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In this podcast, we talk to some of the greatest founders and leaders about their journey to where they are as well as discuss their companies and many other subjects depending on the guest.
We are aiming to create meaningful content that everyone can get value from. We hope you enjoy 😁
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;24;01
You're listening to The Fireside with Founders and Leaders podcast. The podcast that gives you a behind the scenes look of some of the world's most amazing founders and leaders, looking at their journeys and how they got to where they are today.
00;00;24;01 - 00;00;40;05
Hello, Sammie Welcome to the podcast. Thank you Rupert It's good to be here. Yeah, it's really good. Really good to meet you. Finally. We've been talking on and off for absolutely ages now. Working with you is your business. We'll find out more about that, of course, as we go through this. And you'll have to forgive me.
00;00;40;06 - 00;01;02;15
Slightly nervous, because you are a much more prolific, podcast host than I am with, the work that you've been doing with with the gains that some people would have no doubt heard of, how some of the stuff you've been doing there, helping people with their finances, working through from past experience. Again, I'm sure we'll we'll cover a lot of that today.
00;01;02;17 - 00;01;23;05
But I'm going to ask by starting to ask you to give a bit of a history in terms of like where it all started for you, then how you came up with the concept of up the gains, and then we'll get on to, gains app, which is the, the digital products that you're now building. Klaus. Yeah, absolutely.
00;01;23;06 - 00;01;46;11
So, I think if you go back ten years and you ask anyone of my friends, would I be doing finance content? They would laugh you out of the room. Yeah, I was a bit of a cheeky chap, to say the least. I, I went to university day one. They handed me a credit card and, and, student overdraft and, let's just say, like, my relationship with debt started that day.
00;01;46;13 - 00;02;13;13
I hadn't really had any experience of money. My parents, their spenders. Yeah. And so, I didn't really have it installed into me, like the value of saving a pound, essentially. And what that could mean. And so, because I was then giving free rein and license and didn't have any kind of, you know, teaching around this, I went for it and got myself in quite big pickle.
00;02;13;15 - 00;02;31;00
After university, that debt built up and up and up, and eventually I was paying, you know, take paying probably about a third of my wages for going on interest payments. Right. Just to try and clear some of that debt. And I had a big moment, on a beach in Vietnam to ask you. Do? Yeah.
00;02;31;01 - 00;02;46;29
How is it paid for by a credit card to get the, the credit cards had some use in the early days. Yeah, right. I had a lot of fun. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I had a great time, but it came back to bite me and, to the tune of 24 grand. So it was a sizable amount.
00;02;46;29 - 00;03;12;24
It wasn't just a few grand that you could sort of probably what I call fish was like, you're either gonna go after being Sultan, basically. Yeah. And, write it all off, which, if you do do that is really, really bad for your credit score. Yeah. So it's, you know, I had a decision to make at that point and I came back and started learning about money, and, I just fell in love with the whole thing.
00;03;12;27 - 00;03;32;05
It was like I found my calling card. I was working in the hospitality industry. I was one of the youngest heads of marketing in the industry at 24. And I went from there to end up, you know, being a director and running, my own hospitality company with a couple of friends of mine. So I had no financial background.
00;03;32;05 - 00;03;47;12
Yeah. Nothing. I knew nothing about, at all. To say the least. You know, I knew that there was a stock market. I knew that there were savings accounts, but I couldn't tell you what they did or how they worked. But once I started learning about it, it was like Pandora's box was opened for me, and I just loved it.
00;03;47;12 - 00;04;07;04
And from there, because I was in marketing and sales and I knew how to connect with people, I actually found that teaching it to other people. What I was learning was a great way, one for me to sort of digest that information. And it was just friends and family at first. But I quickly like really started to enjoy that.
00;04;07;04 - 00;04;29;00
And and also quickly began to realize that nobody knew what the, how they were doing either. Yeah. And that there was this massive gap. And we had people like Martin Lewis doing fantastic work. But his audience set was different to the ones that I was speaking to. And so, that was really kind of the best thing I suppose, of the idea of doing something without the gains.
00;04;29;04 - 00;04;48;08
Nice. And that was all started by going out, speaking to friends and family, as you say, first off, and then starting to create more content. So you built, effectively a content creation business is your your first sort of venture into that as up the gains? Well, yeah, it really was a catalyst was for me was Covid. Yeah.
00;04;48;10 - 00;05;06;18
So we had that time running hospitality businesses. I was off work for nearly nine months and so we didn't have a venue open. And if we did, it was very and I do remember to like eat out to help out a 10 pound thing and yeah, like really big ideas. Exactly. And we'd have like a really small period where we were open and then closed again and open, then closed again.
00;05;06;18 - 00;05;23;12
So I was working but wasn't like working. And so I had all of this time to think, and this is why I was like, really mass consuming money content, especially around investing and making businesses and money online and that type of thing, because I was just so interested in that. And then it really went from there for me.
00;05;23;12 - 00;05;39;04
And so I started to create content to serve the people that I was talking to, just friends and family. We had a WhatsApp group, and people used to ask me questions, and I was like, wow, yeah, I could write. I could write an article for you about there. So you have something to to take away. And they're like, awesome.
00;05;39;04 - 00;05;58;18
Yeah, great. And so I got like, into website building. And so I got a website and started writing blog content. And then I was like, well, actually, it'd be really cool to do a podcast about this. So I started a podcast and then suddenly I had this, like, fully fledged content business while running hospitality. Anthony. And I just it changed everything for me.
00;05;58;18 - 00;06;17;23
I got this like sort of rebirthing of energy about doing something because I was that guy that was like golden handcuffs, great salary, great job and doing the thing, but really didn't have a kind of drive or a bit of purpose to me. I was just sort of doing it because I was good at it. Yeah. I didn't really know where I wanted to go in life.
00;06;17;23 - 00;06;40;02
And this was this was it. I felt like, okay, this is my mission. I need to sort of change the life of as many people as I possibly can. And, you know, it's a great business because I can put content out, whether that's a podcast, a YouTube video or a social media post. And it can reach potentially millions of people for free.
00;06;40;05 - 00;07;01;20
And the idea can be super simple. It can be hyper complicated and but what we do is we just throw down the really complex times for everybody into like, really bite sized, manageable chunks. And so, you know, what the hell is an ISO and how does it work and what's the benefits for it? And how do I start, even thinking about investing and what are the risks associated that I actually need to know?
00;07;01;27 - 00;07;19;20
And how does my pension even work? Like, I don't know, I don't know, care. And so how do I make them care? Yeah, because it is important. And so we're trying to tackle that. We don't go into financial advice. We're really careful about that. We do a lot of work and behind the scenes to make sure we're not giving people advice.
00;07;19;22 - 00;07;38;25
It's very much education based. And, yeah, it's built into an absolute mammoth, as I of a business. It's been going just under five years now. And yeah, we do roughly around to 100 million views a month across all of our social media channels. It's pretty wild. That is absolutely wild. Well, hopefully we can take a couple of those views.
00;07;38;27 - 00;08;00;14
Onto this one. I'll take just a few of them. That's fine. Said you're a female. Yeah. So. Sorry. But it's pretty nuts, isn't it, that, Because you're right, there's not a lot of advice out there, and I think I was probably pretty similar. If I look back to university, I dropped out of university because basically I was going out having a great time, not doing a lot of learning.
00;08;00;16 - 00;08;22;11
Well, this is just this. I actually, fortunately realized early on I was like, this is actually a waste of my money. I've got student loan taking on debt, overdraft, etc. this is just not it's not going to help me get a job afterwards. I don't know if things have changed. I think I feel like they're starting to change in terms of education out there, but it's not so much worse.
00;08;22;11 - 00;08;35;13
Yeah. Really? Yeah. Well, yeah, because the fees are way higher. I mean. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you're actually taking on even more debt and what they're saying at the moment is that a lot of these kids that get out, they're never going to go over their salary thresholds. So they're going to be paying it off their entire life.
00;08;35;13 - 00;08;53;20
So they just got this like three, two, three, 400 pounds coming out of their account, which they're never going. That's just going to happen for the rest of their life because the interest on their payments is so high. And my sisters looked at this the other day and they've been paying this down and it's increased from the time that they left university, which just not.
00;08;53;20 - 00;09;17;13
So how how is that a thing? And, you know, they studied fashion PR. Yeah, like, would you not be better off going into a fashion or PR? Well, early or getting an apprenticeship or work experience into a job with a company that will give you a shot? I know that's harder these days. And yes, of course, you know, there's two sides to every coin, but you know, you can go and get jobs.
00;09;17;13 - 00;09;40;05
If you put yourself out there, you can't do it. It's really hard. Don't get that wrong about me. But you can. We do need doctors. We need scientists, engineers. We need real night trained roles. And yes, of course, go to university. I don't want a brain surgeon touching my brain. If you've not done this course. Yeah, yeah, I've done this on YouTube.
00;09;40;06 - 00;09;58;11
I. I'm going to be great. Like, no, please. Not like that then. Yes, please. Like I absolutely button for the vast majority of roles, you're getting yourself into vast amounts of debt for something that you could learn online these days for free. Yeah. And I think that, again, that was part of the reason that for me, I didn't, stay in university was that I made some calls.
00;09;58;11 - 00;10;18;11
I was doing advertising and media as a, as a course and spoke to some companies and they said, actually, whatever you care about your course, you just need to come and do an internship and you need to come and do that. At the time, the paid internships weren't really a thing. So it was like, come and work for free in London for 12 months and do that.
00;10;18;13 - 00;10;34;04
But actually, I would have been better off doing that if I really wanted to go into that sort of sector. I would have been better off and mounting some debt, because not all debt is bad. But I think that's what you're saying. You're not saying like debt is a bad thing to have. You've just got to know how to manage it.
00;10;34;12 - 00;10;52;28
Ultimately it's good and bad debt. Yeah, yeah. And that's a really interesting concept as well. I think most people don't realize that. They just think that's that and that's it. And it is in some regards, but it depends on what you're using it for. Yeah. You know, a brand new Chanel bag first as an education, as two different sides of that coin.
00;10;53;01 - 00;11;14;09
And what would you consider then. Good and good versus bad debt. Really simple really. Mortgages, student loans, business loans. And that is three pieces of good debt I would say. Student loans obviously debatable as we just sort of discussed. But and what you're using it for, as you said. Exactly. It depends on what you know, you're aiming to get out of doing David Beckham studies then probably probably no good debt.
00;11;14;10 - 00;11;38;13
Yeah. Great hab sorry, David. Sorry, David. That's right. If you happen to be watching sad David now. Sorry. Wow. Yeah rightly so. Myra got that the the. Yeah. And the rest, like credit cards, personal loans that are used for other things is is bad debt. But again, there's arguments to that too, because what are you using that credit for?
00;11;38;16 - 00;11;57;02
I have rules in place. Like if I can't afford it three times over in cash, then I can't afford it. And so I'm not using a credit card or a personal loan to get it anymore. The old me would have been like two grand for that new fancy thing. Laptop, whatever. Yeah, great. Check it on. Like, finance or no interest payments for 36 months, Tony.
00;11;57;08 - 00;12;16;12
120 pounds a month. So you're kicking the can down the road in a certain way, and that's really dangerous. And so especially if you do that multiple times over, there are times and places where debt makes sense. Especially, you know, if you've got fantastic terms on that. People took out loans, for example, in Covid weather that the rates were so low.
00;12;16;12 - 00;12;35;26
Yeah. And they could get even more from a savings account. So they actually made money on the loan. Yeah. Just just nuts. And so, you know, it's very you've got to be very, very careful and, and if that that's, that's dangerous to be doing playing that game. But you know, it's true. So yeah that there is good debt and bad debt depends on what you're doing with that.
00;12;35;29 - 00;12;56;03
And what would you say are some of the things that you've seen over the last 4 or 5 years, or maybe even recently, that people don't know about some of the most shocking things that are happening in, you know, with people's finances, they don't don't they don't know. I think it's awareness. We as a nation are like a nation of savers.
00;12;56;06 - 00;13;20;00
And traditionally, saving alone is not going to one make you wealthy to, you're money. Money's going to be eaten alive by inflation, but large parts of it is around awareness and and what you're spending your money on. So easy in this day and age, digital tap tap tap. You know double click Apple pay and your wide you know you suck it by if you're in the city.
00;13;20;00 - 00;13;37;21
So for example me and you, we've come into London today. By the time you go home, you've seen 10,000 ads. Yeah. And we don't realize that if you're in the countryside, it's 2 to 3000 if you are using digital devices, which is just wild, right? So eventually something's going to get you. So having little blockers in place around what's happening with your money is really important.
00;13;37;21 - 00;13;58;03
And that's the most shocking thing that I see is that I have 40 million people in the UK. I have less than 1,000 pounds in savings. So they are one financial emergency away from disaster. Yeah. And that's dangerous. And so we have to try and fix that. And, you know, a lot of people are out there looking for these, like get rich quick schemes and cryptos.
00;13;58;03 - 00;14;13;15
And how do I get rich in two or 3 or 4 years. Yeah. And actually they haven't got an emergency fund. I don't know what's happening with their income and where it's going. And so just starting with the basics is really key. I don't know if people think with personal finance they need to know everything. It's not true.
00;14;13;15 - 00;14;32;18
Yeah. Just you can start with the real key basics and getting your cause and principle habits in place. And actually the the fundamental building blocks for what you can do next. From there, I think it's really difficult for people to find access to a lot of this information. I think you and I, I've talked about it before. My wife's a financial advisor.
00;14;32;20 - 00;15;05;04
Typically her clients tend to be people who've already got money so they can afford their financial advisor first and foremost, but then they've got money to invest, so it makes it worth her time, which is a shame in the sense of the system's not set up to help those people that need it the most. Yeah. Which therefore I think then sort of as, as you say, it's not financial advice but enter gains app, which is what you're then trying to do is to help those people who need don't know if you can't call it advice but need need help.
00;15;05;10 - 00;15;27;06
Ultimately, in terms of what they can do to put themselves in a better financial situation. Yeah, in a way, I think like there is a massive advice gap which exists, and it's very difficult for the average individual which needs to get the basics of their pension, their ices, their savings, their retirement plan in place. There's a real gap.
00;15;27;06 - 00;15;42;01
You know, a lot of financial advisors need you need to have 10,000 liquid and above. Yeah. And a lot of it, as we just discussed, a lot of the UK doesn't have that, but they still need this information. So where do they go. They go to Martin Lewis. They go to us. They go to other places to to get this information.
00;15;42;01 - 00;16;00;02
Social media, which is dangerous in a way as well because not everyone on social media has the best intentions at heart. And so there's, there's issues there. I get like the get rich quick stuff of like, come follow me and you can invest in this and I'll teach you how to make X amount of money, which is just bullshit on the most part.
00;16;00;03 - 00;16;24;28
Most part. Exactly. And but there are some of those guys which are teaching really great principles and have like, awesome stuff available for you. So, you know, looking at them and looking at them online and whether or not they're a good person first, good step. But there are some financial advisors which bridge that gap. And they're doing fantastic work and tech, you know, they tend to be independent financial advisors.
00;16;25;01 - 00;16;52;28
But they're brilliant. And so, you know, there is a gap there. And so the app is really, designed to tackle that first issue, which we spoke about, which is that awareness piece, because in today's day and age, you have how many banks do you have? Me personally. Yeah. 01234 crisp bank accounts. Yeah. And so to note, that's not even including the business bank accounts as well.
00;16;52;28 - 00;17;13;03
So if I say six, six, three I've got three of those because we have international okay. So you're like so I've got loads. Yeah. So the average is 3.2. Yeah. From our audience anyway. So the average is 3.2. And you surveyed audience which is if you take three as an as a baseline example. Yeah. You then to know what's going on in each one you have to open each one up.
00;17;13;06 - 00;17;35;23
Yeah. Time spent already really difficult to get between each of them because you're then face ID you know, got one more knocked you out from inactivity etc. to to try and work out what's going on with your spending during a month can and especially when you add cards, credit cards, etc. into the mix, it's really, really difficult. So 360 view of your money is probably one of the biggest things that you can get as an individual.
00;17;35;23 - 00;17;56;17
So connecting all your banks into one location safely and then being able to see what's going on with your money. Yeah. But equally as well ask questions to it. So we have built in an AI financial. It's not a financial coach. It's more of a financial insights manager. Yeah okay. So it will say to you you can ask it how much have I spent versus last week.
00;17;56;19 - 00;18;16;01
How much have I spent on Ubers, how much I spent on McDonald's or whatever you want to say. And it's going to give you those answers really, really quickly. What's my highest spending month last year? Those types of things? Is there any any anomalies in my spending? You know, I have I overspent this month or am I going to go over budget based on the budgets that you've set inside of the app?
00;18;16;04 - 00;18;36;07
And it's going to help you manage your own finances. It's not going to say this is what you should do, this is the accounts you should open, etcetera, because that's regulator device. You're going to be really careful. So building that AI to be able to speak to your money, and then also on the front end as well, which we're layering in is instant rewards for cashback.
00;18;36;07 - 00;18;58;20
Yeah. So you can buy gift cards using our app, get instant, discounts on those gift cards, and then use those gift cards to purchase things in-store or online. Yeah. So your food shop is the biggest you do a lot of that, right? That's one of the things I think I've seen you do the most. You save my hundreds of pounds, so I'm just about to withdraw my top cashback from the last time.
00;18;58;21 - 00;19;18;12
I save this for you today. Yes, I know you'd asked me. So top cashback alone today. And based on Black Friday. Yeah, just a little bit of Christmas spending. We're all victim of marketing, right? So do I go away for a month? I definitely lost a couple. It. Yeah, I have my eye on a few things. And I was watching the price and I thought that was a sensible thing.
00;19;18;14 - 00;19;40;14
I needed a teleprompter for my studio. It was 280 credits I got for 170, so I waited. I was like, I can't, not because I need it. But I was waiting. And so with Black Friday, food shopping for two months, other sort of retail purchases appear in Q Homebase, for your bits and bobs.
00;19;40;15 - 00;20;05;22
When they moved in the range, those types of things. I'm withdrawing today 437 pounds. So this is not a small amount of money, especially for people who are struggling to get through this times, because it's tough right now. Cost of living is through the roof. So the app is going to give you that 360 awareness so you can work out where you're spending, perhaps where you're overspending and ways to kind of bring that under control.
00;20;05;25 - 00;20;29;07
By setting yourself challenges on apps. I know coffee out this week or whatever, and I can track it for you and rewards you for complete Gamifying it gamifying just what people like these days. They love it. They love challenging themselves. And they like challenging other people as well. So we have like, a score system. So if you do really well on the app, then you get entered into certain raffles where you can when you're food shopping paid for for a month and things like that.
00;20;29;07 - 00;20;50;13
So we're rewarding and giving back massively for better financial decisions. But your financial decisions, we're not doing that for you. You're doing it. Yeah. We're just giving you the tools. And then so it's really kind of that's their core oversight. So it's that free 60 awareness of across all your accounts. It's the ability to, speak to your money.
00;20;50;13 - 00;21;13;24
And then it's the, proper savings on your spending on the front end. So that 430 pounds for me is literally covering Christmas. So all the tacky at the dentist covered four and probably 1 or 2 presents for the missus like that. And that's just done. So. So now I don't have to worry about that. Now that's like a big weight off my mind, because every year we get to Christmas and we're like, man, I've got to spend more money.
00;21;13;26 - 00;21;34;01
And the average Christmas spend is this year in the UK is set to reach, over 1,000 pounds for the average household or the average household. Okay, so it's quite a lot of money. I still have a half of that or more from doing this pay. Yeah, that's a lot. You know that's not getting into that. It's not using credit as January not sucking as much which we all hate.
00;21;34;04 - 00;21;50;21
And so this is what is really important, for people. And we feel like there's a real gap in the market at the moment for that best piece of tech. So that's what we're doing now I sorry for the long winded. Oh it's very passionate about it's good. And so you've got some co-founders as well. So you're not getting this alone.
00;21;50;24 - 00;22;13;28
But like for you I suppose, and you and your co-founders, what was the pivotal moment where you went, Riley's going to we're going to take this from what it is. Is up against content creation business effectively, to a tech business. Yeah. When did you have that moment of like this? This is a good idea. Yeah. And this is still a good idea.
00;22;14;01 - 00;22;32;09
It's a building, an app. It's interesting. Yeah, that should be said. At least you know some of the challenges. It's, you know, you're relying on certain individuals. We're not techie. I can't write a line of code, but I can tell you what I want. I can tell you whether it looks nice and whether it works, and. But the tonality and, you know, feels right.
00;22;32;12 - 00;22;55;21
But I rely on tech people on the team. So we've got to hire tech teams and go into this world and have them communicate stuff back to us. So we've had a hell of a lot. But the pivotal moment really was when, Jamie, my co-founder, he called me up and, he was like, let dude, like, you're creating so much content, you're on this hamster wheel.
00;22;55;21 - 00;23;16;00
Where does it end? What? Like, what's the next goal? Yeah. And I hadn't I didn't have an answer. And it really sort of like, plugged away at me for a couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah, he's always a tough question. Yeah. Because it's true. Like, I just wanted to help people and create loads of content and make a really cool business.
00;23;16;00 - 00;23;35;10
And hire cool people and, you know, serve to serve both my team and also our community. And then I was like, well, actually, he's got a real good point here. Like, if I something happens to me and I can't make content tomorrow, the entire business is gone. And that can't be the case because the mission is bigger than me.
00;23;35;17 - 00;23;56;20
And you can also become like, you know, today's news is tomorrow's fish, paper fish and chips up in the newspaper. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Newspapers, fish and chip paper. Yeah, exactly. But you can, as an individual, you can be really hot topic. And then also you're reliant on our platforms. Exactly. And you hit the nail on the head.
00;23;56;22 - 00;24;22;01
There's a lot of platform risks involved. There's a lot of risks from you know, if for example, like in Australia, they required us to like have a full license just to talk about finance in any way, shape or form, which we welcome, by the way, we think regulation in our industry, in financial content creation industry is really important, as it should be, shouldn't be trying to, provide regulated advice if you're not regulated.
00;24;22;01 - 00;24;43;04
We agree with that. There is gray areas and gray lines which we hope of being fixed at the moment. But to sort of touch back on on your point, I think for us it was like, okay, well we could do this for ages, but it is exhausting. So eventually there's going to be some level of like burnout with it.
00;24;43;07 - 00;25;03;09
Because it's a hamster wheel. We put out 20 plus pieces of content a day. It's a lot. Yeah. And I needed a challenge as well, I think, at that point. But equally, we've got a lot of data. Yeah, okay. Tons of data. You know, we survey people all the time. We speak to our audience regularly.
00;25;03;09 - 00;25;22;01
We have so much comment data that people we could see what they were struggling with and we could see what they needed, and we could see what didn't exist. And I have my own frustrations with some of the apps that exist out there at the moment. They feel very cookie cutter, sort of out the box solutions that just sort of like use it.
00;25;22;01 - 00;25;37;08
Hopefully it works for you and I'm sure that they're working on that and making it better and better. But it didn't work for me. And so I saw that gap. And then my friend said, well, why don't we make something to solve it? And first off, it was just going to be like a very basic cash back app.
00;25;37;08 - 00;26;01;14
Yeah. And then I was like, we're not solving this mission by doing this. We're not enough, is it? Yeah. It's not enough. Yeah. So typically we decided to layer in AI and budgeting and money management, and it's now this beast, of an app, which really is it's great. It works. We've got a prototype and it's been really fun to play around with.
00;26;01;17 - 00;26;24;02
But yeah, stepping into tech is it's certainly put a few gray hairs in my head for you. Sleepless nights, and all while still continually trying to show up without the games. But the great thing for us is that that a lot of founders create a tech business and they make a fantastic product, and then they come to market and they go, shit, how do we get customers?
00;26;24;02 - 00;26;41;18
Yes. Like how do we get people now? It's like, it's not just it's not, you know, my mum, they've done the pop and a few of my powers are using it giving me feedback, which is awesome. You should have that. But like then I need to bring people in because I need to pay the bills. Yes, I've just built this thing and it's cost me money, potentially raised or whatever.
00;26;41;18 - 00;27;09;01
And, like it's scary. Whereas for us, we flip that on its head. We have a almost like a full distribution model where we have basically free lead flow from a content business that we've built into a tech products which can scale, and have levels of virality. And so hopefully if we get it right, we have to build a great product first, then it should hopefully be to be sticky someone they're going to continue to use it.
00;27;09;01 - 00;27;32;08
Right. It's exactly the thing. Exactly. That's the challenge, right? Yeah. And we pushed the launch back because I was like, it's not ready. It's not ready. It's not as good as it needs to be. Because if we turn on 15, 20,000 users on day one and it's not awesome or at least palatable, okay, enough to pass, then I don't think it's worth doing.
00;27;32;08 - 00;27;51;19
You could burn a lot of those users. They'll switch off. And and there are loyal fans. They might switch off to the other side of the business as well. This platform, this again. So there's big risks at play with for us at the moment. But we're nearly there getting closer and closer every day. But yeah it's it's short.
00;27;51;21 - 00;28;12;02
So it's a challenge for sure. But it what I think it's really interesting way around of doing it. And as we speak, as you just sort of alluded to, we're in 2025 back into 2025 at the moment. So if you're watching this in 2026, hopefully the apps launched and you've all heard about it. But if if not, if you're listening to this sort of early 26, it may still not have been been quite launched yet.
00;28;12;02 - 00;28;31;24
And, there's a lot sort of riding on those sort of launch days, but you've got, as you say, you've got the user base because most people will have to go out and partner with some, you know, content creators to to actually build up that user base. They'll have to pay a marketing team after marketing budget. And yes, you can do lots of guerrilla marketing.
00;28;31;24 - 00;28;50;13
I know that's been proven to be a really good, good way of getting people on board, but it's also got, a bit of a ceiling. Ultimately, there's only so many people that you can get on board by doing that before you start having to really dip your hand in your pocket and spend a shit ton of money on marketing.
00;28;50;13 - 00;29;13;08
You're totally right, but you are in a much better position where you you, you probably still have to spend some money on marketing. Don't get me wrong. Me well, but you can start by not having to spend so much money. Yeah. You're right. For us, we want to build a content business within the app. Yeah. So, some of the most successful companies out there, Neil Patel, springs to mind.
00;29;13;08 - 00;29;43;10
But many other apps, have content businesses within the tech companies within the company, and that content business works as that kind of, you know, the old school of, like, turning the handle on the whale and out the end comes as customer, it's user, and you need to constantly grind away at it. And if you're not spinning that well, it's very difficult to get customers or you have to pay someone really expensive to come and turn that well.
00;29;43;10 - 00;30;06;04
And that tends to be paid media. So outdoor home tubes, paid, ads, those types of things, and it's costly and they can get it wrong so it can spit out the wrong user at the end of it. And so for us where like, well, we understand content and we feel like a lot of the fintechs that exist in the UK don't as well.
00;30;06;06 - 00;30;25;17
Some are very good, some most aren't. And that's a big gap in the market for us, because we can step into that with a machine that works and move it over here into the app as well, and have both kicking round. And if we've got two machines running, but then it spits out more users and the more we show up, the more trust gets built.
00;30;25;19 - 00;30;45;17
And the more that people want to come over and see. And hopefully if we're doing a great job on the product, well then the the customers also start speaking about it and they go, this is awesome. And they tell three friends, you've got to download this app and word of mouth spread some referral spreads and then it becomes sort of the, you know, viral loop essentially, and you're getting new people through the door.
00;30;45;17 - 00;31;06;04
They're telling people because it's awesome and suddenly you're away. Volume is really key within tech. Like massively key for most models. You need volume. Whoever ends up being a premium user, premium subscription user, because we have a free, premium model. Yeah. You know, it's a roughly a between 7 and 12% depending on what you're looking.
00;31;06;06 - 00;31;22;20
Right. So it's not a lot of premium users versus free. And retention and getting them back on the app and using them because everyone has the best intentions, they download it or they do it all and they're like, yeah, I'm all set up. And then something happens or they go out for drinks and then they life, right?
00;31;22;21 - 00;31;42;01
Yeah. Life on the front end. How do we get them out of life and into their finances and using this thing? And that's what's really key for us is a lot of people also don't want to think about their finances, which is probably part of the bigger problem. Right? Especially talk about pensions like most people and really give a shit about their pension, especially if you're in your 20s, probably in your 30s.
00;31;42;01 - 00;32;01;09
Most people, you suddenly get to your 40s and then you get, shit, I probably need to start thinking about this thing that I've got. So it's how do you get people to engage with this? An earlier stage on, So that's why we've got to focus on the app is it's almost built with, like, a wellness app in mind.
00;32;01;09 - 00;32;21;17
Okay. So rather than an actual health, basically, yeah. Financial health. Exactly. Right. Yeah. It's the phrase we use. And I think it's really important that if you have overspent that the app and the way that it talks to you isn't judging you, because that's the immediate moment without, you know, it's just I'm gonna pissed off. Yeah.
00;32;21;21 - 00;32;38;14
Isolating. Yeah. Yeah. Or like the way that your balances show up so we don't have, like, big bread minus. Oh, yeah. So it's done in, like, subtle colors that don't, aren't filling, like, tension and alarming to you when you see these. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't go I'm not going to look at that because I don't want to know.
00;32;38;15 - 00;32;55;16
Yeah. And judgment is key. So for example if you have overspend in a certain category of your budget it's going to go by the way you are over in this area. But this room here, or would you like to us to help you put a spending plan in place to allow you to hit your budget this month? To bring it, bring it in and hit all of your goals.
00;32;55;18 - 00;33;15;28
And so it's going to never judge you and it's going to move the conversation into, okay, what's next? And how can we help you facilitate what you need to do. Yeah. Okay. Nice. And and what have you, what have you sort of seen from going from this sort of content creation business to tech. What's the perhaps the biggest challenge?
00;33;15;28 - 00;33;33;01
I know you mentioned you're not you're not techie. Right. And we've we've discussed that. So that was obviously a massive challenge but was what's something that surprised you because I'm magic didn't surprise you to know you're not techie. Right. But running, running a tech business. What's the thing that surprised you about about building it so far?
00;33;33;04 - 00;33;57;06
I think really interesting is, like how I sort of sped up the workflow. So a lot of big companies all over the world are looking at their tech teams now of hundred, 150 guys and going, we need eight. Yeah. But like, we can't hire. Yeah, we can't fire 100 people right now and they're oil tankers. So it's really difficult for them in a one decision there.
00;33;57;06 - 00;34;23;03
And the oil tank is going slowly round, whereas business like that coming through speed boats. So we can do things test at scale and move on before they've even got out of a board meeting. So that's been a real eye opener for us. We're building elite teams. Have small like core units of teams, rather than going for the 30, 40, 50 person company.
00;34;23;03 - 00;34;44;15
We believe we can do it with under 20. Yeah. Okay. And we don't feel like we will ever need to inflate above that unless we start adding things like, savings accounts and credit cards, not credit card, debit cards, etc.. On out. Yeah. Okay. And then it would need compliance teams. Yeah okay. Yeah. And deeper deeper level of imagine getting regulated and.
00;34;44;20 - 00;35;03;20
Yeah. And that's probably the vision of it. That's probably where it could go. We could have our own products for example Clio and Emma, our competitors will be doing that. Do, do that. And they're fully regulated businesses. But we've got a model right now where it doesn't need that. Yeah, it doesn't need that. It's the awareness and spending and marrying the two.
00;35;03;22 - 00;35;24;21
Yeah. If we decide savings products are the right moves, then we can go down that line. It does open Pandora's box in terms of regulation and compliance and has a lot to get regulated and stay regulated. It's costly. It's it's, it's very difficult. And it also restricts what you can and can't say in terms of online etc. as well.
00;35;24;21 - 00;35;56;13
So there's pros and cons. But if it's right for our audience and that's the right thing to do and it's the abolition of that, we will do it. So yeah, it's it's, it's, it's very interesting to go from, the at the gains team, which is operations podcast editors. It's like, okay, we're making this video look good and does it saying and does it do all the things and, you know, get that content out and schedule it an end to, like, okay, we need to build this feature.
00;35;56;14 - 00;36;18;03
Here's the impact of that feature. And then I'm does it work on iPhone and Android and all of these devices? So it's a minefield. And what you think is potentially just something you could do in 30 or 40 days isn't, so. And something's off now, with isolating what can and can't be with AI where the balances are with it.
00;36;18;03 - 00;36;41;00
And so it's just really for me, I'm loving it because it's I'm just learning on mass. Yeah. Every day. And I, I'm not afraid to turn around to my team and say, explain that to me. Knock on five. Yeah. And often that is the case with the tech guys. They'll just blur out something, get me, and I'm like an English place.
00;36;41;00 - 00;36;57;15
Yeah. And that go oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah. And then explain it to me and I'm like cool, I've got it. Now layer on a tiny bit more complexity on top of that now understood the basics and they do and and and that's how we have the chats. And now I'm having a little bit more deeper sort of coding conversations with them which is cool.
00;36;57;18 - 00;37;15;07
So this is something I wasn't interested in. I don't think I am even now, but I'm learning it because it's important. I feel like I have to as a CEO, you know, I need to be able to have those complex conversations. But hiring the right people to have those levels of conversations and then display that information back to me and in plain English is key, as we both know.
00;37;15;07 - 00;37;35;19
Yeah. And having this chat. So that's that's the tough bit. Right. And that's that's where you've got to have that really difficult sort of balance of knowledge versus trust. Yeah. And as someone who's not technically minded, I know from I can tell people everything about recruitment and how to recruit and how to how to go and win business from from clients.
00;37;35;19 - 00;38;01;22
But then you start layering in stuff like marketing, right? I'm not a marketer, not a content creator. I'm sitting here doing a podcast now, you know, I know, I know, yeah, careful what you wish for. Yeah. But I've had to learn all these things, and you've got to then trust the people that you're bringing in. Yeah, that they're not going to sit there bullshitting you because totally, it's very easy for people to pull the wool over your eyes.
00;38;01;22 - 00;38;18;28
So you've got to I think when you're running it and building a business that isn't in a domain that you understand, which is a lot of people, by the way, there's lots of people out there who are running tech businesses that aren't techies. In fact, I would say probably most of the people that are running those businesses, they're not techies, they're business people.
00;38;19;00 - 00;38;43;04
So how do you go about, I suppose giving that level of of trust to, to people when you're, when you're onboarding them and hiring them into the team, we have no choice. Yeah. Okay. I think it's the first bit. So the hiring process for me is largely, you know, a lot of people focus on the person and their CV and yes, of course those elements are there.
00;38;43;04 - 00;39;04;19
But for me, the hiring process is very much of like who you are as an individual. Can we have a real like nuanced conversation about something? And I can tell whether you are a yes man within seconds. What you challenge me? And I like to be challenge. I think it's really important I'm challenged and I don't want to build a team of of of.
00;39;04;21 - 00;39;26;22
Yes, man. I don't want to build a team which thinks exactly the same way I do. I want different thinkers and critical thinkers in different areas. And having that allows us to create a better product because my perspective is one perspective and five perspectives, it can still end up coming to that, but it'll be an amalgamation of people's perspective.
00;39;26;23 - 00;39;56;01
Yeah, we were talking yesterday about having something on the navigation at the bottom. There was arguments about being there and not being that ultimately I won. But I, we took on parts of that and it's now different to how it was going to be is I first suggested, it's still there because I think it's important and so needs to be a layer of like, no, I take on your point, but going to do it like this, and if it fails, we move on quickly and then we try that.
00;39;56;04 - 00;40;12;22
But at the same time, you need people to challenge you because if they just said yes and the first thing and then that's wrong when everyone goes, oh, I like salmon. You said it was going to come up. Yeah. So you have to bring people in and collaborate with them and feel like it's an environment they can collaborate with you in as well.
00;40;12;23 - 00;40;37;06
Yeah. And I think that that's important. We follow the Richard Branson model of like, if you do your job in two hours. Fantastic. Like, I'm not asking you to be there from 9 to 5. I really I'm no simple reason is because we all have our lives, right? And especially within tech and content creation, people are creative and building things at different times of the day.
00;40;37;09 - 00;40;53;23
And so leaning into that with them. And yeah, if they want to go off and have a lunch with their mom on the Tuesday afternoon, like go and do that, but, we expect the job to be done, just get it done. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And sometimes it takes a bit longer to do the job, sometimes it's a bit quicker and definitely balance it out.
00;40;53;24 - 00;41;11;04
You find that when you do that with people, they work even harder because they believe in you, in the mission. You've given them the flexibility in their life. And I want to pop to the gym at 11 a.m. because that's when I like to work out. Awesome. Don't do that. Have fun. When we come back, going to jump on a, call them for it because they're going to feel energized.
00;41;11;06 - 00;41;24;19
They're going to feel good that they have the space to go and do that. And guess what? They will go and they will go to bat for you. Yeah. And they will back to you until the end of the earth. And when the going gets tough and you don't chin up and that thing breaks at Sunday 2 a.m..
00;41;24;21 - 00;41;50;16
Guess who's there. Yeah. Them. Because they believe and I think installing that it's people in small companies and big companies bigger companies is much more challenging. I've always found that myself from running big teams in the past, but giving them the space to be people is is that massively important to me? I think, as you say, it gets more difficult, doesn't it, when you because you're saying, you know, the team getting to around so 20 is is that max size?
00;41;50;16 - 00;42;12;15
Unless things change, once you start to get to a thousand people, an organization, it becomes very, very difficult, to do that because you can't say, well, when are we going to have a meeting? Because, yeah, Aiden's over at the gym and Sally's having lunch with her. I would never have any meetings. It's going to be, there's certain aspects and aspects.
00;42;12;18 - 00;42;29;26
You gotta be there. Yeah, exactly. But, like, it's it's the give and take aspect of it. If you take, take, take, then it's problems. Right? But then, you know, if you, if you're giving back, but then when you want to take the space is there for you to do, to take some time. I think it's, I think it's huge.
00;42;29;28 - 00;42;45;25
And in terms of your, your business partner. So I think this is always an interesting as of topic of how did how did you guys meet. Like how do you know each other? I was story there. So I mean, Jamie got drunk at an FC seo conference a few years ago. Classic. I've not heard that one before.
00;42;45;26 - 00;43;10;21
No. And, he was speaking at the event. So, this guy's hilarious. Like, great fun. Sounds like I'm going to go with him because he's an Arsenal fan as well. It does help out. Booth. Sorry, sorry. And so I, we just we just hit it off, spoke openly and honest with each other about certain topics, had very sort of similar mentality about the world and the way things are.
00;43;10;24 - 00;43;27;20
And we work with a couple of, each other on a couple of little projects here and there as we've sort of grown, because a big part of our business is SEO and Google and, and showing up there. And so, yeah, we just kind of thing. And he was the one that had this conversation with me.
00;43;27;20 - 00;43;49;08
It's like, where does it go next? Okay, okay. And then Chris, the other co-founder, actually works in at the games. He's, he's my operations director. He's brilliant. We've again, we've not only known each other about two and a half years, but when you meet someone like him, he is the guy that is sitting there Sunday, 10 a.m..
00;43;49;08 - 00;44;12;11
Like learning final strategies to boost our landing page by 1%. Right. Okay. And I'm not asking him to like he loves it. Yeah, I like someone that like just anything. I'm like, what do we need to know about this? He'll go and like, read two books on it and, like, study it for a week and come back and be like, this is what we need to do.
00;44;12;13 - 00;44;31;25
Yeah. And just having that type of individual because I don't I'm not like that. I'm very scattered. I'm just like, go, go, go. I make decisions like that and move on. Like I'll deal with the consequences if it's wrong later. But because I'm making thousands of decisions a day, I have to be like, yeah, the key for me is to get more right than I get wrong.
00;44;31;25 - 00;44;49;17
Yeah, but someone like him, more analytically, I just dissect that decision and go, you just said that. But actually what that means is this. And so this could have effects like this, and this could have an effect over here. And I go, oh, that's a really good point. Let's not do that. What do you suggest? He goes, I think we should do this.
00;44;49;17 - 00;45;18;03
I mean, that's a much better idea. We'll do that. And so that having that individual in the team, which is a completely different way of thinking and analytical thinker, is critical. So we're marketers with three co-founders, growth marketers in different areas. Jamie has affiliate tech and influence of our marketing based businesses. Chris is just a wizard with anything technical in terms of websites, email flows, getting people through retention.
00;45;18;05 - 00;45;36;18
I mean, just the big ugly mark on the front of it looks like someone's going to look pretty upfront. You talked about, like content creation and lots of fintechs getting it wrong. And I think that actually you could take that outside of fintechs and just say lots of businesses get that side of things wrong. Definitely.
00;45;36;20 - 00;45;57;03
They get their messaging wrong. Whatever. What is it that they do to get it so wrong? And what could they they do to fix it? Like, what could they do better? Yep. They tell their story and not the customer story. Okay. So they tell they they we've got this fantastic new feature no one cares. Yeah. We've let me flip that on its head.
00;45;57;03 - 00;46;18;29
So if you want to tell your feature story, it's I woke up this morning and I was really struggling with this and and this was what happened to me. And I don't have that. And I just found this thing which completely transformed that. To me. What you've then done is focused on the problem that and that, that piece of your audience is having in their daily lives, how it impacts them.
00;46;19;04 - 00;46;49;12
It's a feeling emotion. And then, oh, actually, there's a solution to that, rather than, Canva post that you've put out of. We've just launched X, Y and Z. It's great. It's really good. Please download it and use it like there's not there. There's nothing to that. But so you they if you speak to your customers and their needs and their problems and the solutions that you have to help them with these problems, which they're thinking about, and it doesn't have to be money and finance related, this could be food related.
00;46;49;12 - 00;47;07;14
If you're, building a food channel and you you've got you are speaking to busy mums that have got 20 minutes after school to knock something up that's healthy for their kids site. Okay, here's how you do it. Yeah. And that's the problem. And I'm not going to do it to you of like, just do this pasta recipe.
00;47;07;20 - 00;47;29;01
Yeah. Awesome. It's like I knocked up this pasta dish and literally under 20 minutes. And I'm going to show you exactly how you can do the same. Yeah. Job done it. Sales and marketing. What I want really it is it is storytelling benefits selling. Yeah. And unfortunately what happens is, is that and from personal experience and I'm not naming any names here, is that there's,
00;47;29;01 - 00;47;35;26
companies at the moment, they have this kind of, core unit of senior team members, which are managing sort of younger marketing teams.
00;47;35;26 - 00;47;58;04
Tends to be the case in a lot of companies. I'm not talking like all companies, but a lot, and they're making decisions about their marketing based on the fact that they've not grown up with Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. And while it's changed, this is where people consume their information. And so they just want to get the core messages out and the numbers and the metrics and how well they're doing.
00;47;58;06 - 00;48;19;13
And I just think, the businesses which are flying at the moment are the ones that understood their customers, create core messaging for their customers and created content to solve those problems and built them into the founders mission or the company's mission. By doing that. And you can do that in a multitude of different ways. You can do that as a company.
00;48;19;16 - 00;48;43;03
You can do that as a founder, as a personal brand, which is I'm sure that's what you're doing exactly here with this podcast, for example. And building your personal brand is important and you can have so many people within the business like Chris is actively very active on LinkedIn. Jamie's massive on Twitter and has a huge mailing list, and I'm doing up the gains and we're hiring a content creator at the moment.
00;48;43;05 - 00;49;01;15
Which is their sole job is to put out content from a different perspective. Yeah, but still tell those stories and those uses, what they can expect from us and the problems that we can help them solve. So I think that's what a lot of businesses get wrong. And you see it all over your feed. Well, actually, you don't see a lot of it.
00;49;01;16 - 00;49;20;10
Yeah. This is what the thing is, because they get one, two likes and no one ever sees these things. I see all sorts of other stuff that I don't need to see as we were talking about earlier, you go into the the wormhole of, LinkedIn. Yeah. Someone who's, like, doing something completely random that has no consequence on anything in your life.
00;49;20;12 - 00;49;40;23
And I think that's like key, you know, working with people that understand this is probably your best investment you can ever make because the lead flow into your things, if you get it right, can be enormous. And look at someone like Daniel Priestley in his books, like Key Person of Influence, these types of things, these books will change your mindset around, like how effective these things are.
00;49;40;23 - 00;50;02;03
Like he's built. I think it's dozens now of multi 10 million pound plus businesses of content. Yeah. So it makes a lot of sense if you can get it right. You've just got to get it right. I hate this thing with all of these things. It's becoming quite noisy to mention LinkedIn. They're one of the biggest complaints I get about LinkedIn these days is that there's just a lot of noise.
00;50;02;03 - 00;50;24;24
And I again, we've talked about that like people creating content with I mean, what's your opinion on that? Right. I think for LinkedIn it's becoming harder to spot, but you can definitely spot it. Yeah. It's not just the M dash anymore. I, I get frustrated with a lot of founders which do these kind of like billboard motivational quotes all day long.
00;50;24;28 - 00;50;44;12
Yeah. There's no value in this. You just it's the same slap that you've said ten different ways before. Like how some people, some real hard life stories and strategies to how and so I gravitate to people which do that. But it must work for them because they're showing up every day putting this content out. So it blows my mind.
00;50;44;12 - 00;51;12;13
But anyway, for another day, and then in terms of AI content on social media, it's growing massively. So I etc., these types of, ChatGPT led businesses not open on, etc. and, you know, that the content is getting better and better and better and better and it's scarily good and a lot of cases. And so, yes, it's like it's going to impact us if we don't embrace it, it's going to say, do we need to just embrace it?
00;51;12;20 - 00;51;39;07
Absolutely. Yeah. If you don't, you will be left behind. And we're in this very small window at the moment, I believe, especially within content, especially long form content as well, is that you're at this is the time to put your foot on the gas pedal with personal branding and creating core missions and messaging for your customers, and really trying to accelerate your audience base because you won't get an opportunity like this again.
00;51;39;10 - 00;52;04;01
And when I is so good, you won't. The ones who will, people will gravitate to the ones that they can have. They've trusted before all of this, and who show up, who showed up before this happened, and real humans, because that's that's my argument against AI, is that I want to, see people's content from from them.
00;52;04;03 - 00;52;29;21
I want to see stuff that they've, they've written, they've noted. You won't know. It will be so smart that it knows exactly how to trick you at certain points with certain things that you need to see based on time of day, where you're at, what you've been liking, what you've been searching or not. But do you think then we're at risk of people switching off on these platforms and going, definitely, there's massive platform risk 100%, and that's why I say this all the time.
00;52;29;24 - 00;52;50;14
You know, that's why we're doing a bit of tech because then we can actually serve people. And also why we spend a lot of time getting people off, Instagram and TikTok onto our mailing list because we own our mailing list. Yeah, okay. And we can move our mailing list anywhere. We can't move Instagram TikTok followings that they are where they are.
00;52;50;16 - 00;53;09;10
Yeah. But I mean, this is key. And so we can send out one email and people can do this or get some advice or do whatever they need. Yeah. And so that's really key. And so yeah there's massive risk. And but now is not the time to just go, oh it's going to be the end. Now it's time to get in there.
00;53;09;14 - 00;53;27;29
Yeah. Because it's never been easier. And, know I love I love a lot of the stuff that's coming out. I think it's really cool. I was speaking to a co-founder the other day. Yeah, I was like, you're smashing on YouTube, man. Like, the videos are really good. Like, it's awesome. And he goes to me. Yeah.
00;53;28;02 - 00;53;47;10
Goes, do you know that's not me, right? And I said, well, he said, yeah, that's an avatar. I feed a script. I said, what, are you kidding me? It's really like you couldn't tell. That's what it's like. Yeah, I haven't made a video in about four months. I just feed it the avatar and then my editing team does it.
00;53;47;10 - 00;54;12;06
I write the script. I'm not. That is wired to me. He's like, yeah. And he's this guy's getting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views. But he started though by doing it with him. Definitely. So I understand. So the key is you have to start by doing it in person. Because if you just start giving an avatar some information, it won't know your your tone of voice, your style, how you how you do things.
00;54;12;06 - 00;54;28;05
And just for clarity, this guy has tweaked that avatar and has a tech team to tweak his avatar. So it's so good. Yeah, whereas he's out of the box, solutions aren't going to be that great. And I see a lot of them all the time, especially on the ads. So like just take that with a pinch of salt.
00;54;28;06 - 00;54;43;05
But that's coming. Yeah. Okay. That's coming to like, you don't even need to be there. Or you could say, hey, put me on a beach in Hawaii delivering this message, and it's going to do that. There's lots of focus in there. Right? You mentioned that I've been on, and the new version of it, there's some stuff circulating.
00;54;43;05 - 00;55;02;20
There's a picture of a girl on it, and there's the version from 12 months ago in the version now. And yeah, it has just. Yeah. So the day one the other day was the guy in the restaurant. Yes. That's that's the one. Yeah. Yeah. And that's like wild. But you can still tell. Yeah. So that's what's the key is like the guy in behind was morphing into a chair.
00;55;02;20 - 00;55;20;16
The labels on the bottles were dead centered. Yeah, they were tanned. And so there are still subtle elements to this, but that stuff out to the naked eye. Yeah. Right now you look at that and go, wow. But especially if most people are social scrolling through quick second and they're not going to be looking for for faults in it.
00;55;20;16 - 00;55;39;03
Yeah. Yeah. And so like content it's going to happen. And so if you're not on it like get on it and learn these things and play around like I downloaded. So a few weeks ago and I was like messing around. We have a food Facebook channel that we do, as well as a sort of fun test project, essentially.
00;55;39;06 - 00;56;01;04
And, like it was making me like influencer, how to recipe videos and it's very good. Yeah. It's not there yet, but it's super cool. And so you can just mess around and learn about these things as well. And actually, it can probably kind of help you. I think that's the key with all of this stuff. If you want to know more, there's there's plenty of content out there that you can go and learn.
00;56;01;04 - 00;56;19;01
Right. And that's what you've been doing as a as a founder in tech. Now you're having to learn and you're going and looking at things and looking at the way other people have done stuff and and taking bits from here, taking bits from there and working out in your own way. Yeah. That's fun. Yeah, it's fun. And this way the world is going.
00;56;19;01 - 00;56;41;05
I just think with these things where change, you know, that AI and the industrial revolution, the internet, etc., this is, this is that. Yeah. So get on board with it because going anywhere and being that guy that five years behind because you're like, I don't believe in all that rubbish. Yeah, it's just going to hurt you on the front end.
00;56;41;05 - 00;57;01;15
So I just. Yeah. Bring it into your workflows as fast as you possibly can. Final question for you. If someone was to, to walk around with you for an entire week. Yeah. Yeah, I think your wife does. That doesn't seem all the time. Yeah. So? So. But what would someone find out about how you manage your finances?
00;57;01;15 - 00;57;24;02
What would what would they. What would shock them? I'm an overspending. Yeah. Self-confessed overspending. So that hasn't changed then you just know, manage it better by not taking out loads of credit cards. There you go. Yeah, but now I actually run all my life for a credit card and then pay off every month. Yeah. So I use it for, good.
00;57;24;02 - 00;57;42;05
And, there. Right. I do still have limits, and I don't like I'm way more careful, but I go into a farm shop and I just go nuts. And that's my thing because I don't really drink as much anymore, and I don't really sort of party and spend loads of money on stuff like we would in our 20s.
00;57;42;07 - 00;58;04;09
And so I have a little bit more disposable income because the business is doing okay, and like I can go and do the thing safely without like it being like the end of the world. Yeah. Buying someone's bank. But yeah, we all have things that we love spending money on. Some people it's like running gear and like, running clubs or really expensive gym memberships, and that's what they end up doing.
00;58;04;09 - 00;58;22;26
Good on them. Right? I see you've you found that for me, it's food. I like organic, high quality food. And that's my voice. Yeah. And I lean into that, and I'm totally comfortable. Advice to have as far as they go. Yeah, and I like gardening, so I'm geeking out and buying, like, fancy soil for my vegetable patch and stuff like that.
00;58;22;26 - 00;58;41;11
And just the these are the things I think you would find that odd about me, because you'd think that I'm like, locking myself in a room and eating baked beans and investing every single penny. And the S&P 500 and shit like that. It's just not the case. Like I'm an everyday person, I just go, I live your lifestyle, I and this is our mantra.
00;58;41;11 - 00;58;59;12
We say this to people all the time. They're like, well, I don't have 20% of my salary to invest. I'm not. Fair enough. But do you have five? And they go, yeah, no, I have five. And I'm like, what impact does that have on your life? Can you still go and do these things? And a lot of people, some con of course.
00;58;59;14 - 00;59;14;15
It's it's not about the box solution, but a lot of people are like, yeah, I know I can still go out with some friends and go out for a couple of things. Awesome, because that's really important too. So for me, I have like a 15 to 20% depending on what time of the year we're going through, right.
00;59;14;15 - 00;59;37;08
Networking Christmas. So probably about 5% personally, because everything's so bloody expensive these days. But it is to live your life now and plan for the future at the same time. Yeah. And you still need to be doing both. And it's okay at certain points to be way more, you know, 80, 20 towards one or sometimes it's 5050.
00;59;37;10 - 00;59;59;18
Depends what you've got going on in your life because life moves in seasons. We have kids. We have all these things happen to us that are expensive weddings. And you can't eat it because the day it's gone, the, you know, engine's gone or whatever. And so having these things in place is just life, right? But you should definitely make sure you're living your life as much as you can and thinking about the future to 100%.
00;59;59;24 - 01;00;17;25
I think that is actually the perfect message to, to finish the podcast on, because, you know, people out there, they want you want to go and live your life no matter what it is. If that's building a business, go and go and do it right. Take the plunge. Fail fast. Yeah, exactly. Have fun. Fail. Like who cares?
01;00;17;27 - 01;00;25;27
At the end of the day, no one other than you know exactly. Sammy, thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you man. Appreciate.
01;00;25;27 - 01;00;50;26
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01;00;51;01 - 01;00;58;14
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