Yeah.

One of my biggest regrets is just driving down the profit margin. So when I sold that company, the margin was about 32. Okay.

Which is still. Which is still good. Is that net or gross?

Net.

Net is still fantastic. That's marvelous. Still.

Yeah. Yeah. So do it, man.

But it's not 70.

But it's not 70. Yeah. Towards the end of that company, I was pocketing about120,000 pounds a month net.

Yeah.

Which is just crazy. But yeah, that. That was the transition from very easy and fun and high profit. And honestly, the two reasons that I made the change were ambition and greed.

Okay.

I just felt like I can go further. I can build a bigger business. I've got massive momentum and I want more money.

Yeah.

As well.

Yeah. That's interesting because there is. I'm always driving. I'm a lifestyle entrepreneur. I don't like to build big teams. I like to keep tight teams. I like to have teams under 10 people. Comes manageable, comes more fun. If you start building over 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 people. Politics, gossip, people are sleeping with each other like this. Just all the stuff that goes on that becomes unmanageable and comes Unenjoyable.

Yeah.

You know, you become, if you're anywhere like 20, 30, 40 staff, you're too big to be small. You're too small to be big. You're caught in this sort of this wilderness desert area. That's just not fun. And when I mentor other people, I say if you can keep under 10 people, it becomes real fun. You know, you have freedom, you have fun. But that's really interesting. I really, I do appreciate, honestly on that. What was the point when you said I want to sell or did someone approach you?

Yeah, so like I was saying a second ago, I was sat having a coffee, writing in my journal and just thinking like what do I want to do for the next few years? And I thought, well, I'm out of alignment with the customers. I don't enjoy running the business anymore. I don't need the money from running the business anymore. And I remember writing down If I had 100 million in cash, what would I do with my time if I just did not ever need money again? And I wrote down talk about business. Yeah, that's my number one favorite thing to do in, in the world. I just love it same. I can tell same. Love it. So. And the minute that I wrote that down, I whatsapped one of my mentors whose mastermind I was in. I was in this financial literacy mastermind. And I knew that he'd sold a few companies. So a guy called Dan Bradbury, okay.

English from about, in England or based here or.

Yeah, English guy. So I whatsapped him and I said Dan, please can you help me sell my company? And we decided on a fee. I won't say the fee. And he started mentoring me through it. And he held me my hand for the first few months. It was November 2022, I think. And then, yeah, November 2022. And then we sold September 2023. And Dan held my hand through the entire thing. He helped me find the M and A advisor, he helped me do the IM document, he helped me take it out to market. Investor memorandum. And yeah, he was the one that largely Dan and my M and A adviser, Dominic, I could not have sold without those two guys, man. No way. Yeah, yeah.

How long did it take? Was it you said it 10 months to you from advisory to actually sale. Yeah, that 10 month period when selling the company, Talk me through, talk me through that.

It was the number one most stressful time of my entire life ever. I missed one of my best friends weddings. I missed. Ah, yeah, it was horrible. But really worth it, like really Worth it, but bloody horrible.

It's the due diligence becomes a ball. Like they want questions and questions and questions and you fire your answers and answer answers and they think that someone opens up another can of worms. Want more questions. And I understand if you're buying a company. Yeah, like the companies I've sold, I've always had 100 money up front and no earn out. I've never gone with the company. I never wanted to go to the company. So then you get even more questions because they need to know what they're buying is correct. And I get it. But actually for someone like yourself who's selling the company, there's a lot of hard graft in there. There's. There are sleepless nights. Is this going to get over the line? What happens if it doesn't get over the line? What am I doing? My life, everything. Can I go and you know, you're thinking about what will I go and where will I move to? What will I do with my, my other half? All these questions are all, all juggling in the air until that piece of paper is signed. That 10 month period, would you say that was the most stress you've been under in your, in your short career so far?

By far. Because there was so many. I could tell you like three full stories about all the different things that happened.

But go, go.

Just to walk you through the journey. So I said to Dan, can you help me sell? And he was like, yes, I can. He looked at all our numbers and I remember on our, probably our first call, he said to me, so what do you want to sell for? And I said, if I can get one year's net in cash and basically save myself a year and then I can go and do my new business, I'd be very happy. He said, you're a idiot if you sell for 1x. He suggested that we go for 3 to 3 1/2x.

So roughly three times your net profit.

Exactly. Okay, exactly.

Why is he, why is he going for three on an online. Why wasn't he pushing fives and sevens and tens? Or was that not, was that not reasonable at the time?

Yeah, he thought for the key man risk in the business, for the track record, okay, he, he thought 3x was about right. I then got introduced to my M. A advisor who was the one that basically mergers and acquisitions advisor. So he was helping me build the IM, the sales document and then he was the one that started taking it out to market. And then within about three months we had a Canadian venture capital firm that was interested. We signed an LOI went into due diligence. About six weeks later, they bought a different company.

Okay.

And we were back to square one.

How did that make you feel then? Because when you've got someone on the hook gently and you think, oh this could be the one, this could be the one, all of a sudden you get an email the next day going thanks for all your information. We looked at it, it's not for us. How did you feel that moment?

Crushed. Yeah, I remember I was at the Atlantis with my girlfriend having like a couple of days break. I remember I was in the room on my laptop looking at the view when I got the email and they were like, yeah, we're going to buy something else. And I just, I felt like maybe I can't sell this thing, maybe it's not good enough. Maybe I'm not good enough. So much like doubt washed over me at that stage. But I just thought let's keep going, surely we can make this, this happen. I've always just had this massive sense of like persistence. If, if I don't give up, surely I can learn eventually. It has always been my attitude. So I went back to Dominic, my advisor. He kept sending the IM out. Then we had a private equity firm called Highview from America interested and then we signed an LOI with them in April and then they bought it in in September. So we went into due diligence and they started doing all the usual stuff, interviewing the team, interviewing the customers. He went through the program, he put his partner through the program, went through all the ads, went through compliance, blah blah blah. And then at the very last minute I was in England about 10 days before closing. I remember I was in a hotel in my parents village where they live. Where they live north of England in a place called Clitheroe.

Manchester way.

Yeah, about an hour north of Manchester. And the founder of the PE firm sent us an email saying something like we need an urgent call today. And I was like why? Why would you need an urgent call when we're about to close? Everything's done, everything's almost ready to go. So I called Dominic and I was like do you want an urgent meeting today? I'm with my parents, we're going out for dinner or something. He was like it's probably nothing, let's just hop on zoom in an hour. So we hopped on zoom and then the founder of the private equity firm was on the call and he was like listen, we've just re gone through the P. Ls and there's this mistake. There's this mistake. There's this mistake. This is. This is meant to be £320amonth, but it's actually £670amonth. You said this was 2K a month, but it's actually 900amonth. And I myself, Dominic himself, we were like, oh, my God. Yeah. And then I had to basically go back to my accountant and I paid like 12 grand or something to get them to rebuild all the books as fast as possible. And then we got the new books back to them, and then basically, thankfully, they were like, right, we're still gonna buy you, but we're knocking like 300 grand.

Did they chip you today?

Yeah, they did, yeah. Like days. Yeah, like days before closing.

By the way, that's not for your behalf. That's bad. On their behalf. Anyone who comes in last minute and chips, I'm not cool with that.

We. We never knew whether it was like a penny you over strategy or an.

Actual or a genuine. We found this.

I. To be honest, I mean, the guy that runs that P firm is a great guy. Down to earth, hard working, very focused, really good guy. I. I love him and trust him. To be honest, I think it was just our fault because for the first few years of the business, I was just building ghetto Excel.

Of course, you're doing it yourself. Working all out.

Yeah, I was just going through the Amex and going through the Visa and stuff and doing it myself. And I even told him that in the end, I was like, yeah, I'm not surprised because it's me doing the books and I'm not a bookkeeper. But anyway, we got it through.

How long was a quick one. How long did you send them the books before they came back last minute and said, oh, we found this stuff.

May, June, July, August, probably about 5.

So they had all this. Yeah, definite tactics. Yeah, you think, oh, 100, 100. So they've sat on that for five months. They can come in at last minute knowing, yeah, roles reverse, but you're waiting on your big deal, your big payday, and they've gone. So we've just found this and, like, they're take 300 grand off and you go, just take 300 grand. I don't care. Get over the line. I guess that was your attitude, wasn't it? You didn't fight it.

Oh, man. I remember after that Zoom call, I called Dominic and I was walking around the hotel room just thinking, I, bro, after all these months, after all these months, all the team members wondering, what's Going on. My best friend was the sales team manager and he was wondering, what's going on? I was like, if this doesn't close, yeah, I do not know what I'm gonna do, man. Because it's so hard to. When you think you're gonna get out.

You've switched off.

You've switched off.

I hear you.

You know, so I. I think I. If we wouldn't have sold, I think I just would have turned the company off.

Okay.

I think I just would have given everyone some money and said, listen, let's move on. Closed it. And I was just mentally. And this is the thing as well. When they asked me why I wanted to sell, yeah, I said to them, because I was pretty much removed from the business, but it wasn't removed from my head. Every day I was thinking, is this team member performing? Are we going to have to fire that person? How profitable are the ads? Oh, the profit margins down this month. Oh, my God. This is happening over here. This fire needs putting out. So, yes, I was removed and yes, I was making a lot. Six figures a month profit. But it was just in here every goddamn day.

Yeah.

You know, when I was on holiday, it was in here. When I'm traveling, it's in here. When I'm relaxing, it's in here.

Yeah. And that feeling, once you sign that piece of paper and it sold the money to the back, your brain releases all of that and it's gone and you are free. The freedom's unbelievable in the mind, isn't is? Yeah.

It's one of the best feelings in the world.

How much did you sell for in the end?

2.6X EBIDAR.

Okay.

Healthy number. To be honest, people can probably work out the sale price because I've just told them the bloody numbers.

Yeah, turn the numbers underground. Amount 1.2. Did a roughly 3, 3 and a half mil or something along those lines. Just. First of all, congratulations.

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Thanks man. Appreciate it.

Because it's not. Congratulations. Because it's not easy to sell a company.

Yeah.

You're in the top 0.1% of the 0.1%. You know, most businesses, 90 of businesses fail.

Yep.

You know, just, just to get to a point where there's someone interested in buying your company and get to a point where you've got the business over the line and it's sold. That's a huge achievement.

Yeah.

Huge achievement, mate.

I. The day that I sold it, I made a YouTube video. Right. Just, I just press record and just Talk for like 30 minutes all about the entire thing. And that's what blew up my YouTube channel.

Okay.

Helped me build the next business. So it's so funny. That very day that I sold.

Yeah.

Started the next bloody company on the.

Back of doing a YouTube video and going copyright. You liking this chat.

Exactly.

Wonderful. So tell me now then where you are in your life with the new business that you're currently doing.

So the new company, so it's called Build, Grow and exit dot com. Yep. And we help people to build and grow and exit these online learning companies basically. So we work with some people are beginners and they're doing it for the first time. Some people are already going and they want to scale. Some people are ready for exit. So I've just taken like that six years of my life and everything I did and learned and turned it into a consulting business to help other people to, to do the whole journey as well.

Okay.

And it started off the back of really that YouTube video that I made that day about.

Yeah, we're talking here.

That was September 2023.

Three. Okay.

Yeah. So we're about two years in, into this new company now and I've just taken all the shits and all the lessons and all the, all the things I did wrong. And I've tried to do the opposite over here. You know, massive team, small team, drove down the profit margin, tried to keep the margin high. All paid ads now it's more content.

Driven, so it's more organic.

This one more or less. Okay. Yeah, we, we, we've just started running some paid ads, but it's, it's super lean. It's really, really lean.

How many full time staff you got in this business right now?

Right now? So we've got 12.

Yep.

But we're about to kind of come backwards a little bit on, on, on the team.

What sort of number would you like to get to in an ideal world?

Honestly, this sounds so stupid. You're gonna think I'm a knob for, for saying this, but you know how we were saying earlier, year three was the best year, then I it up?

Yep.

Well, last year was the best year and I it up again.

Okay.

Now, so I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to find the balance between monthly cash flow, the team, the profit margin, the client acquisition side of things.

How quickly actually want to grow. That's the, that's the biggest one, isn't it? How quick do I want to grow?

Yeah, I mean, look, I know that. So right now we're doing about 600k a month cash. Right. The profit margin is about 82.

Bloody hell. Right now, 600k a month, a profit margin, 82.

Yep.

That's, that's, that's, that's unheard of.

And you know the reason the margin was so low in the first business? Because it was. Because about 30 to 40 of that P L was ads.

Okay.

So if you take ads away, boom. And now that we don't have ads, we're keeping that 30, 40, you know, so paid ads.

It's a dangerous case. A good game, but it's a dangerous game.

It's a good game, but a bad game. You really, really need to manage it. And that's what I've learned the hard way. And I'm trying to do again right now because we, one of our missions on the back end is to keep the margin as high as bloody possible and not forget the reason for business in the first place, which is to help people and to make net profit.

Yeah.

You know, so that's what we're trying to focus on right now.

So what would you do if you were a business person, an entrepreneur and that you wanted to go into this space? Are you there to help that entrepreneur go into that space.

Definitely, yeah. So about 60% of the people that we work with are beginners and it's people that just kind of learn that they can kind of like I did with the first business where I accidentally learned, I've got a skill that is valuable enough where other people below me would pay me to learn it. Yeah. And I think more and more people are learning now that if they've got a skill or a talent or some specialist knowledge, they can sell it to other people, whether it's through a course, a coaching program, a mastermind, whatever it is, and turn it into a pretty bloody good cash flow business, you know.

What is a mastermind?

A mastermind is usually a two to three day events where you get 10, 20, 30 people together of all shapes and sizes within one kind of niche, let's say business growth or something. And you put them in a room and let them help each other. So, so usually like, let's say we were doing a mastermind, you would do a talk and I would ask questions and so would everybody else. I would probably do a talk and everyone would ask questions. And it's just a way to learn from people in the same space to kind of jump ahead a few steps. Okay. Yeah.

So would you hire people to come do talks or you actually just bring a community of people together going, guys, you're all going to learn a shitload today and tomorrow and the third day all come together, I'll host it. There's food laid on, we've got nice breaks. You're going to, you're going to swap numbers. Is it that or is it more? You're bringing in people to do specific talks for these people to buy tickets to come to?

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a bit of both. So for my mastermind, we do it every six months in Dubai. We do 50 people. It's $10,000 per ticket for the, for the three days. And it's me presenting for the full three days. And then I bring in my operations director to do a talk, Sales team manager to do a talk. Paid ads guide to do a talk. Sometimes we get a guest as well. You know, if, if I want to get a guest, I do. If, if I don't, I don't. But yeah, then we just do the three days. We go out on a yacht, we hop in a conference room, have dinner together and just all like, I tell them everything new that we're doing. Those guys share what they are all doing as well. And it's, it's so beneficial, man, because you never get to see behind closed doors, you know, and it's so great to see behind those doors and see what everyone's working on in secret in the back end, you know, because sometimes I always walk away with like just one or two nuggets that will grow the business and it's the same for everybody else as well.

But those one or two nuggets for a ten grand investment, sometimes that can change the whole shape of your business and it could save you six months in your business. It could save you 100, 200 grand in your business by learning from someone else in that same room.

It's, it can make you so much money so fast. I've seen people come in at 200amonth, learn one or two things, and then.

They do 100 what, a month?

At 200,000.

$200,000 a month? Well, they're turning over $200,000.

Yep.

Okay.

Yep. Is this is a weird industry because you can make a lot of cash at a very high margin quite fast.

Okay.

So it's unlike traditional businesses because you, you don't need ads, you don't need a lot of infrastructure. I mean, you could make a coaching program in the next seven days and I could, but. Yeah, you could. Yeah. I mean, for example.

Yeah, give me. How would you, there's a good example. How would you, you being you now go dodge. You could make a coaching program and you'd hit it off. How would you do that?

Here's what I would do.

Or for anyone listening, how they would do that as well. Like, but for an entrepreneur, how would you do that?

Yeah, let's, let's use yourself as an example. Right now. You're one of the best in the world at podcasting. Let's use that as the niche. And you want to help people start or grow their own podcast. The first thing we need to do is design an offer. So I am going to help this kind of person or this group of people to get this outcome. I'm going to help people who want to start a podcast to start one and grow one, get the first few views and subscribers and so on and so forth, maybe a few sponsorships or something. Then we decide how long we want to do the program for, which is usually three to six months. Like a three to six month program. And then the way that I price these things is I think, what is this worth to somebody in 12 months time? So if someone worked with me today and I could make them, say, 100k. After 12 months, I want to be charging about 10 to 15%. If I can make someone 100, I want to charge about 10. Right. So then I calculate the value of where you can, can get someone to and assign a price tag to the program. Then we would need to build the, the sales process where we can. Then for you, I would probably run retargeting ads to your YouTube viewers, tell them about the offer, send them to an explainer video, let them book in a call to inquire about buying it.

Explain. A video would be what, like a minute long?

About 12 minutes.

Oh, 12 minutes. Okay, yeah.

Okay, yeah, about. About eight to 12 minutes to just say who you are, what you do and how you can help them, what it's going to look like, so on and so forth. You give them the option to book in a call, they would speak to you or one of your closest. If you're a masochist and you want to have a sales team. Right.

Definitely not.

Definitely not. Don't do that. If you cannot do that, don't do that. And. And then they're going to buy the program.

Okay.

And if you're selling it for say 2, 3, 4 or 5K, 10 units a month, 50 grand.

Yeah. Okay. And within that program, are they wanting me in that program? Or is a program already set? Have we built a course? Or how does. What does that program look like?

Yeah, there's so many ways to do it. Like something.

What's the easiest way?

The easiest way and also the most scalable way is to have a course and group coaching. And usually you'll see these priced at about 3 to 5k for about 6 months. And you go through a training program and then there'll be themed group calls. So for us in our group program that we have, I do a call for two hours on a Monday and anyone can come to that. Sales director Tuesday, copywriter Wednesday, mindset guy Thursday, paid ads guy Friday. And they're all two hour calls. And you can just go to whatever you want.

Brilliant.

Basically. So that's the. The best way to do it.

And if it wasn't. Oh, if I wasn't doing podcasting, how could you create something like that? But just from my experience of 30 years in business and building brands, building companies, selling companies, and just be an entrepreneur, because I help entrepreneurs at the moment for free. Because that's what I know. You look at me there, guys.

Blasphemy.

No, no, I know for you it is, but I'm. I'm always on the end of the phone. I help a lot of people for. For free.

Yeah.

And everyone's like, dodge, why don't you turn that into a business? How would you turn entrepreneurship into a business?

That's what I've done, isn't it? So I built the company. Yeah. Sold the company, started a YouTube channel and started making videos about everything that I've ever learned. Right. People find those videos organically. They go to my explainer video.

Yeah.

They book in a call and buy one of the programs. So that is what I'd say to you to do if you wanted to build a program where you help founders and entrepreneurs to build and grow. Yeah. That's the simplest model, is to have a YouTube channel where you make long form talking head videos about everything that you've learned. And that's kind of the proof and the value. Then that gets people's interest. You send them to an explainer video that's kind of the glue in the middle.

And the explainer video would be on like dodgewoodle.com or something along those lines to send them there. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then they will go to that video to learn about how you can help them. You'd give them the option to book a call, they would speak to you or a sales rep, and they would just run them through. Number one, are they a good fit? Number two, do they have the right ideas and the right infrastructure and mindset? And then if they do get them into the program.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

But I'll be very specific who I'd want to work with because I'm not here for desperate for the money. I want to work with people I genuinely know I can help.

Yeah.

Is that a point where. What's the point where you know they can afford you? Number one, because you don't want to be. If it is a business, you don't want to be a busy fool. And number two, you actually. Even if they can afford you, but they're not the right fit, we've still got the. The say to go. It's just not right for us right now. Have you ever come across that when you've said no to people?

Oh, dude, all the bloody time.

Yeah. Okay. Is that because they can't afford it or is it because it's not the right fit?

Bit of both.

Okay.

So sometimes.

So.

So here's how it works, right? There's like three mechanisms in the sales process that make sure you only work with good people. The first is the explainer video. And if you watch mine, there's a section in there where I say, if this is you, I can't help you. If this is you, please don't book a call. If this is you, I can't help you. So in the video, you try and push people away. When they click to book a call and they go to the calendar for us, there's a 10 question survey that they have to fill out. And some of those questions are, why do you want our help? What's the problem? What's your budget for even doing this? What's the timeline for doing this? Working with us isn't free. And it's roughly this cost. So that's the second place where you'll stop people coming in. And then on the sales call as well, they'll speak to the person and say, listen, are you sure you've got the time for this? Are you sure you've got the money for this? Are you sure that you want to do this for these reasons? And those three mechanisms will almost always result in good customers coming in.

Okay. You filter out.

Yeah.

Okay.

On rare occasions, some people make it through and then we kind of quickly kick them out. Yeah, right. Nicely, nicely. But other than that, it's the best thing in the world, man. It's so fun to make good money, work with good people, help them get great results. I've just renewed a customer a few hours ago that's come back in for another three months. Yeah, it's just the best thing in the world.

Well, I love that feeling of helping people, helping people and knowing they get huge results from it. But I've never done it, I've never charged or anything. And I know you're looking at me now going, you're mad.

You deserve to charge.

Yeah.

Look at everything that you've done.

Yeah.

God sakes. Like, there's so many people out there. I'll tell you a quick story, right? I once met a woman that also lives in, in. In the. Well, she did live in the address. She was making about 17,000amonth teaching knitting. She had a 1k knitting community. It was $1,000 for a year. And you would go in the community and meet other knitting women, I guess, and learn where to buy the stuff from and how to do the patterns and stuff. And that just blew my mind, man. Like that. It's made me realize you can teach almost anything. Like I know a guy doing about 70k a month teaching wildlife photography to, like, old wealthy guys. It's just crazy. Some of the niches, it's amazing.

Basically there's a niche for Everything. You must be sitting there going, okay, you set up a business, it's actually anyone who comes to you, there's a niche. Whatever your niche is and what you're good at, there's a niche to set up a business as consulting. Are you calling it consultancy? Is that what it is? If people, we turn up as a consultant.

Yeah, we.

Or a mentor or coaching.

Yeah, coaching consulting, yeah.

So if I was to do this, what energy do I have to give?

You're feeling inspired?

No, I am. I'm intrigued more than anything. I'm really intrigued. What you're saying is I said, oh, I help people for free. You're looking at me again. Are you mad? I can see that. I can feel the energy.

But yeah.

So what would I have to do in the week if I had people on board? Would I have to give them two hours on a Monday, two hours on a Tuesday tour? How does it work?

Yeah. So for us we've got two programs.

Do they have your mobile number? Do they WhatsApp you? Do they? I'll be interested in the whole package. What you think?

Yeah, dude, I. I'll tell you. So at the moment we have two main things that we sell. There's a group program which is a bit slower and lower cost and a one to one program which is a bit faster and higher cost. Right.

And what would those costs look like roughly?

Yeah. So our group program is £4,000amonth. Okay. And the one to one is £8,000amonth.

Okay.

Right. Now within the group they get the training program and all of the group calls that happen and they can go to as many as they like, basically. And it's just 4k a month and they can stay as long as.

So it's a grand a week and they can jump into five phone calls, five zooms, whichever one they want.

Yeah.

A week to ask questions and bounce ideas of with experts.

Yeah, exactly. And they've got this training program that is taken me about. It's a long, long, long hundreds of hours to build this training program. And the video training program basically starts as if you were a complete beginner and goes through offer creation and pricing and how to build your sales on and on and on right to the the end of the process. So that's the group program, the one to one is all of that and anytime one to one calls with me and my team and a WhatsApp group with me and my team in it as well. So a lot more intensive, a lot more hands on. I was doing calls this morning before coming here with them. But good for them and, and good for us.

Yeah. Okay, so do you enjoy the group or do you enjoy actually having individual one to one where someone's got your mobile and you go, okay, they're paying 8,000 pound a month. They've got me, they've got my time, they've got me energy. I can bounce ideas. Can they drop your message at 11 o' clock at night? Can they drop your message at three in the afternoon and you'll bounce straight away back to them?

Put it this way, I've done three calls this morning. I was answering whatsapps in the taxi on, on the way here. So I'm always active and that's really more so because I love it. If, if I didn't love it, I would probably be a bit more regimented. I'd be like, right, I'll do WhatsApp for an hour here and then not again. Okay, stuff like that. But I'm sure there'll come a time where I just don't have the bandwidth anymore to offer it. And we're already thinking about we're going to raise prices in Jan just to bring the demand down a little bit because it's a bit intense right now. But Matt, I just love it.

I just, I can say I just.

I come off those calls better than when I went on them.

Yeah. Buzzing afterwards, you know, they just.

Sick energy.

They're paying you good money. You're massively helping them. They're massively winning. Are you teaching them how to create a course for themselves?

It depends where they're at. So again, there's three types of people that we work with. There's the complete beginners, starting from scratch.

And who would that look who. Give an example. An avatar who. That would be.

Okay, okay. Who was the last person to come in? So the last person to come into that program, they're a real estate professional from England and they want to teach others how to do it, basically. So she came in and she was like, listen, I've been buying and selling property for 12 bloody years or something like that and I want to help other people to do it. So the first thing we do is put her through the training program first to get the knowledge. Then we book in our first one to one and we did kind of like I did for you a minute ago. We designed the offer. Yeah, we designed the explainer video, we designed the sales script. We decide on a price, put it all together and then we build it with them and we help them write it. And construct it and all that stuff and launch it. Then we hold their hand. That's one example. Another example was a gardener from America who wanted to do a high ticket program. He's doing about 24k a month now teaching gardening to Americans. Big YouTube channel. A lot of these businesses are driven by YouTube.

YouTube, I'm about to say which is which. Yeah. Okay.

So YouTube. Not always. It's usually either Instagram or YouTube or ads or. Or. Or a combination of them. Some people just do YouTube. Like the knitting lady, just YouTube. The gardening guys, just YouTube. We are largely just YouTube. So those are kind of the three traffic sources. Yeah. And that's it really? Yeah, you just.

So that's the beginner. What's the. So how much would the beginner be paying you?

Well, they can. They can decide. They can come into the group or. Or the onetoone. Most people come into the onetoone actually rather than the group because they.

Someone's going to commit to the eight grand straight away.

Yeah.

For how many months? They got to commit for as many as they like. So you do one month and then stop after the first month. I was that right.

Okay.

So they're not committed for three months?

No. Yes. Some people coming for a month go and do the work, come back in for a month and vice versa.

Okay.

We do this thing as well where if you want to buy two up front, we give you one for free.

Okay.

So if you do want to stay for three, there's a bit of a. You get a free month. Okay. In there. It's a bit of an incentive.

Pay for two, get three.

Yeah, yeah, basically. Which honestly, most people do go for that, to be honest. But yeah, so that's the beginner. The guy's already moving. We had someone come in or someone's.

Already got a bit of a brand awareness, a bit of a personal brand. Were they coming in the media in the intermediate level?

Yeah, man. We work with a lot of people. This. I don't know whether you know this. You probably do, but there's a lot of people with big personal brands making all money.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right. So many people. Usually. This sounds weird, but the more followers, usually the less money.

Yep.

It's so strange and it makes no sense, but that's. I see that a lot. Like we've worked with so many people. 600k followers, one and a half million followers making 10 grand a month, 15 grand a month from. It's crazy.

And half of them have been bought.

And half of them have been bought as well. Those followers. Yeah. But yeah, in the middle, we work with people already doing it at a high level. You know, they're already doing 50, 100, 200, 300k a month, but they want to do the numbers that we were doing in the old company, like half a mil a month, 800k a month. Someone to prepare for exit. I'm working with a music producer guy who's doing crazy numbers with a music online music school that he's got, which is crushing. So, yeah, those are the guys in the middle.

Okay. And then the top guys. If someone comes in as a top guy, they usually.

Their problems are systems hiring and firing, scaling ads without up the profit margin, preparing for Exit. The. The more serious. Okay, yeah, I should. I'm allowed to swear on this podcast.

Yeah, of course. You can see about seven of them. It's fine.

I should have checked earlier.

It's fine.

Absolutely fine.

This is genius. And you've stumbled across this, or is there someone who you've had as a mentor gone. This is what you need to do, William. Have you stumbled across it? Or is there someone you've looked at and gone, if he's doing it, I.

Can do it, mate. The day that that guy messaged me, I had. I didn't even know you could do this. I didn't even know what courses and coaching and masterminds and stuff. I didn't know that you could sell your knowledge that he just. Honestly, this happened by a very lucky accident. And to that guy, you've changed my life, you know, to that guy that gave me that £50 and came to my mom's house. So, yeah, I didn't know what this was. I didn't know you could even do it until that day.

Unreal.

Mad.

It's unreal. So give me an example of your last month turnover with a very small team and people buying into your consultancy. Yeah, that's what the call is. I quite like coaching. Stroke consultancy. What? Coaching sounds cooler. Consultancy sounds more corporate, but it feels like you could charge more. Like, is there. It's like a fine line, isn't there?

Yeah, I mean, you can call it what whenever you want. At the end of the day, you're just helping people teach. It's basically teaching.

Teaching business to help people grow their businesses.

Well, it's teaching anything. It's teaching knitting, it's teaching gardening, it's teaching fitness. Very popular. Teaching trading.

Teaching entrepreneurship, business.

Yep.

Joking. That's a good niche entrepreneurship business. Or is it not as specific one.

Thing that's important in these businesses is your accolades and your background and your backstory. Right. The more you've done, the faster you can start and the more you can charge. And the less you've done, the slower you've kind of got to go and the less you've got to charge. Right. Because you don't have a brand and a reputation and accolades yet. But yeah, to give you a snapshot of where we're at right now, so there's 12 people on the team. Last month we did 501 cash collected. The month before. What?

Grand?

Yeah. USD us okay. Yep.

Collected, collected.

Well, yeah, not, not revenue like cash that hit the payment processor the month before was 579. And the margin right now is about 73. Net.

I can't believe. Most genius. I'll show you the p. Well, I totally trust you. You know, you're not going to come on live on this podcast and not say what it is. What is, Is there a point where the growth can do that initially and then plateau or drop and then you've got to go paid ads. And then you're getting caught up in that paid ads thing again. Have you hit that point yet?

Yeah. I always say this to people, right? There's two ways to get traffic. Organic and paid ads. Right. And they've both got big upsides and big downsides. So organic. The upside is it's very high trust. If someone is watching long form YouTube videos, they like you, they trust you, they respect you and they're much more likely to buy. The downside is it can be very slow. Very, very, very, very slow. Right. Ads. The upside is it's lightning fast. Like we could make an ad today and have a thousand views tomorrow. Yeah, right. The downside is it's harder to write them, it's harder to run them. It damages your profit margin. It's a lot lower trust.

Are they the right people?

Are, are they the right people? Ads can actually damage your brand a bit as well. Because no one likes ads.

Yeah.

You know, like nobody bloody likes ads. There's no value in, in an ad. A combination of both is, is the best thing to do. And this is kind of where we're at right now. So we're spending 30k a month on ads. Okay. Tiny, tiny, tiny amount right now.

Grand a day.

About a grand a day.

Us on what?

On Facebook and Instagram ads.

Facebook and Insta. Okay.

Yeah. And those ads just tell people, hey, did you know that you can start your own online consulting business if you're this kind of person, click the ad and watch the explainer video.

And I have to say there, the first ad that I saw, that's where I first saw you.

Oh, so you found me from an ad.

I found you from an ad. So and you were a house. It was, you had the dog in the background like God, this is what I'm doing. I thought I like this fella. Yeah. Instantly. Because it was real. Yeah, it felt real. This is where I'm at. I can help you guys if you fancy it. And that's, and that's when I started to say, I was like okay, well.

I mean that, that's a great example. The fact that we're here because of.

A paid off course of power is probably worth its money and it's weight in gold for, for an opportunity to.

Like this happen 100%. I mean on, on ads we are about 4.2x right now. So if we spend 10 we'll make about 42.

Okay back.

So pretty profitable.

Perfect. Is that a good number? 4, 4X. If you put, if you put a quid in, you get four quid back. Is that a good number?

It is, yeah. When you, when you start running ads at low scale, you're usually ludicrously profitable. If you're spending let's say a thousand, you can.

A month.

A month?

Yeah.

A very, very, very low budget. You can make 5, 10, 15, 20 back.

Okay.

From that as, as you scale the ROI comes down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And going back to what I was telling you earlier when I first moved to Dubai and we were doing about 250amonth, it was like 1.8.

Okay.

So we'd spend 100 grand to make 180 grand and then take off your costs as well. So one, we were driving the, the margin down a lot.

But would you take one for one?

No.

Quit in, quit out is, is your minimum four pound in four back.

Technically we would be profitable because about 37% of our customers renew and, and stay longer. So if we were break even, well, we'd get 37 of people that buy again and that would be the profit. Right. But it's a bit of a dangerous place to operate. I mean you want to be. The minimum for me is about 2x. Okay. If I'm 2x or above, I'm happy. If I'm below 2x. Things need to change.

Yes.

You know, so right now we're just slowly nudging the ads. We're going to raise the prices in Jan. We're getting. I shouldn't say this because they're going to see this, but we're getting rid of some of the sales reps. All right, I'm sorry if that's you.

Yeah.

Chill up and just kind of, hey, look, it's business. It's business. There's so many little tweaks that have to happen in a business to keep the margin high, keep customers happy, keep you happy, keep acquiring customers. It's like a never ending puzzle.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't need to tell you this.

You know what's been your best social media platform? And also if you're on YouTube, say if I ended up creating something, a coaching course or consultancy and we set up a new YouTube channel. The YouTube channel we're currently on has had millions and millions of views. Millions of views. And every time a good episode goes up, it goes wild. If I set up a, a Dodge Woodle Entrepreneur channel, the views will be tiny. But it doesn't. Would it? I don't know.

I don't think it would. I don't think it would because. Because of how big your brand is and how many people know you and how much goodwill you've built in the market, you could start a new channel, which is a very good idea and call it like Dodgeboard all entrepreneurship or business or whatever. I would strongly suggest making raw talking head videos, 15, 20, 25 minutes long, just talking about different topics and things that you've learned about.

Okay.

And when you start, you could maybe email it to your list. You can post it on your Instagram, you could link it on your YouTube community tab. And with your brand, dude, you get thousands of views.

Really?

Right off the bat. Okay, right off the bat.

And then when you get those views you're wanting to put them into. You mentioned VSO earlier. Are you wanting to put them into a website, say a dodgewoodle.com and then they click on that, they see a video and you said eight minute talk of that video and then you put them into a calendar with 10 questions.

Yeah. So you wouldn't want to send them to a website. Right. This is a very common misconception. Websites are generally for information. Sales funnels are for conversion.

So just a landing page, nothing else.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. This always surprises people. People think you need to have testimonials and an about me and all this stuff. You actually don't. You need a logo and a video and a button and that. That usually converts the highest by far on YouTube. A good metric to go by is about 400 views per booked call. Okay, so that's about the average of, of what we see across us and clients. If I put a video out and it gets, say, a thousand views, I'll book about two to three calls from it. And then they go from the video to the explainer video. Then they book a call, they fill out the survey, they speak to a sales rep, and then they, they buy. Amazing.

Yeah, it sounds so simple. And sometimes it sounds so good to be true.

I was saying that to someone the other day. I was literally saying, I don't think this is going to last forever. It can't be this easy.

Yeah, okay, forever.

Like we've, we was, we were adding up all the money, all the cash I've ever collected through the payment processor. The other day it's about, I think it was $33.1 million.

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On, hold up, hold on. $33 million collected where?

Through, like, payment processes for first and second companies. Okay.

All the way through. Okay.

Yeah. Across like the last seven years.

Wow.

It's like $33.1 million.

Just take a moment. That is, that's really, really. We talk about unicorns, everyone talks about Steve Jobs, everyone talks about these big data. You're the real deal. You've made stuff happen. And what I found is, what I'm learning from this is that you learned your trade. You did fantastically well. You ended up flipping it. Sold next. All of a sudden, all the mistakes you made, everything you've done, but you found this new business here. I've kind of fallen into it. But you haven't because you've got the, you've got the knowledge, you've got the know how. You've just tweaked the model. That's essentially where we are today. Right.

I've basically stumbled on it by luck around like a persistent lunatic. Seven years later. It's, it's just mad. It's just mad. It's crazy.

So where are you at today then? Tell me where you're at today. You've moved to Dubai, number one. Are you happy?

Do you want me to answer?

I want to answer. Are you happy? Because a lot of people I know who sell their companies and when we sell companies, just for anyone out there, when you sell a company, you think someone's going to be jumping out of the, out of the trees and, and there's going to be champagne spraying. It doesn't happen like that. It's kind of like you're done. You don't like, oh, right, we just sold a company. Let's go and have a couple of drinks and you come and go enjoy yourself. Was there a point when you sold that company, did you buy anything that changed your life or did you buy anything really expensive at that time?

Good question. I bought one thing. I bought an apartment. Yeah. When I sold the company, I bought a three bed in the place that, that you're in. I think it was $1.4 million cash. I've bought. I've bought 12 properties so far with all, all the money. All outright, with cash.

All in Dubai.

No, no, no.

Okay.

Eight in England, two in Dubai, two in Bali. Now, no mortgages. All about. I better not say the amount, but like a large amount.

Yeah.

And that's kind of my pension, kind of my retirement. I see. That is. And we live in one of them where the ad was filmed with the dog.

Yeah.

Where's that?

Was that Bali?

That's The Bali home that we just.

Okay, lovely.

Yeah.

How much did you pay on that Bali home? Forget all the others that Bali one, because Bali is a lot cheaper than Dubai, a lot cheaper than the uk. How much did you pay on that and what did you buy?

Yeah, it was 950, 000 US dollars.

Okay, so roughly what, 800 grand.

800, 000 pounds?

Yeah.

And we've spent 65 more. Basically the bottom level was, it's like three floors, right. And the bottom level was just empty and we've just built a gym, a sauna, an ice bath and a cigar lounge, like underneath quality. So now we've got, we've got all of that and we got seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, pool, garden, all, all that cool stuff.

We're just putting security for 800 grand. Yeah, well, yeah, just plus, plus, plus type thing. Yeah, okay.

And then the guy that built that sold me another one. He was like well I'm building three more, you want another? I was like yeah, go on there. Of course, I'll, I'll take one more. So that is for like family and friends and mastermind guests and stuff to stay at when, when that's ready. But yeah, when I sold the company, I bought the three bed and it's, I thought that was my dream place to live, right? I was like, yeah, that's my dream apartment. It's three bed, it's on the corner, all these great views. And then I moved in and a few weeks later someone said to me, so what are you going to do when you have kids? I was like, oh yeah, right. It's not my dream place anymore. Now I need a villa.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's funny man, how this is one thing that I've learned. Like when I started the business, I, I, I swear to, I swear to God, when I started the business, I, I wanted. This sounds so gay. I wanted a BMW, I wanted an apartment in Manchester city center and I wanted a Rolex. That was like my wildest dream. And it's just funny man, how things change. I was sat in the apartment last night and I was just thinking like what am I doing now? You know, I mean I'm, I'm building a little software thing that I'm working on with a business partner, maybe buying some more real estate, enjoying the consulting. But things are just simple and fun and, and easy right now. So I'm happy, I would say I'm definitely happy.

On a scale of one to ten, how happy are you?

Eight.

Okay, lovely. Yeah, good number.

What about you.

Good number. I'm. I'm super, super happy.

10.

There's no such thing as a 10.

Yeah.

Apart from my wife. Hey, I'll say that everybody's not. So. In my world, there's no such thing as a seven. There's no such thing as a ten. Yeah. So when you say to someone, are you happy? And I say, there's no such thing as a seven, they've got to either say six or eight. That makes me go, okay. It makes people think. When I say to business, like, how busy are you? To some of the people who work with how busy are you? They know they can't say a seven, so they've got to have a say a six or an eight, and we're not. It makes a big difference.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I'm super happy. I'm really, really. Got a nice life and I've built some wonderful businesses and I'm in. I'm in a world that is sport, music, festivals, podcasting, media. You know, I've never had a job in my life, so I've just been an entrepreneur since a kid, and I don't know any different. So, yeah, I'm going. I'm good. I'm not into fast cars. I'm not into watches. I'm into amazing holidays, great experiences, good food, good friends, good people. Just the. And I really enjoy the simple things in life. Nice walks, comfort, just fresh air, sport. Just. Just the simple things. That's what I will constantly, Constantly on the hunt for every day. That and dopamine and gym and feeling good and food. They're my. They're my things.

Yeah, that's. That's really good, man. It sounds like you're a nine. I'm not a very extravagant guy. I don't like clothes. I don't like cars. I don't have a car. I really like real estate. I. I love really nice homes. Yeah, that. I don't know. I just love that. It's very fulfilling.

Yeah, same.

Just because where you live is so important. I love real estate.

I like comfort.

I like comfort.

I love comfort. Like you. You very kindly got me business class over here. And that was comfy.

Yeah.

And then you walk at the back and there's a bar there. Wherever. There's like seven or eight people just around the bar drinking and.

Yeah.

New people.

So nice.

It's bizarre. You're up there in the 30, 000ft up and you're in a bar having a few drinks, having a laugh with random people. You would really really, really nice.

I. Dude, I reckon that's my number one favorite thing to spend money on is travel. Business class travel. Yeah. Because I'm just scarred after all the years of flying economy, premium economy on all these ghetto airlines. Ghetto bloody place. Around the world. I'm just scarred by.

And I like nice hotels.

Me too.

I like hiring nice villas. I do. I enjoy that sort of stuff.

Dude, you've got to go to Address Speech. You will bloody love.

Where's Address Beach?

It's just right at the end of jbr.

Okay. Is that where you're staying? Yeah. Is that the one? You said at the top was a infin in the world. Yeah, but you've got. You're going after this.

We'll. We'll go for a beer.

Let's go for a beer after this.

Let's do it.

Happy days.

Yeah.

Tell me your reasoning why you moved to Dubai. We know that because of the money and the sun. What made you want to buy somewhere in Bali? What's Bali like? I went to Bali 96 years and years ago. It's obviously very different than. Than it is now. How would you explain Bali to the listener?

The thing is, Dubai is a very heavy, intense, fast place, and it's not somewhere where you come to relax. And when I first moved here, I wanted to just work every goddamn day, every hour of the day and do business and make money. But then when I sold the company and started doing this, I just wanted to chill out a bit, you know, and strip things back. And I remember going to Bali with my girlfriend, and it was just beautiful, man. So beautiful, peaceful. The people are so kind. The energy is just awesome. And it's so cheap as well, you know? And we were saving up for a villa in Dubai, and then one of my friends showed me the one in Bali, and I was like, hold on a minute. So for what is about 10 million in Dubai is 1:1 over there. And I was like, dude, I'll take amazing. No worries. Good value.

There's nothing better than good value. Is that.

Yeah, that's fucking value.

Huge value. 800 grand for what you've got.

Yeah, it is. It is. It is like a. It's amazing, man. It's absolutely amazing. So, yeah, I just wanted to have somewhere to go away from Dubai.

Okay.

And bloody chill.

So. So how long would you spend in Dubai and how long do you spend in Bali? Or do you bounce back and forward every month?

I would do six months. Six months.

Okay, well, six months in one stint or an average of six months? Or six months?

I don't know, man, I don't know. Well, I'm gonna. Well, we went there for two months and stayed for seven. When we bought it, we just didn't want to leave. Yeah, we just did not want to leave that bloody house, man. In the area and stuff. So probably six months Bali, six months Dubai.

Okay.

On rotation and how far we're looking?

Eight, nine hours. Did you say from Dubai to go to Bali?

It's so easy, man. You can get a flight at 1am, get in bed, yeah, wake up, get off. Yeah, it's easy.

And what's, how would you explain Bali? Good beaches, good food, good people. Is there lots of sport? There is a lot of Australians, there's a lot of Europeans. How would you sort of wrap that up?

I would describe it as like a peaceful tropical paradise. Yeah, I would. That, that's what it feels like to me. It's just. Everyone's chilled. It's beautiful. The weather, the greenery, it's just, it's the complete opposite of Dubai.

Yeah, okay.

It's the complete opposite.

Okay.

So it's so nice to come here and go mad and then go there and chill out and come here and get business done and then just go there and relax. That it's. I always wanted two homes to go between and this, this for me is perfect, beautiful.

Do you know what I find about Dubai? When you come from the UK and you fly into buying now, the economy's buzzing, people are buzzing, you're getting contacts. I'm giving contacts to people, they're giving me contacts. These people have got money, people are passing money around. It just feels like this place is just rising at such a rate where the UK is dipping at such a rate. And I can see why so many people have moved to Dubai. I'm not talking about the multi millionaires. We keep talking about where there's a thousand, fifteen hundred people moving abroad to Dubai. I'm talking about young Gen Z's are coming out here and going, you know what, I'm a creator, I want to make something of it. I'll go and get a one bed flat. I know it's more expensive than at home, but I'll pay no tax, but I'm going to meet loads and loads of content. It feels like anyone who, anyone who's a creator or got something about them really is coming to Dubai to, to build their businesses 100%.

100%. You'd kind of be crazy not to. You know, I remember way back in the day when I Got this massive tax bill. I remember I was in a mastermind and I posted them in the mastermind group, being like, what do you guys do for tax? Is there a way to optimize it? And everyone was like, go to Dubai, man.

Yeah.

You know, it's the best weather. It's blue skies pretty much every day forever.

Yeah.

Which is amazing. Everyone here is doing something. They're on a mission. One of my friends once said to me, there's like a filter, because unless you're making a certain amount of money, it doesn't make sense to come to Dubai. So therefore, everybody that does is kind of above a certain line. You know, they're making certain money, they've got certain ambition, they want to go hard and. And make stuff happen. So, yeah, I think if. If you. If someone said to me, well, I want to scale my business and focus and go all in, I'd be like, go to Dubai, man.

Yeah, I agree. I'd say the same. We're going to be doing a little mini documentary while we're here, just, just to chat to people who live out and say, you're British, you're English. What are your thoughts on Dubai? What's the difference between being at home in Dubai? Are you super happy out here? What opportunities are there? What, you know, what are you creating? Who are you meeting? And it seems like every day I know everyone's posting on LinkedIn and people are at home again. I wish these people of Dubai would stop nosing everyone off about talking about how amazing Dubai is. But I get it. I see it, I get it.

Yeah. It's. It's a funny one, man. People are very. They either hate Dubai.

Yeah.

Or love Dubai. And I think you've got to come here before you decide, you know, come and see how beautiful and safe and, you know, clean and organized it is. It's just. It's like a. It's just a city built for. For entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs.

It's. It's just amazing. Yeah.

What's your future plans, Will?

Well, I want to become a billionaire.

Yeah. Is that right?

So that's like my big. You know, one of my mentors once said, set a goal so big that, you know, it keeps you going and inspires you. So I. I think that, you know, if I'm lucky, I think I can become a billionaire. Whether I ended up. I ended up wanting it when I'm there is another story. But for me, dude, I just love building things.

Yeah.

I like making videos, I like making funnels, I like doing consulting. I Like investing the money and trying to grow it and stuff. It's just a fun game. Yeah, to me.

And I just put yourself a wonderful position to get to a billionaire. That's a thousand million. It's a thousand. Listen, people talk about billions under the. It's a thousand times one million.

Don't talk me out of it.

No, no, no, I'm not. But this is. You could nail it. It's a big goal. There's not many billionaires out there in the uk.

Yeah, there's not.

I'm sure there's a lot more out here.

Yeah. I don't. I don't really care if. If I get there. I'd love to get there, but it's.

Nice to have that goal, though.

It's a good goal. It's a big goal for me. I'm probably just going to be building businesses for the rest of my life and having fun.

And podcasting.

And podcasting.

Podcasting. Building businesses. You can't beat that.

That's the best thing in the world.

Amazing. William, I've really, really enjoyed this chat.

Good.

I've really enjoyed it. Thank you for your honesty. It's amazing what you've achieved in such a short period. Space of time. Were you today? 30.

35.

35.

Bleep that out. Don't tell anyone.

Mate. Amazing. Thoroughly enjoyed it and I thank you so much for your generosity and flying us out here.

My pleasure.

Very kind of you.

My pleasure.

You're a good man.

Good to be here. Cheers, brother.

Cheers, mate. Hi, guys. I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Can you do us a favor and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show? Cheers, guys.

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