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In this episode of the Cult Products podcast, host Alexandra Pointet interviews Phill Keaney-Bolland and Adam Yaya-Durrant about their journey in starting and growing their agency, Yaya. They discuss their initial meeting, the challenges they faced in the startup world, the pivotal moments that led them to launch their own business, and the lessons learned along the way. The conversation also touches on the impact of the pandemic on their growth and the importance of continuous learning in entrepreneurship.
takeaways
Starting a business is one of the most mentally and physically challenging things you can do.
Having a strong partnership is crucial for navigating the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
Emotional support networks are vital in high-pressure environments.
The decision to start Yaya was driven by a desire for autonomy and a shared vision.
Naming a business can be a challenging yet important process.
Milestones in business often come from unexpected moments and decisions.
The pandemic presented both challenges and opportunities for growth.
Continuous learning is essential for long-term success in business.
Building a team is a significant milestone that changes the dynamics of a business.
Reflecting on past experiences helps in making informed decisions for the future.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Host Dynamics
01:31 The Beginning of a Partnership
04:17 Navigating Startup Life
10:18 The Decision to Start Yaya
16:07Naming the Business and Value Proposition
28:10 Defining Value Propositions and Initial Offerings
30:34Milestones in Establishing Yaya
32:55 Learning Through Experience: Early Challenges and Growth
35:59 Key Milestones
38:09 Navigating the Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities
42:42 Reflections on Growth: Learning from Mistakes
46:19 The Importance of Continuous Learning in Business
52:41 Building a Strong Team: The Role of Partnership
58:38 Wrap up and goodbyes
01:02:23 end
takeaways
Starting a business is one of the most mentally and physically challenging things you can do.
Having a strong partnership is crucial for navigating the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
Emotional support networks are vital in high-pressure environments.
The decision to start Yaya was driven by a desire for autonomy and a shared vision.
Naming a business can be a challenging yet important process.
Milestones in business often come from unexpected moments and decisions.
The pandemic presented both challenges and opportunities for growth.
Continuous learning is essential for long-term success in business.
Building a team is a significant milestone that changes the dynamics of a business.
Reflecting on past experiences helps in making informed decisions for the future.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Host Dynamics
01:31 The Beginning of a Partnership
04:17 Navigating Startup Life
10:18 The Decision to Start Yaya
16:07Naming the Business and Value Proposition
28:10 Defining Value Propositions and Initial Offerings
30:34Milestones in Establishing Yaya
32:55 Learning Through Experience: Early Challenges and Growth
35:59 Key Milestones
38:09 Navigating the Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities
42:42 Reflections on Growth: Learning from Mistakes
46:19 The Importance of Continuous Learning in Business
52:41 Building a Strong Team: The Role of Partnership
58:38 Wrap up and goodbyes
01:02:23 end
Creators & Guests
What is Cult Products?
Dive into the essentials of start-up success with Cult Products, hosted by Yaya's co-founders, Adam Yaya-Durrant and Phill Keaney-Bolland. This podcast delivers sharp insights on creating revolutionary products, radical branding, and attracting a loyal following of early adopters. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, each episode is packed with actionable advice and stories from those who've built successful businesses. Join Adam and Phill as they help you transform bold ideas into start-up success.
Alexandra Pointet (00:17)
Hello and welcome to the Cult Products podcast. I'm Phil Keeney-Bolland. Just kidding, I'm not really. I'm Alex. I'm the producer usually on behind the scenes of the Cult Products podcast. But this week we're changing things up a little bit and I'm going to be doing my best Emily Maitlis impression and interviewing Phil and Adam.
I've been working with the guys for, I don't know, four years now, think four years, I'd say. And yeah, been on a wild, wild journey with the two of them. But before we get into that, I just want to introduce Phil and Adam. Hi, This is a bit of a funny
Adam Yaya-Durrant (00:49)
Yeah, about that.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (00:50)
Yeah.
Hello.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (01:02)
Hello. Hey.
Alexandra Pointet (01:08)
situation I'd say. Bit of a change up to usual. How do you feel about me interviewing you both today?
Phill Keaney-Bolland (01:15)
Are we getting a grilling? How Emily Maitlis's is gonna be?
Adam Yaya-Durrant (01:18)
and I think I'm nervous. That was a very strong intro. I'm worried now we're going to get put under the microscope a lot, but ready for it.
Alexandra Pointet (01:20)
You
Phill Keaney-Bolland (01:23)
Yeah.
Alexandra Pointet (01:26)
Ha
Phill Keaney-Bolland (01:27)
We can both sweat.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (01:30)
Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (01:31)
I've never been in a helicopter. can sweat, and I've never been to Pizza Express and Woking.
Alexandra Pointet (01:34)
Ha ha ha!
Good to know. Not that you know of anyway. Yeah, Prince Andrew, yeah. Okay, well, I think let's just get into it, Happy with me to get cracking?
Adam Yaya-Durrant (01:42)
Prince Andrew.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (01:43)
Yes.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (01:49)
Okay. Yeah, I mean, yeah, let's go, let's go.
Alexandra Pointet (01:53)
So I guess like for everybody who's listened on the regular to the Pocult Products podcast and for new listeners, it'd be good to know like how you guys met.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (01:57)
Yeah.
Alexandra Pointet (02:11)
Where did it all begin? What was that moment like when you both saw each other for the first time on the date of...
Phill Keaney-Bolland (02:20)
Did we know it on the day of the ad? Did we know it was such a momentous moment?
Adam Yaya-Durrant (02:22)
Well, we don't know dates. Did we know it was? Well, maybe on the first day we went into office, like, because we were wearing exactly the same clothes, so maybe that was a sign of things to come.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (02:36)
That is, that is true. Yes. Although that wasn't the first time that we, so we met because I was working at the chemistry group, which was a startup where I was, where I was running marketing and we needed to hire a designer and
Adam Yaya-Durrant (02:40)
No.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (03:03)
wrote the job description that would win the heart of my teacher collaborator and got sent this guy's portfolio. Thought this is much better than everyone else's portfolio. Like a lot better. Not necessarily just because the other people weren't very good, but
Adam Yaya-Durrant (03:11)
It really did.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (03:30)
just because Adam is really, really good at designing things. In fact, I don't even think we interviewed anyone else. I think Adam was the only person.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (03:38)
really? I wasn't under that impression. It's like we've got about like we've interviewed so many people for this role. Yeah, you have to reduce that salary.
Alexandra Pointet (03:39)
I was going to say to
Phill Keaney-Bolland (03:45)
I was really, yeah, I was like, mate, you're have to really, yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to your finger out there. This is a very competitive, very competitive role. Nobody else applied actually. It was just you.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (04:00)
what? I honestly, if you want advice about writing job descriptions, this is your guy because it was like, I read it and I was like, this sounds incredible. It was like everything it was just it was like the best job description I've ever read. Honestly, it was it was so good. It was it just had everything in it. It was like everything I was looking for, which is just autonomy, like fun. It just sounded like it did sound like, like as Phil said, it's like the best place to work.
Alexandra Pointet (04:17)
Okay.
So.
So expectation versus reality.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (04:33)
We'll go into that. We'll go into that. I mean, he's a great marketeer, so he did a very good job of doing that.
Alexandra Pointet (04:37)
So Phil, did you actually interview Adam?
Adam Yaya-Durrant (04:46)
Yes, he did. He did. In fact, I remember it very well. I remember very well because we did it online, didn't we first? Because I was in, it was, I was about to go to Croatia or something. I was literally about to get on the flight and, and I was at my mom's house and we did it virtually. And yeah, it was really good. But I think it was right.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (04:47)
I
Yeah.
Alexandra Pointet (05:08)
So your first meeting was actually virtual and a lot of our work now is all virtual. So that's kind of a sign of things, might have been a sign of things to come. That's so funny, because that would have been way pre-COVID obviously.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (05:12)
I think so.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (05:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, chemistry was pretty forward thinking in that sense. Slash a lot of people didn't want to come into the office, I guess. So they not the office, the office was really fun. But there was a lot of I think a lot of the senior people didn't live in London. And they were like, you know, don't want to come in on a Friday. So let's figure out how to do virtual meetings. And that was that was kind of cascaded down in lots of ways. Chemistry was very ahead of its time, I think. And
Adam Yaya-Durrant (05:29)
Mm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (05:53)
I don't think we met in person until you started work. Because you were on holiday, I think.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (05:57)
No, think you... Yeah, I think so. I got invited to some bowling thing or something. I think that was the first time I met people, maybe. you know, I should do. But yes, the first time you... I don't think you were there, but I think the first time we actually met was when we turned up in exactly the same outfit, which everyone had a right old laugh about. So then, you know, that was the start of the chapter. Yeah, it was great.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (06:17)
Yep.
Alexandra Pointet (06:25)
And the rest is history. That's the end of the story.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (06:26)
The rest is history as it's said.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (06:27)
Yes.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (06:30)
What more can I say?
Phill Keaney-Bolland (06:32)
Yeah, I don't think we dress that similarly. Now, I don't I don't I think the chances of us wearing the same clothes now are pretty remote, would I would say. But on that day, it was literally, I think, like, Doc Martens, black skinny jeans, and like a red button up.
Alexandra Pointet (06:32)
You
Adam Yaya-Durrant (06:36)
We dying. And I be dying. We dying.
very, very...
burgundy shirt, which I think is quite an obscure choice for, you know, so that's a probability of that is quite, it's quite low. so yeah. But anyway, I think, you know, it was, it was a great place to have met and worked. And I think, I think it pretty quickly earlier on, we kind of worked out that like, there was something quite like kind of special in terms of the way that we kind of worked together. I think I hadn't really
Phill Keaney-Bolland (06:57)
Yeah.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (07:23)
worked with someone that kind of pushed me so much and like opened my mind up to different things. And I think we complemented each other quite well from an early, early start, I think it was a, yeah, very different to anything I'd experienced working with other partners at like marketing companies or other startups. So yeah, I it was quite an instant hit.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (07:34)
Hmm.
Alexandra Pointet (07:49)
So was it your both of you, it was your first foray into working at a startup?
Adam Yaya-Durrant (07:57)
No, I'd worked out quite a few. Yeah, I'd come from like Groupon and worked at startups and Australian and done some other stuff. But it was the first time I think I felt like we really had a bit of a mission. like, you know, we were and I think, you know, we will go into the organization we were working at, but it was a great place to really like learn our craft really, because it was bonkers in all the great ways and all the negative ways.
Alexandra Pointet (07:57)
You've both done it before. You've learnt it.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (08:27)
but I think for Phil and I, had a lot of like autonomy on like stuff that we were doing and we saw, you know, the whole kind of operational side of business and how like, talk about how that really impacted on kind of Yaya, but it was great. It was like, it was a wild roller coaster, but that's kind of, it was great doing it with Phil and, and together we got to opportunity to do loads of crazy, interesting stuff together.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (08:56)
Yeah, yeah, was pretty soon after Adam started that I think we were both still in the office at like 11 o'clock at night fiddling around with some PDF brochure or something. And I think that was...
Alexandra Pointet (08:56)
Great.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (09:17)
one of the first, what I realized doing that was that Adam really cared about what we were doing as much as I did, that he was like, no, I'll just stay and we'll just, we'll just do this. We'll just get it, get it finished and get it to a level where it's really, really good, which
you know, we've managed to keep the practice of working on stuff really late into the night going ever since.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (09:40)
Yeah. I think, yeah, like, you know, the similar work ethic is really important, like for a business partner or someone that you're, it does, you have to be aligned and, you want to try and always kind of exceed expectations and push yourself. And I think, I think that it felt like for the first time I was really being like pushed and
Alexandra Pointet (09:44)
Love those late nights. Okay.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (09:46)
Yes.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (10:10)
in a way that like felt at sometimes a little bit uncomfortable, but in like the most kind of positive way, if that makes sense. was like, I think we were both kind of on that journey together, which was really cool.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (10:18)
Hmm.
Alexandra Pointet (10:24)
So you're at chemistry for X amount of months, years, I don't know how long, felt like a lifetime. But then you both went off and did your own thing for a bit, right? But you stayed in contact and mates during that.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (10:29)
Felt like a lifetime.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (10:40)
Yeah, so the thing with chemistry was like, none of us really knew what we were doing. And so it was really good to have somebody alongside me who was like, yeah, I kind of get that. really know what we're doing, but like, let's try and figure it out together. And actually, I think, you know, it's also a thing we had that we had a really great group of people that were in that marketing.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (10:48)
Hmm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (11:09)
team around us. You know, I think for me and for me and Adam, one of the one of the things that was happening while I worked there is there was there was there was a lot of pressure. And I really tried to protect Adam and the rest of the team from that pressure as much as possible.
And that really was quite difficult and very stressful. you know, there was a specific memory that I think was quite pivotal when it became apparent to Adam and the rest of the team that that pressure existed. And that from that point on, Adam
became more than just a sort of, you know, person that I was working with, but he was the person that, you know, we would, we had, we actually had this office that was like a disused office next door to where we were. And so somebody had moved out and we used to just go in there and we used to just chat through, you know, what, what the hell's going on and how are we.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (12:19)
Thank
Phill Keaney-Bolland (12:29)
going to navigate our way through this and, you know, as well as doing the work together, Adam was actually really supportive and it became really quite weird because, you know, technically I was Adam's manager and supposed to do things like performance reviews and all that kind of stuff. You know, it started to just not really feel like that kind of relationship quite quickly.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (12:43)
Hmph.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (12:55)
And so then you've got this. And then the third thing I suppose is, know, we would, you know, go to gigs together and, you know, hang out outside of, you know, Monday to Friday stuff. So you've then got this relationship where you're like, we're doing some really cool work together. And we did some really cool things when we were at chemistry, a lot around kind of branding and events and things that.
I think we're really interesting. Then you've got the, okay, we're in this together and emotional support side of things. And then you've also got the fact that, you know, we're, we actually like each other and we're friends. So that, that actually all happened pretty quickly. The, the point where, so we were working with different people who would come into the business as, you know,
marketing people, all of whom were really good and who we kept working with all that kind of stuff. But I remember in my head just feeling that this pressure was getting more and more intense and building up and then saying to Adam, come on, let's just go for a walk and he talked to you about something. We went out to this little patch of grass because we were in literally above Oxford Circus and they have these little
fenced off bits, where some of the senior people used to occasionally just go to sleep in the middle of the day. Let's say about that, probably the better. And so we walked around that and I just sort of articulated, you know, I think that the people are coming in from agencies, I think we're at that level, you know, we could be going into other businesses and saying, we'll help you with these problems. Just like they are.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (14:30)
you
Phill Keaney-Bolland (14:52)
I can't see myself staying with all the, you know, the, kind of chaos and pressure and, know, as, as I said, the job that I was being asked to do, like, I didn't really know at that point how to do it and how to do it really well. So it just sort of felt quite, overwhelming and basically said, look, I think, I think we should start our own agency. And I think.
the two of us working together is really strong. I think we can, you know, we can do the things that we need to do really successfully. And then I think Adam, you said, well, actually, mate, this is something that I've always wanted to do. And really like to do it together. And then I left and then we didn't do anything about it for a few years. We, we tried other things.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (15:42)
Thanks.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (15:45)
I mean, we tried to start a charity.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (15:50)
Yeah, we did. We did indeed.
Alexandra Pointet (15:50)
That's right, yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (15:52)
Yeah. Which was good because that was another chance to work together and figure out how we could actually function starting our own thing.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (15:59)
This is your season. Autumn is Phil's season. You love the layering.
Alexandra Pointet (16:07)
So so yeah, you were at chemistry. It was obviously like super pressurized, highly stressed late nights, but you had a really good emotional support network. You were with like, like minded people you and you both had that like, almost like a eureka moment.
years before you actually took the plunge to start your own thing. I suppose, yeah, in the downtime when you were not working directly with each other, you working at other places on other things, you were still mates and going to gigs together. When was then the... What was the tipping point then Like, we've got to do this now or never, as you said, Phil. What was that moment and what inspired it?
having worked at startups.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (16:56)
Well, I think it became quite clear that, so we started this charity gaggle in the gap between while I was at Newton Adams, that chemistry before we started Yaya. And that, you know, we got some traction with that initially. was, you know, it quite fun to work on, but I think...
largely because we just didn't really have the time and we hadn't fully committed to it. we weren't really financially in a position to just pack our jobs and then kind of go full time on it at any point during that. So that sort of wound down, but it wound down in a way that I was like, yeah, I do still really think that I want to work with that. And even that idea, that was with Ben who's been on the
been on the podcast before Ben and I started talking about starting a charity. And I think I said to Ben, well, actually, I've already said I'm going to start business with Adam. So we need to bring him in on this. And I think he'll be really, really useful to it. So that's how it kind of evolved. And then, you know, we came out the other side of that. tipping point honestly, was that we had the opportunity to get a client that, you know, we were very
we had a good relationship with, and it would cover like about 50 % of the money that we needed to live. And I think that was good enough for us to then take a a punt on getting the other 50 % through sales. So it was it was literally just me just picking up the phone and I can remember vividly having this conversation with Adam and saying, you know, we
We talked about this, we've been talking about it. Are you actually serious about this? Like is this just pub talk or are we actually gonna go and do this? Because if we are, we're never gonna have a better chance than we have right now. I'm pretty confident we can get a contract here for a retainer and we'll never have a better chance than now. And the other thing I think was like timing wise.
I think Adam, you had just got married, but we were both still renting and I was living in Oxfordshire and stuff. In terms of stage of life, it was kind of like, well, we don't have loads and loads of commitments that we're putting at risk by taking a punt on what we're doing with our careers.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (19:19)
Yeah, I was freelancing at that kind of,
Phill Keaney-Bolland (19:45)
And it could have gone either way, you know, if Adam had said no at that point, I don't think, I'm not sure in like another five years we would have revisited it. I think we might've just moved on.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (19:56)
Yeah, I also think, you know, there's risk in everything. And I think kind of, you know, I'd worked in the startup world for quite a while by then and been through a kind of couple of like redundancies and things like that. There's never any certainty in anything. And I think
when you like when you've when you've had those experiences, it does make you like feel like well, you know, what's what what you got to lose? This is this is like such a great opportunity. The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work out and I'm back on the job market. But you know, you can start a job one day and then then then be made redundant like a year later because the startup hasn't worked. you know, it was a kind of it was an absolute no brainer for me. And we were very, very lucky to have this kind of platform.
to build the business off and I feel very grateful for having that opportunity through the hard work that Phil put into it to do that and the client itself because they were brilliant and kind of helped the kind of foundations of what we call Yaya today. yeah, it was pretty much like an easy decision really.
Alexandra Pointet (21:09)
And so Had you thought like specifically we talk, you know, you guys talk a lot on the cult products podcast about, you know, having your value proposition and editing it and, you know, changing it up. How like solid were you with your value proposition at that stage? Also, what were you called when you first started? think our listeners would be keen to know.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (21:31)
Well, being a design agency who, funny enough, do quite a lot of naming as part of our process, we were terrible at naming our own business. And I say terrible, it was just very difficult. But we had to do it legally because, you know, we to get stuff, we had to register a limited company and we needed to get paid and get invoices.
And we just couldn't think of anything. Well, we couldn't think of anything. We had some terrible ones. think we actually even like outsourced a, I wouldn't say it's an agency. What was that Phil? It was like a website that can just generate loads of names for you. And what was the one Adam and Phil, Adam and Phil philosophy, Adam and Phil's philosophy or something. It was, it was terrible.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (22:18)
You
It was terrible. It was one of those sites where you put a brief up and then loads and loads of people can try and answer the brief. And then when you sort of pick a winner and then you pay the winner the money for the idea. yeah, lot of, yeah, Adam's Phil Ossophy, but Phil with two L's was one of the ones that really stood out here.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (22:28)
That's it.
philosophy.
Alexandra Pointet (22:47)
Wow, I mean...
Adam Yaya-Durrant (22:47)
Although, you know, six years down the line and we actually remember it. maybe we should have gone with that. we went with I mean.
Alexandra Pointet (22:52)
Yeah. If you don't like.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (22:55)
We did go for something probably like, you know, equally bad, but we thought it was funny at the time, which is Adam and Phil's very good design company. Or really good design company. just good.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (23:05)
Just good, it was just good. didn't, yeah, we didn't wanna be, well, we didn't wanna be too, too arrogant.
Alexandra Pointet (23:08)
It wasn't even really good.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (23:09)
just just yeah, do. Yeah. So we had humble beginnings, Alex, like we wanted to, you know, that was part of our, our value prop was, you know, authenticity. You know, that was very important to us. So we didn't, we were like, we, we, we did work where we should put really good in, but we decided to take it out to see Adam feels good design company, which everyone hated because it was, it was super, it was really long, and they couldn't get it on the invoices. So
Alexandra Pointet (23:19)
Yeah.
I've just thought of a...
Adam Yaya-Durrant (23:39)
was practically terrible idea.
Alexandra Pointet (23:40)
Well I just thought of a name that you might have had, you know, if they were like blending up the names you could have had like, FAM? We like, Phil and Adam blended with a P-H-A-M? What do think? How's that name? How's that for naming?
Phill Keaney-Bolland (23:57)
Really, yeah, it's pretty good. Sure. Fam's, yeah, Fam's the name of, I want to plug the local greengrocer. It's called Fam. And I wouldn't want to go head to head with them.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (23:58)
Erm... Yeah, it's great.
Alexandra Pointet (24:03)
I think it's great.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (24:05)
night.
Alexandra Pointet (24:14)
well, say good then.
Damn it.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (24:22)
But no. But we did, in terms of, answer your question, Alex, and the property proposition, yes, it was like, I mean, to be quite honest and transparent at the start of running a business and, know, we've been talking to a lot to the guys that we kind of mentor and chat to about this, there's this kind of idea around like, you you obviously want like the kind of the great projects from the go, right? You know, that's like your idea. Rad here is like, you know, you're starting off.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (24:22)
Yeah.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (24:51)
you've got to just kind of do what you can really to kind of keep afloat, keep the business going. And just don't feel too, I guess, put down that you're not working on these kind of big projects that you envisioned from the get go, because, you know, if you are brilliant, you can do that fantastic. But it just doesn't always really work out like that. So, you know, we did have to like, kind of scrap around a little bit and get to get our kind of idea of like what we kind of
wanted to do. We had a clear vision in our head, like the type of work we wanted to do. were very clear on that. We didn't want to go down the marketing route. We wanted to stay very much around brand and early stage products. I think we've always been aligned on that kind of idea. But at start, you know, it took us kind of, I'd say quite a while to get to a place where we actually started to kind of work on those kind of projects that we wanted to work on and, and get that type of work. And I just think that is a reality of starting up.
nothing to be ashamed of, it's just reality of it.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (25:54)
Yeah, I mean, I think we should say that we owe a massive amount to the people who used to employ us, chemistry, when Adam was still at chemistry when we started the business.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (26:06)
Hmm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (26:15)
the you know Roger and the team there they they didn't want to lose Adam so they you know we transferred that relationship into they became became a client and and for me Newton were like super supportive in terms of like giving us the opportunity to do all of all of this and you know I'll be really grateful to there's a few specific people who helped helped us actually shape
what that arrangement looked like, but also that was effectively our value proposition at the start was the things that chemistry wanted to buy and the things that Newton wanted to buy. And they covered a range of different things, some of them in the marketing space, some of them in product design space, some of them in the more kind of like digital website space. so that was our value proposition essentially. And it was totally validated because we had two customers who were
paying for it. And then we went down to Margate and did a workshop session where we actually thought about what our target value proposition would be and what we were trying to work towards, which funnily enough at the time, it was largely around like design sprint workshops and product prototyping and things like that. And then at the outset, we had a website that literally just said on it, we
Adam Yaya-Durrant (27:31)
Hmm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (27:41)
We build, we build apps, website and websites and products or something. That was it. That was just the headline. Cause we were, we just wanted something that was like, that's not mince our words. That's not, you know, put no fluff on this. If you want to buy these things, these are, these are the three things that we do. didn't even mention brand. I don't think I think it was, it was very, very just heavily, heavily digital focused.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (27:49)
Yeah, it's nothing like that.
I think so at the time. Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (28:10)
And then, you know, we just try to get towards that being the reality by attracting new clients over time and just refining what we do. as you know, the advantage you have as a service business is you can basically start it and start making money as long as you can get people to pay you for your time and your effort and your energy. And we took advantage of that and we sold things that we felt comfortable delivering and could do well to people who wanted to buy them.
whatever, whatever they happen to be. And, you know, there were there were some, some things in there that were quite far away from what we were aiming for. But, know, you need to eat, you need to pay rent, you need to like, not be precious about the things that you're doing.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (28:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think sometimes we got like, were very aware of those kind of projects that kind of drifted a little bit further away from like the core kind of proposition that we defined. But I think we're always aware of that and take it like just on the chin is just part of the growing process. And, you know, looking back, it's kind of, I look back and smile at those kind of projects because, you know, lucky enough, like, you know, Phil and I, and I think that's kind of one of the things that I love working with Phil is that we just kind of
feel like we can just throw ourselves into something and we'll figure it out and we'll do a good job of it. And, know, we have got experience in a lot of things, which is great. luckily enough to have had a very varied career, so we can do a lot of things to a certain degree. But I feel like, yeah, I do look back on those times and think, you know, they were the forming of something and it was good to experience it, even if it wasn't exactly on the nose of
of the type of work we really were trying to go for.
Alexandra Pointet (30:03)
That's a good moment to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll pick up right where we left off.
So in those first kind of couple of years of Yaya or Adam and Phil's good design agency, what were the kind of milestone points where you sort of thought we should like looking back on it that you probably would have done slightly differently, let's say.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (30:18)
you
I think actually one of the milestones might have been for when we actually created Yaya, like that actually felt like, you know, because I think, so I'll give you a little back story on the name, because we obviously, as say, kind of deliberated on that a lot. It's actually my kind of wife's maiden name, and it's derived from, she's got Nigerian heritage. And I think, Phil, you were very keen on kind of, like, we kind of dabbled around, like we could just
call it Yaya and I was a little bit like, well, you know, it's kind of like signs me up to, I mean, it was my wife's session, really. But it's, but we undarned about it, but it felt right because we were wanting a lot of our proposition was around sprints, as Phil says, it was about speed of delivery is about like kind of solving problems in a kind of short space of time and Yaya felt like nice and quick and concise.
had some nice kind of like meanings around it. And then as soon as we kind of got that, the logo and like kind of had the brand, it just started to kind of feel like something, yeah, like something significant, something different and something we could really get behind. I mean, I'm a brand person, so I say that's the power of brand, that's what it does. But, know, and I think, you know, going out and obviously we intentionally wanted to look different. We wanted to kind of...
Alexandra Pointet (31:50)
There you go. Yep.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (31:59)
express ourselves in a different way. Hence why everyone was going very black and mono and we were like pink. No one's doing it. And want to and we we felt again like to our kind of the people who we are, you we're not kind of represented us a lot in a lot better way. So I think once we kind of got that together, it started to really feel like hey, there's something, it's all kind of starting to click into place but
you know, that took a bit of time. was still like, you know, half a year down, down the road, I'd say, until we started to really start to get those pieces together. And I'd say like, like, you know, and that's why I mean, just, these things just don't happen overnight. It's not like start a business, bang, you know what you're doing. Like, we were constantly like, kind of, you know, just ebb and a flow and like working our way to, you know, well, we're still doing it today, really. But you know, you know what I mean? It was just...
it just started to feel a bit more real at that point.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (33:02)
I think there's lots of things that we learned during that period of time when we first started. think one of the things that stands out as just a really sort of tactical thing is that when we were talking to people about projects, we learned that
if somebody says to much is it gonna cost me to build this app? And your responses are probably, I don't know, like some six figure amount. People go, that seems like a lot of money. I would look, okay, now we're sort of.
thinking about this whole thing differently. And I think that phrase, like, how do you eat an elephant? It's like one bite at a time. You have to... Yeah.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (33:59)
Is that a phrase?
Alexandra Pointet (34:01)
I've never heard that phrase. I don't think I've ever heard that phrase.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (34:04)
How do you eat elephant one bite at a time? Like, I mean, I get it. But that famous phrase.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (34:10)
Yeah, And the phrase. So the reality is, is that, you know, the number that you've got to is that that's the amount that it's going to cost. But
actually, like you kind of need to break things up so that they're more digestible and that you can eat them one piece at a time. we, so we had a couple of proposals where, you know, we did that and the response was like, yeah, that's actually, that's loads of money. We're slightly wary about doing it.
And then we changed our approach and we said, what if we say, look, we're actually just going to lay the groundwork for this and we're going to sort of validate it and do business case first as a piece of work. And that's not going to cost as much and there's much less risk attached to it. And then you do that. And then, you you kind of build up that confidence more gradually to get to a point where somebody's like, yep, I trust you. That number seems reasonable. I can see what value is attached to delivering this project, all of that kind of stuff.
and you don't get that like shocked the system that so that, you know, that was one thing that I think stands out as like, we probably had a couple of projects that actually we could have turned into bigger things if we had approached them in a slightly different way. The biggest milestone would have been
Adam Yaya-Durrant (35:22)
Mm-hmm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (35:33)
I would have probably been the point that you joined us. think that was that that felt like a that felt like the end of sort of chapter one and into chapter two. that was a that was a real huge thing that we deliberated over a lot. And, you know, it felt really scary at the time to hire anybody and suddenly have these
Adam Yaya-Durrant (35:36)
pick up Alex.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (35:59)
that fixed amounts of money that you have to pay people every month. And, you know, that that sort of loss, that was that was the point where it went from being something that felt quite, you know, okay, well, if it all if it all doesn't work out, we can sort of retreat into our shell very, very quickly to know actually, like, now you're asking other people to trust you and to come on this journey with you. And, and it, and it had a huge impact on how I felt about the business in that positive and
like, you know, slightly stressful ways. But it was absolutely the right thing to do. it was, you know, it's been the foundation of what we've been able to do since is, you you move from a model where you're primarily working with freelancers who aren't massively invested in what you're doing into like having a proper team of people who are really committed to something and know that, that that was absolutely the right thing to do. And
It was still probably the biggest moment of change that we had as a business. If I think about like a before and after, how it all felt.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (37:13)
100%.
Alexandra Pointet (37:14)
We should probably also note that it was during the pandemic that all this like massive changes were happening. So that must have been a bit like shaky, like making all these big, you know, decisions and, you know, scary things. If you're now like employing people, you've got your name, you've got, know, everything is becoming a thing and it's all happening while the world's mad.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (37:18)
Yeah, I was gonna say...
Here is all of it was.
Yeah, mean, I think we would like turn to us turn to each other like, you know, COVID started to really kind of, you know, what that was actually going to entail. And it was like, well, it's been a great six months for the business because it's all about to go to pot. you know, thankfully and luckily, you know, we actually, you know, managed to survive and do really and do way better than we expected through that period.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (37:40)
Mmm.
Alexandra Pointet (37:54)
You
Adam Yaya-Durrant (38:08)
But yeah, I mean, was definitely like when we brought you guys on board at that point, Alex and Rachel, was like the biggest milestone, the biggest kind of change. It was like just kind of shifting up again, like for context, know, Phil and I, when we first started, our office was the basement of a hotel that had no windows. I say office, it was just the only place we could work for free in London and had good internet.
which is a story in itself. then, you know, then we kind of graduated up to a little kind of box in Hoxton. And that's when the guys came up and you know, since then we've had two other offices that have grown and expanded. But, but yeah, I think at that point, you know, it was COVID time bringing you guys on board. It was the best decision we made. And it was like, and it did start to feel
really significantly different in terms of the business itself and like art, you know, and what we were kind of becoming.
Alexandra Pointet (39:09)
Hmm
Yeah, think it's massive credit to businesses and startups that do manage to go along for the journey, no matter what's going on in the world, like, it's pretty tenacious to then be right, we're gonna get some extra people on board.
while the world's like this, there's always going to be something happening in the economy and on the planet, but people are still have that want and persistence, then, you know, things can come.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (39:38)
Yeah, 100 % and credit to like, you know, the people that we worked with at the time for like actually doing the work and executing, you know, because it was a frightening time and everyone kind of could have just grounded to a halt and, and, you know, not done any, any project stuff. So yeah, it was, it was a strange time.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (39:43)
We did also...
Well, did also, the way that we got through pandemic was because we weren't, we were just very anxious before pandemic, before obviously we had any idea that it was coming, about everything failing and that insecurity meant that
we had money in the bank when we got to COVID. we didn't take, you know, can start a business, you start a services business and you can take the money out of the bank every month, you know, drain it completely. And, you know, some months you make more and some you make less. We didn't do that. We just said, you know, what do we actually need to live? Both took a pay cut from the jobs that we were doing.
And that enabled us to build a peccatricif, which meant that at the start of the pandemic, we had a buffer and the conversation we had was, well, if we don't sell or deliver any work now for, I think, six months, we'll run out of money. But if that happens, the world has ended. know, it's just like, everyone is going to be in a absolutely terrible state. So it's going to be hard, but we're actually not in a
bad position and I would say that, you I think that is a better place to be than if you just drain the bank account every month. We also hired two people who we'd worked with for probably about six months before we had that conversation. was like long enough really to know that there wasn't much risk in.
bringing those people in because you were really just confirming what was already happening. So it felt more secure for that reason. The reason, you know, it's obviously a risk is because you don't know what's gonna happen with your sales pipeline after that point. And that, you know, we mitigated that by saying, we don't know what's gonna happen with our sales pipeline after this point. You need to know that...
if things get difficult, we can't make any promises that we don't feel we can keep. This is all the stuff that we know, that you know it all. You can make an informed decision about whether this feels right for you and whether you want to join and let us know. And fortunately, the growth trajectory that we were on was pretty consistent.
for the first few years, we've managed to double our revenue every year. And now when I look back on those things, think we really started to make mistakes once we got into about year four, five for the first few years. We're actually like a bit easier. It was kind of like the opening levels on the video game and then the stakes got higher and it just, like the decisions got harder.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (42:57)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Alexandra Pointet (43:07)
Thank
Phill Keaney-Bolland (43:10)
you never really know what you're doing. We haven't actually done any of this stuff before. We're just trying to react to things that are happening and learn on the fly how to grow and run a business. And when you do have that kind of growth trajectory, that's a real steep learning curve to try and get your head around. a pandemic actually was, from a business perspective, was...
actually quite a beneficial thing because there was actually a lot of work around. People wanted to digitize a lot of their product offering. So product design exploded. And people were suddenly like, well, we're all working remotely anyway. So we haven't really got any qualms about, you know, working with people who, you know, aren't in the same country as where we are. And we were able to grow in North America and
And then after pandemic, people just had these back reserves of cash that, you know, they wanted to spend because they'd been quite conservative with their budget. you would, you would probably say if you were a massive agency used to huge fees for us, you know, being smaller, the budgets were totally fine. Then it got really hard because the, you know, the budgets then kind of dried up again, the economy got really hard, the, you know,
impact of all the money that had been kind of loaned out during COVID started to hit and you know, suddenly, there was, I guess, that Brexit impact and, you know, we were in, in and out of recession and all of those, those kinds of things. So like, as it was getting more difficult because of the scale of the business, it was also getting more difficult because of the climate of the business. And
Alexandra Pointet (44:56)
Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (45:04)
you know, where you might make mistakes and things in the early days and the knock on effect isn't as big when you're a bigger business, then you start to have like more of an impact when you start to get things wrong. And you like inevitably are going to get things wrong because nobody gets everything right 100 % of the time. So when you ask that question about, know, what will we change in the early days? There isn't, there isn't a huge amount. There are
there are in the sort of latter stages things that with the benefit of hindsight, you look back on and you think, well, what the were we doing there? Like getting a, you know, a bigger office than we needed. But then you also look at that sort of decision and you're like, well, every time we got an office, we probably got a bigger office than we needed. And it was the right decision in the first couple of times. It's only a bad decision because like, you know, we were, we,
Adam Yaya-Durrant (45:45)
needed. Yeah.
Yeah.
Alexandra Pointet (45:56)
Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (46:03)
overestimated how many people would be sitting in chairs in that room. But every other time we underestimated it. So, you know, I don't know. It's hard.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (46:08)
Yeah.
Exactly, and we can control the economy at the time.
Alexandra Pointet (46:19)
Yeah, it's been a very tumultuous few years, so...
Adam Yaya-Durrant (46:22)
But the thing is, think, you know, like, I'm a massive advocate of people obviously setting up their own businesses. And I I really want to push for people to become entrepreneurs and do their own thing. And, you know, we've all like that context around like what was going on in terms of Brexit, COVID, all these things, there's loads and loads of reasons to not start a business, like there's way more reasons to not start a business than start a business. And they do make it very difficult to do it in this country. But
you know, I really want to like be an advocate for people to make that kind of leap of faith because it's the best thing that I've personally ever done. I think, know, Phil would say the same thing and we've learned and got so much from it as hard as it's been in certain times. But, you know, we always said to ourselves when we started Yaya that like, you know, if you want to
you're motivated by money and want to be rich, like starting a business isn't really the thing for you. Like we were really motivated by having something that we felt really proud of, building something that a place that we'd love to work in ourselves and creating a culture that we felt was inclusive and warm and, and fun and like gave people opportunities to really excel as much as they could.
you know, whether we achieve that or not, we can't really be the gauge of that. But you know, that was our that was our ambition. And, you know, and our past experiences helped kind of formulate a lot of that thinking and how we would essentially if we had a business ourselves how we would want to run it and how we'd like to treat the people that work within it. But yeah.
I don't know where I'm going with this now, but it's a little bit of a...
Alexandra Pointet (48:15)
Well, I think it's just interesting hearing, you know, the both of you have mentioned it a few times. You know, it's like that conscious, I'm sorry, continuous, like want to learn how to do things, no matter if you're like getting thrown into something, doing like all that, because you've never run a business before. Like, I think that's one of the things that I've...
likes and enjoys about working with the IIs that you're just constantly learning new things. And I think that's quite a good trait to have when you're starting out a business, like the expectation and the anticipation to just learn stuff all the time is something that you should probably have within you because that's what it's going to be like, like from the get go.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (49:00)
Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (49:03)
I would say that you're going to learn some pretty hard lessons. The things you learn the most from are the things that are probably the hardest to go through. I don't think you learn a lot from success necessarily. That's probably a oversimplification, we're like five and a bit, you're only six years into this now.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (49:31)
I think we're six years.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (49:33)
And I was saying to Adam just yesterday, you know, I feel like we're in the, we're kind of just, we're getting to the sort of the middle now. We're kind of getting to the point where we've learned so much that we didn't know when we started the business that we can almost now start to actually.
build the business, if that makes sense. And I know the business obviously exists, but there are, would say the first few years of EIA, we grew by just attrition and force of will. It was just like, okay, if we work really, really hard, we can get this thing to move and to grow. And I actually think you need to do that.
And there is something slightly masochistic about starting a business where, you you're to have to work a lot of weekends and evenings and do a lot of things that you like don't really necessarily enjoy to, to get it to, you know, to sort of get the boulder moving. I don't think it's possible to build like a money machine on
you know, day one of starting a business, it is ever, I think you have to scrap away, you have to, and you have to learn those lessons and you have to, you know, fight for clients in a different way to how you can when you're more mainstream. But then I think, you know, I was overly optimistic. was like, you know, five years in, we'll be towards the end of this journey. And I realized quite recently when I spoke to people who were...
who were actually closer to the end of that journey that they were all much older than me, they'll be doing it for a much longer period of time. And they'd had like, a lot of the experiences that I'd had quite, you know, in this in the start of that journey, then use the lessons from those to find find their feet a bit more. And so, you know, I think I think that's that point about continuous learning you made is is
you know, firstly, I don't think you ever try a second, you think it's really important. Thirdly, it when you say continuous, like, don't think I don't think there's ever a point we like, okay, now I've got it. But we have got more than we had six years ago. And so, you know, where where we where we are now is I think we probably can start to think about structurally how we make the business into that kind of a different kind of thing.
like a more mainstream thing, the way that we acquire clients can change the way that we deliver work. We've learned so much about that and what works and how to do it, all of those kinds of things. And it is just constant evolution, but I think we're in a slightly different phase now than we were when we very first started out.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (52:41)
yeah, completely different, isn't it? I mean, it feels with different people, you know, we've been, you know, we've, we've gone through a lot together as a team. And, you know, I like to, it's, as you say, it's like, you know, when you when we look back at when me and you were working together at chemistry, and, you know, riding some of those waves, then I think it was, it was like, one of the things is like, really clear, like that you need
someone that, you know, can take the kind of the good days and the bad days. And there's a lot of both the highs and the lows and go through all that stuff together. And like, I think that's the most important thing out of all of this is like having a partner that can do that. And then getting to the other side and then being able to reflect and be like, wow, that was like, and being very like kind of self-reflecting around the things that
we could have done better and you we've made a lot of mistakes, but we've done some really great stuff as well. But all the time we've kind of, you know, stuck together and, you know, tried to always do the right thing and right thing for the business, but right thing like morally for ourselves as well. But yeah, it's, you know, it can be tough at times, but I think, you know, as you say, like,
Alexandra Pointet (53:53)
Thank
Phill Keaney-Bolland (54:04)
Hmm.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (54:06)
It is like, you know, five years was super ambitious as that idea of like what we wanted out of this. And it does feel like now with the learnings that we've had over the last six, that we feel a bit more kind of matured, I guess, in a sense, like a fine wine.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (54:23)
I I would...
I would also say that, you know, when obviously Adam and I started off on this journey together, but now, you know, you think about the three of us sat here, all the things that we've been through together and you know, how you've Alex come on that journey with us and you know, you've obviously seen the highs and lows and you've done the continuous learning thing with us and experienced like a huge amount is obviously we didn't know you at all when we started off, but you know, now
When we think about where we are and where we're going, you'll see a real integral part of that. We talk a lot about me and Adam starting it, but you couldn't really imagine us doing what we're doing without you being involved as well. What I think is quite interesting is...
Adam Yaya-Durrant (55:19)
No. God.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (55:28)
a lot of the time you don't see, think, firstly, I think it's impossible if you've never started a business to know what it feels like to actually be the founder of a business. And I think you see it when you speak to other people who are, you see that look in their eyes, which I'm like, it's a bit like, yeah, you know, I've seen things, man, that you don't know, you weren't there.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (55:49)
Binto wall. Binto wall. You weren't there, man.
Alexandra Pointet (55:50)
Jaded, jaded
Phill Keaney-Bolland (55:56)
Yeah. And even, you know, like a part of partners and people struggle to do that. A lot of people who, you know, we've worked with in the business, haven't necessarily seen all of the things that go into making the decisions that we've ended up having to make and haven't wanted to, I would say, you know, why would you? It's really, really stressful and
Alexandra Pointet (55:56)
Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (56:23)
know, like it's you have a much easier life if you just avoid all of that kind of stuff. But, you know, you have actually been there for like the full 360 degrees of what's been what's been going on for like quite quite a while now. And for whatever reason, you've chosen to do that. Chosen to support us. It's a masochism, isn't it?
Adam Yaya-Durrant (56:35)
Pfft.
Yeah
Alexandra Pointet (56:44)
What does that say about me?
Phill Keaney-Bolland (56:52)
You need to have people like that. that's obviously why the value that we put in you is so high.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (56:55)
Yeah.
Alexandra Pointet (57:01)
Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (57:06)
So yeah, again, let's just think about that decision to go and make those hires four years ago. And that was a huge milestone. But massively pleased that we did make that call.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (57:12)
Yeah.
this is just life. This is just, you know, as I said earlier, you could be in any kind of line of work and have like, you know, experiences where you know, they're unpredictable. And yeah, running a business is unpredictable, unfortunately, unless you know, you have a productized model service business is very volatile. But you know, it's I feel super grateful for
Alexandra Pointet (57:45)
I've roll with the punches. I've to roll with the punches.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (57:46)
got a row of the punches. I very grateful for all the people that have supported us on the way, all the great people that worked at Yaya with Yaya and, and very grateful to have you on board Alex to help steer the Thank you. I'll accept this award. I'm just preparing for November for the
Alexandra Pointet (58:00)
And the academy would like to play you off now.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (58:02)
Yeah. Well, okay, but...
Yeah, before you play this off, because I do think it is actually really important because we've spoken a lot about, you know, a lot of the things that are really hard. First thing is that everything that is worth doing is really hard. And don't be under any illusions that starting a business is one of the most mentally and physically challenging things that you can do. it's also,
Adam Yaya-Durrant (58:16)
Mmm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (58:38)
probably harder than you think it's going to be. it's like a hundred percent was for me in ways that you don't expect. Putting that to one side, we've had the opportunity to work with amazing people, both, you know, some of the, some of the rooms that we get to sit in with our clients and the kind of people that they are and the things that we can learn from them. It's incredible. And that is, that's a huge opportunity.
you know, we've been able to build a team of people that we've got to work with who have, I think, all had, you I would hope that they would all say, you know, we've learned a lot from being part of this business and, you know, move forward in our careers. And again, we've learned a lot from them and they're brilliant people.
we've been to countries that I never expected to go to, which is interesting. Yeah. And, you know, we've done some really amazing work that's really added a lot of value to our clients. You can't put a price on the things that we've learned from doing this. I would have learned 10 % of what I've learned in the past six years if I'd just been working for someone else. And, you know, I've got no
Adam Yaya-Durrant (59:37)
Yes. The eye at all.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:00:04)
no regrets about the decision to do any of this kind of stuff. is a huge, you know, it's the, I can say this because I don't have kids. It's the thing that I've created in my life that I'm most proud of and probably, you know, it's about 90 % of my personality. The other 10 % is probably the dog.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:00:14)
Here's your Oscar speech.
And Bruce, and Bruce Springsteen.
Alexandra Pointet (1:00:28)
Yes.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:00:33)
So, you know, it, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's easy. Exactly. These is the only boss. It's the, it's easy to get sucked into what's hard about running a business. And, you know, it's important to also say that, like, it's absolutely an amazing thing to do.
Alexandra Pointet (1:00:36)
Yeah, not forgetting, not forgetting. The real boss.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:00:40)
The boss of Yaya
On that note, I don't think we could top that. No, it's brilliant.
Alexandra Pointet (1:01:00)
Thank you.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:01:08)
No, I'm done. I you know, I, you know, I obviously love it. the highs outweigh the lows. And it's the best thing that I've ever done, we've ever done. And, you know, I feel very proud of what we've achieved and the lessons we've learned. like, know, I feel I think the biggest thing is I hope that people who have worked with us in the business have learned a lot and can reflect on it as a time being like, you know, that was
Alexandra Pointet (1:01:08)
It's brilliant. It's brilliant.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:01:38)
a great experience and I learnt loads and that's kind of for me the most, biggest takeaway. Anywho, lovely. I mean Alex, mean, you know, where's...
Alexandra Pointet (1:01:47)
Lovely, lovely, lovely. I thought you were gonna end that by saying in film, love you, men, like that. I thought that was what you were gonna end on, love you, men. Anyway, love you guys. Brilliant, that's great. If you'd like to listen to us again, tune in next time to the Cult Products podcast. But until then, it's goodbye from us
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:01:54)
Phil, Alex, love you both.
Hey
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:02:17)
Bye.
Alexandra Pointet (1:02:18)
Bye everybody!
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:02:19)
Might not be Friday, but bye.