00:00:00
so you do something with greeting cards
00:00:01
is that something you do from your spare
00:00:03
room nick jenkins former ceo and founder
00:00:06
of moon pig a company now worth 1.6
00:00:10
billion dollars my first proper business
00:00:12
was moon big which although it's been a
00:00:15
success of course it went through
00:00:16
various ups and downs like all overnight
00:00:18
successes it took 11 years i got to
00:00:19
confess i probably slightly stumbled on
00:00:21
it i look at it now and think wow that
00:00:23
accidentally was a really good business
00:00:25
model
00:00:26
unfortunately we too often we measure
00:00:28
the things that are easiest to measure
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and the easiest thing to measure is how
00:00:31
wealthy someone is i'm reluctant to
00:00:33
create this illusion that that you know
00:00:35
if you work incredibly hard you can make
00:00:36
a lot of money and that will make you
00:00:38
successful you have to be a successful
00:00:39
human being the most exciting times i
00:00:42
ever had in my business were when my
00:00:43
back was absolutely against the one
00:00:45
thing this is going down bizarrely i
00:00:47
found that quite invigorating but at one
00:00:49
point my shells all said look nick this
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is never gonna work it's never gonna
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make money by the time i got to the end
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of it i was pretty much down to zero
00:00:58
[Music]
00:01:04
nick jenkins former ceo and founder of
00:01:06
moonpig a company now worth 1.6 billion
00:01:11
dollars nick's achievements are
00:01:13
miraculous he's incredibly inspiring and
00:01:16
he created a business that's touched
00:01:18
many of our lives but the thing that i
00:01:20
found even more intriguing about nick
00:01:22
was he bucks most of the typical
00:01:25
entrepreneurship and success narratives
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i think we're all sold the belief and
00:01:30
the story that in order to be successful
00:01:32
in business or any discipline in life
00:01:34
you have to undergo tremendous sacrifice
00:01:37
you have to work yourself into the
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ground nick and his story and his
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philosophy disprove all of that
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he's got another way of doing it if
00:01:46
listening to this episode does anything
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outside of just inspiring the hell out
00:01:49
of you and giving you very practical
00:01:51
business information it will definitely
00:01:54
prove
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in my view that there is no such thing
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as a born entrepreneur and also once you
00:02:01
become an entrepreneur the path to
00:02:03
success isn't the same for everybody
00:02:05
a lot of what you've been told is a lie
00:02:08
without further ado i'm stephen bartlett
00:02:10
and this is the dire of a ceo i hope
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nobody's listening but if you are then
00:02:15
please keep this to yourself
00:02:17
[Music]
00:02:23
nick
00:02:25
super intrigued when i meet
00:02:26
entrepreneurs um because there's
00:02:28
a huge sort of narrative and i guess a
00:02:30
debate that's happened in the
00:02:32
entrepreneurial community about whether
00:02:33
entrepreneurs are
00:02:35
made whether they're born whether it's
00:02:36
something that can be taught and
00:02:38
um from listening to you describe your
00:02:41
early years and your school years and
00:02:43
your upbringing um
00:02:45
i wondered what your opinion on that was
00:02:47
and also whether you think you were born
00:02:49
on japan
00:02:51
i think there are some traits that are
00:02:53
common to all entrepreneurs well one of
00:02:55
those is decisiveness you've got to be
00:02:56
able to take decisions and when i after
00:02:58
i worked in russia for a bit went and
00:03:00
did an mba and when i was there there
00:03:02
were lots of people on that course who
00:03:03
were brighter than me um but and they
00:03:06
would come up with a beautiful
00:03:07
powerpoint presentation of five
00:03:08
different choices of strategic options
00:03:10
but actually sometimes he's just got to
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say i haven't got the perfect knowledge
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let's go with that one and take a
00:03:14
decision and so i think decisiveness is
00:03:17
a very and really an attitude to risk is
00:03:19
is the other thing i think i always took
00:03:21
the view that you know i started with
00:03:22
nothing i could end up with nothing
00:03:24
and i it i wasn't that worried about
00:03:27
about failing um
00:03:29
and that's quite important and so so i
00:03:32
think those sort of things are are
00:03:33
innate you can teach someone like that
00:03:36
to be a better entrepreneur and to some
00:03:38
extent i mean i i went off and said the
00:03:40
business i had nothing else to do to be
00:03:41
honest at the time i came back from
00:03:42
russia and i had a spare year and i
00:03:44
thought i couldn't think of a good
00:03:45
cunning business plan so i'll do an mba
00:03:47
while i'm coming up with a cunning plan
00:03:50
and that that was that probably
00:03:52
made my first business a bit better
00:03:54
because i i gave me more of an idea of
00:03:57
the rounded idea of business and
00:04:00
um and and so on so so i think you can
00:04:02
improve on that but i don't think but if
00:04:04
you're if you're risk-averse you're not
00:04:05
going to do it where does where does
00:04:07
decisiveness and um that risk appetite
00:04:11
come from do you think in people and
00:04:13
what i guess where does the alternative
00:04:14
come from where does the fear
00:04:16
um and the lack of willingness to
00:04:19
to make a decision come from in people
00:04:21
or in you like where did it where did
00:04:23
that decision come from in you i don't
00:04:24
know you have some people who are
00:04:25
physically courageous they will leap in
00:04:27
you know rugby players will leap in and
00:04:29
do things and and other people who who
00:04:31
are not and then you have some people
00:04:32
who are
00:04:33
intellectually courageous who will just
00:04:35
um
00:04:35
they're just not afraid of saying
00:04:37
let's do it um um no i'm not i'm i'm not
00:04:40
sure but i think i think it comes from
00:04:42
not having a fear of a fear of failure
00:04:46
or not you know we're all going to make
00:04:47
mistakes and things will go wrong but
00:04:49
but uh if you're frightened of ever
00:04:51
making a mistake
00:04:53
um then then then you won't do it much
00:04:54
times like if you if you ski and you're
00:04:56
frightened of falling over you're never
00:04:57
going to be a great skier so you aren't
00:04:59
going to fall over you it's quite also
00:05:00
you were just talking about almost that
00:05:02
mental assessment you made on what
00:05:03
failure meant because you were like well
00:05:05
if i go to zero that's okay yeah that
00:05:07
doesn't mean death no no no no it
00:05:09
doesn't i mean it wouldn't be great you
00:05:12
know but but but it's survival and i and
00:05:14
i've of all the friends i've seen who've
00:05:15
gone through that and i've had a lot of
00:05:17
friends who've gone through uh who've
00:05:19
gone through business failures the ones
00:05:20
i admire the most are the ones who it's
00:05:22
the way they've dealt with that and some
00:05:24
of them have thought well i can't change
00:05:25
that i can't so all i can do is change
00:05:27
the way i approach the next step and
00:05:29
move on and if you just dwell on
00:05:31
failure what does that mean how does
00:05:33
that reflect on me um then
00:05:35
uh then you'd never
00:05:37
yeah you you'd never move on so
00:05:40
i think it's our own in our own attitude
00:05:42
to failure that's that's quite important
00:05:44
what was your underlying drive to even
00:05:46
start a business versus just going and
00:05:48
getting a job at i don't know pizza hut
00:05:49
or something
00:05:52
i suppose i probably looked at that and
00:05:54
thought if that goes well i'll probably
00:05:56
make more money per hour than if i go
00:05:57
and work with pizza so there's an
00:05:59
element of one want to i mean maybe
00:06:00
there's an element of laziness that
00:06:01
comes into this it's wanting to take
00:06:03
that shortcut and think well well
00:06:04
actually if i if i start my own business
00:06:06
and and that goes
00:06:08
and it goes well then
00:06:10
obviously
00:06:11
it's it's better than an hourly paid job
00:06:14
one of my great philosophies on business
00:06:15
is just keep everything as simple as you
00:06:17
can possibly make it until you have to
00:06:18
make it more complicated
00:06:20
um people often start they start you
00:06:23
know way too complicated and and and uh
00:06:27
over-engineer things that you if you
00:06:29
read that book the lean startup it kind
00:06:30
of talks talks to some of those values
00:06:32
about just trying to is find find the
00:06:34
simplest way to test the hypothesis as
00:06:36
cheaply as you can without using losing
00:06:38
years of your life and there's nothing
00:06:40
there's nothing quite like not actually
00:06:41
having any money to do that so when the
00:06:43
moon pig when when we we raised money on
00:06:46
a very bitty basis you know there was
00:06:48
never like a well that occasionally
00:06:50
would pour something in it and you know
00:06:51
you you you hear it hitting the bottom
00:06:54
but it never actually filled the well up
00:06:55
so we never really have much money to
00:06:57
experiment with so we had to be uh
00:07:00
very lean with what we did and i think
00:07:02
perhaps the one the one useful thing the
00:07:04
only textbook that i ever went back to
00:07:06
from my mba years was a statistics uh
00:07:08
textbook because what i wanted to work
00:07:10
out is the least money i could spend to
00:07:12
get a statistically significant answer
00:07:15
to how much a cost to customer
00:07:16
acquisition is for a particular channel
00:07:18
because why spend two and a half why
00:07:20
spend 25 000 pounds finding out that a
00:07:22
particular channel doesn't work for you
00:07:23
when you can get the answer for two and
00:07:24
a half thousand um and uh you must see
00:07:27
this all the time but i i you get people
00:07:29
who say we're going to spend a million
00:07:30
pounds on our when you've got too much
00:07:32
money you just let's throw some money at
00:07:33
this and see what works well why waste
00:07:35
it when you can get the answer for two
00:07:37
and a half grand yeah and then and then
00:07:39
and then and i always look at that and i
00:07:41
don't think i don't think i've wasted
00:07:42
two and a half grand i've spent two and
00:07:44
a half grand some of that will have been
00:07:46
let's say i was aiming for a 10-pound
00:07:47
cost of customer acquisition and and
00:07:49
actually it was 20. well then 1 250
00:07:52
pounds of that was spent on acquiring
00:07:54
customers at the right price and 1 250
00:07:56
pounds was spent on finding out that i
00:07:57
should never do that again
00:07:59
and that's that's the way i would look
00:08:00
at that but if i spent 25 000 pounds on
00:08:02
it yeah then you know it would have been
00:08:04
it would have been a waste and also if
00:08:06
you can the more
00:08:08
you spend money to find out the answers
00:08:10
to things and when you've got those
00:08:11
answers and you're then putting that in
00:08:12
your business plan to raise money i'm
00:08:14
always more impressed when people say
00:08:15
right i want to raise money for
00:08:16
marketing this is what we've done so far
00:08:18
this is what it cost us so far so if we
00:08:20
scale this up that's that's what we can
00:08:22
do as opposed to just saying
00:08:23
please give us lots of money to spend on
00:08:25
marketing we don't know what we're going
00:08:26
to do yet um yeah i had this
00:08:28
conversation actually with my gym owner
00:08:29
the other day i didn't even know that he
00:08:31
was um aware of who i was but i was
00:08:32
leaving the gym he goes can i just have
00:08:34
two minutes pulls me into the back room
00:08:36
and um he tells me about this idea and
00:08:38
to be fair i can't say the idea because
00:08:40
he and we're going to talk about this
00:08:42
topic as well he thinks that if you tell
00:08:43
the idea then i'm going to run off with
00:08:44
it we'll talk about that
00:08:47
all the time yeah we'll talk about that
00:08:48
straight after but um but but so it's
00:08:50
idea for rolling out gyms in the country
00:08:52
he said i need to i need to raise
00:08:53
investment to put 10 of them in and i
00:08:56
was like
00:08:57
your this idea you have is totally
00:08:59
contingent on this central hypothesis
00:09:01
i'm just going to say he doesn't podcast
00:09:03
that um
00:09:04
people that drive long haul want to work
00:09:06
out in service stations yeah you don't
00:09:08
need to put 10 in to figure out if that
00:09:09
hypothesis is correct you can put a
00:09:12
shipping container in the car park
00:09:14
keep it there for free and if anyone
00:09:16
picks up the dumbbells that's that's an
00:09:18
indication that your hypothesis is
00:09:20
correct and then introduce another
00:09:21
variable which is cost yeah so then
00:09:23
charge them to pick up the dumbbells and
00:09:26
if you if you come back to me
00:09:28
in six months time and say steve they
00:09:29
picked up the dumbbells they worked out
00:09:31
and they gave me 10 pounds a month then
00:09:33
all you need is capital yeah and we'll
00:09:35
go make ten of them yeah yeah we're on
00:09:37
the same page
00:09:39
you know i'll prove what you can prove
00:09:41
on the least amount of money first and
00:09:43
evidence is evidence is always so
00:09:44
important um
00:09:46
and people miss that but let's talk
00:09:48
about that topic then so this idea of it
00:09:50
really really it shows me that the
00:09:52
entrepreneur is somewhat naive when an
00:09:53
entrepreneur comes up i'm sure you get
00:09:54
this all the time they picture an idea
00:09:56
and then they say
00:09:58
well they sound cagey to tell you the
00:09:59
full thing because they think you're
00:10:01
going to run off and do it yeah yeah
00:10:03
yeah
00:10:04
when i would say to them look if you get
00:10:06
the the day you go live with that the
00:10:08
moment you start advertising that idea
00:10:11
you're you're opening you're lifting
00:10:12
your skirts to the whole world so uh so
00:10:15
you're gonna have to go live with us at
00:10:16
some point otherwise you're not going to
00:10:17
sell anything and if you don't sell
00:10:18
anything you're going to raise any money
00:10:19
from anybody so at some point you have
00:10:21
to
00:10:22
uh you you have to tell people what
00:10:24
you're doing with moon pig there was no
00:10:26
way that i could i could protect that
00:10:27
idea the only way you can protect it is
00:10:29
be the best and and and be the biggest
00:10:31
amen yeah
00:10:33
i mean and then i we had probably 20
00:10:35
competitors that followed after moon pig
00:10:37
you know during our time then they would
00:10:39
they'd pop up and they'd flare up and
00:10:40
then they'd die off again um and and
00:10:42
even now moon pig is 65 to the market
00:10:46
when you started moon pig was there
00:10:47
anyone else doing personalized um sort
00:10:50
of gifting cards online yeah funny
00:10:51
enough that there was there was a very i
00:10:53
came up with a business plan and i
00:10:54
developed it and then i looked the first
00:10:56
thing i always do is i look around not
00:10:58
just at what direct competitors i've got
00:10:59
but how people are trying to solve that
00:11:01
problem in other ways because you know
00:11:03
if you're trying to solve a problem
00:11:04
clearly that problem exists already and
00:11:06
people are trying to solve it in one way
00:11:07
or another and and i did come across a
00:11:10
company that was doing um
00:11:12
personalized greeting cards
00:11:14
and and i approached them and said oh
00:11:16
i've got a choice i can either i've come
00:11:17
up with this plan i can either do it
00:11:19
myself or i can invest in your business
00:11:20
and um and
00:11:22
and anyway he the terms he offered were
00:11:24
ridiculous and also the other problem
00:11:25
was i could see that is we would we were
00:11:27
going to fall out over the content of
00:11:29
the cards because um
00:11:31
i just didn't think he had a very good
00:11:32
eye for cards um without that business
00:11:35
anything ever turned over more than 300
00:11:36
000 a year
00:11:37
and then it died about two years later
00:11:39
um and uh and moon pig went so i i went
00:11:42
off and did my own thing and what it
00:11:44
taught me actually looking back at it is
00:11:46
that is that it was all about the
00:11:47
content it was about the quality of the
00:11:49
of the cars the quality of the design of
00:11:51
the cars because actually the customer
00:11:52
doesn't really care how the car was
00:11:54
produced they didn't care about the
00:11:55
technology at all what they want is the
00:11:56
end product and and we have the best end
00:11:59
product that's so interesting because um
00:12:01
a lot of entrepreneurs are put off from
00:12:03
starting an idea because when they
00:12:05
google their idea that they have they
00:12:07
find 10 of the people that are already
00:12:08
doing it and i i really want to touch on
00:12:10
this point because i think it's quite
00:12:11
liberating for entrepreneurs listening
00:12:13
when i started my business in fact every
00:12:15
business i've ever started that's been
00:12:16
successful had a major
00:12:18
incumbent already and we might we became
00:12:20
the biggest and it's exactly what you
00:12:21
described it's those there's probably a
00:12:23
thousand small details that go into
00:12:25
making a successful bit listen more
00:12:26
let's just say there's a thousand yeah
00:12:28
thousands more details like into making
00:12:29
your business and it's and um you're
00:12:31
basically going to war on a thousand
00:12:32
details yeah and if you can um
00:12:35
you know if you can be better in just
00:12:38
certain ways and sometimes you only need
00:12:39
to be better in a few simple ways
00:12:41
i think it can i i agree and but then
00:12:44
then
00:12:45
if you look at the example of bread um
00:12:47
people have been eating bread for
00:12:48
thousands of years you know people like
00:12:50
bread we know what people prefer to pay
00:12:52
for bread that's half of your market
00:12:53
research done already you don't have to
00:12:54
say we've got something called bread do
00:12:56
you do you like it you can you can get
00:12:57
some slices you just ham in the middle
00:12:59
and call it a sandwich
00:13:00
all that's been done for you so then
00:13:02
you've then got to work out right well i
00:13:04
know i know that there's a market for
00:13:05
this so how do i just make it a little
00:13:06
bit a little bit better do i make it as
00:13:08
a you know add seeds to it do i put
00:13:10
cumin in it do i or do i have a shop
00:13:12
that is in a location where that isn't
00:13:14
well served so you only have to tweak an
00:13:16
idea that's already there so your chance
00:13:18
of success your chance of succeeding
00:13:20
your chance of surviving is considerably
00:13:22
greater because you've answered most of
00:13:24
the questions already before you've even
00:13:25
invested any money um the chance of that
00:13:27
becoming the chance of multiplying by a
00:13:29
factor of a thousand and suddenly
00:13:30
thinking that's like the guy in shortage
00:13:31
has just invented stuff called bread
00:13:32
it's amazing never had it before um so
00:13:35
you don't get that and i think that's an
00:13:37
important thing for entrepreneurs to
00:13:38
think about is that you don't have to be
00:13:40
unique i think that's you know people
00:13:42
always are what's what's unique about
00:13:44
you just got to be i agree with you
00:13:45
you've got to be better in some respect
00:13:48
and um and people tie themselves in
00:13:50
knots trying to think of trying to
00:13:52
invent things so i think it's a really
00:13:53
hard it's the hardest possible way of
00:13:55
making money i mean actually when you i
00:13:57
i read a report about the fact that the
00:14:00
the people who've most people who've
00:14:01
made money have made money doing
00:14:02
something they were previously employed
00:14:04
to do
00:14:05
because because they've spent 20 years
00:14:06
learning how to do something they know
00:14:08
all the contacts and then they start up
00:14:10
their own business it's logical not you
00:14:11
know when i'm looking at investing in
00:14:12
people i think well you know this
00:14:14
industry really really well you're very
00:14:15
convincing um and and you you know all
00:14:18
the pitfalls in advance perhaps of
00:14:20
course you're more likely to succeed
00:14:22
yeah but they also know they also
00:14:24
because they know the pitfalls they know
00:14:26
that where the opportunity to create a
00:14:27
better product would be as well yeah
00:14:29
yeah you know because so often i will i
00:14:31
will come up with a business idea and
00:14:32
look at it and it's only after i've gone
00:14:34
through this sort of fourth iteration of
00:14:35
the business brand that i think
00:14:37
and that is why no one has done this
00:14:39
before
00:14:42
that's very very true um
00:14:44
if you'd known how hard it would be
00:14:46
um to start a business and to
00:14:49
um make it successful do you think you
00:14:50
would have started because i'm here i'm
00:14:52
asking i want to know a little bit about
00:14:54
the like the importance of delusion
00:14:57
well funny if that's something i've
00:14:58
always believed that an element of
00:14:59
self-delusion is very very important and
00:15:01
i think that's one of the reasons why
00:15:04
actually
00:15:05
when i i when i finished my b i did have
00:15:07
the opportunity to go and join a vc firm
00:15:10
i thought i could if i can work for vc
00:15:11
firm for three or four years i'll get
00:15:12
more experience before i start my own
00:15:14
business anyway i went for a job
00:15:15
interview shock horror they turned me
00:15:17
down so i had to go and start my own
00:15:18
business and and i realized now that if
00:15:20
i had gone through several years of
00:15:22
investing in other people's businesses i
00:15:24
probably would have developed that kind
00:15:25
of
00:15:27
uh that hard skin of of this is actually
00:15:30
incredibly hard but this is why this
00:15:31
won't work and i see that
00:15:33
i see that a lot now in me now that i
00:15:35
look at as an investor i look at a lot
00:15:37
of things and i'm
00:15:38
i'm less wide-eyed than i was when i
00:15:40
started moon pig and i can see the
00:15:41
reasons why something won't work and you
00:15:43
become you can become too cynical about
00:15:45
it
00:15:46
whereas when i started moon pig if i'd
00:15:48
known all the problems that i was going
00:15:50
to come up against i may not have
00:15:51
started it and believe me there were
00:15:52
plenty of times in the middle of that uh
00:15:55
when i would have happily given it up i
00:15:57
mean people often say whether was there
00:15:58
a difficult period and they said there
00:16:00
was just one but it lasted from 2000 to
00:16:02
2005. um and and it was
00:16:04
[Music]
00:16:06
that was difficult it was it was tough
00:16:08
and i was wondering how to pay the
00:16:09
salaries and i'd talk to me about the
00:16:11
detail of that difficult period well
00:16:13
as as as you know better than anybody
00:16:15
that starting a business is one thing
00:16:17
and coming up with a product that people
00:16:19
might want is one thing getting
00:16:20
customers is probably the single most
00:16:22
difficult thing about setting up any
00:16:24
online business um and i think most
00:16:27
people underestimate that and we we
00:16:28
tried all sorts of permutations and bear
00:16:30
in mind this was 2000 so this was well
00:16:32
before social media so a lot of stuff
00:16:34
was very manual um i you know you will
00:16:37
laugh at this but when i was when i was
00:16:39
doing affiliate deals i would phone up a
00:16:41
company and say we'll put an advert on
00:16:43
your thing and if you send any traffic
00:16:44
to us we'll give you a bit of commission
00:16:46
on this and i'll send you a spreadsheet
00:16:47
every week to tell you how much i owe
00:16:49
you literally it was that manual and i
00:16:50
would write up a contract for each
00:16:52
separate contract for each individual
00:16:54
company had a big filing cabinet of them
00:16:56
i mean this you know that sounds like
00:16:57
very dinosaurish but that's how it was
00:16:59
and now it's it's much much easier um
00:17:02
but we were
00:17:03
we were struggling to find ways ways
00:17:05
that we could throw money at driving
00:17:07
traffic because everything that we threw
00:17:09
money at was too expensive and the only
00:17:10
thing that was really working in all of
00:17:12
this was the viral effect that we knew
00:17:14
that
00:17:15
we were we got very very good at
00:17:17
measuring everything and and we could
00:17:19
see that if we brought 100 customers in
00:17:21
that and those 100 customers we knew
00:17:23
exactly how many them would buy cards we
00:17:25
knew how many of them wouldn't come back
00:17:26
again but of the ones that bought cards
00:17:28
we knew that they would attract about
00:17:30
for every customer
00:17:32
that we had they'd attract a third of a
00:17:33
customer just because i send you a
00:17:35
birthday card you think it's funny you
00:17:36
look on the back of it moonpig.com and
00:17:38
so that viral effect was the thing that
00:17:40
kept us going for five years and it was
00:17:42
only really because i understood the
00:17:44
statistics behind that and i could
00:17:45
understand the model and think right
00:17:47
although everything else appears to be
00:17:48
failing although this online campaign
00:17:50
doesn't appear to be too expensive that
00:17:52
appears to be too expensive and we we
00:17:53
can't i couldn't tell you if someone
00:17:55
gave me 10 million pounds i couldn't
00:17:56
have told you what we could have thrown
00:17:57
it at um to make it work i could see
00:18:00
that just the customers alone were
00:18:02
driving the sales growth and if only we
00:18:03
could survive that long that we would we
00:18:05
would make it through um but i was the
00:18:08
only person who believed that all of my
00:18:09
shareholders at one point my shells all
00:18:11
said look nick you know it's not going
00:18:13
to work this is never going to work it's
00:18:15
never going to make money and you you
00:18:16
know we're not going to put more money
00:18:18
in and we really recommend that you
00:18:19
don't put any more money in too because
00:18:21
when this all goes wrong you're going to
00:18:22
have to have some money to pay the rent
00:18:24
and and it was it was that bad um how
00:18:28
much did you had you bet on this
00:18:29
personally well i mean i put in i was i
00:18:32
i'd gone off and worked in russia for a
00:18:33
while and i probably made about a
00:18:35
million and and by the time
00:18:38
uh by the time i i put about 150 000
00:18:41
pounds into mubic at the beginning to
00:18:42
get the idea off the ground
00:18:44
by the time i got to the end of it um i
00:18:48
i was pretty much down to zero i think
00:18:50
i'd taken all the equity out of the flat
00:18:51
which previously had no mortgage i'd
00:18:53
taken all my savings and all that so i
00:18:55
pretty much got down to zero
00:18:57
so at the point where people are trying
00:18:58
to discourage you to
00:19:00
i was pretty much already at zero zero
00:19:03
anyway so so and that that's when it's
00:19:05
that's when finally it started to turn
00:19:07
and um you know but i could i could see
00:19:10
i could see the stats i could see where
00:19:12
it was going
00:19:13
um it's just that you know after four
00:19:14
years of
00:19:16
i've had three or four different
00:19:17
business plans you know i know the last
00:19:18
business plan wasn't you know inaccurate
00:19:21
but this one this one's better oh and i
00:19:22
know the previous two weren't that
00:19:24
accurate but this one this one this one
00:19:25
works yeah
00:19:26
it's tough that's that delusion did you
00:19:28
ever genuinely consider quitting
00:19:32
no no i didn't know because that big
00:19:34
because i because i could see where the
00:19:35
numbers were going and i had i did have
00:19:37
a firm belief that uh the repeat rate
00:19:39
was there um the viral effect was there
00:19:41
and i could see how i could see how we
00:19:43
weren't spending we went through a year
00:19:44
we spent no money on marketing
00:19:46
whatsoever no money on customer
00:19:47
acquisition and we and our sales grew by
00:19:49
30 percent
00:19:50
you know so that's now i appreciate
00:19:52
having invested in lots of other
00:19:54
e-commerce businesses i appreciate how
00:19:56
unusual that is um it was my first
00:19:59
business so i didn't know quite how
00:20:00
unusual it was but but i knew that
00:20:01
actually look it's not as if there's so
00:20:03
many businesses i see now that the
00:20:04
moment you turn the marketing tap off
00:20:06
yeah just goes to zero yeah and all you
00:20:08
and
00:20:09
and that's one of the things i'm always
00:20:10
really aware of when i'm aware of now
00:20:11
when i'm investing is when is it i said
00:20:13
well what what's going to happen when
00:20:15
you turn that money to turn that tap off
00:20:17
because because when we did turn that
00:20:19
tap off it just kept on growing and
00:20:21
that's what i see is the real quality of
00:20:22
a business is when you're adding layer
00:20:24
upon layer of customers now you know not
00:20:26
all businesses are as good at repeat
00:20:28
business as moon pig was but but that
00:20:30
was that that was the the thing that i
00:20:31
recognized that kept me going through
00:20:33
all that and stopped me from throwing
00:20:35
the towel in and that's thankfully
00:20:37
because you had a great product
00:20:38
underpinning
00:20:40
yeah
00:20:41
the the main focus was was do people do
00:20:43
people like what we're selling um and we
00:20:45
knew that we knew it's a very very
00:20:46
popular product we could see that in the
00:20:47
viral effect with people not only do
00:20:49
people who bought it liked it but the
00:20:50
people who received it liked it so
00:20:53
the main focus was always on
00:20:55
create a really really good product and
00:20:57
then of course on top of that you then
00:20:59
got to make sure that you've got your
00:21:00
production right so that your gross
00:21:02
margins are right and and you're
00:21:04
tweaking all of those little knobs
00:21:06
within within within that uh engine um
00:21:10
and um
00:21:11
and the the key thing also just is
00:21:13
understanding um is understanding every
00:21:16
every metric and we looked at like it's
00:21:18
like a lose run that you're polishing um
00:21:21
every day you're looking at is there is
00:21:22
there anywhere where anyone's getting
00:21:24
stuck along this journey and and are
00:21:26
they not understanding what we're you
00:21:27
know the button that they're supposed to
00:21:28
press next are they getting confused in
00:21:29
which polish that one out so there was a
00:21:31
constant process that that time when we
00:21:33
weren't spending any money on customer
00:21:35
acquisition we were spending all of our
00:21:36
money on uh on customer retention and
00:21:39
just polishing that lose run
00:21:42
of the customer coming in through the
00:21:43
front door and going into the shopping
00:21:44
basket when you reflect on that and the
00:21:47
the fact that moonpig ultimately
00:21:49
succeeded in a market where many others
00:21:50
failed you talked about you know the guy
00:21:52
that you whose business you tried to buy
00:21:55
and you say what was it about what we
00:21:56
did that made us succeed or what was it
00:21:59
about me
00:22:00
nick that made this business succeed
00:22:02
what is your answer well i think i think
00:22:03
i probably did have a good understanding
00:22:05
of what people wanted in a card
00:22:07
and the if you get down to the
00:22:09
the simplest version of that is that is
00:22:12
that a card is about showing someone
00:22:14
that you've uh you want to show them
00:22:15
that you've that it's relevant you've
00:22:16
thought about them so you've chosen
00:22:18
something which is relevant to them that
00:22:19
they're interested in or that's that's a
00:22:21
something you both find funny
00:22:23
and you can weave their name into that
00:22:25
as well um to make to show that you've
00:22:27
made an effort and then the double
00:22:28
whammy i would always personalize moon
00:22:30
picard have it sent back to me and write
00:22:31
on the inside so that's like a double
00:22:33
personalization and it's it it basically
00:22:36
is about showing you've really thought
00:22:37
about them and that's and and and it's
00:22:39
amusing as well and and the the great
00:22:41
thing is quirky british sense of humor
00:22:43
that we we love slightly mildly
00:22:44
offending each other and then we we
00:22:46
stick the cards up in our fridge
00:22:49
so
00:22:50
if you focus on that focus on the on on
00:22:52
the product everything else everything
00:22:54
else follows in behind that focus on the
00:22:55
product and then make it very very
00:22:57
efficient um and uh and everything else
00:22:59
should follow whereas whereas if you
00:23:01
don't focus on the product and you're
00:23:03
just constantly selling something that
00:23:04
people don't really want it's incredibly
00:23:06
hard work
00:23:07
on the product a lot of people have this
00:23:09
idea i think when they start businesses
00:23:11
that you have to have your hypothesis
00:23:13
your idea of what this business is going
00:23:15
to become the product of yourself
00:23:16
perfectly nailed before you um before
00:23:20
you launch and then you know i made the
00:23:21
mistake of when i started my business
00:23:23
kind of being too romantic about that
00:23:25
initial idea so i was trying to force
00:23:27
the idea into the world as opposed to
00:23:29
listening um if we'd go back before you
00:23:31
started moon pig
00:23:34
what what was your hypothesis like what
00:23:36
in terms of like personalization what
00:23:38
you know how did you arrive at a card it
00:23:40
was it was very simple actually i i
00:23:42
thought through the different ideas and
00:23:43
i and and i realized right the this
00:23:45
internet thing is is going to happen so
00:23:48
i don't know much about it but no one
00:23:49
else knows anything about it either but
00:23:50
i did at least understand how to build a
00:23:53
team so i spent 10 years in russia
00:23:54
building a team of people and building a
00:23:56
successful business um and
00:23:59
and i went through this thing of what
00:24:00
things could i what how can i use the
00:24:02
internet to make a business and digital
00:24:05
digital products were all being given
00:24:07
away for free so everyone had this idea
00:24:08
that if you could download it it ought
00:24:10
to be free well that's a hard one to
00:24:12
make money in
00:24:13
the advertising business back in those
00:24:15
days was incredibly tough because there
00:24:16
wasn't much of a market
00:24:18
not much spend was going online and you
00:24:19
were spending more money to get people
00:24:21
to come to your site to look at the
00:24:22
adverts and people are going to pay you
00:24:23
for the adverts that was tough too
00:24:26
then i looked at physical goods and if
00:24:28
you take say a digital camera one of
00:24:29
those things i looked at if i took my
00:24:31
sort of satsuma fujitsu 32db i figured
00:24:35
that somebody at some point would write
00:24:36
an algorithm that would merely compare
00:24:37
the price of my fujitsu 32dd with
00:24:39
someone else's and then they'd buy the
00:24:41
cheapest one and that ultimately would
00:24:42
end up squeezing all the margin out of
00:24:44
that game so you'd end up with a lot of
00:24:46
physical stocks stuffed
00:24:48
sitting in warehouses and minimal
00:24:50
margins so so i looked at one of the
00:24:51
things that i can what are the things i
00:24:53
can sell on the internet where i can
00:24:54
actually improve the product make it
00:24:56
better and personalization is one of
00:24:58
those things it's very difficult to do
00:24:59
personalization in store because it
00:25:01
takes up floor space and equipment and
00:25:03
so on um and um
00:25:05
and i thought of a number of different
00:25:06
things including uh personalized cds
00:25:08
well i'm really really glad i didn't do
00:25:10
that one and
00:25:11
cards occur to me because i used to um i
00:25:14
used to typically buy cards and tips out
00:25:15
the caption and write something a bit
00:25:17
funnier um more relevant and more
00:25:20
relevant on the front and and and
00:25:22
equally journalist friends of mine would
00:25:24
uh whenever anyone left the office
00:25:25
they'd be given a spoof magazine front
00:25:27
cover which would take a day and a half
00:25:29
of graphic design time to put together
00:25:31
and i and i figured
00:25:32
we got digital digital printing was
00:25:34
beginning to develop at the time and you
00:25:35
got the internet and it made it possible
00:25:37
to combine those two to make it possible
00:25:39
for someone to order a single
00:25:40
personalized greeting card which has got
00:25:42
hands down got to be better than the
00:25:44
unpersonalized thing and then i could
00:25:47
charge more for the product online than
00:25:49
for the product in the shop but more to
00:25:51
the point there's no stock
00:25:52
so um so what we've got is a pile of
00:25:54
cardboard in the corner of the room and
00:25:56
a pile of envelopes that's the only
00:25:58
stock which i think represented about a
00:25:59
quarter of a percent of turnover so
00:26:01
compared to the digital camera business
00:26:03
where you might have a whole load of
00:26:04
digital cameras on the water coming in
00:26:06
from wherever you buy them from loading
00:26:07
the warehouse and so on um it's it was
00:26:11
um it was a very efficient business
00:26:13
model i mean
00:26:14
i i gotta confess i probably slightly
00:26:16
stumbled on it rather than you know it
00:26:17
it being
00:26:19
i look at it now and think wow that that
00:26:22
accidentally was a really good business
00:26:23
model um you get paid up front you pay
00:26:25
supplies in 60 days there's no stock i
00:26:27
mean it's it's uh it was great
00:26:29
so um
00:26:31
but but fundamentally it was a better
00:26:32
product and on day one right from the
00:26:34
very beginning my
00:26:36
the business plan i came up with when i
00:26:37
was doing my mba was i want to to make
00:26:40
it possible for a customer to buy a
00:26:41
single personalized birthday card which
00:26:44
technology has suddenly made possible
00:26:45
whereas previously that would have been
00:26:47
200 quids worth of graphic design time a
00:26:49
bit of lie through i mean just not
00:26:51
possible but core to that
00:26:53
is that the person who's receiving it
00:26:55
has got to think that's a really cool
00:26:56
card
00:26:58
and there was a point where you made the
00:26:59
decision to sort of step back from
00:27:00
operations
00:27:02
i i've always tried to my general
00:27:04
approach this is uh is
00:27:06
try to focus on the things that only you
00:27:08
can do
00:27:09
um and
00:27:11
when you really narrow it down and you
00:27:12
become a bigger company you realize that
00:27:14
actually
00:27:16
that really does narrow it down a lot
00:27:18
because i was trying to hire people
00:27:20
replace the things that i was doing with
00:27:21
people who could do it better than i
00:27:22
could do it uh and then once they're
00:27:24
doing it better than i could do you
00:27:25
think gosh well i'm not going to
00:27:26
interfere with that anymore so leave
00:27:28
them to it and then it eventually then
00:27:30
comes down to um
00:27:32
uh to a role i i
00:27:34
my role eventually that became that of
00:27:36
executive chairman so i
00:27:38
brought in a ceo and i became executive
00:27:40
chairman and i suppose then my role was
00:27:42
that strategic role of making sure that
00:27:44
we're we're pointing in the right
00:27:45
direction and also that we take those
00:27:47
big decisions
00:27:48
what are you bad at
00:27:51
i'm i'm or not good not as good as
00:27:53
someone else's actually say
00:27:54
i i think i'm i'm a i'm good at
00:27:57
short-term detail i can i can sprint on
00:28:00
real fine detail um so i can i can sit
00:28:02
on a spreadsheet for six hours overnight
00:28:05
and come up with a beautiful bit of
00:28:06
financial modelling but i i've got a
00:28:08
million one things going on and and so
00:28:10
so so i don't know that i'm necessarily
00:28:12
a complete a finisher um and there are
00:28:15
people who are good at that so
00:28:16
interesting when i'm looking at hiring
00:28:18
people i i will often although
00:28:20
um i
00:28:22
academic results aren't everything
00:28:24
that you always need someone who has got
00:28:26
straight a's at a level because
00:28:29
they're very good at understanding the
00:28:30
question and delivering it delivering
00:28:32
the answer so they understand what's
00:28:33
expected of them and they deliver it in
00:28:35
a very predictable way
00:28:36
whereas
00:28:38
ceos can often be quite maverick and you
00:28:40
ask them one question and they will
00:28:41
answer something else completely
00:28:42
different but much more interesting
00:28:44
and that's fine you can afford to have
00:28:46
one or two of those mavericks but
00:28:48
somebody in the company has to be a good
00:28:50
completer finisher um they understand
00:28:52
the question and they deliver it have
00:28:54
you this is interesting so there's
00:28:56
certain people in my in my in my
00:28:58
previous business where i knew they were
00:29:00
like useless at organization and process
00:29:02
and they were they were just dread they
00:29:03
could they were like unreliable
00:29:06
but they had one skill which was genius
00:29:08
yeah and so it would almost be like
00:29:10
making an
00:29:11
exception for them within the company
00:29:13
where okay they might take a long time
00:29:15
to reply to emails and stuff like that
00:29:17
but that one point of like creative
00:29:18
genius that they brought to the company
00:29:20
was worth it yeah did you ever have that
00:29:23
very definitely you've got you've got
00:29:25
some people
00:29:26
i think creative genius always comes at
00:29:28
a price yeah
00:29:29
and and it becomes because someone has
00:29:31
focused on one thing at the expense of
00:29:34
something else generally um
00:29:35
and
00:29:37
and so you just have to work with it um
00:29:39
and and say right okay well that's
00:29:41
recognized person doesn't do that and
00:29:42
actually those skills can easily be
00:29:43
dealt with by something else that get
00:29:45
them a good
00:29:46
pa someone who can organ get a good
00:29:48
complete finisher behind them who picks
00:29:50
up after them and and and then they will
00:29:52
come up with the ideas that nobody else
00:29:54
would have come up with yeah i think
00:29:55
that works
00:29:56
you know i hate i hate
00:29:58
powder i hate mixing powder with water i
00:30:02
hate protein powders that you have to
00:30:03
mix with water
00:30:05
up until now and
00:30:07
obviously he'll sponsor this podcast so
00:30:08
i'm tremendously biased but that's a
00:30:10
that's a true story i've never been able
00:30:12
to use the like my protein powders that
00:30:14
you mix with water because i always
00:30:15
think they taste absolutely awful
00:30:17
up until hull released their brand new
00:30:19
protein flavor the amazing thing about
00:30:21
all of these proteins is there's 20
00:30:22
grams of protein you get all of your
00:30:24
vitamins and nutrients 26 of those and
00:30:27
as huel always is it's nutritionally
00:30:29
complete
00:30:30
and if you are someone that's trying to
00:30:32
go a little bit lower on the calories
00:30:34
it's only 105 calories so when i wake up
00:30:37
in the morning especially i've been
00:30:38
working out a lot lately come downstairs
00:30:40
quickly blend it together in my
00:30:41
nutribullet
00:30:42
drink it's 100 calories and then my next
00:30:45
sort of main meal because i'm a
00:30:46
breakfast skipper will be
00:30:48
at lunchtime highly recommend it um and
00:30:50
i shouldn't say this because i don't
00:30:52
have any approval to say this but
00:30:54
there's some amazing amazing flavors
00:30:56
coming in the ready to drink range that
00:30:57
i've been lucky enough to try
00:30:59
um
00:31:00
and
00:31:00
one of those is my new favorite flavor
00:31:02
so stay tuned you were talking about
00:31:04
that struggle you had for the first five
00:31:06
years of music specific i heard you
00:31:07
talking some interviews about you know
00:31:09
three four five etcetera being
00:31:10
particularly hard but um
00:31:12
what was what was the personal
00:31:15
sacrifice of that i'm thinking now about
00:31:18
how easy it was to maintain like
00:31:20
relationships and friendships when
00:31:23
you know in your head you probably have
00:31:24
that red
00:31:26
read those red numbers from the
00:31:27
management accounts and sort of etched
00:31:29
into your mind at all times can't be
00:31:31
honest never really got in the way
00:31:33
that never got in the way
00:31:35
no no i
00:31:36
i'm a lot of people confuse um that's
00:31:39
all we're running your own business
00:31:40
you're working all the hours at godsends
00:31:42
um i never did if something needs to be
00:31:44
done i could i if and only i could do it
00:31:46
then i would do it and there were time
00:31:47
you know there's the odd time when uh i
00:31:49
remember once when our entire printing
00:31:51
team uh uh
00:31:52
were off ill and
00:31:54
i came back from a business trip to
00:31:56
australia for most from australia to
00:31:57
discover that we were three three days
00:31:59
behind on on our printing schedule and i
00:32:01
simply i simply got in the printing room
00:32:02
i was the only other person qualified to
00:32:04
use the printer so i just sat in the
00:32:06
printing room and i worked uh
00:32:08
24 hours a day for two for three days i
00:32:10
think to get it all done so yes there
00:32:12
were times but but i had a great social
00:32:15
life i've always been a great believer
00:32:16
also that that i i need to i like to
00:32:18
manage a business
00:32:19
you know during reasonable hours i don't
00:32:21
i don't think it's important that people
00:32:22
need to sacrifice themselves on the
00:32:24
altar of my business and i don't like
00:32:26
them doing that one because it makes me
00:32:27
feel guilty about skyping off um you
00:32:29
know if you've got all of your whole of
00:32:30
your people in the office and they're
00:32:31
they're working 24 hours a day and and
00:32:33
you're sort of you know taking half the
00:32:35
day off to go and do something fun
00:32:36
i
00:32:38
feel awful um so
00:32:39
so i try to make sure the same standards
00:32:41
apply and and
00:32:42
and that people should people should
00:32:43
work a proper you know proper day's work
00:32:45
in the hours that they would
00:32:47
like to work within reason um but i do
00:32:49
expect them to go off and go and do
00:32:51
something different and recharge their
00:32:52
batteries in the evening and the
00:32:53
weekends and
00:32:55
you know because otherwise you just run
00:32:57
out of steam and particularly it was a
00:32:58
creative business you know we're
00:33:00
trying to make people laugh if you're
00:33:02
exhausted and miserable um
00:33:04
um that's tough
00:33:06
it goes against a lot of the sort of
00:33:07
typical narrative doesn't it in
00:33:08
entrepreneurship like the hustle porn
00:33:10
star entrepreneur who just like back in
00:33:12
doesn't sleep and
00:33:13
just caffeine and just you know they're
00:33:15
like crying in the street
00:33:17
like
00:33:18
and they're like you know eating ramen
00:33:19
noodles and stuff like that what does
00:33:20
that what does that narrative make you
00:33:22
uh make you think
00:33:23
well i think that's true if you start a
00:33:25
business with a lot of people start a
00:33:26
business with nothing and a lot of
00:33:27
businesses fail and and as those
00:33:29
businesses are failing clearly obviously
00:33:31
you're down to your last pennies and
00:33:33
that's tough and and and so i think that
00:33:35
the thing that they're describing is
00:33:37
that is the last sort of death throes of
00:33:39
a business and i you know i've seen lots
00:33:41
of businesses that i've invested in go
00:33:42
through the same thing where there is no
00:33:44
money left you can't pay salaries uh and
00:33:47
the the founders are down to uh you know
00:33:49
they're living in the office um under
00:33:51
the desk and and exactly eating noodles
00:33:54
uh and and
00:33:56
so that happens um
00:33:58
but
00:33:59
it but it is it isn't it isn't an
00:34:00
essential part of the journey but
00:34:02
generally the death rows
00:34:04
and occasionally you survive i mean you
00:34:06
know i had i not had had i not had that
00:34:08
last bit of cash that i put in i i may
00:34:10
well have been one of those cases um
00:34:12
what about focus a lot of entrepreneurs
00:34:13
you know have
00:34:14
i get a lot of messages from
00:34:16
entrepreneurs that have multiple
00:34:17
businesses
00:34:18
three or four startups they're doing at
00:34:19
the same time well i wouldn't invest in
00:34:21
anybody that had multiple startups
00:34:23
but what way you know because if i'd had
00:34:25
three businesses going at the same time
00:34:26
as a moon thinking was going badly you
00:34:28
you focus on the one that's going well
00:34:30
because it makes you feel better so
00:34:32
i
00:34:33
and then the person then they then they
00:34:35
turn around to the investors who put
00:34:36
money into the third one and they say
00:34:37
i'm yeah and i've given up with that one
00:34:40
i'm off to so there is no way i mean
00:34:42
when i invest in a business i would make
00:34:44
sure that there's a clause that says
00:34:45
that the foundation the founder
00:34:46
shareholders have to be 100 focused on
00:34:48
that they're not allowed to have more
00:34:50
than a four five percent stake in
00:34:51
another unlimited company i'm pretty
00:34:53
strict about that yeah i i mean i just
00:34:55
think it's laughable yeah absolutely
00:34:57
laughable that people come along and
00:34:59
they get you i've got three ideas and
00:35:00
i'd like you to invest in this one
00:35:02
but i've got those just in case that one
00:35:04
doesn't work yeah
00:35:05
for me it's for me as well i i tend to
00:35:07
think all three will fail because you're
00:35:08
giving like 30 in my way that i've even
00:35:10
if you're not prioritizing you're giving
00:35:11
33
00:35:12
of your time and energy
00:35:14
and all your competitors are giving 101
00:35:16
and a lot of them might be sleeping
00:35:17
under the desk so if you're giving 30
00:35:19
you're it's already hard enough to
00:35:21
succeed giving 100
00:35:22
yeah so you're really setting yourself
00:35:24
up to failure but i think there's this
00:35:26
weird thing where entrepreneurs find it
00:35:27
impressive
00:35:28
to some some entrepreneurs find it
00:35:30
impressive to list multiple businesses
00:35:32
that they're doing and i swear if i hear
00:35:34
an entrepreneur come to me with an idea
00:35:35
and they've also got another thing
00:35:37
they're doing i'm immediately deeply
00:35:39
unimpressed by them because i think
00:35:41
they've got this focus problem um
00:35:44
and maybe they're you know like maybe
00:35:47
they sat down and
00:35:49
tried to think of a business idea and
00:35:51
for me like when business ideas don't
00:35:52
come from some type of inspiration when
00:35:55
they're literally just contrived from
00:35:57
i'm going to try and think of a business
00:35:59
idea
00:36:00
i think that it's typically more
00:36:01
difficult i think like some form of
00:36:03
inspiration even if it's a small thing
00:36:05
of inspiration as a it's integral to
00:36:07
success
00:36:08
and creating something unique um
00:36:11
but yeah that's another thing that
00:36:13
irritates me about
00:36:14
i i i i get just as irritated by that
00:36:16
the times when you have to push on
00:36:18
through that barrier and if you've got
00:36:20
three things going
00:36:21
and one of them is an easier journey
00:36:23
that's where you're going to focus
00:36:24
yourself when in fact the that is the
00:36:26
absolute time that you need to be
00:36:28
completely focused on on on crashing
00:36:30
through that wall that you've come up
00:36:31
against
00:36:33
and and that's where
00:36:34
the best inspiration i ever had and
00:36:36
sometimes actually
00:36:37
looking back the most exciting times i
00:36:39
ever had in my business were when my
00:36:40
back was absolutely against the one
00:36:42
thing this is going down this is going
00:36:45
down and bizarrely i found that quite
00:36:47
invigorating
00:36:48
um when everything is going incredibly
00:36:50
well
00:36:50
there were times when i think
00:36:52
everything's going very well everyone's
00:36:53
doing their job frankly i could be here
00:36:54
and not be here it doesn't make much
00:36:56
difference um
00:36:57
in terms of skills as well as an
00:36:58
entrepreneur you i heard you talk about
00:37:00
public speaking being integral to
00:37:02
you did public speaking at university i
00:37:03
did i did a lot of public speaking at
00:37:05
university and a lot of debating and
00:37:07
the skill i think that's important is
00:37:08
the ability to be able to persuade
00:37:10
people of your ideas not necessarily
00:37:12
public speaking but in every meeting
00:37:13
that you go to you need to be able to
00:37:15
look people in the eye and convince them
00:37:16
that your idea is right and and that
00:37:19
could be in a sales role it could be
00:37:21
sitting around a table with a bunch of
00:37:22
developers and one of them saying i
00:37:24
think this is the right way forward if
00:37:25
you can't articulate yourself properly
00:37:27
then you're never going to be listened
00:37:28
to and that's a skill that i think is is
00:37:30
um
00:37:31
uh it's being recognized in schools i do
00:37:33
a lot in education now so i i see now
00:37:35
more and more they recognize that that's
00:37:37
a skill that is
00:37:38
really important that people should be
00:37:40
able to look someone in the eye and be
00:37:41
able to explain yourself very very
00:37:43
coherently i i tend to actually believe
00:37:45
i'd go one step further and think i
00:37:46
can't think of a more important skill in
00:37:48
life and business then we i call i refer
00:37:51
to it as sales because and we think of
00:37:54
sales we think of trying to get cash out
00:37:55
of someone else's pocket by giving them
00:37:56
something but i think if it was like
00:37:58
meet a girl in a nightclub you know try
00:38:00
and communicate your idea to your team
00:38:02
investors employees um everyone you
00:38:05
encounter i think is a to some degree
00:38:07
you're trying to sell something and it's
00:38:09
usually yourself yeah but and those that
00:38:11
are you think about how that compounds
00:38:12
over the over 70 years of your life
00:38:14
being good or bad at that one skill
00:38:16
will anything change the trajectory of
00:38:18
your life more than being like a good
00:38:19
sales person
00:38:21
and that comes from as you say from
00:38:22
being able to articulate yourself and
00:38:23
speak and
00:38:25
yeah and just think coherently and put
00:38:27
down
00:38:28
a logical argument that people think yes
00:38:30
okay i get that i understand it how does
00:38:32
one get better at that
00:38:34
i think a lot of that's practice
00:38:35
um and
00:38:37
i i think you know people make this uh
00:38:39
sort of binary thing between public
00:38:40
speaking standing on stage and speaking
00:38:42
to a crowd of people um versus not doing
00:38:44
anything at all and actually in between
00:38:45
there's a whole load of stuff which is
00:38:46
which is
00:38:47
working within a team and being able to
00:38:50
and that that's where most people come
00:38:52
up against it is that they'll be sitting
00:38:53
in a meeting with four or five other
00:38:54
people and they've got something they
00:38:56
want to say
00:38:57
and they
00:38:58
they if they're too nervous about saying
00:39:00
something they just don't say anything
00:39:01
at all and then their ideas are never
00:39:02
listened to yeah and then they're
00:39:04
devalued in that context and similarly
00:39:06
it may not necessarily be a spoken word
00:39:09
you've also got to be able to write well
00:39:10
and convincingly then there's another
00:39:12
side of it which is the numeracy side
00:39:14
and i find i find that the the most
00:39:16
convincing is when i went i i love a
00:39:18
good spreadsheet but uh but when you can
00:39:20
express ideas in in numbers and you say
00:39:22
look this is the model that works and
00:39:23
you can prove it in in numbers
00:39:25
it is it's a very convincing thing
00:39:27
particularly
00:39:28
yeah i think right if we do this this is
00:39:30
the evidence we've got
00:39:32
that's what will happen yeah that's very
00:39:34
convincing um so there's there's there's
00:39:36
also being numerous and being able to
00:39:38
explain things in numbers which
00:39:40
is yeah yeah it's so true yeah you can
00:39:42
be like orally persuasive which is you
00:39:44
know anecdotal persuasion i guess and
00:39:47
then you can be persuasive with numbers
00:39:48
which is uh or graphics and that's the
00:39:50
other thing i i do see the quality of
00:39:52
decks in the last 15 years has
00:39:54
dramatically improved um and
00:39:57
in that all that they're much much more
00:39:58
engaging and and there's some real
00:40:00
creative genius behind some of the stuff
00:40:02
i mean occasionally they don't talk
00:40:04
about the numbers which is
00:40:05
a beautiful beautiful peaceful
00:40:06
presentation and in a big sort of you
00:40:08
know you go through the the docs end and
00:40:10
it's all fantastic it looks lovely
00:40:12
beautiful graphics and then you think
00:40:13
you have kind of missed out the point
00:40:14
about how you're going to make any money
00:40:16
but so there's a lot more so again but
00:40:18
that comes down to how you persuade
00:40:19
people how you present how you present
00:40:21
ideas not all of us
00:40:23
not all of us understand things by
00:40:24
listening some people understand by
00:40:25
seeing i see patterns in numbers but not
00:40:28
everyone does and i i realize that now
00:40:30
that that just because i happen to see
00:40:32
something one way doesn't mean to say
00:40:33
that everybody else sees it in that way
00:40:35
and you have to understand how people
00:40:37
how people communicate one of the on
00:40:39
that point about you know persuasion and
00:40:41
communication um one of the most amazing
00:40:43
things that happened to me inadvertently
00:40:45
was um well one of them's right here i
00:40:48
started doing a podcast and i from i
00:40:50
never the unintended um consequence of
00:40:53
me
00:40:54
being forced to speak on stage because i
00:40:55
was running around the world talking
00:40:56
about marketing um and being forced to
00:40:58
write out and i do quotes on instagram
00:41:00
write these quotes every single day at 7
00:41:02
pm on instagram and then write i used to
00:41:04
write this podcast i used to just be on
00:41:06
my own um was that i a and was able to
00:41:09
develop my ideas better so if you ask me
00:41:11
any question marketing well i've already
00:41:12
written it out i've written written an
00:41:14
essay on it because i had to do a blog
00:41:16
because i had to wear my personal brand
00:41:17
or if you asked me something else about
00:41:20
my life i've already spent
00:41:22
you know a thousand hours talking on
00:41:24
this podcast about it was i became um
00:41:26
much i'd say 10x better at communicating
00:41:29
and the impact that i had on my life was
00:41:30
just profound so my conclusive point
00:41:32
here is i really think for young people
00:41:34
that there are ways to force yourself to
00:41:36
accelerate that learning yeah one of
00:41:38
them is like keep like you know
00:41:40
keep a blog yeah start a podcast even if
00:41:42
no one's listening to it
00:41:44
um
00:41:45
and i i i people will start podcasts
00:41:48
because they're trying to make money or
00:41:49
because they want to be famous or have
00:41:50
loads of followers but i but i think the
00:41:52
more beneficial thing
00:41:54
is the skill um
00:41:56
the skills you'll learn from doing it
00:41:57
and oh my god sales is just everything
00:41:59
to me yeah
00:42:00
you're right when you have to write a
00:42:02
blog actually write the words down it
00:42:04
really forces you to think about how to
00:42:05
express things coherently
00:42:07
in a way that
00:42:09
verbally you can get away with a lot
00:42:12
less discipline
00:42:13
dragon's done
00:42:14
something we share in common yes indeed
00:42:16
yeah i've just uh just started on the
00:42:18
show
00:42:19
um it was a yeah i mean
00:42:22
the first pitch everything walking in
00:42:23
behind the cell i mean i first watched
00:42:25
it when i was 12 years old
00:42:26
it was also surreal how was your
00:42:28
experience when dragons dragonstone
00:42:29
and what advice would you have for me
00:42:31
let's do the first question okay well so
00:42:32
my so i i love the experience um i mean
00:42:35
partly it because it's it's very
00:42:38
forgiving television to make in the
00:42:39
sense that uh you arrive on set apart
00:42:42
from the fact there are seven cameras
00:42:44
which was distracting for about the
00:42:46
first hour or two other than that it's
00:42:48
people walking through the door and
00:42:49
they're saying this is who i am this is
00:42:50
my business
00:42:51
and it's one of those things that i
00:42:53
think i think if you're
00:42:54
if you're thinking about that as a
00:42:55
potential career
00:42:57
it's about as realistic as you can get
00:43:00
while still being entertaining these are
00:43:01
these are real businesses that people
00:43:02
have spent sometimes several years
00:43:04
developing and put their life and soul
00:43:05
into it it's not some concocted thing
00:43:07
that um you know here's 100 pounds
00:43:11
go and see how much cheese you can sell
00:43:12
on the market at the type thing that you
00:43:14
see in the apprentice these are real
00:43:16
businesses and i think it's been very
00:43:17
inspiring i've seen a ground a real
00:43:20
shift in
00:43:21
the time that i've been around in
00:43:22
people's attitudes to becoming an
00:43:23
entrepreneur um because of yeah
00:43:26
partly but you know partly because i
00:43:28
think there's also been a shift in
00:43:29
attitude generally yeah and a lot of a
00:43:31
lot of young people aspire to the idea
00:43:33
that actually when you're young and
00:43:34
you've got nothing to lose
00:43:36
you can afford to make more mistakes so
00:43:38
rather than so you can just go straight
00:43:39
straight into it after after school
00:43:41
start something and
00:43:42
crash and burn start again and you can
00:43:44
do it all now from your phone as well
00:43:46
you know you can set up a shop
00:43:47
using shopify on your phone in a couple
00:43:49
of minutes and sell you know you can
00:43:50
even drop shop drop ship things so you
00:43:52
don't need a warehouse or anything like
00:43:53
that so it's very incredibly accessible
00:43:55
now yeah um more people young people
00:43:58
want to be entrepreneurs than ever
00:43:59
before but uh but but i i think it's it
00:44:01
i'm i'm really looking forward to seeing
00:44:03
uh and seeing this new series because i
00:44:05
think you will add a uh kind of a
00:44:08
different a different dimension to it in
00:44:09
terms of thinking particularly the way
00:44:11
that businesses now you know the way
00:44:12
that particularly tech businesses and
00:44:14
the way that they're funded
00:44:15
um is yeah it's very it's very different
00:44:18
from 20 years ago yeah
00:44:20
one of the things i didn't expect as
00:44:21
well was how useful the other dragons
00:44:23
are when it comes to analyzing the
00:44:25
business oh yeah yeah because they all
00:44:26
come from different disciplines so
00:44:28
deborah's going to help me with the
00:44:29
numbers over here and peter's got his
00:44:31
background in tech and you know
00:44:32
logistics and all the amazing things he
00:44:34
does and tuca's going to be able to
00:44:35
really sort of interrogate the supply
00:44:37
chain and sarah understands the craft
00:44:39
industry and business generally and um
00:44:41
so it was it's really uh they said
00:44:43
sometimes you just gotta let them
00:44:44
interrogate the business from all of
00:44:46
their angles i i learned a lot i learned
00:44:49
a very very important lesson from
00:44:50
deborah about um the food business and
00:44:52
going to supermarkets
00:44:53
she was interrogating somebody and and
00:44:56
talking about their gross margin and she
00:44:57
said well of course
00:44:58
as soon as your sales go up
00:45:00
your gross margin will go down i'm
00:45:02
thinking
00:45:03
what are you talking about
00:45:04
and then and i asked her about this
00:45:06
afterwards and she said well the problem
00:45:07
is that supermarkets love to have young
00:45:09
pioneer brands in uh and they
00:45:12
um and they will allow you to be on
00:45:14
their shelves so there's pyramid of
00:45:15
products and they allow you these little
00:45:17
innovative little companies to be to add
00:45:19
interest to their shelves the moment
00:45:21
that it looks interesting and you want
00:45:22
to sell more of it the supermarket is
00:45:25
aha now let's talk about the price
00:45:27
because they they know how to make that
00:45:28
stuff even better than you do they know
00:45:30
how to squeeze you down to a barely
00:45:31
acceptable margin and so your margin
00:45:33
which looked okay at the beginning and
00:45:34
they'll say well you can sell a lot more
00:45:35
but we're gonna have to have a different
00:45:37
price and that's and that was a lesson i
00:45:39
learned from deborah so so sitting back
00:45:40
and listening sometimes and and you know
00:45:42
like you know tuca's knowledge of supply
00:45:44
chain
00:45:45
and in textiles in particular it's quite
00:45:47
quite fascinating
00:45:49
so jumping back to your business then
00:45:50
moving so eventually you sell the
00:45:52
business yeah um fully or in part well i
00:45:55
sold i sold most of it in 2011 and i
00:45:57
rolled over
00:45:59
i rolled over into the venture capital
00:46:00
investment in the new in the new company
00:46:02
we basically merged two companies we
00:46:03
merged photo box and moon pick together
00:46:05
um with a lot of venture capital money
00:46:07
and and so i reinvested in that and then
00:46:10
we sold sold it all out in 2016.
00:46:12
um
00:46:13
so there's a couple of things here that
00:46:14
was the first point where you became
00:46:15
really rich
00:46:17
well
00:46:18
we moving started making a lot of money
00:46:19
before we sold oh right so we were
00:46:21
probably making about 10 million a year
00:46:24
in dividends um so
00:46:27
because it was making money faster
00:46:29
faster than we could spend it on
00:46:30
advertising so so so we just paid it out
00:46:33
as dividends i think
00:46:34
we paid out about 30 million pounds in
00:46:36
dividends before we sold oh wow so um
00:46:38
quite literally printing money so so by
00:46:40
the time i sold actually it wasn't as if
00:46:42
it was transformational because um
00:46:44
i i hadn't spent the money i i've still
00:46:47
got all the money that i'd taken out as
00:46:48
dividends so when when you so if you you
00:46:51
really built enough wealth to take care
00:46:52
of all of your sort of base basic maslow
00:46:54
over your needs clearly you know yeah so
00:46:56
when you when you sell
00:46:57
how how does that feel well it was funny
00:47:00
i i was i i was interviewed afterwards
00:47:02
and uh on sky i think and they said well
00:47:04
you know what are you gonna buy uh what
00:47:06
are you gonna do now
00:47:07
and i was like
00:47:09
what did you do immediately afterwards
00:47:10
and i thought well i cycled home and i
00:47:12
made a peanut butter and jam sandwich i
00:47:13
mean that was because
00:47:15
there was a
00:47:16
it's slightly
00:47:17
it's a bit of a weird anti-climax
00:47:18
selling i don't know how it was for you
00:47:20
but i went into a large room and i had
00:47:22
to sign about 200 documents um on my own
00:47:24
and then i sort of done it now and they
00:47:26
get a great well money have been banked
00:47:27
later on
00:47:29
back of the bike cycle home that was it
00:47:31
oh there was no sort of you know
00:47:33
no trumpets you know no signings shaking
00:47:36
hands it was it was um um quite a
00:47:38
non-event really so the money arrives
00:47:40
the same day when you've sold um yes
00:47:43
yeah well not not all of it i think it
00:47:44
was done it was done in stages but
00:47:45
mostly arrived on the same day yeah yeah
00:47:47
and so that you sold the company over a
00:47:50
100 million at the time yeah rolled
00:47:52
shares into the the holding company as
00:47:53
well um to keep it sort of invested in
00:47:55
an interest in the business
00:47:57
um
00:47:58
yeah i mean that's a that's a
00:48:00
[ __ ] ton of money did was there sort of
00:48:02
a loss in because you've given up your
00:48:04
your business here you've given up your
00:48:06
focus yeah your baby was there a bit of
00:48:08
a lot like a loss of orientation like
00:48:10
what do i do now with my life
00:48:13
yes though at the same time i think i
00:48:15
got to a point where i delegated
00:48:16
everything within the company and i had
00:48:17
been largely focused on the sale process
00:48:19
for a year or so so after that sales
00:48:21
process was over you think well
00:48:23
now the day-to-day running of this
00:48:24
business has been left to uh the the
00:48:27
team they're all doing a fantastic job
00:48:29
they're all bright and they're probably
00:48:31
better than i am
00:48:32
so me sticking around in that kind of if
00:48:34
i decided to carry on running the
00:48:36
business for profit i could have done
00:48:37
but i but i i felt as though i'd run my
00:48:39
course i felt as i added everything i
00:48:41
could add to that business and there
00:48:42
were lots of other things i wanted to do
00:48:43
in life um so
00:48:45
um
00:48:46
in a way it was
00:48:47
it was a challenge to sort of create an
00:48:49
identity outside of that you know
00:48:51
because for a long time i've been missed
00:48:53
a rusher i'd gone to russia and everyone
00:48:54
knew me as the person who went to russia
00:48:56
and did things in russia and then i did
00:48:58
as i started moving i fell into
00:49:00
obscurity again people think oh poor
00:49:02
nicki does something with greeting cards
00:49:03
um
00:49:04
and i go home at christmas
00:49:06
to back to shropshire and my parents
00:49:08
friends would say
00:49:09
so you do something with greeting cards
00:49:11
is that something you do
00:49:12
from your spare room yeah anyway very
00:49:16
very very i mean having because i'd run
00:49:18
quite a big business in russia and and
00:49:19
then of course it started it turned into
00:49:21
something serious um
00:49:23
so it was an interesting challenge which
00:49:24
is how do you sort of reinvent yourself
00:49:26
after that and i i i actually stopped i
00:49:28
went into the charity sector um
00:49:29
full-time and i became a ceo of a
00:49:32
children's charity for uh
00:49:34
for a year full time and then i became a
00:49:35
trustee of that for another four years
00:49:37
why um
00:49:40
well partly because i think i i'd
00:49:42
i think i sort of satisfied i felt as
00:49:44
i'd satisfied everything that i needed
00:49:45
to you know i didn't want any more stuff
00:49:47
so i wasn't
00:49:49
it was it was going to be hard to get
00:49:51
motivated just by making more money um
00:49:53
so so i wanted to have
00:49:54
i wanted to make sure whatever i did
00:49:56
after that was useful so socially useful
00:49:58
in some respect but for that you've got
00:49:59
to kind of do the work you've got to
00:50:01
understand
00:50:02
how to make a how to make a difference
00:50:04
and
00:50:05
and that first year really made me
00:50:07
realize how complicated it is and how
00:50:10
difficult it is to make a to make a real
00:50:12
difference um in the world um
00:50:15
uh so it's fascinating um and and i
00:50:17
wouldn't have been able to do that if i
00:50:18
hadn't if i hadn't sold the company i
00:50:19
wouldn't have the freedom to go off and
00:50:21
and and do that it's not interesting
00:50:22
that people they typically it's this is
00:50:25
a super like generalization and it's not
00:50:26
necessarily the truth but it appears
00:50:28
that we all start quite selfish in life
00:50:30
it's like let me get rich and free first
00:50:33
and then you see that transition when
00:50:34
people do make money is their joy comes
00:50:37
from philanthropy and helping others
00:50:39
i think but i think
00:50:41
you know in that very privileged
00:50:42
position of of
00:50:44
having seen what it's like afterwards
00:50:46
because of course for most people they
00:50:48
they want more things
00:50:50
i think
00:50:51
money a lack of financial problems can
00:50:53
bring you happiness not having financial
00:50:55
problems financial problems brings you
00:50:56
misery when you're beyond financial
00:50:58
problems um
00:50:59
you're neutral and then there's and then
00:51:01
there's and then there's financial
00:51:02
freedom which is i'm now free i don't
00:51:04
have to do the nine-to-five job
00:51:06
i have the option if i want to do to do
00:51:07
other things beyond that pretty i'd say
00:51:10
it's pretty diminishing marginal returns
00:51:12
i mean i think for some people
00:51:13
the more money they make it's about it's
00:51:15
not about the money itself it's more
00:51:16
about uh their position in our you know
00:51:19
you know if you're very competitive as a
00:51:20
hierarchy of people and there's someone
00:51:22
up there who's you know who's made
00:51:24
jeff bezos up there
00:51:27
and they see themselves on that
00:51:28
trajectory they'll never quite be happy
00:51:29
until they're up there and they'll never
00:51:30
get there so yeah um
00:51:33
i i realized very early on that if you
00:51:35
if that i wanted to avoid getting into
00:51:37
that
00:51:38
into that sort of competitive mindset of
00:51:39
thinking that i have to be somewhere on
00:51:41
that trajectory i've kind of you know
00:51:42
satisfied what i what i need in terms of
00:51:45
in terms of
00:51:46
you know stuff housing and whatever um
00:51:49
and then thereafter it's about being
00:51:50
free to explore other things one of the
00:51:52
things i noticed about you that's like
00:51:54
very different to the other um
00:51:56
successful people that i've talked to
00:51:58
and we touched on that a little bit was
00:51:59
you and we talked about a little bit
00:52:01
earlier but my question is i'm slightly
00:52:02
related um is
00:52:05
there seems to be a lot of like neurotic
00:52:07
obsession with people's
00:52:11
businesses hobbies i mean i remember
00:52:13
sitting with eddie hearn here and him
00:52:15
telling me how like how i mean his book
00:52:17
is called relentless like how relentless
00:52:18
he is and to the point where he will
00:52:20
sacrifice his family
00:52:22
to for the business and he'll tell him
00:52:23
he'll speak to have the conversation
00:52:24
with his wife and say my business is
00:52:26
everything if i you know don't make the
00:52:28
date if i don't make this then it is
00:52:30
what it is i am obsessed
00:52:32
um you don't seem to be like that
00:52:35
and that makes one would then therefore
00:52:37
assume
00:52:38
that
00:52:39
the problem that sometimes comes with
00:52:41
being like that which is a severe
00:52:44
cost to sort of relationships
00:52:47
wouldn't be present in you
00:52:49
i think you can be driven by two things
00:52:50
you can be driven by demons or driven by
00:52:51
passion
00:52:53
and it's much better to be driven by
00:52:54
passion than demons yeah some people are
00:52:56
some some people were offended at the
00:52:57
age of 11 by a comment that somebody
00:52:59
made to them that they'll never amount
00:53:00
to anything
00:53:01
and they have struggled ever since to
00:53:03
prove to that person that a teacher said
00:53:05
something bad to them and then finally
00:53:07
they go back sort of 35 years they go
00:53:09
back to school and and and they find
00:53:11
this old teacher who says well i always
00:53:13
thought you'd make something of yourself
00:53:14
and they think
00:53:15
[ __ ] i was hoping it's going to be more
00:53:16
gratifying
00:53:18
it was it was
00:53:19
you know the teacher might just say i
00:53:20
just felt you needed a bit of a kick um
00:53:22
to get yourself off you and it worked
00:53:23
didn't it um so um
00:53:26
some people are driven by
00:53:29
and the people who driven by demons are
00:53:30
often it doesn't make them happy like an
00:53:32
itch they're scratching and it just
00:53:33
makes it makes it worse amen eddie hands
00:53:35
basically like that and he he was quite
00:53:37
honest about that his dad basically he
00:53:38
was always trying to live up to his
00:53:40
dad's expectations of him
00:53:42
and i remember saying to him i remember
00:53:43
saying to eddie i was you know what's
00:53:45
the goal then eddie well you know we're
00:53:46
gonna sell it for five billion yeah and
00:53:48
then what
00:53:50
and then he's like well you know then i
00:53:51
you know i'll have my cigar and i'll go
00:53:52
to the beach do you actually think you'd
00:53:54
go to the beach cigar you just told me
00:53:56
you're obsessive and right and he goes
00:53:57
probably not probably probably
00:53:59
and actually the difficult thing is then
00:54:01
what do you do afterwards i think
00:54:02
because
00:54:03
i think it's one thing a lot of people
00:54:05
they think a business of starting a
00:54:06
business is about you start a business
00:54:08
and then you're working towards an exit
00:54:09
and happiness comes and exit it doesn't
00:54:11
happiness comes from the process of
00:54:12
building a business and working with
00:54:14
people and pulling together bright
00:54:16
people watching the work and creating
00:54:17
this thing i love the learning process i
00:54:19
think that's perhaps one of the other
00:54:20
things that i learned out of all of this
00:54:21
is that
00:54:22
i really really enjoy learning
00:54:24
and it doesn't matter how much money
00:54:26
you've got you can't learn japanese any
00:54:27
quicker but you can learn a little bit
00:54:29
quicker if you've got some really good
00:54:30
but basically you've got to put the work
00:54:32
in doesn't matter how rich you are you
00:54:34
can't buy that you've actually got to
00:54:35
put the work in that drives you so do
00:54:37
you think you're a balanced person i'm
00:54:39
trying to get i'll be honest what i'm
00:54:40
trying to understand here is
00:54:43
a lot of the entrepreneurs that i meet
00:54:44
that the reason why they're successful
00:54:46
is because of as you say you described
00:54:47
it perfectly because of demons or
00:54:49
something yeah and then that costs them
00:54:50
somewhere else yeah you seem to be as
00:54:52
was the case with the um the ceo of
00:54:55
delivery who sat here a couple weeks ago
00:54:58
fairly balanced person so i'm assuming
00:55:00
then you have really well-balanced
00:55:02
relationships
00:55:04
i think i got great friends and great
00:55:05
great friends and great relationships
00:55:06
and and a lovely family and um
00:55:09
um but but that's partly comes down to
00:55:11
it and part of it comes down to standing
00:55:13
back and thinking you know what is
00:55:14
success and i look at success that more
00:55:16
rounded thing what makes you a
00:55:17
successful human being
00:55:18
and and if you look at that then you're
00:55:21
constantly looking you're constantly
00:55:22
measuring yourself by well like actually
00:55:24
what do my friends think of me what do i
00:55:25
think i'm a good person am i a good
00:55:27
person i think i'm a good person um how
00:55:29
am i going to look look back at my life
00:55:30
and be embarrassed at the way that i've
00:55:32
trodden on people on the way up and and
00:55:34
and in which case you know don't tread
00:55:36
on people on the way up
00:55:37
so it depends on what you regard as
00:55:39
success what you define as success in
00:55:41
the beginning i think unfortunately we
00:55:43
too often we measure the things that are
00:55:45
easiest to measure and the easiest thing
00:55:46
to measure is how wealthy someone is um
00:55:49
so
00:55:50
when i go back to talk to talk at
00:55:52
schools about about all my old school
00:55:53
about about and you're invited along
00:55:56
presumably because everyone's heard of a
00:55:57
business that you've created i i'm
00:55:59
reluctant to create this illusion that
00:56:01
that you know if you work incredibly
00:56:03
hard you can make a lot of money and
00:56:04
that will make you successful you have
00:56:05
to be a successful human being
00:56:07
what is a successful human being well i
00:56:09
think it's all the you know those things
00:56:10
that one you've got to be you've got to
00:56:11
be a good citizen you've got to make
00:56:12
your fair contra you've got to make a
00:56:13
good contribution to society now if
00:56:15
you're good at business um you are of
00:56:17
course helping to pay a lot of the bills
00:56:18
which is a great thing um if you pay
00:56:20
your taxes properly but the um
00:56:23
but but but equally it's about the way
00:56:24
that you treat your employees it's about
00:56:26
the way that you treat the people around
00:56:27
you um and
00:56:29
all of those things i think the things
00:56:30
that you look back on your own life and
00:56:32
you think did i did i lead a good life
00:56:33
um was i was i was i a good person um or
00:56:37
do i regret look back and think you know
00:56:39
i was a bit harsh
00:56:41
quick one as a serial entrepreneur
00:56:43
that's currently building multiple
00:56:45
projects across multiple industries
00:56:47
everything from the marketing industry
00:56:48
to blockchain to consumer goods
00:56:51
everything one of the things that has
00:56:52
been a lifesaver for me and again a
00:56:54
company that i reached out to to
00:56:56
evangelize about on this podcast because
00:56:57
i'm a loyal customer and they ultimately
00:56:59
ended up sponsoring this podcast is
00:57:01
fiverr.com
00:57:03
f-i-v-e-r-r what that site allows me to
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do is extend my capacity
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across all of my projects if i'm looking
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hiring people and the quality of
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using the service one of you is going to
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win something very amazing
00:57:47
as you look ahead in you know the next
00:57:48
chapter of your life yeah we talked you
00:57:50
talked there about how the journey is
00:57:51
actually there where all the fun and
00:57:52
fulfillment lives yeah um and you kind
00:57:55
of like because i think we all kind of
00:57:56
like mentally map out what the next
00:57:58
phase of our life will look like we
00:58:00
don't necessarily know the details that
00:58:01
have a business plan but we understand
00:58:02
like the the fundamentals of that phase
00:58:05
what what are you what are you hoping
00:58:07
will be
00:58:08
part of that phase um
00:58:11
at the stage of life you're at where
00:58:12
money isn't you know money isn't gonna
00:58:14
mean that you can can or can't eat um
00:58:16
what are you trying to put into that
00:58:18
chapter of your life well um the other
00:58:19
thing i've realized um and i i listened
00:58:22
to something bill gates said which is
00:58:23
that if bill gates had become a doctor
00:58:25
he could have affected quite a few
00:58:26
people's lives but by going into
00:58:28
business he affected millions of
00:58:29
people's lives and he was very good at
00:58:31
making money and so i don't see anything
00:58:33
wrong with pursuing i mean now
00:58:36
i'm actively pursuing the businesses
00:58:37
that i that i'm involved with and i
00:58:39
would love to make more money but then
00:58:40
that gives me the freedom to do
00:58:41
something useful with that money it as a
00:58:43
whole other dimension to why are you
00:58:44
doing it i mean i'm chasing because i
00:58:46
need another lamborghini
00:58:48
because i've got a very old battered
00:58:49
discovery and a lamborghini
00:58:51
it's just not what i was going to say i
00:58:52
can imagine you're in a landfill no no
00:58:54
i'm just a very very tired old discovery
00:58:56
which i'm driving into the ground before
00:58:57
i buy an electric car but there's got to
00:58:59
be a reason for doing it and and you
00:59:01
know the reason
00:59:02
the reason for creating companies partly
00:59:03
because it is it is good fun i mean i
00:59:05
you know
00:59:06
thoroughly enjoy you have an idea and
00:59:08
you're creating something um
00:59:10
and
00:59:11
uh
00:59:12
if seeing your idea come play out and
00:59:14
you think yeah i was right that that
00:59:16
hypothesis was right so we pull together
00:59:18
some good people and it starts to work
00:59:20
and then 10 10 years later
00:59:22
absolutely that that that worked and
00:59:24
we've got a whole lot of people in
00:59:25
employment they're enjoying themselves
00:59:26
and the great thing also is when you
00:59:28
step back from that and you think that
00:59:30
that thing i mean moon pig has a life
00:59:31
its own i was in the car the other day
00:59:33
and there was a moon being advert came
00:59:34
on the radio
00:59:35
i've been i've been out of that for a
00:59:37
long time now i haven't been involved
00:59:39
you know haven't worked there for 10
00:59:41
years and and yet that's
00:59:42
it sort of carried on without me um
00:59:44
there's a huge sense of pride in that
00:59:46
when you see that it must be surely yeah
00:59:47
and actually you know when you sell a
00:59:48
business it's also a sense of pride that
00:59:50
it worked for them as well i think the
00:59:51
very best deals are deals where both
00:59:53
parties came away happy will you ever be
00:59:55
a ceo again
00:59:58
i don't know that i will because
01:00:00
i enjoy i enjoy the sort of that being
01:00:03
having the freedom to do different
01:00:04
things um and
01:00:07
there are plus and minuses to have this
01:00:08
this plural life um
01:00:10
i've realized that having doing 10 of 10
01:00:13
things is twice as much work as doing
01:00:14
100 of one thing
01:00:16
um
01:00:17
twice as much work definitely twice too
01:00:19
much work but partly from a very simple
01:00:21
perspective is the is the um i mean
01:00:24
nesso now post covered but before that
01:00:27
they actually simply they're getting
01:00:28
from one place to the other oh yeah you
01:00:30
know and that that gets in the way of
01:00:31
things um
01:00:33
but also it's the constant juggling in
01:00:34
your head and
01:00:36
and and that and then suddenly you think
01:00:37
oh i've been focused on that for a bit
01:00:39
and it's it's more work um so i would
01:00:42
like to be more focused i want to get
01:00:44
interested at a level where i feel as
01:00:45
i'm able to make a positive difference
01:00:47
to it um and that means that means
01:00:49
actually a smaller number of a smaller
01:00:50
number of things i had a job when i was
01:00:52
at university and the most boring job
01:00:54
ever it was a it was transcribing
01:00:56
license details it was working for a
01:00:57
ford dealership transcribing license
01:00:59
details from one ledger to another
01:01:01
and i'd get to about 10 o'clock in the
01:01:03
morning
01:01:04
physically it was it was so boring it
01:01:05
was physically painful and i would i
01:01:07
would i would think surely it must be
01:01:08
five o'clock it's not it's still ten
01:01:10
o'clock in the morning and it was
01:01:11
horrible absolutely horrible and and the
01:01:13
one thing i look back at my life but
01:01:15
it's one of the the greatest things is
01:01:16
i've never i've always got to five
01:01:18
o'clock wishing it was two o'clock
01:01:20
um and uh and that's that's i think a
01:01:22
sign that that you're not bored um
01:01:25
and there's the stuff i'd like to be
01:01:26
doing like i look for i wake up on
01:01:28
monday morning i think fantastic i can
01:01:29
get stuck in and i can do stuff and so
01:01:31
but that idea of that idea of of
01:01:34
there not being enough hours to do to to
01:01:36
get the stuff done is is a sign that
01:01:38
it's enjoyable the ones that don't like
01:01:40
what they do you know because i've
01:01:42
worked jobs outside call center night
01:01:44
shifts for you know just pick up the
01:01:46
phone book the hotel for them because
01:01:47
they can figure out how to use the
01:01:48
computer yeah yeah you know for dorothy
01:01:50
yeah she doesn't know where she wants to
01:01:51
stay she wants to stay in manchester
01:01:53
doesn't know where manchester you know
01:01:54
night shifts of doing stuff like that
01:01:55
i've had worse jobs as well where i had
01:01:57
to open the yellow pages and just call
01:01:58
someone and try and sell them something
01:02:00
um which was awful um but what is that
01:02:03
what liberates people from that place i
01:02:05
i mean i would maybe guess that it's
01:02:06
information and maybe skills so maybe
01:02:09
they could
01:02:10
the other thing is when you've got one
01:02:12
of those jobs
01:02:13
you take the view look i've got an
01:02:15
opportunity to learn how this to learn
01:02:16
how this works if i learn how this does
01:02:18
work works but take it seriously do it
01:02:19
well um then
01:02:21
actually i might know what it takes to
01:02:22
become a supervisor um if you become a
01:02:23
supervisor i might have then what it
01:02:25
takes to go up to to go one notch higher
01:02:27
and suddenly i'm actually then managing
01:02:28
people and and and that's a little bit
01:02:30
more interesting than what i was doing
01:02:32
so to some extent you have the control
01:02:33
to be able to sign how much time and
01:02:35
effort enthusiasm you put into it and
01:02:36
there's some jobs that will not be that
01:02:37
interesting but then then then say to
01:02:39
yourself right what can i learn about
01:02:40
doing doing this that's going to enable
01:02:41
me just to do my bosses job um and and
01:02:45
actually what your employers will be
01:02:46
looking for is someone who's applied
01:02:47
who's interested and they'll look
01:02:48
amongst the 10 people who are doing that
01:02:50
job and think nine out of 10 of those
01:02:51
people are just doing this because they
01:02:53
want to pay the bills this one is
01:02:54
genuinely trying to work out how to do
01:02:55
the job better
01:02:56
i've got one last question for you yeah
01:02:58
never asked this question before but but
01:02:59
it feels like i should you're you know
01:03:02
you're you know several years ahead of
01:03:03
me in business right so you've
01:03:05
experienced a lot more than me you've
01:03:07
had a child you've gone through you know
01:03:10
even dragon's den you've been through
01:03:11
that experience as well and had a taste
01:03:13
of all of that you know um attention
01:03:16
and um
01:03:17
uh
01:03:18
press and all that stuff
01:03:20
what would be the one piece of advice
01:03:21
you'd give to me
01:03:23
it can be relating to anything it's just
01:03:25
you you know maybe what's something that
01:03:26
you think
01:03:27
i need to learn or know based on me
01:03:30
being on 20 you know 28 29 now
01:03:33
i think i've just left my companies just
01:03:35
hold my shares a little bit yeah um
01:03:38
as you go as you go through
01:03:40
you can get to a point where you think
01:03:41
right i've had a huge success and i look
01:03:43
at moonpick and think will i ever have a
01:03:44
success as big as moonpig i don't know i
01:03:47
don't know but i've got to be okay with
01:03:48
that
01:03:49
and in order to be happy i have to be i
01:03:52
have to be okay with the idea that i may
01:03:53
never i may never better that
01:03:55
because if if you're always constantly
01:03:57
thinking right i've done that i
01:03:58
therefore have to do that it can be
01:04:00
recipe for misery and like
01:04:01
like you look at pop stars who who have
01:04:03
a huge career and then
01:04:05
and they're kind of done by 25 and
01:04:07
actually you know you know that they're
01:04:08
not going to quite come back and and
01:04:10
then a couple years later
01:04:12
and and so i look at it and i think well
01:04:14
i don't have to better what i did in
01:04:16
terms of i don't i'm not going to judge
01:04:17
myself by having a business that was
01:04:19
worth more than moonpig because actually
01:04:21
that's setting myself on almost
01:04:22
impossible task what i'm going to do is
01:04:24
make sure that whatever i do i feel as
01:04:26
though i was being
01:04:27
i feel as it was useful
01:04:30
um and some of this might not be as
01:04:32
obvious or as prominent as
01:04:34
setting up moon pig because sometimes
01:04:36
you catch a wave and i look at moon pig
01:04:37
and i think
01:04:38
did i just catch a wave i was in the
01:04:39
right place at the right time i i had a
01:04:41
good idea and i managed it well but
01:04:42
actually i had it you know i just caught
01:04:44
that wave perfectly and sometimes you
01:04:47
that that that can be hard to break to
01:04:49
to to recreate
01:04:51
um so
01:04:53
so i think being
01:04:54
managing your own expectations is uh is
01:04:57
is is a
01:04:58
uh is an important part of human
01:05:00
happiness um and and thinking okay i may
01:05:02
never better that but actually i'm gonna
01:05:03
do something different now and that will
01:05:05
be just as interesting it'll be just as
01:05:06
rewarding as as as as
01:05:09
as what i did before do you ever regret
01:05:11
so like with with my company um i think
01:05:13
i left in 2019 when the valuation was
01:05:15
maybe 200 million i think now it's like
01:05:17
500 yeah and it's probably going to go i
01:05:19
shouldn't
01:05:20
i'm guessing here okay i'm not involved
01:05:22
in the company anymore i'm probably
01:05:23
going to go to a billion i reckon yeah
01:05:25
um
01:05:26
do you ever regret moon pig is now worth
01:05:27
what one point something
01:05:29
1.1.6 well i i for for a long time i
01:05:34
said eight years after i saw the when i
01:05:35
sold the business it was making about 11
01:05:38
12 million pounds profit
01:05:39
not not ebitda proper profit like money
01:05:42
you could spend um and um
01:05:45
and eight years later it was making
01:05:47
about 18 million so i think yeah it was
01:05:49
an improvement on where on on where it
01:05:50
was but it wasn't so spectacular that it
01:05:52
was um so that they're happy with their
01:05:53
deal uh and i'm happy that i've got the
01:05:56
chance to go off and do something else
01:05:57
um and then i looked at floating and
01:05:59
think well because the thing about
01:06:00
floating is that nobody knew we were
01:06:01
going to have covered and and um and
01:06:04
that obviously massively boost uh
01:06:06
boosted the business and i think
01:06:07
property has permanently put more people
01:06:09
on online so that was a fairly
01:06:11
unpredictable uh part of it then there's
01:06:13
another question which is if i had
01:06:15
stayed in running that business would it
01:06:17
have done as well as it has and i don't
01:06:18
know that it would have done to be if
01:06:19
i'm really honest because the guys who
01:06:21
came afterwards a guy called stan ron
01:06:22
who came into moon big after me um who
01:06:25
was
01:06:26
awesome i mean he was a you know
01:06:28
brilliant um and then and then and that
01:06:30
then nicole rytha who's running it now
01:06:32
is has just taken it to another level so
01:06:34
we're going to take where he came in and
01:06:36
he's just so and
01:06:38
so so i i i'm not sure that i would have
01:06:40
done i'm not sure had i stayed in
01:06:42
there's no guarantee that it would have
01:06:43
done what it what it did and in fact
01:06:46
i'm not sure it would have done
01:06:47
so you know i and actually i've had some
01:06:50
done some really interesting things so
01:06:52
if you're asking me the question would i
01:06:53
rather have had sort of 36 percent of
01:06:55
1.6 billion yes
01:06:57
what i'm questioning is whether we would
01:06:59
have got there if i'd remain in the helm
01:07:01
well listen nick thank you so much for
01:07:02
your time it's been an incredibly
01:07:03
interesting diverse conversation and
01:07:05
yeah um thank you as well for uh you
01:07:07
sent a text message i think to
01:07:09
our mutual friend before i went on the
01:07:11
show just giving me oh yeah
01:07:12
yeah and he passed that over to me and i
01:07:14
i yeah i kept that in mind i won't show
01:07:16
what that advice was
01:07:18
i kept that in mind and um yeah i mean
01:07:20
your story is super inspiring and
01:07:21
there's a british success story and
01:07:23
someone that's so
01:07:24
i'm so fascinated by you because you're
01:07:26
so unorthodox in so many ways and you
01:07:28
also don't [ __ ] so a lot of people
01:07:30
it's tempting to portray yourself even
01:07:32
with the last example there you could
01:07:33
have said well you know you basically
01:07:35
said that you're you're unsure whether
01:07:37
the business would have performed better
01:07:38
or worse without you i think that takes
01:07:39
great humility and self-awareness to
01:07:41
admit that and that's the reason why i
01:07:42
started this podcast because you know to
01:07:45
share some of that honesty with the
01:07:46
world so thank you for coming on thank
01:07:48
you for being an inspiration to me thank
01:07:49
you for being one of my favorite dragons
01:07:50
as well you're just very real and funny
01:07:52
thank you it's good to have a real sense
01:07:53
of humor well it's been a real it's been
01:07:54
a real pleasure meeting him in person so
01:07:56
um brilliant superb and um yeah
01:07:58
hopefully we'll get you back again once
01:07:59
uh to talk more about your charity in
01:08:02
particular which i wish we had more time
01:08:03
to yeah to talk about because that's
01:08:04
that was super inspiring to read about
01:08:06
as well
01:08:06
um but yeah thank you thanks nick great
01:08:23
[Music]
01:08:33
you
