Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / James Barnes (CEO Of Statuscake) | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #71 |

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James Barnes (CEO Of Statuscake) | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #71 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

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podcast, shall we? Boom.
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Hello. And welcome to another episode
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of the Christian Reef podcast. Today's Guest is the CEO and
0:32
founder of status cake. It's described as one of the
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world's leading website uptime Monitoring Solutions companies.
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Welcome to the show. James Bond's, how you doing?
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Thanks Christy and thanks for me on the show.
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Yep, good to meet you. Good to meet you, too.
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Thank you for agreeing to do this.
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I know obviously being a business owner.
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You're obviously very busy. And try four times, It's tricky
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tricky to find time for stuff like this.
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But, uh, Appreciate it sincerely.
1:01
So thank you. Let's yeah, let's jump straight
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into state is cake. Tell us a little bit about what
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state is cake. Actually offers businesses and
1:10
how it came to be. Yeah sure.
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So we've been around quite a while now I guess in the grand
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scheme of things so we stood. Yeah absolutely exactly.
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So we founded the business in 2012-2013 so yeah we ran uptime
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monitoring Services, you said and I guess In a nutshell, what
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we do is we alert our customers when their website goes down and
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then give them the data to establish.
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What went wrong. Why did they cite go down in the
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first place? So I guess the question I would
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ask is why is that important to a website owner?
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I guess three things rarely its reputation rankings and revenue.
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So if someone comes to your website and it's down instantly,
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you know, that's not good for your reputation.
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It's so easy in an online world, too.
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Click away to someone else. So it's your reputation last is
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the last sale. And, you know, it takes so much
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time to get into Google and rank to be found in the first place.
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But Google doesn't like sites that are down, so it can impact
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it can impact that as well. So in a nutshell, that's what we
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do in it. Sound so easy in practice and
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that was one of the things that really appealed to me and it in
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the first place about building this business, it was for the
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first time in my life that Jabra business.
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I could describe to my parents and they got it.
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But yeah, as the years have gone, obviously it's got more
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complex and so on and so forth. But the concept remains, you
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know, pretty simple. So I got a couple of questions
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springing out of that and I, you know, this always happens when I
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have interviews with guests, you know, I sort of ad lib on the
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fly, but given that I've got some experience actually working
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in marketing, in the field. I do actually have some
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experience with technical side of things with website
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monitoring in that and I came across Sites such as hot jar, I
3:01
think the company was called and other systems like that.
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So for those who don't know, basically hot jars, the system
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which allows you to sort of record user sessions in real
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time. So anytime someone is clicking
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on your website and going around on the website it shows you sort
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of how they're using the website, how they're interacting
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with the website and which particular areas they're
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focusing on and so on and so forth.
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So how does you know? Your company relate to that, is
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it similar? Is it very different?
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You have your own system like tell us a little bit more about
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that. Yeah, sure.
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So that's why I love hot dry. Think they are a great business
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and actually one that I admire just in terms of how they run
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this much as their software. But so hot jar really is about
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understanding when a visitor comes to your website, how they
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interact with the site. So as you said you can watch
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videos how the customer interacts you can look to see
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where they're having troubles. So they trying to click
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something that looks like a butt.
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The nascent. It's all about helping people
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convert from a visit to the website to a paying customer or
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whatever your measure of success is we're all about though from
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our point of view is helping the business owner ensure that their
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site is up in the first place. So we're that kind of that stage
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before. If you like you know hot jar is
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about analyzing how they interact with your website.
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We're all about making sure your website is up in the first
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place. So, you know, but, you know,
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it's not just about down time, you know, I'm, I'm a keen Runner
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and the London Marathon ballot results came out the other week
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and everyone's clicking to get on there.
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And there were two issues. One, the site was down at
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certain points, but other times, it just took a long time to load
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and it's that customer experience.
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That's just pretty Dreadful. Isn't it where you get to a site
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and Italy takes time and time and time and is Much you care
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about the brand that dictates how long you hang around before
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you click away elsewhere. You know, it's funny.
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I had a guest on the show recently, and we were talking
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about how technology changes over time and I sort of it
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remain it reminded me of what the websites and the internet
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were like sort of in the mid-2000s you know when I was
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growing up with the internet as a teenager I've kind of
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Forgotten over time like how slow websites used to be.
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And there are certain videos on YouTube where People have done
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like sort of social experiments to see like can you live in that
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time using that technology. So there was one guy who did
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this really kind of setup. I think like Windows XP or
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something like that. Like in basically technology
5:43
that would be appropriate for a round.
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That's a 2005 and straight away. The very first thing he said
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which was an issue. Was just the fact that it took
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so long anything to load. And I'd forgotten about this
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completely but it's true. Like back then it took probably
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a Good 5 or 10 minutes just for a full website to load even if
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it was a really powerful website like I don't know let's say like
6:08
my space back in the day Facebook or something like that.
6:11
It actually took a long time and there were this is a really
6:14
weird hack but a lot of the time if you wanted to test like if it
6:19
was a your internet or if there was another problem, you could
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go on a website such as the BBC website.
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And that would always sort of load like that very quickly and
6:28
obviously if it didn't go very Quickly, there's a problem with
6:31
your internet right? But it always kind of blew my
6:33
mind, how there were certain websites, that would always
6:35
loads very quickly but everything else just took
6:38
forever. Now my point with this is that
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obviously over the years, you know, internet's just got
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faster, you know, we went from 3G to 4G.
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Now we got 5G internet and now I believe there's this kind of
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expectation in the market as far as, you know, anyone that's
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using the interface days, for web sites to load within, let's
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say, 10 to 20 seconds, you know, if it's Because I mean, tens 20
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seconds and they're gone. I mean, even at 2 seconds for
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every half a second, the percentage drop off is huge in
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this calculators online, where you can see if your, to speed
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up, your load by half a second. How much actually impacts the
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bottom line? I mean, I think the other thing
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will take for granted is that, you know, within the UK, you
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know, speed is pretty good. Although in saying that I live
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in the countryside and you know, my internet is like, dial up
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sometimes. Half half of your listeners,
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won't know what dial-up is, but, you know, I'm showing my age of
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it. But, you know, we have customers
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throughout the world. So you know, are big markets,
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are the US UK Europe. But, you know, we got a lot of
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customers in South America, Asia into Africa, where speed is
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pretty slow. So, you need to find ways of
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making sure that your site loads quickly, wherever your customers
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are and whatever device they're on, you know?
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Google. Now, you know is really keen on
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sites loading quickly on mobiles.
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You know, if you cannot get your cyclo quick on a mobile, Google
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won't rank you as highly. So, I think you're right.
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I think we, we've got used to site loading quickly and we
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expect it, but I think one of the things that has slightly
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changed is that? Because we've gone for Speed.
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So instead of all of the assets being on our website, now we pop
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them off elsewhere. So they store Toward their
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stored in repositories, if you like, so, they load quicker.
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But what that's meant is that we now have these different points
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of failure. So your website might be up, but
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if you're pulling in a payment Gateway, or maybe a font style
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or you're pulling your images in.
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If that goes down elsewhere, your website is still impacted.
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So I think as with all of these things, the issues today are the
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issues of yesterday but they just have a slightly different
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different feel to them. And one of the things that
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really interested me about this when I started learning about
9:04
it, was that like, even little things like the up.
9:10
And it's like, so if you take like images as an example, like
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I worked for a corporate company a couple of years ago where I
9:16
was doing various different projects for them.
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And one of the things they asked me to do off the get-go as far
9:22
as it pertains to this, like content audit.
9:23
All I was doing was to actually basically take all the images
9:27
that were on the website and put them through some sort of other
9:31
website, where it would like to Kris the size or compress the
9:33
size of the image files so that they would load faster and to
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me, yeah, it seemed like a very basic thing to do but it's
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amazing like, how much time that would actually save.
9:43
And, you know, like just in general this idea of optimizing
9:48
everything on your website so that it's much better for just
9:53
general usability, I suppose. And the whole, you know, thing
9:56
of like ux and UI is probably like Such a big part of business
10:02
these days. And it always has been an
10:04
important factor, but it seems like it's like probably the most
10:08
important factor these days. Yeah, I think it depends on the
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stage. You are in your business as
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well. Apparently, it's become more
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established at the early days, thought about the hustle.
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It's all about going out. Getting those first customers
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and trying to keep going, keep going, keep going before you run
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out of money or energy and you know I think that's the biggest
10:28
change for any business out there.
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But once you become established, you know your customers changes
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well they're no longer the early adopters that to be brutally
10:38
honest, very forgiving and love you.
10:40
All the claim to be established corporates who you know, they
10:44
expect something to work. They expect it to work in a
10:47
particular way and you know, particular in our early days.
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I know that the way we build stuff was quirky.
10:55
It didn't behave in the way that perhaps it should and our early
10:58
customers love. Because in a way that used to
11:02
how it works, but we know that as we go on, we need to start
11:07
behaving and having our site behave in a way that new
11:11
customers who have never known this before, expect it to work.
11:17
I think you're right. I think is incredibly important
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UI and ux is just back to, you know, there's so many other
11:24
services out there. Why would you use a service?
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That's difficult to use when there's a perfectly good one.
11:29
Down the road that does the same thing is probably priced
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relatively the same, but doesn't make you think to that?
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And that's the thing, like, when you were talking about that with
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regards to, like early adopters and some people staying around.
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I was like, well, maybe if they like really, really believe in
11:47
the Bland in the brand, but I think the vast majority of
11:51
people myself included, you know, if you don't get what you
11:55
want from the products within the first couple of tries, but
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you said, you just move on to the next.
11:59
Thing and you don't even feel like a sense of like loyalty a
12:03
such a, unless you're like, really passionate about the
12:05
brand for some reason. But like a lot of the time, you
12:08
know, you can just find another alternative and there's going to
12:11
be many, many, many Alternatives.
12:13
But I suppose maybe another factor to this that's kind of
12:16
acting as the, the opposite end of this is the fact that you
12:20
know, some brands are more trustworthy than others.
12:24
And, you know, like generally speaking you want to go with
12:27
Brands. You've at least heard of Dove in
12:31
a positive light, you know, I mean it's very scary to kind of
12:34
steer away from the major brands and maybe go for an alternative
12:37
that no one's heard of. If it's, you know, if you're
12:40
using it for something, that's a big part of your business, may
12:43
be like, for example, payment Gateway, something like that.
12:46
Like you want to have, you know, maximum security with that.
12:50
So that you don't kind of Miss manage people's details, you
12:54
know, their financials and stuff.
12:55
But, you know, I mean, for something like that, if I was a
12:58
business owner, I would Probably just take the hit pay the money
13:02
for the more expensive options just as I saw it.
13:06
So I could secure that as opposed to taking a risk and go
13:09
for a cheaper option just because it's, you know, there's
13:11
an alternative. I don't know.
13:12
I think some things you can take risks on and some things you
13:14
can, I think you're right. And actually for me funny
13:18
enough, the word trust, it's incredibly important is actually
13:21
one of my themes for this year. We should try and have a couple
13:24
of themes each year of I suppose things that we think we're
13:28
important, I think. Trust now to the consumer and
13:31
whether you're in, you know, the b2c space or whether you're in
13:36
B2B, at the end of the day, you're still selling to a
13:38
person. Yeah.
13:40
And, and trust is incredibly important.
13:42
As you said, whether it's, you know, that that trust is really
13:48
difficult to, to build, it takes a long time, you know, but very
13:53
easy to lose and, you know, I know that's been of a cliche,
13:55
but it's, you know, it holds true.
13:59
So, you know, I think everything you can do as business known
14:03
from the point at which you acquire them.
14:05
So even down to the answer that you showed, you know, don't
14:08
start using ads that, you know, fly fast with the copy.
14:11
You know, when you get into your sales site, make sure that
14:13
everything on there is clear is not misleading.
14:16
Make sure the sign up process, you know, you're instilling,
14:20
trust safety security right from the start because otherwise,
14:24
you're not going to get them past that first 30 minutes.
14:27
They're like with you, the way I look at it is that like yeah and
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I remembers I heard this many years ago and I think it's
14:35
especially Rings true now is that, you know the consumer has
14:38
the power now. No longer does the business
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owners have the power. It's always the consumer that
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has the power and what I mean by that is that you know, we've got
14:47
the internet now and the internet is a resource, if
14:49
nothing else. So it gives you information, it
14:51
gives you the ability to, you know, make decent comparisons
14:55
between different businesses and different options, and such and
15:00
Moreover, it gives you the ability to be more
15:02
well-informed. So, you know, if you are looking
15:05
at potential options either on a b2c or B2B level, you know,
15:10
you're going to be looking at this and saying this doesn't
15:14
meet up to my standards and it's like many, many years ago when
15:18
we were in the market where, you know, customers just didn't
15:21
know. You could easily steer them
15:23
towards your product and potentially, you know,
15:25
manipulating them. If you wanted to do that, you
15:28
know, where's you just can't do that these days.
15:29
Days, like the vast majority of people just know, and like,
15:34
obviously, with other things, like, you know, the popularity
15:37
of things like coding, and development and software
15:40
knowledge. I mean, even myself, you know, I
15:42
don't ever claim to be, you know, really, really well
15:46
knowledge done computers. But I do have a very, I would
15:50
say, a solid knowledge of, like, how to do certain things.
15:53
And I've kind of realized that, like to some extent, it's a
15:58
generational thing. I think, My generation and the
16:01
generation underneath me as well have kind of grown up with a
16:05
level of experience with the internet that you know, previous
16:09
generations, just simply don't have.
16:11
And, you know, that's not to say that older Generations.
16:14
Don't, you know, use the internet.
16:16
I mean, you run a business that literally is involved with in
16:18
there. So it's, there's not like a
16:20
complete cough there. But like, what I'm trying to say
16:23
is that, like, People in my generation in the and the
16:26
younger generation just know how things work and to give it a
16:30
better example to illustrate. What I mean like when I was
16:33
learning ideas school, it was unbelievably basic and I can
16:38
tell you none of the stuff that I used back then I have used
16:42
ever in my life, right? But like the systems that were
16:46
in place back then and the systems that are in place now
16:49
you're like everything is much easier to use.
16:52
It's much more understandable, you know, I would Keith at user
16:55
interfaces in general, just much better.
16:58
So you know if you do want to sort of get involved with
17:01
computers or run a business that is predominantly online, it's
17:05
far easier to do so than it was in the past.
17:08
You're right, there's so many resources out there.
17:11
Customers do like to understand the product better.
17:15
It's far easier. Now to spend 5 10 minutes
17:18
looking at eight or nine products, and evaluating them,
17:23
even at a technical level. But I think one of the things
17:25
you touched on before, I don't think it's enough.
17:30
Now, to just look at the product and compare one to the other
17:34
people want to know more about the business and what it stands
17:37
for. Yeah, I think, you know, we all,
17:40
you know, we all know from a retail perspective, there are
17:42
certain brands that we can relate to and I think it's the
17:46
same and starting to be the same in the, you know, the B2B space
17:51
as well customers. Now want to understand, You
17:56
know, it's not about maximizing shareholder return anymore.
18:01
I don't think it's even about this you know people talk about
18:04
stakeholders now into the instead, don't they?
18:07
But people want to know about your whole supply chain.
18:10
They want to know what impact does, your supply chain have on
18:13
the environment. How does it impact the people
18:16
that work in your supply chain? And Big corporate.
18:21
If you're dealing with big corporates, they certainly want
18:23
to understand that because they all have big policies where they
18:26
will require, you know, any of their suppliers to confirm that
18:31
they, you know, meet all of these certain criteria and
18:34
policies but an individual level I think people just want to see
18:37
that. Now they want to buy from
18:39
companies they relate to these interesting you say this because
18:42
I feel like there were two sort of key audiences with regards to
18:47
this. And what I mean by that is that
18:50
Like yeah, I do see the same sorts of conversations.
18:53
The same discussions on web sites like LinkedIn and Twitter
18:56
where people are very, you know, conscientious of dealing with
19:00
businesses and buying from businesses that you know, offer
19:03
organic products or are ethically focused or have, you
19:06
know, really strong CSR or whatever the case may be, right?
19:09
But then, you know, then I look at other companies like Primark
19:13
as an example. And I remember when I was at
19:15
business school, this was a right around the time that, you
19:18
know, Primark was under investigation.
19:20
Ation by paranormal. If you remember the
19:22
investigation, I'll just quickly cover it for our listeners.
19:25
So, back here, in the mid-2000s Primark.
19:28
Basically was stitched up by paranormal for having like a
19:34
unethical business practices because they were operating, I
19:38
believe a factory in Bangladesh or somewhere like that, and they
19:44
just weren't treating the workers, right?
19:46
And as we all know, like many of these companies who operate this
19:50
business, Model where they're creating stuff very cheaply and
19:53
selling it very cheaply tend not to have good business practices
19:59
that you know they're not ethically concerned now they got
20:02
exposed and they immediately changed their approach.
20:07
And you know, if you go on the website even now they'll be like
20:09
a tab there that says ethical trading and blah blah blah.
20:12
So they did, you know, make an effort to change things.
20:16
But the reason I bring this up is that around that time you'd
20:19
expect are one No one's going to shop with them.
20:21
No one's going to do business with them.
20:23
Now, on the contrary, their sales skyrocketed after that,
20:28
and it makes me think like yeah, a lot of people are making, you
20:32
know, having these conversations and talking about being
20:34
ethically focused and, you know, only buying from businesses that
20:38
promote these kind of ideals. But the same time, you've got a
20:42
wider majority, who don't care and will shop with them anyway,
20:46
and that's where I think there's a couple of things.
20:48
And I think, firstly, you know, The business can decide whether
20:52
or not you want to wait until you are forced to buy a
20:55
regulator make changes, or you can decide that you want to be
20:59
ahead of the game. And, you know, I think a lot of
21:03
businesses feel that they don't want to be ahead of the game and
21:06
want wait for the regulator because.
21:08
Yeah, as you said, we're Primark, their margins are so
21:11
small. Well, that to me suggests that
21:15
their business model is wrong. If I, you know it.
21:20
It's not put it this way, it's not sustainable, you know?
21:26
So you know, these businesses either have to change their
21:29
model or they have to decide that if they get ahead of the
21:32
game that it will actually improve their sales.
21:38
I am a strong believer that, you know, if you are on the right
21:42
side of this, that actually, it actually makes sense financially
21:46
as well. Hmm.
21:48
Yeah, I mean, I think you have a point there with regards to, you
21:51
know, businesses kind of only decided to take action when they
21:55
get caught which sounds really shady.
21:57
But so many businesses do this, it's actually kind of
22:00
mind-blowing. For instance, if you take like
22:03
newspapers in the UK, many of them will.
22:06
We'll print a story when they know they shouldn't because they
22:10
have already figured out how many copies of papers.
22:13
They're going to sell how much money they're going to make
22:15
through ad revenue on their websites and then when they do
22:17
eventually get sued, they just quickly pay off the lawsuit, get
22:21
it done over you move on and you know there's different ways you
22:26
can look at that. You know, I think for many of
22:28
those businesses, they kind of look at it.
22:30
Like well, you know, we'll just put this in our losses and this
22:33
will probably help us to kind of achieve more profit.
22:36
Year or, you know, avoid taxes or whatever.
22:39
I think there's kind of like management with regards to that
22:42
as far as like, you know, it's planned like they know what
22:46
they're doing and they'll continue to do that as long as
22:48
it works and they don't get caught.
22:50
Well, I look I guess you know, and I'll be very careful what I
22:54
say. But when you think about the big
22:55
disruptors out there, their business model is about looking
22:59
at a market, being pretty careful about not falling on the
23:03
wrong side of the law. But certainly looking at areas
23:06
where Are regulation hasn't kept up and moving into that market
23:10
aggressively. And they know that at some
23:13
point, the more successful they are they will get regulated out
23:16
of business. But in the meantime,
23:18
particularly for those early investors and the VCS that come
23:23
in and so on and so forth, you know, they are in and out of
23:26
that business before the regulator is called up and you
23:29
can look at it with, you know, and you know like so boober Air
23:34
B&B I think it's fair to say in time.
23:36
And those business will go from high growth businesses because
23:40
they've had free free range. Pretty much do what they want to
23:43
actually pretty commoditize utility businesses, where the
23:47
growth is no longer there anymore and they are just
23:50
churning over healthy cash flow but you know the big growth will
23:53
have gone. Now that could be five ten years
23:56
down the line but that's the model it's get in there disrupt
24:00
before anyone, notices. Absolutely.
24:03
Let's bring it back to status cake.
24:05
So One thing I want to know is that, you know, apparently you
24:11
managed to fund the business without any Angel investment.
24:15
Now, this is really impressive because most businesses tend to
24:18
have, you know, several rounds of investments from angels from,
24:25
you know, maybe from bank loans, from their various other
24:27
sources, and that can always be a bit of an issue, sort of
24:31
further down the line. It's not an issue in the
24:33
beginning, you know, because you've got that cash flow in
24:35
your business, and you can kind of Set things up as we've seen
24:38
time and time again. You know, it can be an issue
24:40
because of the equity states that they have in the business.
24:44
How did you pull this off? Yeah.
24:46
You know why it's interesting and I actually think, well,
24:51
we're come back to that but I think it was.
24:54
I still think it was the right thing to do.
24:56
And actually the more you read now about particularly size
25:00
businesses and how they should be funded.
25:02
I'm seeing more and more people including these these saying,
25:05
but actually they don't Think you should go for investment
25:07
that bootstrapping is the way forward.
25:11
I think there's a couple of things it and I sort of come
25:13
back to what I said earlier about being successful in
25:16
business is making sure we don't run out of energy or money and
25:20
bootstrapping really, I think lends itself to a couple of
25:23
things that help with that. Certainly helps the money, maybe
25:26
not the energy for our listeners.
25:28
Could you just explain a little bit about what bootstrapping is?
25:31
Yes, a good. Strapping effectively is
25:33
starting a business with the show.
25:36
That's on your back. You know the few coins in the
25:39
piggy bank or a credit card or whatever.
25:42
Not that I'm suggesting. That's right for everyone but
25:44
effectively, starting with the money you have and trying to
25:47
build up the business out of your own personal money and
25:51
hoping that you get quickly enough to the point where your
25:56
costs are being covered and then you're able to take some money
25:59
out and to the point where whatever your success point is,
26:02
you've got a salary and then you can start thinking about how you
26:05
grow the team from there. R.
26:07
I like bootstrap businesses because I think they are built
26:12
in sustainable ways. So one of the things about
26:14
raising VC money is your throne a shedload of money, you're told
26:18
to spend it in a year and at the end of that year, you've not got
26:21
any money left. So if you haven't found a way of
26:24
applying that money to get a quick return on on the VC
26:28
investment, you're out of business and once you get that
26:31
first round of money, you are on this constant Merry-Go-Round of
26:35
raising and Raising and raising and it for me, that would be
26:39
tracked you from what you're trying to do.
26:41
As an entrepreneur, you are there to build a product to find
26:45
customers and to bring them all together.
26:48
You're not there to keep going, raising money.
26:50
And for me, it's a big distraction and one other thing.
26:54
I, and I think this is important because we started with very
26:58
little money. The approach we took to solving
27:01
the problem. I think was very different to
27:03
how a VC funded startup would have.
27:06
Watched it, if you've got a million quid sitting in the
27:09
bank, your immediate thought probably is throw it on, AWS, do
27:12
whatever is quickest and easiest to get us up and running and I
27:17
don't think that always leads to the best solution and there's
27:21
quite a few really interesting books out there.
27:23
And I can't remember their titles, so apologies for that.
27:27
But just looking at this concept of starting with a little amount
27:31
of money and kind of outcomes that you get and how more
27:35
creative they They are not. I think there's something really
27:38
quite interesting in that. Absolutely, I couldn't agree
27:41
more. So some of your major clients
27:44
have included Brands, such as calm, Ticketmaster, Aldi and
27:48
Lidl. What's it like working with
27:50
these Major Brands? And what exactly do you provide
27:54
them with as far as your services are concerned?
27:56
Sure. I mean, so, as I said, we've
27:58
been Goin 10 years plus, or so over that time we've probably
28:02
helped around 140,000, customers of all shapes and sizes.
28:06
So we do have the bigger Blue Chips.
28:09
So some you just talked about governments and so on it's a
28:13
real mixture though of what they need from us predominantly.
28:19
We are self-service. So the customer comes in, they
28:23
have that they want a lot of the time.
28:27
They will use the data. They're given to go when solve
28:30
themselves but of course we are there to help as well.
28:34
So we'll have some customers that we don't hear.
28:36
From from one week to the next and others, you know, that there
28:40
is, you know, more hand-holding. But broadly speaking, there
28:45
needs a pretty much the same. You know, it is back to that.
28:48
Same question, is my website up? How long is it taking to load
28:53
and, you know, various other things that we're helping them
28:56
with? Many businesses right now that
29:00
are offering online services tend to have like tear systems.
29:03
So they have like, you know, let's say like a beginner's
29:06
maybe a free trial version then starter medium premium Etc.
29:11
What's your kind of set up as as it pertains to the services that
29:16
you are offering? Yes, it shows that actually, I
29:19
mean our business model has evolved over time as you'd
29:22
expect we started off with a freemium model, right?
29:26
So you know if you were Free custom you could sign up and we
29:29
through pretty much everything at you and said, get on with it.
29:32
If you would like some of our premium features that maybe test
29:37
your website a little bit quicker and so on then you pay
29:40
for it and it was really successful about in terms of
29:45
just growing that that customer based as we want to be doing
29:48
really early on is just opening the gates as far as possible and
29:52
getting them in as we've matured we thought about right?
29:56
Okay. Do We give as much away on a
30:00
free tip and you'll see it with a lot of, a lot of companies
30:04
like ours, because there's a real cost to servicing a free
30:09
customer even on a tech platform in terms of resource in terms of
30:13
support and so on and it's really difficult and I think we
30:16
found the right balance in terms of continuing to support our
30:21
free customers, and it's something.
30:23
I feel passionately about one of the reasons why we started the
30:25
company with. We wanted people to be able to
30:27
have multiple Touring regardless of who they were.
30:30
So we got some customers. We've had for 89 years who are
30:33
on the free plan, and they always will be, and I'm not
30:35
going to beat them off the platform.
30:37
They are an important part of our community and they provide
30:41
some of the best feedback and they become great educator.
30:45
Okay? You know, they share, they share
30:47
the love for State Escape. They'll tell other people about
30:50
us who may come on by. So that's, that's where that,
30:53
that's where the return is. Maybe it's not always with
30:56
monetary value, but Right there that reputation management and
31:00
just just testimony stuff like that is so important probably
31:05
even more valuable than just, you know, receiving money from
31:08
regular clients. Oh, God completely.
31:10
I mean, word-of-mouth referral, you know, has always been and
31:14
will be one of the most powerful forms of marketing.
31:19
It really well. So we, you know, we've got the
31:22
Premium plan and we have a huge percentage of our customer base,
31:26
which is free. And then we have You say the
31:28
starter plan and so on and so forth, so forth, you know, the
31:31
basic premise is, you know, the more you eat, the more you pay
31:36
but you know, we are transparent with our pricing.
31:39
I think that's one of the important things that you were
31:40
talking about earlier is about transparency.
31:43
People want to understand the moment they come to your site,
31:47
how much it's going to cost you. They don't want there to be any
31:50
hidden costs, you know the Ryanair model as clever as it is
31:54
you know you go in there looking for two pound 99 flight and By
31:57
the time you've got on board, it's cost you 200 pounds, you
32:01
know, customers, don't like that, you know, I personally
32:04
will go to website and if there's not pricing on the page
32:07
and you have to email for pricing, I'm not interested.
32:10
Because in my mind, perhaps your wrongly I'm just thinking that
32:14
they're looking at my profile trying to put their finger in
32:17
the air to guess how much I'm willing to pay good that, that
32:20
transparency thing as well like or lack thereof.
32:24
I've seen that in so many different areas.
32:25
Not just business. Like, for instance, with Punting
32:28
like I've been job hunting for about a year now and I look at
32:31
so many profiles. Sorry job descriptions that
32:35
don't contain how much you're supposed to earn.
32:39
And I'm like I don't maybe it's just because I'm a businessman
32:42
and always have been and I look at like, well, you know, my time
32:47
is my my time and my skills are my two main assets, right?
32:51
So if I'm trading these, the you I want to know how much I'm
32:54
getting in return and over, you know, of course of Of say.
32:59
Yeah. Yeah.
32:59
Per annum and loved one thing that really helped me to shape.
33:02
This was when I started doing freelance in a couple of years
33:05
ago, it really started make to make me understand, you know,
33:08
the value of your time and your skills and how that changes over
33:12
time. And you know, because you start
33:14
thinking like, I don't know. And you sort of under sell
33:17
yourself and I had the same thing.
33:19
I was always like, I can't charge that that's too much, but
33:21
then after a while you're like, no, I know how long this takes,
33:25
this is where my skill level is at and it's always increasing.
33:27
Same. Therefore, I need to charge more
33:29
so when I see these job adverts where they're just not giving
33:32
you any kind of indication, I just feel like that's, it's
33:36
that. Well, if you what, why should I
33:38
waste my time? You know, and I feel that it's
33:40
the same with business to, it's just like he's worried probably
33:43
reflects on for me as well. If I came to job description
33:47
like that, where the salary wasn't on there?
33:49
You know, there isn't that transparency.
33:51
I think it talks about the wider business, so if they're not
33:55
transparent there, how were they going to?
33:57
Act in everything else. And, you know, it's back to what
34:00
we talked about earlier with trust, you know, I think if you
34:02
get it wrong in one place of your business, it flows over
34:06
there, there's no stopping, you can put it in this watertight
34:10
compartment and hope that it doesn't sort of spill over into
34:13
another area of your business. There's just no excuse for lack
34:17
of transparency and Trust to business.
34:19
I love in terms of I think Justin, you know, we talked
34:23
about businesses that we think get it right, brewdog do
34:26
transparency. Brilliant.
34:29
They publish their PL including everyone salary and share it
34:35
with everyone. I think that's amazing.
34:38
You know to have that. I don't know I suppose he's
34:42
confidence really. Isn't it just to go actually
34:45
we're not afraid of anything here at all is and I imagine
34:48
also that In terms of Staff trust and and so on, you know,
34:55
there's no room for ambiguity. There's no one sitting there
34:58
thinking. Am I paid fairly or anything
35:00
like that? I think is brilliant.
35:01
And I think the more that businesses can move towards that
35:05
full transparency the better like one of the things I've
35:09
learned over the past year because I've discovered some
35:11
really good YouTubers that have experience in this area and then
35:15
now freelancing. But they give you tips on like
35:17
you know how you should negotiate your prices in
35:19
interviews and stuff like And, you know, it's a thing that kind
35:22
of blew my mind years ago because I would always kind of
35:25
approach job interviews like huh.
35:27
You know, I really need this job and I'll do anything to get it
35:30
in my blog and then obviously, you start working in your field,
35:32
you start realizing your potential and then you start
35:35
approaching it differently and you start actually negotiating
35:38
and that I feel is a lot of the time.
35:40
What they're trying to do with those adverts, where they don't
35:43
give you a price or if they sometimes they will actually
35:45
say, like, on the Goshen, negotiations and blah, blah
35:48
blah, and you know, that's kind of what you have.
35:50
To do, you have to go in there with confidence and say, this is
35:53
what I want, and the same is true of business as well.
35:56
I found this many times that, you know, you can actually
35:59
haggle. I people think like, oh no, the
36:01
price, you can't move the price. No, no, the price is there.
36:05
It's set as a kind of like, this is what we're going to do, but
36:08
if you come with a better deal, a better.
36:12
If I came to you and I said, okay, this is what you're
36:14
offering. What about if we move it a
36:16
little bit down to like this price and we do this
36:19
potentially, there could be a negotiation because It's be to
36:22
be it business and that's what you do in business.
36:24
You try to find the value in the deal and what works for both
36:28
parties. And I think it's really
36:30
important to have that mentality in general.
36:33
A lot of people don't have that mentality.
36:34
There just go. Okay, I'll take the price and
36:36
then they realize maybe a year in our I could have I could have
36:40
done better and I could have got more or, you know, maybe this
36:44
isn't exactly what I had envisioned and, you know, so on
36:47
it's a track of late. I mean, for us particularly that
36:49
bigger customers, I call them Enterprise light.
36:52
I think Enterprise is such a misleading term but in terms of
36:56
some of our customers that are sort of on plans that are, you
36:59
know, not off the Peg and absolutely, we will sit down
37:02
with them and will work out exactly what they need.
37:05
And, you know, we will agree on a price where, you know, one
37:08
thing I'll always says, there needs to be enough margin for
37:10
us. I don't want to do a deal where
37:13
we are not making much money because the Temptation then is
37:16
to, you know, you want to have the right motivators for the
37:19
start from the start. Both parties you absolutely do.
37:23
I think that's fair as well as long as you say like, hey, this
37:26
doesn't work for us because, you know, we're just not going to
37:28
make any money on it. I don't think it's anything.
37:30
Unreasonable saying that you just being brutally honest and
37:33
saying, it's just that. I remember very early on the
37:37
status cake in the first two or three years when big businesses
37:40
were first starting to talk to us and they going I'm really
37:42
worried that your prices. Aren't I enough?
37:44
Because I want you guys to be making good margins because I
37:47
want you to be around in two or three years, time people do.
37:50
Don't mind paying if they think what you're asking is is a fair
37:55
price. One thing I wanted to touch upon
37:58
thy back to I'm jumping around now but back to the salaries of
38:03
on job descriptions. I think you talked about, you
38:07
know, having the confidence to haggle and and just say I'm
38:11
working with this, I think one of the things that concerns me
38:14
sometimes with those though that not everyone does and I think
38:17
it's being shown in job descriptions that don't have
38:20
salaries It disproportionately impacts women.
38:22
Women are less likely a lot. The studies show to actually
38:26
push for more money. And my concern is they actually
38:30
is an indirect form of discrimination by, you know,
38:34
effectively, you know, hoping that you're going to get someone
38:40
that is good for a job and pay them, the least possible.
38:44
You know, it's well, I think the key thing, you know, above all
38:48
else that you touched on which I totally agree.
38:50
With is this idea that, you know, you can't kind of
38:54
undersell yourself for several reasons, but one of them being
38:57
and you touched on it with those those bigger companies is that,
39:01
if you do that, if you set your bar too low, then companies and
39:06
individuals will look at it and go are they must not be that
39:08
good then hmm you know what I mean?
39:10
Like I started doing that with my copywriting services, I said
39:13
it really know because I thought oh this would be good, it will
39:15
attract attention because it's lower prices.
39:17
No it does the opposite. People look at that and go.
39:20
Oh The quality can't be there, then you need to charge higher
39:23
so that people can kind of look at it and go, okay?
39:26
This guy must be the real deal. This girl must be the real deal
39:28
and they'll run when we first started out we had a plan that
39:32
was around five pounds a month because we wanted to start to
39:35
plan and like you, we can thought we need a lower entry
39:37
point and we sat down with him, it just didn't feel right?
39:44
And we found that we were getting the most queries and the
39:47
most support was being pushed towards those customers.
39:50
And I don't know whether it was because they needed more
39:53
hand-holding, whatever, and we got rid of it and we were really
39:56
concerned. Geez, what's going to happen?
39:58
Having got rid of that but actually having got rid of it.
40:01
And the next stage up being around, I think it was 15 pounds
40:04
at a time. Our conversion rate shot up, its
40:06
back to that point. As you said that, If the price
40:10
is too low, I'll people going to worry about the quality of the
40:14
product. They get thing and like what we
40:16
were saying again just as a final point on this like that
40:19
transparency, as far as pricing is concerned is very important.
40:22
Like, for example, if you want to say, okay, let's say the
40:26
market averages, like 25 for like the starter entry and you
40:29
charge 20, and you say well, you know, we're undercutting the
40:32
competitors, because we want to be the lowest compared to, we
40:35
want to offer the most, you know, reasonable price.
40:39
But you say, Say That Then everyone's going to be that.
40:41
Okay. Great.
40:42
But if you just undercut everyone and then don't say
40:44
anything, it's going to be like, well the cheaper option, why
40:47
should I go with them? If you know what I hate that c
40:50
word cheap. I absolutely hate it.
40:52
And you know what, you know, people used to go to me to
40:55
compete on price and go. No never ever ever compete on
40:58
price. Because you end up in a one-way,
41:00
that's a one-way Street and, you know, just add the bigger
41:03
businesses will just undercut you until you got business, the
41:06
symbols are actually in Hurt, when you look as well about the
41:12
the motivators for people buying a big one is trust coming back
41:16
to that again. But actually price is pretty low
41:19
in terms of the things that people take into account when
41:22
they buy. So don't make it.
41:25
Your primary reason for them, you know, to buy from you
41:29
absolutely moving it forward. Like, how do you think your work
41:33
is likely to develop in the next 5 to 10 years?
41:35
Now, the reason I ask this is obviously one of the questions I
41:38
was going to ask you before, but I think you were Any kind of
41:40
covered was you know how was you know website analytics and
41:45
website monitoring changed over. Let's say the last 10 years and
41:48
it's pretty clear. It's become one of the most
41:50
important things that businesses need to take advantage of if
41:54
they're going to really maximize all of their marketing exploits,
41:58
all of this potential sales that's boys and generally just
42:00
having a good website overall. But where do you sort of, based
42:04
on the current research that you're doing right now?
42:06
Everything you're collecting right now, where do you think
42:08
we're headed in the next five to ten years Hello.
42:11
I'll talk about our business to start with, you know, I think
42:15
when you work in tag, it's really easy to think that it's
42:19
all about Silicon Valley is all about machine learning
42:23
artificial intelligence. It just isn't it really isn't
42:27
bearing in mind that evening countries, like the US and the
42:29
UK, a huge percentage of businesses still haven't gone
42:33
online. Now, covid has changed that a
42:35
bit and I think there's no doubt about that.
42:38
I mean covid has been It's been a real it's been a disrupter to
42:44
huge amount of businesses. Some have been forced to go
42:46
online and have adapted very well.
42:48
He's definitely sped up that digital transformation and
42:52
that's going to continue for the next 5-10 years.
42:56
I think the the latest stats that I looked at and it is sort
42:59
of a couple of years ago. It was something like 30 to 40
43:03
percent of businesses. In the UK still didn't have a
43:05
website so it's not that we are already at maturity and in the
43:10
It's the figures even higher 60%.
43:13
So the idea that the UK and the US are mature markets in terms
43:18
of being online, it's just not true.
43:21
And actually really interesting lie this time last year just as
43:24
covid-19 our turn. I was on a briefing about the
43:28
travel industry and we all think of the travel industry as being,
43:32
you know, hugely online and we've got Expedia booking.com,
43:37
all of them, you name it but actually 90% Percent of all
43:42
travel destinations in the world, aren't on any platform at
43:45
all. Still now, you know, to me that
43:49
just shows you how much growth there still is left in that.
43:52
So I just my view is, it's more of the same, and that's data's
43:56
cake. You know, we are supporting
43:58
those. Those earlier businesses, we do
44:02
support businesses that have huge engineering teams and, you
44:05
know, microservices and, you know, invest a lot in there.
44:10
Our bread-and-butter. I think the next, the next
44:13
decade is going to be those small business owners at the
44:15
lower end of the market. We are selling.
44:18
You know, Ford Cortina is rather than Ferraris, and I've shown My
44:22
Age Again, good way of putting it.
44:26
Let's move it forward. So, prior to your work in state
44:30
s KQ, actually was working in the legal field and you work for
44:35
companies such as the BBC as a legal and business Affairs.
44:38
Executive I guess the main thing I want to kind of know from your
44:43
time working in the legal field is what were the main kind of
44:46
takeaways that you learned from working in that field?
44:49
Is there anything? Maybe that you use to this day
44:52
like and also like why did you start decide to sort of come out
44:55
of that and then start business in a completely different field?
44:58
Like talk us through that Journey?
45:00
Gosh. Yeah that mean I've had quite a
45:03
varied career I guess along the way.
45:06
So I've worked in legal. I worked at the BBC for a long
45:08
time. I Children's TV for a while.
45:13
I've done plenty of stuff. I guess what I really liked
45:17
about the legal stuff and I think it's still incredibly
45:19
important is the problem-solving mindset.
45:23
So looking at something trying to understand what needs to
45:28
happen and how you can solve it. And I know everyone thinks of
45:32
lawyers as being red tape costly.
45:35
So on edge, I you know I've met my time some very good.
45:40
Lawyers, who do cut through, cut through the problems.
45:44
And that's what business is all about.
45:45
It is about being able to look at anything being able to
45:49
quickly understand it and understand what happens next.
45:55
But I guess I liked, I liked, I liked the deal-making as well.
46:01
I enjoyed the negotiation as big part of my life.
46:04
I used to do a lot with record companies and so on here is a
46:08
lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.
46:10
But why did I start status cake? I guess it was because I decided
46:15
I wanted to start doing it for myself and I think that's why a
46:18
lot of people get to where I got to where you learn a lot along
46:22
the way you absorb a lot. I was working online gaming just
46:27
before I started my first business and it was a, it was
46:31
2005 roughly just when the company.
46:35
I worked for party gaming, IP owed, and You know, I got
46:40
involved with all aspects of the business from marketing
46:43
Affiliates. You know, it was a big online
46:47
business and I decided that actually I was getting
46:51
frustrated with how the business was working and what it was
46:55
doing and wanted to try and do my own thing and do it in a
46:59
perfect way. I think everyone starts out
47:02
going, I'm going to run my business differently.
47:04
It's all going to be perfect. And within six months you
47:06
realize that actually it never is perfect but You make it as
47:11
good as you can. I totally agree with you.
47:13
It's one of the reasons why I'm not really in a rush to go to go
47:17
back in corporate, I think if anything, I'm probably just
47:19
going to stay self-employed for the foreseeable future.
47:22
And the reason for that is because I've worked for a lot of
47:24
different companies and I think, you know, you take away the good
47:28
and the bad equally Jen. And I mean, and I'm very
47:31
thankful for the opportunities I've had, but at the same time,
47:34
I had many frustrations. When it came to bringing in
47:37
ideas, wanting to achieve certain things.
47:40
Things. And it's one thing if you get
47:41
told, okay, we're just not going to do this.
47:43
We're not going to go with. This is another thing when you
47:46
start working on certain projects and then suddenly just
47:49
gets car, either because of a funding issue or because a new
47:52
manager comes in and says, no, we're not doing it that way.
47:55
We're gonna do this. And it's that constant kind of
47:57
like hitting the wall and going, well, how am I going to put my
48:00
ideas into fruition? And then a lot of the time in
48:03
the only way you can do that is by setting up your own business.
48:07
I think you're right, you know, particularly large Actions,
48:11
right? I think it's very difficult
48:13
sometimes to see the result of the work that you're doing.
48:16
Gets lost in the, in the bigger picture.
48:18
I think there can be opportunities.
48:20
I mean, one of the reasons I love the BBC so much when I was
48:23
there is that? So many of my colleagues have
48:25
this attitude of it's not my job I'd go I'll do that.
48:27
Then you know, I'd end up doing things that no one else wanted
48:31
to do but I think that's the exception rather than the rule.
48:35
Yeah. But I think that's why also
48:37
within stages cake and I hope we get this This right?
48:41
I do try and make sure that everyone within their role can
48:44
see how it directly impacts on The Wider business goals.
48:48
And there's important, you know, the end of the day, we are all a
48:50
team. We are all pulling in the same
48:52
direction and I think as long as people can see, the direct
48:55
results of what they are doing on a day-to-day basis, you keep
48:59
staff happy, you keep them motivated and hopefully, they
49:02
don't want to leave and run their own business.
49:05
Absolutely. What would you say are the
49:07
biggest lessons you've learned in the business?
49:12
Scoffs good question. I think it is, I think I come
49:17
back to it at the start its energy.
49:19
I think it's about having the energy to keep going.
49:23
So, you know, I can't earlier about, it will take you a while
49:27
to hit your success point, so it's having the energy to get to
49:30
that first success point. But you'll get there and then
49:32
the next challenge will come. So, you know, one of the things
49:37
I think you need to think about before you start your own
49:39
business. Is, do you have the stomach for
49:41
this for the next three years? Five years, ten years and, you
49:45
know, burnout is quite high in in startups because you throw
49:50
yourself into it in the very early days because you have to
49:54
have probably you and a co-founder, your team grows, but
49:58
your time pressures don't because the set of tasks you
50:02
have just evolved. So it's pretty Relentless but,
50:06
you know, you've got to enjoy it.
50:08
You just have to It's not for me.
50:11
Thanks for the big take, where you have to enjoy.
50:13
There's no look, you know, it's like any job.
50:15
There's no point doing it. If you don't enjoy, go and do
50:18
something that you find fulfilling and rewarding.
50:22
Remember, when I first got into marketing, you know, it was
50:26
after, you know, I'd studied the degree and I obviously got into
50:29
the field and in the very beginning, I was like, this is
50:32
great. I can't believe I get paid to do
50:33
this. Considering the fact that, you
50:35
know, I used to work crazy 60-hour weeks and hotels and
50:39
Jackets and everything. And then once the kind of I got
50:42
it, you know, year in two years in, I started to realize, okay,
50:47
I don't I don't live for this. I thought I like marketing, I
50:52
like learning about it. I love learning in general.
50:54
That's, you know, one of the biggest things about me as a
50:57
person, but I have this real desire in need to be creative to
51:02
create my own things. And, you know, if you look at
51:05
what I do in general podcasting acting music, it's all Of
51:10
Endeavors. And I don't like this idea of
51:12
being confined to one space to one thing.
51:15
And that's where I found that I was getting a little bit
51:17
frustrated with just working for a company.
51:20
Is that, you know, that's kind of the reality but it depends
51:23
because we've all got different kind of goals.
51:25
Different things we want to achieve, like if I see someone
51:28
in the career person and they've got particular goals, they want
51:31
to achieve in that in that industry, it's like fair enough.
51:33
If you're happy in that if you're actually happy, not
51:37
telling yourself, you're happy. If you're actually Happy.
51:40
That's all that matters. You know it doesn't matter what
51:42
anyone else thinks it's. Am I happy doing this?
51:45
Do I wake up in the morning and get excited about this?
51:48
And that was the thing that I realized when I started to come
51:51
to the end of my time in corporate was that, I just
51:55
didn't have that same passion that I had in the beginning and
51:59
I wasn't investing as much time in anything is I'm I work very
52:03
hard sometimes on the point of like you know being a
52:06
workaholic. And after that actually forced
52:08
myself to take breaks But when I was in that particular industry,
52:13
you know, I there were times when I just wasn't as
52:15
productive, I wasn't as interested in it and I was
52:17
frustrated, you know, maybe not getting the promotion or maybe
52:21
not getting a particular project in or you know, there was
52:24
different frustrations and I realized at the end of the day,
52:27
it all comes within the context of what you can control, what
52:30
you can do. And when I started, when I
52:34
return to doing this creative stuff, A couple of years ago,
52:37
and I realized I'm actually willing to put loads of time
52:42
into this. And I enjoy the process.
52:44
Like, for example podcasts right after this is done, I'll spend
52:48
ages editing this upload in this the different places doing all
52:51
of this stuff that you don't see, but I'll do it and I'll be
52:55
happy doing it and I never get frustrated with it.
52:58
I never feel like, oh this is too long or this or that, but I
53:02
did feel that way about marketing and the other careers
53:04
I'd had in different Industries and I think that's the key.
53:07
You've got it, like you said in the beginning, Stan, like, when
53:10
you were talking, like, it's all about loving what you do and
53:15
thinking to yourself, like am I willing to do this, am I
53:19
prepared to put the time in the investment in and obviously,
53:21
it's so important if you're setting up a business because in
53:24
those first couple of years, when you're trying to, you know,
53:27
get the startup out of the two-year situation where you
53:30
come out of that, where most businesses fail in the first two
53:33
years, that's why I said that. But when you're coming out of
53:35
that and then you're, you know, you've broken past the break,
53:39
even In point and you're actually starting to make profit
53:41
and your you never take your foot off the gas pedal but that
53:44
initial period is where you put like essentially like your soul
53:48
into it, you're putting everything into it, to make it
53:50
work and if you're not willing to do that and you're not
53:52
committed to do that and you just shouldn't do it simple as I
53:55
agree. And I mean, look, we've talked
53:57
about businesses that actually a business.
53:59
Can be the individual. I mean, you've really learned
54:02
right? Your business is you and I, you
54:05
know, I think, like, never before is real opportunity to
54:09
Freelance and have a portfolio. If you like of clients and
54:14
different things, and creativity is important.
54:16
Mean, I think even within business, creativity is
54:19
important. And I don't think there's enough
54:22
work done on really understanding within business,
54:25
how creativity plays, there's been quite a few, really
54:28
interesting studies about actually being creative into
54:31
business to help with problem solving.
54:33
So, you know, we've not done this yet and say you've got a
54:35
Dev team, trying to work out how to deploy a piece of Software.
54:40
Why not bring in a creative who doesn't understand the software
54:44
but makes them think differently until differently to each other.
54:47
It's back to my idea, just trying to get different results
54:50
and different ideas out of people stopped trying to
54:53
thinking in a standard way. I couldn't agree more.
54:58
I mean, I remember working for one company where the marketing
55:01
and the sales team were completely separate, and a lot
55:03
of companies are like this year, some summer together, somewhere
55:06
apart, mostly at the moment, most Well, marketing and sales
55:11
wings are just focused purely on the airline analytics and
55:13
nothing else which I totally disagree with.
55:15
I think the analytics are important, don't get me wrong.
55:17
They're very important and you definitely need them but to not
55:22
pay it be a paying attention to creative at all as a major
55:24
mistake as well. But more importantly, you know,
55:27
you need to be interacting with the other, the different teams
55:30
in your in your company and different departments.
55:32
Like I remember when I started just going off on my own
55:35
intuition and just kind of talking to sales people, I
55:38
learnt so much. From them.
55:40
And I as you said, like a totally different way of
55:42
approaching it and I was so thankful that I had actually
55:44
spoken to those people and just reached out.
55:47
And as I why? I haven't anyone done, this
55:48
hasn't anyone done this before? I don't understand this.
55:51
And it's like, that's what it's about.
55:53
It's about reaching out and learning from other teams and as
55:56
you say, putting some sort of fresh blood into a department
55:59
that you know, might be all kind of focused and and kind of
56:02
steering the ship in one specific way and they can't see
56:05
it any other way because, you know, that's what happens with
56:07
the team. You're all, you know, you're
56:08
bringing different. Is together but you're all
56:11
working together and not necessarily working with sort of
56:15
different teams outside of that. So you're kind of this is a very
56:18
old-fashioned way. I think about corporates and
56:21
conglomerates that have their Finance team their legal team,
56:25
their marketing. The for me it's very
56:28
old-fashioned. What I'd really like to an Ideal
56:30
World, we're too small at the moment.
56:31
To do it is multi-disciplined teams where perhaps you've got a
56:34
team that Focus just on product and within that team?
56:38
You've got a product manager. ER, you've got something from
56:41
marketing and they all fit together rather than all the
56:44
deaths sitting in one place and it's just a ways back to that
56:49
flowing of ideas and people not being siloed seeing, I hate the
56:53
expression, the bigger picture I think I think the real
56:58
successful businesses and that's what they're starting to do now
57:00
is have these multi-discipline clusters within a business
57:04
rather than big department solutely, what advice would you
57:09
Give to people who would like to sort of either become
57:13
self-employed or just generally start their own businesses.
57:17
I think again, I think it's really important to start to
57:21
understand what success looks like for you.
57:26
So where do you want to get to? Because I think that looks
57:30
different for different people. So if you want a spy project or
57:35
a weekend project, we're actually success for you means
57:39
having a sense of Purpose or something you enjoy or you know
57:43
playing to your creative side. Maybe you're doing, maybe you're
57:46
an artist and you know you want to have your own sort of project
57:52
on the weekends that you know maybe you pay for your materials
57:55
out of it or you just do it for pleasure or is it going to be a
57:59
business where effectively you want it to become the the
58:03
revenue stream for your for your life?
58:06
You know, is it going to pay the bills?
58:07
And I think understanding What that business is going to be to
58:12
you. I think is the key thing I
58:15
always say as well, don't give up everything until the end
58:20
until you're, you know, in a, in a comfortable position I'd never
58:25
suggest giving up a full-time job to go and start something.
58:30
Unless you have got a huge amount of savings that you're,
58:33
you know, sitting on and you can afford to work through because
58:37
as we said earlier, most businesses fail, Well you know
58:41
it might take you six months a year two years to get it off the
58:46
ground. So I think that's important
58:49
understand what you want to get out of the business.
58:52
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with Darla.
58:53
I remember one time I left a particular organization because
58:58
of a sort of like a toxic work environment.
59:00
I was frustrated with every different elements to it, but
59:03
problem was, I left and I didn't have something set up afterwards
59:08
and it was Very weird situation because on one hand, I felt like
59:12
it was absolutely the right decision just in general for my
59:15
well-being to not be in that environment anymore.
59:18
But at the same time, it took me a month to find another job.
59:21
So it wasn't sort of a smart business decision.
59:24
So I think that like, you do have to think ahead, you have to
59:27
have like a rough plan, things change plans change, but at
59:30
least you've got a rough setup of, you know, this is what the
59:33
next six months will look like this is what the next 12 months
59:35
or look like you have to have that and I think you do need to
59:39
be disciplined. As well, I think you need to sit
59:42
down plan it out, you know, you know, as they say, you know, you
59:48
know, plan goes out the window. The first moment that it
59:51
encounters the enemy, you know, that it's entirely true.
59:54
But at least the act of sitting down planning it out thinking
59:58
about things, you know, talk it through with your partner, your
1:00:01
friends family, whoever you know, it may well be, they go,
1:00:04
you're barking. Don't do it and it may well be
1:00:07
that you go. I'm going to do it anyway.
1:00:09
Yeah. They would have forced you to
1:00:12
think about some of these things.
1:00:13
Yeah, you know, I've always said, you know, what do they
1:00:17
say, fell fell quickly fell cheaply.
1:00:20
So find a way in which you can test whether or you'll or not
1:00:24
your business idea quickly. So, you know, within software,
1:00:29
we talked about the minimum viable product.
1:00:31
So something that you can build, which is a really basic version
1:00:34
of your product, that you can ship quickly, get some feedback
1:00:38
on so that you At least get an idea of whether or not there's a
1:00:42
demand for it and whether or not it works, you know, there's
1:00:47
nothing worse and it's the same with established customer
1:00:49
businesses. You know, you could spend a year
1:00:52
working on a feature ship it and you realize that it's not what
1:00:57
your customers wanted, you know, which is why we don't build like
1:01:00
that anymore, you know, doing stuff in small little increments
1:01:06
where you can keep shipping quickly, getting feedback.
1:01:09
And making this constant change, you know, it's all about
1:01:13
Evolution. Rather than Revolution couldn't
1:01:16
agree more. What's the biggest life lesson
1:01:21
that you've learned so far? Gulf Coast of course.
1:01:28
I think it keeps coming back to it.
1:01:29
You just got to keep going. I think I did.
1:01:34
You know and I think I think there's no doubt about it.
1:01:39
In order to keep going, you need various you need a good support
1:01:42
network. So good, friends, good partner
1:01:45
to colleagues. I think if you're starting a
1:01:49
business it's good to have people around you.
1:01:53
Within the business that you know, and trust so many CEOs
1:01:57
I've spoken to that have started businesses.
1:01:59
You know talk about you know the the lonely Furrow of sort of you
1:02:04
know head down no one else they can talk to or understand and
1:02:07
that's pretty common you know. And in the early days that can
1:02:11
be tough. So a good support network.
1:02:15
You do have to find ways of getting out of your head and
1:02:18
relaxing. So find something you enjoy, you
1:02:21
know, whether it is our music. You know, as I said, I love
1:02:24
running anything that can allow you to just recharge and come
1:02:30
back ready for the next day. It's all add to that as well as
1:02:33
it's funny how things that are so far removed from your daily,
1:02:36
what like work life can really help in terms of you know,
1:02:40
problem solving and stuff. Like the amount of times I've
1:02:43
just gone for a walk and you know, I like to sit listen to
1:02:46
music and going nature and stuff and I'll just be standing there
1:02:50
like appreciating and then boom. There comes the idea, the so
1:02:53
that was looking for or just I don't know some inspiration or
1:02:56
whatever and I think it's that disconnect that helps you find
1:03:00
the answers afterwards because if you do try to just sit there
1:03:03
and in Focus intently on the idea I just don't think it's as
1:03:07
effective and you won't necessarily always get it's much
1:03:11
better to just take that time for yourself and you know rest
1:03:15
and recover recharge and then you'll probably find what you're
1:03:18
looking for is that ability to step back as and to Stepping
1:03:23
back from the laptop is one the best things you can always do.
1:03:27
So my dogs just appear one of the benefits of being a home and
1:03:32
lock down the yeah, absolutely. Just the ability to step back it
1:03:37
lacks. You know, I think one of the
1:03:39
things particularly with modern technology is I think we quite
1:03:45
often feel that we need to reply straight away and one of the
1:03:49
worst things that we can do. So stepping back, going for
1:03:52
that. Just it's so important.
1:03:58
Yeah. Absolutely.
1:04:00
As we draw things to a close for today, I just want to ask you,
1:04:03
do you have any major upcoming projects that you'd like to
1:04:06
share with us? Maybe some final thoughts that
1:04:08
you'd like to share with us? I think one of the one of the
1:04:11
things we're really trying to focus on this year and I talked
1:04:15
about it earlier really which is back to this idea of it's not
1:04:21
just about building software anymore.
1:04:24
So one of the things we're truly trying to focus on is how we
1:04:28
build Legacy and Status cake how can we help The Wider community.
1:04:33
So one of the projects we are working on is we're trying to
1:04:35
work with Charity in London, called the 999 Club who work
1:04:41
with the homeless and working with them trying to get into
1:04:47
some schools as well. We're trying to understand how
1:04:50
some of the It's in London boroughs that are, you know,
1:04:54
really some of the most deprived areas in the country how we can
1:04:58
move them through into STEM Science, technology and so on,
1:05:05
you know, what is it? That is not giving them the
1:05:08
opportunity and we're going to try and work with some schools
1:05:11
to find out what the issues are. But we're also going to work
1:05:15
with some of the the college's to try and find some apprentices
1:05:18
that we can bring on board and start no giving some of these
1:05:22
kids the opportunity that perhaps they wouldn't.
1:05:25
Otherwise get I think covid I think over it has been really
1:05:30
bad for increasing that inequality Gap.
1:05:34
You know we talk about the digitally poor, you know if you
1:05:37
think about a lot of the to all right, tops or a mobile device,
1:05:41
you know it really has been a struggle for lot.
1:05:46
These schools over the last year.
1:05:48
So for us, a big Edge This year. And what I love is, the way it's
1:05:53
not about the product, really is about what we can do with the
1:05:56
wider community. So that is, is, is our big thing
1:06:00
for this year, trying to get some apprentices and trying to,
1:06:05
you know, help a few, a few people, so excellent.
1:06:10
I think it's wonderful that you're doing that work.
1:06:12
I mean, I've heard on various news reports around here in
1:06:15
Manchester where I'm where I'm living that some schools have
1:06:19
been providing you know. That laptops and equipment to
1:06:22
students. But obviously, if you think
1:06:24
about that on a mass scale, like how many families are out there
1:06:26
that don't necessarily have access to these things, it's
1:06:29
very difficult for schools to be able to provide all those
1:06:32
resources. So I think it's fantastic that
1:06:34
an organization such as yours is actually doing things to help
1:06:38
with that and help the disadvantaged in society.
1:06:41
I think that's fantastic. The talent is the time of the
1:06:44
future. Yeah, we know.
1:06:46
Workplace is going to be changing the future, I mean,
1:06:48
that's a whole different conversation.
1:06:51
But you know, some of these schools, they got two laptops in
1:06:54
the whole school. So yeah, there's right to do
1:06:58
that. But yeah, I'm really looking
1:07:01
forward to getting stuck into that and it's different.
1:07:03
I enjoying you're talking about how you like this wide variety
1:07:06
of things within your life. But for me, I've got that.
1:07:09
We've got the product, we got marketing and now we've got this
1:07:12
initiative as well. So yeah, it keeps my like their
1:07:16
ID and exciting. Excellent.
1:07:18
Well I want to say a massive. Thank you for agreeing to be on
1:07:21
the A show James. It's been an absolute pleasure,
1:07:22
interviewing you in getting to know more about your company and
1:07:25
your self. As a businessman, I want to wish
1:07:27
you the best of luck in the future.
1:07:29
And yeah just to say a massive, thank you, my absolute pleasure
1:07:33
and stay safe. I will do, I will do and for
1:07:35
everyone listening to the Christian read podcast, I hope
1:07:38
you've enjoyed it. If you would like to see a
1:07:40
specific guest in the future, please let me know if there's a
1:07:43
particular topic. You would like to hear on the
1:07:46
question we've podcast, please let me know if you're listening
1:07:48
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1:07:51
Google podcasts. Leave us a review.
1:07:53
Leave us your comments, your feedback.
1:07:55
Let me know what you think and there's always be safe.
1:07:59
Be well, I'll see you in the next.