How a £50 PDF Sparked a Multi-Million Dollar Trading Education Business | William Brown

Welcome to beyond the Business Card Podcast.

I didn't feel respected in school. I wasn't a special kid. I wasn't good at football. I didn't get with all the hottest girls. I wasn't a very attractive guy. You know, that kind of thing. I probably was just trying to get respect.

Today's guest is William Brown, a creative rebel turned entrepreneur who built and sold a $16 million e learning business, WB Trading. From filming skate videos and painting graffiti to DJing in 45 countries and hustling his way through three club lines, this is the raw, unfiltered journey turning passion into power.

William, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me, man. It's a big pleasure.

Good man. It's very nice to have you here and thanks for inviting us to your lovely home.

What a great.

What a great place to do the podcast. Yeah, for sure.

It's just. It's a bit more fun, isn't it, when it's, you know, it's in someone's home? It's. Yeah, it's better.

It's a bit more fun. The views are great. The air quality in Dubai, not so good today, but that doesn't matter. We're here to tell your story, my friend.

Let's go. Where do we start?

Well, give us a quick introduction about yourself. What are you. What are you doing now?

Yeah, for sure. So I think the thing that I'm probably best known for is the. The last company, which was a E learning company in the trading education space, that I grew from 0 to 16.4 million over just above five years, sold to a private equity firm last year for multi seven figures, and then started the. The new thing. So build, grow and exit.com, where now I'm really taking everything that I've learned and helping other people to do it as well. So to either build info business, grow an info business, or even exit an info business now, which is growing very, very, very fast. It's already almost as big as the last one in a year and a half. So it's growing crazy fast and it's very fun.

Wow. Almost as big as the business you sold in a year and a half, Two years.

Yeah.

Phenomenal. Yeah, that's absolutely phenomenal. Wow. Well, let's press the rewind button first of all, because I'm sure getting to that stage wasn't. Wasn't a bed of roses. There's been some challenges on the way. The journey is always interesting. And what we do in this podcast is we like to sort of unearth the life behind the entrepreneur. Okay, so I'm always very interested in someone's origin story. So tell us. I can spot an accent there, of course. So tell us a bit about your. Your beginnings, where you're from, family, et cetera. I'd love to know that.

Okay. Okay, well, I'll just. I'll just talk and you steer the conversation.

All right, let's do that.

So I'm from the north of England, and in a way, I've kind of accidentally been an entrepreneur my whole life. Right. I didn't really know it when I was younger, but I would skateboard with my friends. And I think skateboarding was like the first thing that I ever like, loved to. To do, just for the fun of doing it, basically. But instead of just doing it, I got a camera, got editing software, started making like, filming and editing skateboard videos. Then I try and sell them to my friends. I would like, design the artwork and print it out and put it in a DVD case and pretend that it was a real product kind of thing. Then off the back of skateboarding, I got into graffiti culture and started writing, painting. And again, instead of just doing it like all my friends did, I started a magazine for. For some reason, I don't really know why. I mean, I really love buying the books and the magazines and I guess I wanted to have my own. So I just took it upon myself to get Photoshop and write the copy and take the pictures and design it and save up to get a few copies printed and I got them stocked in a few art stores in England. That was my second little mini business. And again, I wasn't really doing it for money. I just liked making products really, and like taking what I loved and making it into some kind of product. So that was the second thing. And then the third was, was music, which was my first kind of proper career really, where again, I. Off the back of skateboarding and graffiti. That led me into electronic music. And instead of just buying records and DJing at my buddy's houses, I got music software and started making my own music. And then I would send it out to my favorite DJs and just try and try and get it out there. And then a few of the DJ started playing it and then I got signed and that became a whole career of its own, which was fun. DJed in over 45 countries all over the world. So that taught me a lot about, I don't know, just looking after myself when going everywhere around the world, having a manager, having an agent, managing capital contracts, performing people. So I Think that taught me a lot that prepared me for the elearning company.

Okay.

Because when it came to so off the back of music, it was very fun, but I wasn't making a lot of money. I was making, if you average it out, maybe 2, 3k a month, some months, way more, some months, zero, some months, £700. So I started. I remember I came home from a show in. In London one night and there was a trading documentary on TV about trading stock indexes and currencies and stu. And it was very glamorized, as you'd expect from a primetime TV show. And it just blew my mind. I'd never heard of making money online before. I didn't know that you could make money from your phone or your laptop. And I never ever knew that until that day. So I started. I opened a trading account, put £500 in and started to figure out the rest essentially from there on. And it kind of became something that was relatively successful on a small scale. And then somebody asked me one day to help them with it and that was my first ever elearning customer. And that kind of birthed this $16.4 million eLearning company. And everything else just kind of came from there, really.

Gotcha. So, yeah, well, I've sat in front of quite a few entrepreneurs and one of the things I'm always quite staggered by is how they tell a story and make everything sound so easy. We had someone that was. I was sat opposite who casually talked about setting up a juice company and then listing on the London Stock Exchange. And he spoke about it like he was getting up in the morning. And I have to tell you, mate, the story you've just told, that's very, you know, there's a lot to unpack there because I think you've made it. You've obviously said it quite a few times. And there's a journey there that I think a lot of people will be interested to understand how one thing led to another. I mean, what was going through my mind? I mean, I've got to know Will the adult, the info business person, I. This creative element that you've got, you know, obviously skateboarding, graffiti music, there's a. There's a creative animal inside you screaming out. Obvious clearly as well.

Yeah.

What, you know, tell me a bit about what was life like at home? Like, where did this, you know, why were you a bit of a rebel? I mean, the graffiti skateboarding that normally when I was young, that was. Those are. Those are the kids that, you know, that were the Naughty ones in the class.

Yeah, dude, I was never naughty. I was. I was very normal, very quiet. I didn't want to stand out. Well, I guess maybe I didn't want to stand out in the real world, but I wanted to get that sense of standing out.

Yeah.

You know, from somewhere. And maybe that was. Maybe that was why I was making the products, to try and be like, look at me, you know, notice me. I'm. I'm special because I don't. Don't just do it. I will make something bigger and better where no one else will. So maybe that was where I was trying to be noticed artist and trying to be special and trying to be above. Maybe not. That's the wrong way to say, I think, but just go further and do more, you know, so maybe that's where it comes from. But one thing kind of led into the. The next quiet quite naturally because a lot of skateboarders did graffiti. Right. So I think that's where I learned the graffiti from, because I would skateboard and then I would see these other guys do it, and I really liked it, and that's what led me into that. And then as part of graffiti, music was a massive thing, especially electronic music.

Yeah, of course.

So then through graffiti, that led me into the music and I really liked the music, so I started buying the records and I bought like turntables and would try and mix them and stuff like that. So graffiti led into music, and then the lack of money in music led me to need to fill that gap, and I filled that gap with trading, you know, and then I learned that I could. I could make way more money, way easier, way faster by teaching that to other people. So that led me over there, and then I got intoxicated by that, so I stopped trading, focused on that. So they kind of all lead into the next.

It makes sense. It makes complete sense. But, you know, well, most people go to school, go to university, get a 9 to 5 job, do a career, if they're going to entrepreneurs that I've met, you know, do a career for a couple of times, become really good at what they're doing, then set up a business and go down that path. Others fall into entrepreneurism and they have it in their genes, they have it in their, you know, they're made to be an entrepreneur. It sounds like you never really followed a conventional path then, by the sounds of it.

I don't think so. No, I. I mean, I've had a couple of, like, real jobs, I mean, but never. I never had a traditional Career? No, because what was I doing? Because when I finished high school and I went to university to study audio production and I was getting money from McDonald's, I was working at McDonald's for one or two or three years. That bridged that gap. By the end of university, I was making enough money from music to go and leave university and do music full time.

Yeah.

So McDonald's was my first ever kind of commercial, real life job. And then I delivered leaflets on slow music months, which was super, super, super fucking embarrassing. Right. And I was just praying that nobody that knew me would ever see me. So you know what, that created a lot of pain in me, you know, that created a lot of like. And you know, there's nothing wrong with doing it, but for me I was embarrassed by doing it and by the shit money as well. And I remember there was this like, when I got to like say 24, 25 years old, money became a thing in, in my life because when I was younger I never thought about buying real estate or building wealth or buying a big nice house or a big nice car or getting married and stuff. But then about 23, 24, 25, the these two things happened. So one day I saw one of my high school buddies driving a brand new audi through, through McDonald's. Actually. I was like inside and he drove through, drove through the drive through. I was like, how the did he get that car? That's like, that's a very expensive car and I have like probably a grand to my name and a fourth hand Reynolds. I was like, why? I just didn't understand that, you know, back then. So that was one instance and another is when one of my buddies bought a house, like a pretty nice like four bedroom house which may 300 grand or something. I was like, wow, like he's actually got a house and I live with my parents.

Yeah.

So it started to just get into my head like, oh damn. You know, if you want nice things, they cost a lot of money. So where do you get the money from and what are these guys doing and how are they doing it and that it just started to plant the seed. And then I started to think about money more as a musician. I was like, right, how can I get paid more from the gigs? How can I save the money? How can I invest it? I actually started to learn about property investing because I was like, I used to think, right, if I can just save enough to get one house, that'll give me maybe an extra £200amonth. And if I do that, a few Times I'll have like a thousand a month. That will cover my bills, you know what I mean? So I was trying to get creative, you know, with it.

Do you, do you, do you come from money, Will?

No.

You don't?

No.

But was it quite a comfortable upbringing?

Yeah, yeah, it was, yeah. Yeah. I mean, what is a comfortable upbringing? I guess to me, when, when you say comfortable upbringing, I think just like, filled with love. Filled with love, yeah. Yep, definitely. So my mum and dad. Here's something that I think has really helped me, right? My mum and dad never told me not to do anything, like, whatever I did.

I'll tell you a funny story, man. So. So once I was doing graffiti with some buddies and we were in. I can't remember what yard we were in, but we were. We were breaking into a train yard at like 2 in the morning somewhere in Yorkshire, I can't remember where. And we broke into the yard, ran down the tracks, painted this train, took the pictures, ran back down. We was getting in the car and I. I got in the driver's seat. My mate James got. Got in the. The passenger seat. My mate Sam was getting in the backseat and a security guard grabbed him, right, and was trying to pull him out the car. And this was like 2:00am in the morning. This security guard shouting at us, James is like, go. So we set off in the car and we were like, sake. Right, what the do we do now? So we dumped all the. The cans.

Yeah, right.

We dumped the gloves. We deleted all the pictures just in case the. The police pulled us over. Then we started driving back to. To. To where we're from, which is like an hour drive. And we got stopped by it by the police because obviously the security guard had got.

Yes.

So they told the police. It's a matter of time before you get pulled over when you've got an hour drive.

Yeah.

So the police pulled us over and I still had some caps in my pocket that I'd not noticed and not thrown away, which. Yeah. So anyway, so they took us to a police station and they put us all in different cells and we were there for like. We were there for like a day. And I thought they could only keep you for a day, but I'm sure we were there for a day and a half, two days.

But anyway, that seems a long time. I thought it was 24. There's a program, 24 hours of police custody, isn't there?

Yeah, it was because we. They put us in there probably about 3:00am yeah.

Yeah.

I think we got out because they let James. No, they let Sam go first because his dad came and picked him up. Then they let James go but James's mum and dad like refused to pick him up because this was like the fourth time he'd been caught. And then my dad came and picked us both up and took us home. But anyway. But then I got in the car with my dad and my dad was like, the police came to the house. They, there was like three, four police that came to that the home. They wanted to go up to my bedroom and like get. Just look for stuff I guess. And he took some magazines, he took some pads that I'd been joining, took some paint and stuff. And he was like, but I made them take their shoes off. I, they were like, can we take pictures? I was like, no, you can't take pictures. And he was like, don't worry, I tried to help you.

Yeah. He had your back.

He had my back, yeah. You know, yeah. So throughout everything that I did, good or bad, you know, he always like, both my mum and dad always supported me. They never said, don't do that. Yeah, that's not good. I didn't say, no, you should go and get a good career, don't do this kind of thing. They were, they were just like, okay, yeah.

And you fit and you feel that, that freedom allowed you to sort of pursue your creative.

Yeah.

If your creative hobbies, if you will. Right. And then, and then things flowed that way. Are you, are you, are you the oldest young? You've got brothers and sisters, right?

Yeah, so I'm 34 and I've got a 28 year old brother.

Okay.

Because.

Interesting. You said you wanted to stand out and be noticed as well with what you were doing because is your, is your brother a bit of an extrovert? Was he getting noticed? Was he getting attention?

No, no, he's, he's really just the same as me. He's. He just wants to just make decent ish money.

Yeah.

Have a nice little house. He's just, just got a daughter, you know, he doesn't want to be rich, he doesn't want to be famous. He doesn't want to be mega successful. He doesn't want to be an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

He doesn't want to move to.

He's just like a normal person with like, you know, and I almost hesitate to say this but just, just like, just no massive ambition and certainly no massive drive.

Does he, does he openly admit that?

Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. I mean like, you know, because I tell him all the time, you should do this. You should do this. You could do this. You should open your own barbershop.

Yeah.

Just do your own products and stuff.

Yeah.

And he's like, yeah, that's a really good idea.

But don't worry.

Yeah, Won't do it. You know, whereas we would do it.

Yeah.

Like we would, we would start barbershops, we would hire people, we would, yeah. Make products.

Yeah. I mean, be a great success or a big flop. Doesn't matter. We go learn, Go again.

Yeah, yeah. Some people just don't, don't like do stuff and they just don't want to build and actually do it.

Okay.

You know, I think. But, but yeah, no, he's, he's a normal guy. But I think, man, it helped so much to have my parents just never question me.

And were they employed or entrepreneurs, out of interest?

Yeah. So my mum just worked at a supermarket, Tesco, like whole life, forever. And my dad kind of bounced from job to job. He's like manager, restaurant and then just little normal shit jobs.

Yeah. Yeah, interesting. So where do you think was the, was the influence about entrepreneurism? Where did that come from? Because in order for you to, I suppose for these things to land on your lap, there's probably, there's going to be someone that's that sort of led the light in some, in some way shape or form or did you just feel that you found everything as you went?

I've thought about this, like when I started making those skateboard videos, like, no one, I didn't know anyone that made them. I didn't talk to anyone that ever made them. I don't know why I made them. I really have no idea why. I just thought, I want to be the one that gets the camera and gets the editing software and makes the product. No one never influenced me to do it or told me to do or help me to do it or inspired me to do it. I just wanted to. I don't know, man. I just.

I wanted to be the one that. I don't know, maybe.

Because what. Because I clearly didn't feel satisfied just doing it. Right. And that's the same in everything I've ever done. I never felt satisfied just doing it. Just do beats, just skateboarding, doing graffiti, doing, you know, buying the records and playing the music. I always wanted to build something and I think it probably is because I just wanted to be. I, I thinking about it, right? I didn't feel respected in school, you know, I was just like, I wasn't a special kid. I wasn't good At, I don't know, football. I didn't get with all the hottest girls. I wasn't a very, you know, attractive guy, you know, that kind of thing. So I probably was just trying to get respect, really, and, and just be like, looked at in a. In a favorable way, you know, that's probably what I wanted all along the way. I was probably just trying to be like, look, I'm. I'm special, you know, I can do this thing that no one else is doing, so I deserve respect. You should look up to me and stuff.

Yeah.

You know, and that's. It's a very intoxicating feeling, man. Like, music, Music was. Was so, so it's such a good feeling, man, when you, like, get picked up from the airport by the promoter and they, you know, they look up to you and then all the fans look up to you.

Yeah.

And people treat you special and you feel special. So I think I just wanted to always feel special.

And did you have one of those sort of look at me now moments?

I think. Well, I think they. They started to happen during music, really. And when music started doing well, I probably had this two or three years where I was quite a cocky, you know, because I finally thought, I'm special now. You know, I am doing what everyone wants. Everyone wants to be a special famous DJ and not have a normal job and have freedom and DJ all over the world and, you know, all this shit. So for a few years, it was very intoxicating. And then people started talking about me, which really calmed me down, you know, And I've carried that, that hate and judgment, and that's really fueled me a lot over the years. Yeah. As well. Which is a whole nother subject of, you know, because one thing that's really fueled me is just.

Proving people wrong, you know?

Do you need an enemy?

I actually don't need an enemy. Not, not. Not anymore. I've got. I've got one recently, unfortunately, which maybe we can talk about a bit later, but I don't need an enemy. No, I think. I mean, when I was building the last company, ma', am, hell, like I was going in, I would work every, Every day, every hour for years, man. It's a wonder I'm alive, to be honest. So much alcohol consumed, so much sleepless night. So much.

But it was just a mad period. And then when I sold that company, man, it was like someone just wiped the slate clean. And suddenly I didn't feel. I didn't feel, like, compelled to work and build and make more money anymore. I still do it and I want to do it, I love it. But it was just like someone just like cleaned my brain when, when I sold that company last year. And the energy has been different ever since. Yeah, now it's more of a, just a fun. How far can we go just for fun's sake, Just, just to help people. How great can we.

Yeah.

You know, can we build something now?

So now I've, I've. Obviously I read your book, I've got to know you and there's a really interesting part in your story which, you know, which I think is the first like the sad sign of resilience where every successful person that I've met has, whether they, you know, realize it or not, deep, ingrained resilience. And yours was around when you wanted to get your music released. And you, I read in your book you used to stand outside nightclubs, right. And, and used to, used to, with your record, trying to get your, your record promoted. And most people, I like, you see you, probably the fact that you've glossed over that doesn't even means that you, you don't really realize the impact that that had on me and that had a lot of other people. Because I, I see the signs in entrepreneurism and I think to answer, I get my rocks off from the, from resilience. I think those that have been knocked down and can come back are the ones that I always admire. And you, I think you showed there you had it in you. But what made you want to stay outside that nightclub and give people context. So you, you had, you had a track, you wanted to get on the main stage, right?

You know what? Well, firstly, I appreciate you bringing that up because that something that I say a lot these days in business is a lot of my success in business has come from masterminds and a lot of my high level contacts. I've either met them in a mastermind or I knew someone from a mastermind that introduced me to the person. So a lot of my high level connections go back to masterminds. The reason that I bring that up right, is because I've always wanted to. Just for me it just feels natural. Like if there's a fucking multimillionaire where for 30 grand you can get a year of their time and go and meet them in person. Yeah, you'd have to be a stupid idiot to not do that. It's just so logical, you know, like if someone that you, that has your dream life that makes loads of money is right there and you can just pay to Go and spend time with them. I think you have to be an idiot to not do that. But most people actually don't do that, you know. And to bring this back to the music story, like, I think the reason I gloss over it is to me, because it's just obvious. Like, I remember back then, everyone, the done thing was to email your tracks to DJs, right? And basically a lot of people were like, well, if I don't get a response, what am I going to do? I was like, no, no, no. I am going to fucking track these motherfuckers down. I'm going to figure out either where they walk in, where they walk out, if I can get backstage, or if I can just get to fucking meet them, then surely that's more logical. So to me it's just obvious. So I just was like, right, this is the guy whose label I want to be signed to the most. So I'm gonna wait till he DJs in Manchester, which thankfully he did one or two or three times a year or so. And I, instead of giving him a USB or an email, I pressed a record with my music on and I, I would take the physical vinyl and once I was lucky enough to DJ at the same night. So I met him backstage and I gave him a record. Another time I wasn't DJing, but I just waited outside the club. Cause I knew that there's only one way out at this specific club. So he's gonna walk out. So I just stood there for like an hour and a half at like 1am, 2am, 3am, wait till he and I. Dude, I remember this so clearly, man. It was Manchester Northern Quarter. It was a club called Moho Life back then. And it was like 2am and it's just starting to rain and I'm stood outside this club and then he finally walks out. And then I remember I was stood on the corner and I gave him the record and he took like 10 minutes to talk to me, you know, he was like, oh, how's it going? How's the music? Thank you for the record and stuff, blah, blah. And then I didn't see him again for like 10 months or something.

This is quite long time.

It was a long time. It was a very long time. I think I gave him my number that night, but I didn't get his back. And then eight, nine, ten months later, man, I remember I was actually making music in my student house.

You were still going. You were still at it though. That's the thing. Still going.

Still fucking going.

Still Trucking.

Yeah, still going. And then I got either a text or a WhatsApp from this guy Mala, and he was like, I just listened to the record and I really like it and I wanted. I want to do a release. I was like, let's fucking go. Let's fucking go.

You took your time.

Yeah. So. And it was mad. And then he was like, can I ring you tomorrow? I was like, yeah, ring me. And then I was pacing around the kitchen downstairs waiting for Mala to ring me. And then he, you know, he gave me a call the next day and he was like, yeah, I really like this track. So we'll put this one out, but we need a B side, so just keep sending me music until we've got a B, and then we'll. We'll do a record and get it out. And then we did. And that kind of changed my life, really. And then off the back of that, I got an agent, I got a manager, and straight away I was DJing in. My first show was in Gothenburg, in Sweden, then in Amsterdam, then in New York, in Colorado, in Singapore, all. All over. Then it just started. It was fucking amazing. And then for the next one or two years, because, again, this was before I cared about money.

Yeah.

So back then, making two grand a month, I was rich as. I was rich as, man.

Yeah.

And it was the best thing ever. I just around, get with girls, drink loads of alcohol, fly everywhere, go home. It was just the best thing ever, man. Yeah, it was the best. It was such a great, like one or two, one or two years. And then things started going downhill when I learned about money.

Right. You know, and, and, and what do you feel like? Were you happy then? Do you feel like you were actually quite satisfied then off?

Oh, massively, yeah, massively. Because all my friends respected me.

Yeah.

People. Everyone would talk about me and, like, when I was coming up, it was pure positive word of mouth. Everyone loved my music, everyone wanted to see me play. I was getting booked everywhere. My records were doing super well, selling really well. I was getting great bookings all over the world for pretty decent money as well. And it was just like the best. The best two to three years ever, man. It was awesome.

And what was the I need money now trigger? What happened?

It was. It was when I saw my buddy in that car one day.

Yeah. Was one probably financed to the hill?

Yeah, probably financed to.

Yeah.

You know, but. But you don't know that in the moment. You're just like, I went to school with him. Yeah, he's got a fantastic Brand new car and he's driving the thing.

Yeah.

You know, so that, that set me off. That was number one. When my mate bought a house and got married. That was not, not the marriage part because I did not want to get married, but just that house, I was like.

And it just made me feel very far away. And then I started thinking, I remember I went to one of my friends apartments in Manchester, really nice apartment that he was renting and it was like £600amonth.

But I couldn't quite afford that because I would have good months, but I'd have zero months and I just couldn't quite afford to move out and be fine, you know, I couldn't predict that I could pay my rent and pay my bills and buy food and be good for long enough to. To do it, basically. So that also set me off and I was like, right, I can't afford to safely move out, I can't afford this car, certainly can't afford a house, you know. My girlfriend was like, oh, let's go on this holiday. And I remember booking it and I was like, I've got like 2.7k or something and this is 1.2. And I was just starting to think like, basically I need more money.

Yeah.

And I'm not really getting it. And music was like. I was very much up and then after like maybe year three, I was just slowly down. Yeah. You know, and that didn't help either.

It's a cutthroat. I mean, I. I haven't told you this, so I've got my. My stepbrother was. Did really well in music.

Yeah.

He became actually huge in Brazil of all places with DJ. So he would play to like 45000 Wednesday night.

Wow.

And I saw him, his career go like that when he was in his mid-20s. But of course what happens is you, you get older, you know, you become. They find another person who hits, you know, the music tastes change.

Yeah.

And I saw the rise and sadly the fall.

Yeah.

And my wife, you know, Helen. Helen was, you know, was a DJ producer, passionate into music. She was the first female DJ in Dubai, by the way. Yeah. Wow. But she was so. She was a producer at Radio 1 for 11 years. She produced P Tong show, etc. So might have been sending your stuff off to her.

I did not know that. That's amazing.

Yeah. But she fell out of love with music. I think she, she would admit that. And she, she got fed up with being skinned was one of the, was one of the reasons. So she yeah, she took the, the journey into advertise, like the commercial side of, of, you know, music.

Well, that's. Dude, that is that. I've seen that so many times. You know, musicians go up and then they either stay in music and go down or, or they leave and go and get a real career essentially. And I know a few, I mean, Mallard, the DJ I was just talking about, he's still going hard today. He's been crushing it probably didn't look so good. Well, you know, but no, he's, he's, he's one of those top 1% DJs.

Yeah.

You know, that will get very good fees, multi four figure fees.

Yeah.

Booked all the time and he makes very good money still and he's very respected. So he's one of the top 1% DJs.

Yeah.

But they're 99, you know, like for me, this was another thing my dad said to me and this really stuck with me, man. This was a little off the cuff comment, but it really stuck with me. It was like, do you still want to be traveling and DJing and staying in these hotels when you're 35, 40, 45, 50? And I was like, I do not.

No way.

No. So that started to, to plant this.

It's those off the cuff comments or those little moments that you have.

Yeah.

That make a massive impression in your life. Same now. The same thing happened to me. Right. So I, I spent seven years working in like the creative advertising communications world. Right. Yeah. And in London, like during 2000, mid 2000s, that was, it was pretty wild. That's when most people went out for lunch and advertising and you didn't come back. Basically. I had an expense account that went on forever and I was doing all nighters. I was doing all the things that, you know, you get up to in your early 20s in London. Right. And then I basically, I looked at the guy that was 10 years old. No, 12 years older than me, and looked at his life and thought that I couldn't think of anything worse. And I literally resigned. I went in and resigned on the spot.

Yeah.

Yeah. And these, they simply are you. I was doing really well. They were like, where are you going? I was like, I just, this isn't for me. And, and it, it had that impression on me and. Sounds like your dad's off the cuff comment was really significant to you as well.

Yeah. You know what, this, this scares me to think about, man. But I know now in hindsight that Covid pretty much ended about 80% of musicians careers you know, like, you just can't go that long. It's so hard to come back from. And Mallow was actually telling me this when we spoke a short while ago. He was like, yeah, like, this DJ's gone back to work. This DJ has gone back to work. This guy's left to do his career somewhere else. This guy went back to work. Especially the guys that had had wives and kids.

Yeah.

You know, they are just. And that I feel so lucky to have seen that trading documentary and. And opened an account and the car.

You've mentioned that twice. That car. Looking at that car had a big impression of me.

Yeah. Yeah.

Really did.

Yeah, yeah, it did. He did, man. But, God, that. That documentary and just open that. That account changed my life, man. You know, and just like, the things that happened from it, you know, it wasn't trading specific. No, I guess it was really specifically that changed my life, but. Because if I wouldn't have opened that account and started trading, then I never would have started the little Twitter account that gave me the traffic that found me my first customer. And then the first customer led to the product being created, and then the rest is just history, you know?

So moving on to the info business that you got into, do you feel that that very easily filled the void that the creative world had given you for so long? And have you. Have you missed it at all?

Dude, I feel like all my skills came together right in. In that. All the stuff that I'd ever done. So going back to music, the filming and editing, well, it was useful for making YouTube videos for the info business. Graffiti, the design and the copywriting, useful for the info business. What I learned from music, communication skills, contracts, you know, how to organize things, how to just, you know, manage, almost manage the business applicable to the info business. So I feel like, man, when that info business happened, I'd had all these years of experience to learn the skills and prepare, and I could take all the skills, put it over here, bang.

Yeah.

You know, it made so much money so fast.

But hindsight has taught you that.

But hindsight has taught me that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At the time when you watched the documentary and you've got a fucking clue what's going on. Let's be honest. You're like, wow, I've seen the light. There's a new. There's a new avenue to go down here. What made you then. Because there's not many people that will then go, oh, wow, I've seen the light. That's an interesting documentary to then, yeah, apply and implement you know, the way you did. So just walk people through that and I'd like to unpack a couple of things. That's right, yeah.

Well, I think the point of the television program was probably to make it look easy so that people would open broker accounts. It wouldn't surprise me if a brokerage firm commissioned that documentary to get customers. Of course, you know, brand funded programming. Yeah, that would not surprise me at all.

And what was it just like? Just so we've got it clear, what was the actual program that you saw?

Yeah, so it followed a few different traders, like an older guy, a really young guy, a good woman, blah, blah, blah. And it was just their journeys of trading. You know, some of them were doing really well, some of them weren't doing well and vice versa. And there was one, there was like a younger guy on there who, it showed him making like a thousand pounds from his computer in his, in his bedroom at home. I was like, how do you like make money from your laptop? And I just thought, wow, like imagine. Because what went off in my head was, wow, I can make money at home on the computer. I can still do music, but then I can do music for fun again, not money. And then I can pay my bills, I can move out, I can bring it all together. So I was like, this is the game changer if this works. So. And it made it look very easy. So naturally I went straight on Google, Google like trading account or something, found any old broker, which happened to be ig, was actually a really good broker. So I was a bit of luck in that, put 500 pounds in and over the next three, four, five months took that 500 up to 8,9k and then lost almost all of it in a day. Which is a very, very, very common, common trading story. Like most people that happens like a night in Vegas. Y. Yeah, yeah. And it was pure beginners look. I didn't have a clue, yeah, what I was bloody doing, man. I was just taking long trades with no stop. And if it went down I'd wait and if it went up, I'd close it at a profit. Not a clue, no edge, no strategy, no plan. But making that money, I always think if I would have just blown that 500, I might have just stopped and quit and it never would have gone any further. But I didn't. You know, I made that money and making that money was so significant to me. You know, having that much money from the computer, not having to work, not having to travel, not having to have a job, man, it was the Most intoxicating feeling I've ever had in my entire life to make that much money from home.

You see, that's quite interesting. See, you don't strike me as like with a thirst for risk the way you talk, but actually there is, you know, there's. Because you, you know what, I've got to know you. You. It's kind of, it's quite logical. I always feel like you explain things in a very logical fashion and you, yeah, you, you go, you, you know, hence when you were looking at the holiday and looking at the amount of money, you seem quite logical in the way you think. Yet why didn't you stop at the 500? Why when you lost all that money? That's, that strikes me as. There's a little, there's a little bit of. I know you're going against the gr. Against the mold there and you. Something hooked you there. That's, that's quite interesting.

Yeah, I, I think I was addicted.

Yeah.

You know, I just thought, well, if I've done it once, I can probably do it again.

Yeah.

You know, and if I can get better, hopefully I can keep it this time.

Yeah.

You know, so then, I mean, I, I think I can't remember the amount. I maybe took it up to say 8K.

Yeah.

And then I lost about five. Yeah. Five and a half. So I still had a few K. I was still, you know, and then I took all the money out because I think I just myself, I was like, let me just get it out.

Yeah, that sounds that logical.

That's more like me.

Yeah.

So then I was like, right, let me get it all out. But I'm going to leave the original 500 in. So I'd kind of start from scratch. And I bought a 300 pound course from this guy Chris and I bought, I can't remember the price coaching with some of the traders.

Is this your first info product you've ever purchased?

That I'd purchased, yeah. My first ever course and my first ever coach.

So this opened your eyes to that world as well. Same time. Yeah.

But I wasn't, I didn't know that it was like an info product. I didn't really know it was a whole industry.

Yeah.

I just thought these guys are doing it. So I bought that. That changed the game. Logical. Yeah. And that taught me to trade properly. And then I started actually tracking my numbers, building my own edges, looking at my stats and all this stuff and that turned into me building my own strategies. And then I started a Twitter and I would talk about my own strategies.

And I was like, see, that's interesting. Why would you do that?

Because traders all had Twitter back then, right? Like, Twitter was just the trading platform, the number one trading platform. And all the biggest traders were on there every day talking about their positions, talking about the markets, talking shit to each other. So I was like, like, well, I'm a trader, I better have a Twitter then. So I made a Twitter to follow them and chat to them and stuff. And then people started following me. And then eventually like 8, 9, 10, 11 months later, this guy Wissam messaged me and he was like, basically, can, can you help me? And then he was my first paying customer. So 5050 pounds via PayPal.

Math.

And what did you do for him?

So he came to my house for three hours and he made a Word document. There's like three pages just text that he took away with him.

Yeah.

And then I just thought, I just wonder if I could sell this word doc to some of my other followers. So I think this is quite logical. I just thought, listen, I've got maybe 2, 300 followers. He was in there and he would pay for my help, so maybe there's someone else in there that would pay for my help. So I started messaging them, basically doing outreach, I didn't know what that term back then. I started doing outreach to them and then a few other people bought it it and man, it just felt like free money. I just couldn't believe that people would give me money and there's nothing to do. I just send them a word doc.

So at this point, are you DJing still?

So I was, I was still doing music, I was still DJing, I was still trading, of course. And yeah, because I was. I still had all my music stuff at their house, so I was still doing music, but less trading. And then when I learned that I could do this, then I started to go over here more. And that first year, it was from April to the end of the year, I made like 24, 000 pounds from selling. Selling the education.

Yeah.

Which is more than I've made from trading and about the same as I've made from music.

So then I was like, wow, this is pretty cool. This is. It's not, you know, millions, but it's pretty substantial. Man, that, you know, that's pretty bloody substantial. And then my energy just started going over there, you know, I did not care about music anymore. I'll take any show that I would get, but I don't care. And I wasn't making music anymore either. Trade I was still trading, but slightly less, with less focus. And I was just going ham on the info side. And then I started a YouTube channel to get more traffic raised. The price made the product better. Started offering different things like Word doc, Dropbox, folder of videos, coaching sessions, all this stuff.

So you went all in, in on the coaching, all in on the TR on that. Did you ever have imposter syndrome when you were doing that?

A little bit. A little bit, yeah. Because I thought, well, I'm not a millionaire trader, I'm not famous, I'm not particularly well known, but I just put value out there. And this is what I say to people now, like, just put value out there and people will see it and if they need your help, which they almost certainly will, you can just sell them some help.

But I understand you saying that now as a guy that's successful and sold a business, but the, the will, then you see, there's a lot of people that, like, when I coach people, I say, look simple, you just go and do this and do that. And they go and they look at me and go, well, it may look simple to you, but you forget at the time. And also the will then, like, what made you. Like, there must have been like, no disrespect to your trading back then, but there must have been some people doing really well. They must have thought, who the hell is this young upstart who thinks that he can go around and just tell people how to do it when, you know, and what's your trading really? Very good. I mean, was it, was it, were the exciting about it?

What, what.

So what gave you the right. Quite frankly. Yeah, to give that a go and to start jumping into that space. That's very interesting.

Definitely. Well, I think, I think the thing is that first customer came to me, you know, so that was like, oh, people want my help. And I didn't try and get it. I'm not trying to sell them. Like, people are coming to me for my help. So that was a bit like of a. A, I guess a confidence booster in a way, you know, because it was like a happy accident. And then I just tested the waters a bit. When I messaged a few other people and they said yes, I was like, okay, cool. And I just, I think that taught me I've got value to share and albeit a tiny price. Bloody tiny price. There was people charging tens of thousands for, for trading education. I was charging 200, 300, 500, you know, so I was kind of priced probably what I, I thought I was Worth back then, which is not a lot, you know, but I think I just slowly built the confidence as more and more and more people bought and people got results. I just thought, wow, you know, I actually can help people and therefore I deserve to help people. And then it creates the flywheel.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, did you, I suppose when, when I first looked at getting into coaching, one of the things that I had and I'm, you know, pretty confident guy. Right. One of the things I was had a little bit of imposter syndrome advice. What if I get this wrong? Like, what if I like, send someone down the complete wrong rabbit hole?

Yeah.

Did you have any of those experiences in the early days? Because that's a bit of a confidence. I mean, I've had like, you know, with most of the people that have been worked with me have had the success stories. But there are some people you just can't. I've learned this. There's some people just don't do as you what you tell them to do or don't coach. I mean, you must have bumped into them. And how did you get through that? Because that's a confidence now up 100%.

I, I can't remember.

Actually, I can, I can remember my first ever refund request. I can remember it actually thinking about it and I even know the guy's name is this guy Mark. Yeah, it's in there. Yeah, he did. And I remember he bought like late one night and the next morning I woke up to a message on Twitter saying I want a refund. Basically, it's, I've gone through the, the dot word doc and it's just, I know it all already. Yeah. This is so that and the fact that I remember it and I remember the message in his name.

Yeah, yeah.

That probably was a bit like, what am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? But I, I've always had almost a stupidity right. Where I just don't overthink things. You know, I, I, I am a very deep thinker, but when it comes to just getting done and just trying things like the hey, dude email. Right. I just try and I really don't overthink it.

Yeah.

You know, so I think you've just got to have a bit of, just a bit of just let's just fucking do it and if it goes wrong, we'll clean it up.

Yeah.

You know, I think that that gives you a bit of an edge. But I've definitely had the confidence knocks for, for sure, man. Definitely had them. But I think just the positive was bigger than the negative.

And you've got a degree of resilience in there. Right. Because you showed that.

Yeah.

And you, you know, wanted to get your record out. Yeah, that's.

And also it was changing my life so much, you know, especially that second year when we did. We did about 240, 000 pounds.

Wow. Okay. That's a big jump.

Yeah, it was a massive. I'd never seen that much money in my life. And when that happened, it was game on. Yeah, it was. I. I just was like, this is it, you know, this is actually it. This is like the real dream really happening in real life. You know, it's mad.

So, so obviously it's, it's you and you've got £240,000 now. You've taken that business to exit. Right. So there is a journey that's happened there. And also, you know, I've, I've been, you know, I've run a business 15 years. I've had a couple of people inquire about buying our business. I know that the due diligence I've had, my wife has sold her company. I know what the due diligence process like. So what made you like, first of all, I don't know many people that can sell an info business. It's always looked like an unsellable business from the outside. So what made you be able to scale that business to a position where you could sell it? I'd be really interested in that.

Yeah.

And secondly though, when did you start to think that you. It was more than you. When did you start to scale it? What was the trigger point? Because 240000 miles, a lot of money. No disrespect to anyone that here, but that isn't going to change your life. That isn't going to allow you to hire staff, scale something. What made you want to turbocharge it or not? Now, let's be frank. You came from a very humble background. Sounds like, you know, things were comfortable at home. I imagine £240,000 from the village where you come from. That's a lot of money, right, that you could, you could have chilled out then. You could have gone, you know what, yeah, let's stay. There's, there's something in someone that makes them go into another gear at that point. I'm intrigued to know what that animal is as well.

Yeah, let's, let's, let's unpack it all. So I'll start with that first. So, dude, I think when you make that much money and you kind of learn that you can, you want to go further, you know, you want to see. It's just momentum, you know, we had so much momentum. We did about 24k year one. No, was it. I think it was about 45k year one.

About a quarter of a million. Year two, about 1.3, year three. And in year three, something happened, right? I saw an ad from this guy, Alex Becker, and he was talking about if you sell courses, you should run YouTube ads and build a webinar from. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But, but, but I booked a sales call and I, I booked the program.

See, there's a lot of people that do pitch to me and I haven't got a clue what they're talking about. Doesn't mean I book a sales call with them.

Yeah, I mean, I think a sales call kind of gave it logical sense. But yeah, I mean, and then I, I bought his program and I learned to Write and run YouTube ads and build a funnel, which I'd never done. Write emails and stuff like. Which I'd never had really had to do properly. Write a bloody wet long form webinar.

Wow.

And learn copyright. And I'd never done that before. And Alex taught me all this stuff. And it was running ads, dude, when we started running ads, man, January 2020, I spent about £700 on ads, right? Made 13 grand back, 14 grand. That was what really grew the business.

Opened your eyes to a whole new way of scaling, dude.

It was like, it was just meant, I just, just, it's just mental. Like you can just run the ads and people see it, but then they buy at a way high price. You make this massive profit. It was just amazing. And then we spent more on ads, spent more on ad, Spent more on ads, Spent more on ads. And that's pretty much all we did for the next three years was just spend more, spend more, spend more, optimize the funnel, spend more, you know, and that's what scaled us to bloody millions, really. So that was a pivotal point, I.

Bet, you know, but. Well, I'm intrigued, right? Like it's you, the product's you. What's it, what was it called, your business before?

Well, WB Trading. Like it stood for William Brown.

Well, yeah, I mean, you don't need to be out hindsight.

So you.

So you slammed your name on the business?

Yeah, well, it was kind of my name.

But it wasn't though, WB Trading, because.

Technically, fair enough, you could say, because when they bought the company off me, One of the things I said was, are you going to change the name?

Yeah.

And he was like, no, we'll just say it doesn't mean anything.

Yeah, yeah. Because I have a recruitment business called MCG Talent. I still have some people ask me what that means.

This is an awkward conversation. Yeah, yeah. Okay. One thing. So I've, I've. I'm in the early years of my early sort of foray into my coaching experience. But one of the things I've struggled with, and I'm sure you coach a lot, you know, you, you've helped me out with this, but I'm sure you can give a logical answer to this is scaling that quickly with your name, let's call it. Okay, your initials there. And people are buying into you. Right. How the hell do you give your time to that many people? Because you're only one person.

Right.

How the hell do you go from 240,000 to the figures that seven multi. Seven figures, as you mentioned, when you are the product and you are delivering on the film. I mean how did you do that and who taught you how to do that? Because that must have been a real tough, tough thing to learn.

Well, so back then you didn't do any one to one, right? It was just. Alex used to call it leveraged coaching where it was just a course with group coaching calls and I got my two coaches to do the group coaching calls for me.

Okay.

So I didn't do anything. My human time was not attached at all. I would never, I'd never see a customer, I'd never speak to a customer. So by that stage, right, by the middle of year three to the end of year three, as the ads had started printing bloody money, I quickly asked one of my best clients, Tom to come in and help me with the call group. One of the group calls, another one of my best clients, Asri, to do the other group call. So Tom did Friday as we did Saturday and what one of my other customers, Paul was doing all the email support. So I'd actually removed myself.

Yeah.

From, from delivery. Right. Which freed by human time so I could scale as far as I wanted. And we, we scaled that webinar. The, the, the furthest we scaled it was about 280000 pounds a month with about 2. Point 2.345x.

Yeah.

Profit margin. So, so it was, it was, so.

That was a very smart move to do where you, although you had your initials there, you weren't actually nailing yourself. So when people were buying the product, were they Disappointed when you weren't, when you weren't involved, like, when you went there.

Not at all.

Like, they didn't know that you were part of it.

No, no, no. So they, they knew that you were buying from me because it was my face and voice in the webinar.

Yeah.

And it was obviously me, my program and my YouTube, my Twitter and stuff. And the course was me, my training and my voice and stuff. But the coaching was done by coaches. And the way I sold that, I was like, listen, these are my, the paying clients. You know, I hired my paying best customers. And if it wasn't great, well, number one, they wouldn't have results, and number two, they certainly wouldn't work for me.

Yeah.

You know, so I positioned the calls as like, listen, you're going to be learning from great people who've been in your shoes. The guys you're going to be learning from, they bought a course and even some of the sales reps, they would use it as a sales tech and say, listen, I bought it myself and now I'm here.

Yeah.

So I'm just like you. And that worked so well.

Gotcha.

So well.

Gotcha. And as you scaled the business, how did you structure it? How did you, you know, who was teaching you how to structure and build this info business? Were you kind of learning on the fly?

I was learning on the fly, but also learning from masterminds as well. So Alex Becker's mastermind was the first one I ever bought. About a year and a half later, I bought Sam Oven's mastermind. About a year and a half to two years later, I bought Cole Gordon's mastermind. So those were the guys and those were the communities of people that I was learning with, you know.

What did those three masterminds teach you the most?

Well, Alex taught me paid ads, copywriting, webinars, and the importance of like, profitability and leverage coaching. Sam taught me the importance of pricing unit economics, knowing your numbers, tracking everything back end LTV and kind of arbitraging cost per acquisition over LTV and building a good lifetime value. Cole Gordon taught me everything. Sales, how to hire ramp train closers, setters, run a sales team, track a manager, sales team, how to hire a sales team manager. So those were the things that I learned from, from them each.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Staff. Well, I've had a lot in my time of running a business, and it's probably being the bit that, if I'm honest with you, I enjoy the least. It's the bit that's given me the Biggest headache.

Yeah.

I never forget this. I've told this a few times. I realized I had the structure wrong when I was in my office in Dubai, Media City, and I looked up from my desk and there was a queue of people, people waiting to talk to me.

No way.

Yeah. Everything had. I'd somehow created this because I remember the recruitment business was. It was a service model business. It's an agency model business. Different world.

It's different world. Yeah.

And I become the bottleneck. It was my, it was my, you know, I just saw it in front of me. I am the war that inadvertently I've become the bottleneck of my own business. And I knew I had the structure on there. Not only that, I became this HR advisor. You know, everything I enjoyed doing in my business, I was prevented from doing anymore. And staff can often have that impact. You know, the growth and maturity of the business can often change what, who you are, what you enjoy. Right. So I'm intrigued to find out from you having scale like it sounds like, you know, you were, you were running quite a big team. Right. How did you find growing the business? What, did you have any pains and perhaps some advice you can give to people how they can grow? And was it mostly remote business that you had from the early days?

Yeah. So talking about the last elearning company and we should maybe talk about this new one a little bit as well, because it's a better model now. Yeah, but the old model. You know what? I was very lucky, I think, with hiring because of everyone I ever hired, only two people ever left. And every other person from my first ever hire, Paul to Tom to Azri to everybody else never left.

Maybe some of them should have left, to be honest, but, but, but they didn't. So hiring was not that hard. Managing and training was hard. And when it got hard, I hired a sales team manager. Cause the sales team was the main thing that was the main big thing that drove the business. So I got a sales team manager and more or less took it off my plate. I would say 80% off my plate. But yeah, when I sold that business, the team was the most stressful aspect.

Was it?

Yeah, it was because we had 16 people.

And it was just the sales team and it was so stressful. So up and down, you know, sales team manager, like, we need to spend more on ads. Well, bro, we can't spend more on ads because we're not that profitable, you know. And like, this guy's not performing. Do we fire him? Oh, no, don't. No, no, don't fight. I promise I can make him better in two months. All right, well do that then and shut up. You know, and like, like, you know, it was just very up and down and stressful and difficult and was like, do we hire someone, do we fire someone, Are they going to perform or not? Blah, blah, blah. You know, it was just a mission. And the only two people ever left were two sales reps. Yeah. You know, that's part of the reason I wanted to sell that company.

Because of the staffing.

Because of the staff. Yeah. Honestly, dude, what I, my original plan was right. I'm going to sell the company and I'm going to have a one man business and I'm going to keep it small, but charge very high ticket prices and just do 50, 70, 100k a month on my own. No ads, just YouTube videos, one to one coaching, very high prices, simple. No team, no hiring. Then that changed when the YouTube channel blew up because I was just forced to hire essentially to grow. But yeah, the team, I don't like the team, man. No, I don't like the team aspects. No at all.

So when you.

When you sold, you like, first of all, what was the trigger for wanting to sell? Just so I can understand that as well, because it sounds like you're living a lovely, like, let, let's, let's put it. Were you in Dubai then?

Yeah, I was in Dubai. Living in address beach.

Okay.

And not bad, but anyone doesn't know.

Dubai, that's a five star resort. Five bugs in the sea. So you got.

Yeah, you know, pretty, pretty bloody good.

It's pretty nice. Yeah.

Well, the thing was, right, so I was in a financial literacy mastermind that I actually, I haven't mentioned today yet with a guy called Dan Bradbury.

Okay.

And this was back at the start when we were blowing up. I think it was year three that I hopped into that for like three or four months just to learn about financial literacy and numbers and investment and stuff. And I was at lunch one day and Dan said to me, so, you know, when do you think you're gonna sell this business? I was like, I can't. It's, it's a, it's a course business. Who the folks are gonna buy a course business, you know, called my name, you know, with a shitty faceless YouTube channel and no team or like two team members, you know, it's that kind of thing. And he was like, well, no, you can sell any business. You can literally sell any business. The only difference is the buyer and the price. If it's a piece of shit business. Someone might give you ten grand to take it off you. Or if it's a very good business, you'll probably sell it for a lot more to a great buyer or a much better buyer. So he planted the seed and then I took on that belief I can sell one day, you know, and I really. That I really believed that. Thanks to Dan. Yeah. And then I remember one day I was sat at address beach on the. The patio bit, looking out the window with my journal, having a coffee and I was thinking like I'd made a lot of money by then. I probably owned £3 million worth of property outright.

Maybe one and a half million in cash. Ish. Making about 120amonth, like net profit it. And I was just a little bit of money off buying not this apartment, but one downstairs in this building. And I was like, if I buy that with cash, I'm set for life. Yeah, I can live off the rent. I've. I own where I live. I've got decent cash reserves. And I was like, I don't trade anymore. I don't like the business. I don't. I like, I like the team, but I don't want the stress of the bloody team. I don't feel aligned with the product or the customers. So I was like, let me just try and sell it and if I can't sell it, that's okay, I'll turn it off and go and do what I want to do next. And if I can sell it, it's just a bonus. So I WhatsApp Dan literally there. And then I was like, dan, please can you help me to sell? And he was like, let's go. You know, £3,000amonth. I'll do a call with you every other week and tell you what to do.

So he would be like your interlocker. He'd help you find a buyer, basically.

Well, he actually helped me find an M and A advisor.

Okay.

And then the M and A advisor, Dominic, helped me find a buy, but Dan oversaw everything, you know, so if I was unsure about something with the M and A advisor, I'd say, Dan, what do you think of this? And he just mentored me through the process, basically. So I had Dan's backing from a mentor perspective, Dominic's backing from an M and A advisor perspective. And yeah, then it was, I think it was November that I WhatsApp Dan. And then we sold the following September.

Yeah. And you owned 100 of that business. It was all yours. Yeah, yeah. And your staff were they quite happy with being going on to the new company?

Well, we didn't tell them until about six weeks before. Like only one person doing that was Alex, the sales team manager, because he's a very, very, very, very good friend. Yeah. But yeah, it. The team, they didn't mind. And no one ever said, don't do it. No one said this is not good. No one said I'm gonna quit, anything like that. Right. So no one expressed any negativity at all. But things change when the new buyer came in. Because the new buyer was a private equity guy from America. Not a fucking clue about info, not a clue about coaching, not a clue about funnels, not a clue about anything. Anything. Not a clue about. The team started randomly firing people that he thought he didn't need. Pissed off Alex. Then Alex quit. So just. It got a little bit messy. They're still running to this day, they're still profitable to this day, so on and so forth. So great for them.

But.

Came in and changed everything basically.

Yeah. Yeah. What wasn't smart, like really the best buyer for that business would have been an experienced info entrepreneur. Yeah. To kind of arbitrage a company together. That. That would have been a smarter move. But. But there you go.

Were you particularly interested in who was going to take it on?

No.

Or did you just want the best price?

I just wanted the best price.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I got a question to you around retention. Because one thing I found running a. A service business for a period of time as well was keeping staff. Always meant I had to. You have to sort of sprinkle and keep people enticed by giving them skin in the game, et cetera. How did.

Did.

Did that? Was that with a. With the product business, with an info business? Did you ever feel that pressure? Did you ever feel that, you know, your sales team like this, per Alex, for example. Didn't we. When you were. Didn't you have a bit of anxiety that Alex leaves. It's going to screw you. Like particularly at that time when you were going through the purchase, go through the acquisition.

Yes, I did. Yeah.

Isn't that risky?

It is risky, yeah. So to talk about the team, right. I like the team now. My team that I've got now. I've always had massive love and respect for my team because they hold things together and I need them, you know, so I would give them bonuses. I give £500 this month. You have, you've done well. You have a thousand pounds this month. We would do a team holiday to Dubai and fly. I'D fly everyone out, put them in nice hotels.

They know it was a recky you're looking for.

So. So, yeah, no, I. I feel. I mean, I'm quite soft. I like to keep people happy and look after people and be nice and so I. I always looked after them and I tried hard to look after them and keep them happy and over deliver and stuff, and pay them well and stuff. But Alex was a definite concern, right, because towards the end of that business, Alex is starting to want to do something himself. And he was like, oh, I'd love to do my own info business.

There you go.

You know, and we were starting to talk. Alex actually came out for a few days to Dubai and we were like, yeah, we'll sell it and we'll build something. We'll build a sales training company or we'll build a info business next or something like that, which, because we work very well together and we would have smashed that, but the closer to the exit that we got, I just didn't want it. I just didn't want. I wanted to be on my own. I wanted to be. Because I love being on my own. You know, I don't really feel lonely ever, which is a great trait to have, but I just. I just wanted to hit the reset button and be on my own, you know, and just no. No meetings, no organization, no decisions, no questions, no just. I wanted to just be on my own.

Yeah.

And I actually, I hesitate to tell you this, but I.

I didn't really say that to Alex. Right. You know, so I was like, let's just get it solved and then we'll decide, right?

Basically, yeah.

And then we sold. And then it didn't help that he hated the new bloody buyer.

Yeah.

As well. He hated the bloody new buyer. Like they did not get along. And the new buyer was asking him some just weird stuff. Making him do it made him do like a meeting every day, six days a week, even though there's not a lot to talk about. Made him be there. Pissed him off. And then Alex was like, right, listen, I'm gonna quit tomorrow. I've had enough of Carl. I can't take his shit anymore. So either let's do an info business together or I found this other guy, Charlie Morgan, who's looking for a sales team manager. I'm just gonna jump to his company instead. And I was like. And it actually worked out really well. I said, you know what? For now, dude, I'm just gonna chill. I just want a bit of time to myself after all these years. You go to Charlie and then we'll reconvene in six months or something like that.

You see, I, you know, again, having been like being part of two exits, L& D company and in a technology company, there's where the due diligence process happens. The. What they do, I found is they identify key people of influence that are very strategic to the business and that they want to lock them in for a period. Right.

They should have kept out.

Well, it just seems like mental for a start that. How long were you in for as well?

Like I was in. So we sold September 30th.

Yeah.

And as part of the APA, I had to stay until January. Three months. Okay. Three month handover.

I mean that's, that's nothing.

No, it's nothing.

It's joyful.

Yeah. Like, I mean they said like, oh, can, can we ask you questions along the way? Yeah, but I was like just non meetings, no schedule and.

Fair enough. Sounds like you had a nice product and people were able to take it and then continue to sell it. Right?

Yeah, but Alex, I know that was, that was the nail in their coffee.

Yeah.

Like. Yeah, you don't mess with Alex. Like Alex was. He sells it, dude. He, he was a player.

Yeah.

He's like us. He's. Yeah, he's all in smart self learnings. Yeah. Natural entrepreneur. That was a big mistake, man. They shouldn't have made Alex do that meeting every day and they were asking him the stupidest because remember the guys that bought it, they didn't know what they were doing. Doing.

Yeah.

So they really learned from Alex. They were like, what? How do we change the funnel? How do we rewrite the emails? How do I do this?

Just the stupidest notice periods. What you've just in line. So like, like, you know, he wants to leave. Okay, well he can leave. You know what? Yeah. So that's, that's, that's really interesting. That's really interesting.

One thing they should have done, they should have put in the contract that like, I mean, I don't know whether you can even do this, but they should have put in like Alex kind of can't leave or at least can't work in info. Well, of course, for a year.

Of course. It's like, you know, yeah. Helen had six months. She would continue with the business. They kept her on as a, you know, they paid her well as a consultant. But they put non competes in, for God's sake. You know, you couldn't go the next day and just sort of spring up and say hey, you know, this is me, part two. Let's go again. You know, that's, that's just logical.

Yeah, I think, I mean they did that with me. They did it of course on a trading, not, not an info side, but on a trading side they were like, don't start a trading business again. Which is fine for three years.

But yeah, they should have. One thing that they maybe could have done to their benefit is stop me from working in info. I don't think I would have sold though. That was the case because I wanted to go and build my next business. But especially for the team. They should have said to the team like, but then again, maybe we wouldn't have sold if they did that though, because I don't think Alex would have signed that same, would have lost the sale.

And what you've done in this story as well is you've dispelled this myth that you can't own 100% of your business and be acquired. Because a lot of what you hear, a lot is that, that you need, it needs to be a couple of owners. There can't just be one person that needs to be, you know, it's not true at all. You've, you, you've, you've dispelled that completely.

Yeah. I'm actually putting together a five day workshop at the moment called Info to Exit.

Yeah.

Where over five days I'm going to teach people like how to sell a personal brand and how to sell an info business and what I've learned from doing it. Because when, when these guys bought our business, the two or three things they really liked was the fact that forever the ads have been profitable. Like the ads had never, ever, ever, ever lost money ever. So they had like a three and a half year track record of consistent profitability which gave them peace of mind, you know, in seeing such a long, profitable track record. When they interviewed the team, they really loved the team. They loved the fact that only two people had ever quit. You know, 18 hires and 16 were still there. They really liked that. They really like the product as well. Because one of the, I'm not sure he's a owner now, but one of the part owners of the private equity firm owns a hedge fund in America. So him, a hedge fund manager going through the freaking trading program and giving it a sign off was a good sign, you know, so those were the things that they liked.

Okay, what's it feel like that day you put your card in the ATM machine and as the number's gone up a fair amount now, I'VE asked a few people this question, although. So I'm really intrigued with your answer here.

Well, for me, because. Because I was ready to do the next thing, it felt like I'd closed this, you know, this is a book. This is a book. I've closed that book and put it on the bookshelf. I'm like, done, done. You know, and then open this one. I'm like, right, let's go. Yeah. So for me it was a sense of happiness, excitement, fulfillment, peace of mind. Just. Yeah, I just felt like it's done.

Sounds a little bit of an anti climax, though.

Well, it was. I mean, because you've got, you've just sold your business.

Isn't this. Aren't you going to be running around to buy a marina with champagne, popping corks, you know, bamboo?

Honestly, no, because I was already making about the same net profit from my other business.

Yeah.

You know, so nothing to really change. I mean, yeah, I'd got a bit more cash, but I already had millions anyway.

Yeah.

You know, so it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't life changing.

No.

But. Well, no, actually, I take that back. It was life changing because having that accolade has helped me to grow the. Out of this business.

Yeah.

You know, and now we're doing, we're doing like 6 million a year net profit.

Yeah.

Now.

Yeah.

Which is a lot of it is off the back of that exit.

And that's because. For context, for people, that's because you, you know, as you clearly have, you've told. Told us from your story that you're quite happy to share when things happen. You know, what you did was, and this is where you popped up on my feed. You told everyone about selling your business the day you sold it. You know, you went, you went, you. That, that's the video that blew up, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was my first ever big YouTube video.

Yeah, yeah. And I remember you, you just. That feat. You could see the, that feeling.

Yeah.

The elation in your face then.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of people all related to the fact that you looked quite astounded.

Yeah, I'm glad that I made that video, man. I'm so glad that I made that video. So stamping time and, and yeah, the funny thing is that video kicked off the next thing and then I had so many people wanting to come in and work with us, you know, so.

And you obviously now it's, it's Build, Grow, exit your business. You have.

Yeah, yeah. Build grow on exit.com.

Yeah. Did you have Bill grow and exit.com in mind. When you launched that video, were you thinking about. Did you think. Was this. Was this a very clever, strategic move, Will, where you thought, right, okay, I'm going to use this to springboard into my next venture. Or let's be frank, was it the right video at the right time? And you thought, right, I'm going to jump on the back of this now.

Actually, a bit of both off.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because my YouTube channel was tiny. I was getting 500 bloody views.

Yeah.

So I made it because I thought, well, I mean, this might get me a few customers, but I didn't think it'd get a hundred thousand views.

Yeah.

You know, so I. So, yes and no. Yeah. I really made it to stamp the moment in time and to have the memory, because you can only make that video once. That's why I had to make it that bloody day, because you can only make that video once.

But, yeah, it was also to get customers, you know, but. But I didn't. I didn't think it would get me many because I. I didn't. I thought it'd get a thousand views.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah. Had you seen people do something similar before?

Never.

Right.

Never. I just thought. It just made sense to me. You know, I was like. I was starting the YouTube channel, and it's funny, I was editing all my videos back then as well, but I just thought, you know, it's the day today and I can't. I don't. I just. I just shot the video.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

And I'm glad that I did, because that energy is what has changed the YouTube channel. The whole unedited, unscripted, unplanned thing. And then everyone started copying me. And now that's become a whole trend.

Yeah. You know, so you've sort of blown up as a Millie celebrity.

Now I'm a celebrity. Yeah. It's funny. Someone got in touch the other day. He was like, yeah, I'm Kanye west agent. Would you like to join my roster? I'm joking.

That's a joke. Oh, he says, that is the gold watches up there. I'm thinking, hang on a minute.

Perhaps. Perhaps I'm not a celebrity, man.

Well, you know, I suppose you've probably. The perception that people have of you is that, you know, you've done it now, you've made it. You know, you are. There's a lot you're in. You're a YouTube celebrity, 100% you. I've been around you. People have noticed you. I've Seen the people that you work with. You work. You've worked with some super successful people in that space. So true. Did the clientele change at that point? Did you find that you became a lot more noticed? Tell me, did your life. What's changed in your life since then?

Yeah, it has. I mean, YouTube. YouTube has changed my life for absolutely sure. Not just because it's a free traffic source, not just because it's a very high quality traffic source.

Yeah.

But it's given me. I mean, I remember a few weeks ago, I was getting in the elevator.

Yeah.

Downstairs from the gym. I got in and someone was on the phone looking at my story and I was like, it's me. And he was like, oh, it's you. I was like, yeah. And then.

That's weird.

Yeah. And he was like, oh, yeah, I'm a big fan and stuff. I was like, that's cool. Cool. And then he booked a call and came into the one to one program as well. And I saw him in the gym yesterday.

Better do a good job for.

Hey. I bloody know.

I know.

But, yeah, it's. It's attracted bigger names. Yeah, for sure. And the funny thing is bigger names attract bigger names. Of course, when people see you've worked with Mike Thurston.

Yeah.

Then they're like, oh, he's massive.

Right.

Yeah. I trust you. And then you work with. Sometimes I don't know whether you know who this guy is, but there's a guy, Jack Hopkins.

Yeah. Yeah.

He has like a fitness guy. Fitness guy, make money, online guy. And then when I worked with him, loads of his customers started coming because they were like, oh, I look up to Jack. Jack's my mentor. Right. So it creates this really powerful flywheel, you know, and then the bigger people you work with, then you work with bigger people.

Yeah.

And then all the people that look up to those people want to buy from you and they. They instantly trust you, you know?

So when do you think's enough? Will I. You sold your business. You sounded like. It sounded to me, the story and reason and rationale why you wanted to do that was there was a drive to have some freedom. Bit more freedom back in your life.

Yeah.

You've openly admitted that you're a bit of an introvert. Yeah. Which is which, by the way, I, you know, I'm an introvert and an extrovert. I'd say I'm very happy with my own company.

Yeah.

But I like going out, meeting people. But if I didn't speak to anyone for it, I'm okay with that. Right?

Yeah.

But it sounds to me like after you, while you had your business, you aspire to have freedom, yet the very day you sell your business, you're thinking about how you can potentially get more customers. Right. So. So I'm seeing there's a guy in front of me that's, you know, there's a. There's a ferocious appetite here.

Yeah. Yeah.

Are you actually searching? What are you.

What's.

What are you. What are you going for here, mate? What's the end goal?

Yeah, well, I've realized, like, I just like building things and left to my own devices.

If I had. If I had a hundred million net worth right now, I would do the same thing.

Yeah.

Because what else am I going to do, man?

Yeah.

You know, like, what else am I bloody gonna do? I might take up a fancy hobby or maybe get a yacht or bigger house or something, but I would come back to work because this is just what I love to do. I just love. Like, I've been working on the product a lot recently, like working on the branding, remaking all the videos more so just for fun. Fun. You know, I just love doing it. Like I was up late last night just doing it because I just love it. And I love the coaching calls.

Yeah.

I love making the YouTube videos because right back to childhood, I love making the videos. I still love making the videos. Right back to childhood, I love making products. I still love making products. And someone said to me once, they were like, if you want to know what you meant to do in life, look back to what you did for free in your childhood with no ulterior motive, just what you would just do for fun. And I was like, yeah, for me it was making products.

Yeah.

And. And building things, you know, so the. I've got, you know, network targets and stuff. But it's funny, one of the reasons that I bought the Bali home recently was because I thought if I ever wanted to just switch all this off, I can just bugger off there. Bugger off to Bali.

Yeah.

You know, and just. It's in a very quiet place, just a little bit out of the way way. And it's just a beautiful, relaxed place. So if I ever disappear, I'm in Bali having a great time. Having a great time. Yeah.

But look, I've worked with you, okay? So I've. And I've. And I know quite a few other people that work with you.

Yeah.

And I'm seeing a guy that still will work late into the night.

Yeah.

I'm still seeing a Guy that's got, got a small team now. I mean, how many people are in your team? It's three. It is.

One, two, three, four. Six people now.

Six people now. Yeah. Okay, so you've grown it a little bit. I'm seeing someone that's very hands on, it looks like in the business still.

Yeah.

You know, you've got a steady relationship at home. Right. I don't see someone that's kind of working, you know, two, the four hour work week, for example. I'm not, I'm not seeing, I'm not seeing that life on the beach. You know, you've got the Dubai, you know, beautiful views from your Dubai apartment house in Bali, you know. But I'm seeing someone that works bloody hard still.

Yeah.

And that's, that's, that hasn't changed one bit.

No.

And so I'm curious, where does that, you know, where's that, where's that coming from and when is going to be enough and, and what else do you want to get out of life? Me?

Well.

One thing that I've always wanted to have is like.

Just like a foundation. What that looks like to me is what I call a forever home in Bali, a forever home in Dubai and a forever home in England as well. And it's funny because the apartment I bought downstairs, I thought that was my forever home, but I was like, no, it's not big enough. And then I bought this one, I was like, this is definitely my forever home. And now I've got this. I want the mansion on the Palm.

Yeah, first thing we see, spoke about.

So I, I don't really know where that line is, is going to be drawn, but that's the current mission that I'm on is just I've got the Bali forever home, I'm going to get the Dubai one over the next 12 months. I'll get the, the England one next year. And then I don't, I just don't really need money anymore after that because I've got a lot of real estate, I've got a lot of rent.

You said this before, by the way.

There you go.

There's a little trend here.

There is, there is a trend, but I, I don't know, man. I mean like, how much do you need? Yeah, I mean, when you've got homes that you own outright that are massive around the world and you've got, you know, 40 grand a month rent from your, your properties and you've got a business making you right now, 3, 400amonth net profit, 500amonth net profit. You know, I've been thinking about this last few days. I'm, I'm not, I'm not going to push this business for the next few months. I'm just going to go to bog. Make my YouTube videos. I'm not going to push the team.

Yeah.

I'm just going to let it, let whatever happen happens. You know, I, I don't want to scale.

You're going to do your videos still. Yeah. You're going to, you're just going to keep things as they are and see what happens.

Dude, if people want to work with me, they can work with me. If they don't, I don't really care.

Yeah.

You know, so I'm.

And so that's freedom. I think that's freedom.

I think it is.

Yeah.

I think it is. Because if people did stop working with me, I've got more than enough, man. I've got more than enough.

Yeah.

Know. I've got more than, I've got enough to last forever.

Yeah. Right.

Right now. But I don't have a mansion on the farm.

Yeah.

And I don't have a mansion close to my parents in England yet. So I feel like I, I definitely have freedom and I'm very happy, I'm very satisfied. I feel very fulfilled. You know, I love where I live. I love the work, I love my team. I love the clients.

Yeah.

I love the money that I'm making. So I'm pretty happy, man. You know there's, there's not a lot more that that I want but I think, I don't think there is monetary.

Wise you're talking about here though.

Really money wise. I think for me and I'd like to, I'd like to get your thoughts on this as well. But I think no one needs more.

Than I would say, I would say 20 million pound net worth.

Yeah.

I mean I don't think.

And I, the thing is I've know a lot and you know this. I know a lot of, there's very wealthy successful people. They're some of the most unhappy people I know as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't want to be those people.

Yeah.

I don't want to. I don't want, you know, their, their insatiable appetite to just kind of eat everything up and never really be satisfied what they got. It makes me feel very sad for them actually. And I, I think having kids for me was, made me reframe what enough was and how much time I was going to have in my life and what I was going to get back from, from certain things. And it made me look at what enough is like. I, I, we live a lovely life between Dubai, Sri Lanka and Europe. Right. I get to spend a lot of time with my kids. I've been married for more than 10 years, you know, so these are the things, the ingredients. And my kids, they never, I've got, they're at an age where that's never, I'm never going to get that time back.

Yeah, right.

So I have to, and that really makes you think about that a lot. And I have to enjoy this moment. Business will always be there. I ain't going to retire. I can, I can have a, a little break now and spend, spend some time with them, make sure I give them a lovely life, make sure I don't turn them into too much expat brats, by the way. And this is a real challenge as well because I want them to have the drive and ambition that I have. But spend time with them and then business, business will always be there.

I feel I know how to make money. That's so true, man, that's so true. I mean, I think that there's different kinds of businesses as well. You know, like we were talking earlier about, when I think of Bond, I think of people that are just starting to make decent money, 5, 10, 20, 30k a month, and then they quickly like leave England or leave somewhere. They don't like to go and chill in a beautiful tropical paradise and they've got more than enough money to book to just be in a great situation.

And I think, you know, you've got your smaller lifestyle businesses, you know, like when I started this, that's why I just wanted 50 to 100k a month on my own, no team. And that's a great business and you can kind of have that at many stages of life. You know, I, what I don't want is like a corporation. I don't want an office, I don't want hr, I don't want a massive team. I don't want low profit margins. I don't want that stress. I basically just don't want to do things that I don't want to do, you know, and I'll basically, my goal is to just never do what I don't want to do.

And what is it? I was going to ask what your values are, but I think you've just slammed one in there. That sounds like it makes a lot of sense. Do you, don't you just do what you want to do do? Right. That's what you want to do?

Pretty much, yeah. I mean, I just like to just only do things that I want to do, you know, never do things that I have to do.

And freedom is very important to me, man. Freedom and control and choice, you know. And this is why I keep so much cash as well and why I very quickly bought real estate. You know, I started making money, I was like, quickly buy real estate with cash, secure it, lock it in, build the foundation for the future. And for me, like, you know, when I've got so much cash, it calms me down. I'm a lot more relaxed, I'm a lot more focused, I make better decisions, I sleep better at night.

Yeah.

You know, you can just, you travel if you want to travel, so.

So it's a degree of anxiety there that keeps you going around cash by the sounds of it.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like if I come down below a certain number, like I'm, I'm almost back in my old mindset in the old company. Right, let's go.

Yeah, yeah.

Like we've got to get it back up. We've got to get this sorted out. Battle stations full on. So maybe that's why when I sold the business, that switch flicked off.

Of course it.

Because then I was like, now I'm. Of course it's good now.

Like, where's. You just lost your security blanket in your mind even though you're fine, you've looked at your bank account. Like, where's the next bit coming from? Yeah, and that, that survival mode which kicked out in.

Yeah, definitely.

Interesting. Very interesting. What's so life now? You've. What's your support sort of network. What's, what's. You know, you've got a partner, long term partner, right?

Yep. Correct.

Any plans to start a family or anything like that?

Not for the minute. The next thing that I'll probably do now is get married over the next 612 months or so.

And you heard it first on this podcast.

Podcast, yeah, for sure. And now I just want to go over to Bali and just try and enjoy life a bit more. You know, I'm really focused on like we were talking about earlier, just fitness right now. And I'm just trying to keep my life as simple and clean and fun as possible. You know, we have a mission statement at the company. Make money, have fun, help people.

Perfect.

And when I'm doing those three things, I feel, I feel really great, really aligned. So just doing those things, making money. Yes. Having fun. Yes. Helping people. Yes.

Yeah.

So that's, those are the goals slash values.

Yeah, really good. Will, I really appreciate you sharing your story today. Thanks a lot, my man. If people want to keep in touch with you or reach out or perhaps become part of your program, what's the best way to get you.

YouTube is a good place to go. And Instagram, I always check my messages on there. So if you message me, it will almost certainly get through.

And it's you that replies. It's 100% you that replies.

It's 100% me that replies.

I promise. I know I tested this a couple of, you know, you get the pots back. But with Will, it's Will people. Guys, thanks very much. I hope you enjoy the show. And please do subscribe. I look forward to seeing you next time.