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The Three Mistakes That Kill Entrepreneurs (And How to Avoid Them) - David McCann AOP Capital · Whisky Unfinished

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Been working with entrepreneurs for decades now.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Capital raising, advisory, structuring.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: What are the three biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make?
0:10
SPEAKER_03: Entrepreneurship is hard.
0:11
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't fucking matter what anybody says.
0:13
SPEAKER_03: Businesses don't aren't run by dickheads.
0:14
SPEAKER_03: What entrepreneurship does give you early on in life is the ability to be free and travel around the world and learn new things.
0:21
SPEAKER_03: But real success is how you respond to the way the coin lands.
0:24
SPEAKER_03: What I've learned from my children is essentially that you passively learn.
0:28
SPEAKER_03: I mean I stumbled into it because I didn't.
0:31
SPEAKER_03: Um I just never fit it in.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Young entrepreneurs today, what advice do you have for them?
0:36
SPEAKER_03: I think the first advice I'd give them is find another podcast on this one.
0:40
SPEAKER_03: Um because I'm not gonna give you the way to do it without making mistakes.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, we can't talk this long about whiskey and not have a little whiskey.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: This is a 27-year-old Aaron.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: You bought and sold businesses.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Where did you get the money to be able to do that?
0:53
SPEAKER_03: Problem's still there, just the solutions evolved.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: 25-year-old Glenn Parkless.
0:57
SPEAKER_03: I decided I wanted to go to Senegal in Africa.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Like there you saw a poster, you met a girl from Senegal.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Then I couldn't go to Senegal, so they shipped me to Quebec.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: It's a little different than Senegal.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: Well, your malaria injections don't work in Quebec as well because they stayed here in Senegal.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: So this is an Aberlauer 16-year-old double cask.
1:15
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm gonna say this.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I worked as a clown.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: As a what?
1:18
SPEAKER_03: A unicycle juggling bowls.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: I really wish there was video that year.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I'm delighted there's not.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: 26-year-old Beaumore.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: Would you hire me?
1:27
SPEAKER_00: If you put on a clown suit and speak French, I will.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Just one little video.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, Rakesh here, the Whiskey Chief.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Firstly, thank you so much for watching this.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: If you could like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: David, thanks so much for being here.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Always good to see you and uh appreciate your your time as always.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna jump right in.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you are someone who's been working with entrepreneurs for decades now, right?
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Various different businesses, yeah, capital raising, advisory, structuring, all this kind of stuff.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: So I'm an entrepreneur, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Luckily, never worked for a big company so far.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully that that doesn't happen.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: From your experience, what are the three biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when they're trying to scale, grow their business?
2:23
SPEAKER_03: Apart from becoming an entrepreneur.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's the first mistake.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: So three more for that.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is a li it is a slog of a life, as we know.
2:31
SPEAKER_03: And tell me about it.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: Um look, I think the first one is believing our own conviction.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:37
SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, we are at least when I was younger, and I'm sure you were too, we just believe we're unstoppable.
2:43
SPEAKER_03: We believe our idea is probably the best idea.
2:47
SPEAKER_03: We probably get some really good advice along the way that we should look at the other side of the coin, and uh we don't.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: And we learn our lessons that way.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:55
SPEAKER_03: And really it's about a question of um I think that's the first issue I would say, just believing we're unstoppable.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: So the issue there is people are not market testing enough, or entrepreneurs are not or just because obviously you have to believe in your idea, right?
3:09
SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe in it, or you're you're not gonna you're not gonna make it happen.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: But are you saying that believing you're unstoppable is the mistake so that you're you're not seeing the pitfalls or the risks?
3:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I had a really cool phrase that you know success and failure are opposite sides of a coin, but real success is how you respond to the way the coin lands.
3:28
SPEAKER_03: So you might have a fantastic I can think of myself where lost a bit of money in a project that was incredibly ambitious.
3:35
SPEAKER_03: And I remember in hindsight, I don't recall at the time, but I remember in hindsight someone saying to me, Are you sure you want to get into that industry?
3:41
SPEAKER_03: Are you sure you want to take on that group?
3:43
SPEAKER_03: And of course, uh I was very sure.
3:46
SPEAKER_03: Right.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: And but you know, if I wasn't as sure, or maybe if I was less sure, or maybe if I was more sure of who I am and who I'm not, I probably wouldn't have made that decision.
3:58
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
3:58
SPEAKER_03: But on the flip side of it, if you're gonna be a successful entrepreneur, a successful person, you kind of have to be in touch with yourself.
4:05
SPEAKER_03: And the only way you'd be in touch with yourself is understanding who you are.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes, particularly entrepreneurs, we don't really understand who we are until we actually become who we are, which is making mistakes and getting success, etc.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's time, experience, all those things, right?
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the same entrepreneur I was ten years ago, even um, I don't know if you you think you are or you've changed, but like I hope I'm not.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: We should all be kind of involved.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's one.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: What else?
4:30
SPEAKER_03: Probably letting go.
4:31
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
4:32
SPEAKER_03: Because there's a great sign that a lot of entrepreneurs either dilute and become successful, or they go down with the Titanic.
4:39
SPEAKER_03: And I think what the the thing I particularly as we work with entrepreneurs in different stages of their businesses, it really comes down to competency and capacity.
4:49
SPEAKER_03: And you know, even when I look at myself to build my business now, I've got to let go of some of the things that just aren't gonna take the business to the level that it needs to get to.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:58
SPEAKER_03: And I am dealing with a client at the moment who also has to let go.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: And he and an amazing business and has done an amazing job to take it where he's taken it.
5:07
SPEAKER_03: From a scale from understanding, he's probably hitting one in potential.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: There's another nine steps of potential which he will realize.
5:12
SPEAKER_03: But if he lets if he lets go.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: And do you mean fully let go or do you mean like replacing yourself or what what do you mean by letting go?
5:18
SPEAKER_03: Um, I think what I mean specifically about letting go is probably letting go that sense of I have to drive it forward, I have to make it work.
5:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking more about um allowing people that you bring into the business to but to take the lead to take the lead or make a mistake.
5:37
SPEAKER_03: I heard a I heard a great podcast the other day, and you know, we have a we we in our business we have a thing called a fuck up of the month.
5:44
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: It's a technical term.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: That's a good one.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but basically um you kind of encourage people to make a mistake, but they're not encouraged to make a mistake, they're encouraged to try something.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: And learn from it.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And learn from it.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Right.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: You have to learn from it.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
5:57
SPEAKER_03: And you know, it might be a fuck up.
5:59
SPEAKER_03: Might not be, yeah, but it might be, but at least you gave it a go.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh, see.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: You've been on that board a lot, I assume.
6:05
SPEAKER_03: Uh the fuck up of the money.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
6:07
SPEAKER_03: But I'm but I'm teaching, I'm letting go, so there's a lot more people out of nowhere than me.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so letting go, right?
6:14
SPEAKER_00: That's the second.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: What what what's third that comes to mind?
6:18
SPEAKER_03: Probably the biggest one is not to not to fall in love with the solution, but to remember the problem.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: And I've stolen that from the founder of Waze.
6:27
SPEAKER_03: He has a great one.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: I like that.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's got a great book that is well worth reading, which is, you know, the key to that is if you know, well, if you take a look at the reason why you're in this game, the whiskey game, and then you take a look at how you started versus where you are now, versus where you feel you need to be in the future.
6:45
SPEAKER_03: The solution back then and the solution now and the solution of the future are quite different, but the problems have evolved.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, the market's changed, lots of things have have changed around us, right?
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Even since I star I started this like 12 years ago, getting into the into the whiskey industry through a private equity fund.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't even run a private equity fund anymore.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of we moved on from that, but it may come back in different ways.
7:08
SPEAKER_03: So why did you s why did you what was the problem that got you into the private equity fund for whiskey?
7:13
SPEAKER_00: I think for us, and this was again 12 years ago, there w there really was no vehicle for people to invest in whiskey as an alternative asset class.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: People were buying bottles here and there, but there was no structured vehicle.
7:26
SPEAKER_03: Why was that a problem in your mind?
7:27
SPEAKER_00: So in our mind, we found that that was an opportunity where we could structure something so that more people could take advantage of this in a more formal way, right?
7:36
SPEAKER_00: So we were trying to grow, you know, our business obviously, and and get a group of investors to be involved in in the private equity fund.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: So for us, we were trying to solve a problem really more of structuring.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: And um, I think also for people to be able to trust, right?
7:50
SPEAKER_00: People didn't really trust the other mechanisms that existed at that point to be able to invest in whiskey as an asset class.
7:58
SPEAKER_03: And access probably as well.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Access, yeah, and all of that.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: So things have evolved since then.
8:02
SPEAKER_03: But the problem's still there.
8:04
SPEAKER_03: It's about how do you provide more access and more because today access to something requires today if you want access to something, you've got to provide education, you've got to provide everything else.
8:14
SPEAKER_03: So your problem still is there, just the solutions evolve.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think the way you could deliver that solution obviously is evolved with technology and things like that, right?
8:22
SPEAKER_00: So, well, we can't talk this long about whiskey and not have a little whiskey.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: So we're starting all the way on the on the left whiskey one there.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: I'll explain a little bit about it.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Cheers.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: So this is a very special whiskey to me because it was a bottle gifted to me by a very good friend.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: So Aaron Distillery actually was established in around 1995, and this is a 27-year-old Aaron from their founding year.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: So this was bottled 27 years later after 1995.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: So he got one of the first um, or you know, near the first um casks from uh from that distillery.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And what I like, and there's water if you want to add some.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: This is about 46%.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: It's a refill sherry cash.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: So what I like about that is this has a lot of tropical notes for me.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a nice, easy first drinking whiskey.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if Aaron actually makes whiskey, particularly in this style anymore, because this was again from their founding year, and I'm sure they've evolved and evolved.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: But for me, it's just a nice, easy, light way to get into drinking a bit of scotch.
9:32
SPEAKER_03: It is light, isn't it?
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And I know obviously you drink a lot of Irish whiskey.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: I assume.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, you're Irish, so I assume you drink Irish whiskey, or do you drink scotch?
9:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you mix it up?
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Do you drink Indian, Japanese, whatever's around, or what's your preference?
9:45
SPEAKER_03: Um I'll have a bottle of Jemison for everyday drinking.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: That's the go-to.
9:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh, not a not the full bottle.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, once upon a time, maybe.
9:56
SPEAKER_03: And I wouldn't mind having uh a red breast.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: Um, and then I don't mind some of the Japanese whiskies, the single malt.
10:02
SPEAKER_03: I'm not a massive fan of the blended.
10:05
SPEAKER_03: And I haven't been exposed to the Indian whiskeys.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll have to try that later.
10:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, uh I'll have a few of the good ones first.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think yeah, there that says it all, right?
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Kind of where it's at.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: I think Indian whiskeys come a long way, right?
10:18
SPEAKER_03: Probably.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: Look at the Aussies.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, yeah, the Aussies have a ton of distilleries now, too.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: So I think Indian whiskey has has come a long, long way.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's still generally quite young whiskey.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Like you're not getting 27-year-old Indian whiskey because obviously one, they haven't been making it that long, but two, the angel share, right?
10:35
SPEAKER_00: The evaporation level uh in India is much higher than it is in Scotland.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: So Scotland used the water like water is clean water.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's I think I think that's uh from my experience being in the industry, that's usually one of the great kind of uh uh marketing tools that a lot of distilleries use, which is that hey, we have the best water, it comes from Mount Fuji, therefore it's the best.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Personally, again, this is just from my research, I don't think water really matters that much so long as you use clean water.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: I know that when I was involved in Hollywood distillery, which is in Edinburgh, I was involved in that project.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: And the master distiller there who also doesn't believe that you know the water matters that much as long as it's clean, used Edinburgh tap water to prove which is very clean water.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: And you have to think of the distillation process.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that water gets you know boiled and and brought down and kind of goes through a whole, you know, bunch of different things.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: So uh his point to me always was like, well, how clean is that fresh water you know coming out of the river anyway?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: There's animals, there's there's there's things around, you gotta filter it, you gotta boil it, so you're kind of losing some of those minerals anyway.
11:40
SPEAKER_03: It's quite light, isn't it?
11:41
SPEAKER_00: This is quite light.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: This is quite nice and light.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a little bit tropical, which is what I like about it.
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Edinburgh and tropical wouldn't really come together.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I was in Edinburgh last month and it was 25 in July and it was 25 degrees Celsius in Edinburgh.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: I was wearing shorts uh in the middle of the day in Edinburgh, which is not something I've done before.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And you were in Ireland, but you got the opposite effect, it sounds like you know, it's not not as much.
12:06
SPEAKER_03: I went home to Galway to see Mum and Dad and uh flew out of Hong Kong and we landed in uh London.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: It was lovely.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: Caught up with my brother in London, and then we decided to jump on a plane to Shannon.
12:16
SPEAKER_03: Um London was 23 degrees, Hong Kong was 32 degrees, Shannon was 15 degrees, uh, the wind was going that way, the rain was going the other way.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: So it felt like about five degrees.
12:27
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't there what we pulled into a pub very quickly, uh, two points against us, two Jemisons.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Um just to warm up.
12:33
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, on the way.
12:34
SPEAKER_03: And uh it was bloody cold.
12:37
SPEAKER_03: It was bloody cold.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: However, that was Friday by um by Sunday it was 23 degrees.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it just you got got a bit unlike.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: So how old were you when you left Ireland?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: You grew up in Ireland.
12:47
SPEAKER_03: I grew up in Ireland, yeah.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: Uh so I left Ireland when I was the first time.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: But I I kept going in and out into Europe and what have you, and then when I was 20, I decided I was doing a degree in French, and I decided I wanted to go to Senegal in Africa.
12:58
SPEAKER_03: I had no fucking reason why.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Why would you want to go to Senegal in Africa?
13:01
SPEAKER_00: No idea.
13:02
SPEAKER_03: No idea.
13:02
SPEAKER_03: It seemed like a good idea at the time.
13:03
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
13:04
SPEAKER_03: And uh so I I signed up to be a French.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Like that you saw a poster, you met a girl from Senegal.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there must be something here.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Nobody goes, hey, I want to go to Senegal.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Especially this was, you know, a few decades ago, right?
13:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: So no, and it was and nothing against Senegal for all our Senegalese vis uh you know viewers who I'm sure is a big audience at the moment.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to offend anyone.
13:24
SPEAKER_03: Massive whiskey.
13:24
SPEAKER_03: We don't want to offend anyone.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Great.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Massive whiskey.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: We'll go back to Senegal, but why did you go there?
13:29
SPEAKER_03: At the time in university, I was doing a degree in French and in economics, and I decided to take a year off to be more proficient at French.
13:36
SPEAKER_03: And everybody was going to France, and I've been and out of France like forever.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: So I said, fuck that, we'll go somewhere else.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: So you always had this adventure kind of side of you, like this was ingrained.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Would that be fair to say?
13:48
SPEAKER_03: Look, uh now I can see why people call it adventurous.
13:51
SPEAKER_03: At the time I thought it was normal.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I went and got the So you were adventurous and also not a hundred percent bright.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:00
SPEAKER_03: I was told you're gonna say not normal.
14:02
SPEAKER_03: I wasn't a hundred percent bright.
14:04
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, long story short, I got the injections to go to Senegal, and then I couldn't go to Senegal, so they shipped me to Quebec.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: That is a little different than Senegal.
14:11
SPEAKER_03: Well, your malaria injections don't work in Quebec as they do in Senegal.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: How's your French?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: So I guess now it's Quebec French.
14:19
SPEAKER_03: I think you put Quebec, you should put a la force.
14:22
SPEAKER_03: You got it all done.
14:23
SPEAKER_03: I got it all done.
14:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, it's when you're single and speaking French, you need to know the different dialects.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: I see.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: So that was the first time you left Ireland and you never went back really.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Or did you do a stint back then?
14:32
SPEAKER_03: I did a year teaching French in a school in Quebec in a small little town called Ramouski.
14:37
SPEAKER_03: At the end of the school year, I decided I wanted to do a bit of travelling.
14:40
SPEAKER_03: So I um I'm gonna say this.
14:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I worked as a clown.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: As a what?
14:46
SPEAKER_03: A clown.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: A clown.
14:48
SPEAKER_03: Like paint all uh unicycle juggling balls and whatever.
14:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: In French.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: In French.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: I really wish there was video that year.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I'm delighted there's not.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: One of the benefits of being our age is there's a lot of things we did in our youth.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: There's no footage of it.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no digital footprint, right?
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Paint price for that.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: I know.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: I was chatting with uh I was catching up with my parents on Sunday, and my mom's running out of storage on her phone because her granddaughter, who's only five, one one granddaughter, she's got like every picture, every video, you know, from the last five years.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And I asked her, How many pictures do you have of me from the first five years?
15:23
SPEAKER_00: I think three, you know, somewhere in a box somewhere.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's crazy how much is getting documented, even of young people today, right?
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Like literally every day, there's at least a picture or a video of my daughter because we like to send it to the grandparents who you know don't see her every day.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: In our day, not nothing of the sort.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: Makes you think though, what happens when when they get to our age?
15:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:45
SPEAKER_03: Like, I mean, do they really want to have access to digital footprint?
15:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure they don't, and but I know I've got a lot of blackmail for when my daughter turns, you know, teenage years and she's giving me a little bit of attitude.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I've already starred a couple of key pictures that'll go to all her high school friends should she do things the wrong way.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm going that style from parents.
16:05
SPEAKER_03: I had a cache of that, but one of my sons is a professional rugby player, so um, it wasn't that difficult for him to explain to me that the uh blackmail photos didn't work anymore.
16:13
SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm already out of date.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: I can't do that.
16:17
SPEAKER_03: Well, he's a bit bigger than your daughter.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: He could take care of business here.
16:21
SPEAKER_03: Fair enough.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: All right, we're gonna try the second whiskey here.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: So this to me is my favorite actually value whiskey in the world, and that's kind of why I chose it.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: So this is a 25-year-old Glenn Flash, 43%.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't think, and I'm happy to be challenged by this by you know viewers' comments, etc.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think there's a better 25-year-old single malt whiskey out there in terms of value.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: So this is like an amazing price by far the cheapest 25-year-old.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: I always have a bottle of this at my home, so I thought it'd be something.
16:59
SPEAKER_03: Um I I have to challenge that.
17:01
SPEAKER_03: Okay, because you remove my passport.
17:04
SPEAKER_03: We'll try it first.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's say with Scotch.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I think in the Scotch world, this is I think the best value 25-year-old whiskey you're gonna get anywhere.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not bad at all.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And for 25-year-old, you know, we're looking at like 150 to 200 pounds for a bottle.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: I always have a bottle of this.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: So for people who are kind of new to Scotch, I feel like this is a good thing.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: This is one of these things that you know when you're kind of catch up with a mate you haven't seen for a while.
17:31
SPEAKER_03: And you don't really want to go out and you don't really want to stay home when you open a bottle of whiskey and you finish it.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's one of those stories.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: This is what it is.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those easy ones.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and your stories get so much better.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: Like you were such a better athlete in your youth than you were in your senior.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you definitely get better stories.
17:47
SPEAKER_03: And all the girls were hotter and they all wanted you.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, that that's a nice little bias that we have there.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: As you said with your Quebec story, right?
17:55
SPEAKER_02: Thank God it wasn't Synagogue.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And so when did you end up in Asia?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Like how many years of it?
17:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well I went back to I went back to Ireland, finished university, and then I blagged my way into the US and I spent uh about five years in the US.
18:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay, and then I bought a business in Australia.
18:09
SPEAKER_03: Uh and this is all logical if you follow me, and then I sold that business in Australia, and I was heading home to Ireland, and I stayed in Australia, bought another company, and then bought a a business in Shanghai and Hangzhou.
18:21
SPEAKER_03: And there was no way my wife and kids were a little at the time they'd moved to Shanghai.
18:25
SPEAKER_03: So we moved here.
18:26
SPEAKER_03: I came up here in 2009 to Hong Kong, and uh they came in.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: 2009, yeah.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: So you said you bought and sold businesses.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Where did you get the money to be able to do that?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Is that is that something like I'm talking to you know young entrepreneurs today.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: What advice do you have for them to get to?
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, kind of that level where you're buying and selling businesses.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: That's a dream for a lot of people, right?
18:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think the first advice I'd give them is find another podcast on this one.
18:50
SPEAKER_03: Um because I'm not gonna give you the way to do it without making mistakes.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Look, a lot of the times I didn't you can teach them a few fuck-up moments too.
18:59
SPEAKER_03: Um okay, how do I do the first one?
19:02
SPEAKER_03: I saw myself basically.
19:03
SPEAKER_03: I was in I was working in fast food in the US and I met this fella uh who had made a bit of money on a TV series called Days of Our Lives, and then he bought a business and he needed somebody who was probably he was really good looking and had could attract money, but he probably needed somebody with a bit more brains, and the bar wasn't too much of a bar gap.
19:20
SPEAKER_03: So I got in there and I just negotiated my way in to get equity in the company.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
19:25
SPEAKER_03: Unprovided that I do a few things.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: And then I did those things and then use that as leverage and I keep negotiating.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: And then you take some money off the table and put it back in.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Smart.
19:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:34
SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, it was.
19:35
SPEAKER_03: It was a good business.
19:36
SPEAKER_03: We did really well.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't do that, right?
19:39
SPEAKER_00: I I think I'm, you know, don't really think about, okay, look, I have X equity, they're happy to have any equity.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I don't think people generally feel that they're in a position to be able to say, look, I want this equity now, in a year, if I do this, I want to accomplish this.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: I get more, I get this, I get that.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Like that's quite an interesting, I I would say, approach.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Is that something you just developed yourself that came through experience?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: How did you figure out that that you know that was what you could do?
20:06
SPEAKER_03: Um you know, I think what I mean.
20:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I do.
20:08
SPEAKER_03: I have this conversation all the time with uh staff and with other entrepreneurs.
20:12
SPEAKER_03: So Dan, uh look, I I uh necessity is a mother of invention, so I I figured it out because I needed to do it.
20:18
SPEAKER_03: So that was the first thing.
20:19
SPEAKER_03: But when I had this really cool story, the Picasso effect, I'm sure you've heard it.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: No, what's that?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Educate me.
20:25
SPEAKER_03: All right, so Picasso's just having a cup of coffee, minding his own business.
20:28
SPEAKER_03: And this lady comes over and she goes, Fuck your Picasso, can you do my portrait?
20:32
SPEAKER_03: And he tells her to fuck off.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: And she goes, No, no, seriously, like does it do my potrade?
20:35
SPEAKER_03: He goes, Look, would you fuck off?
20:36
SPEAKER_03: I'm having a coffee.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: And she goes, No, come on.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: So he gets the shit, takes out his napkin and a piece of paper, and he just fucking quickly does a scratch.
20:41
SPEAKER_03: He goes, Here you go.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: I got a Picasso, that's what it does.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: And he grabs an offer and he goes, 20 grand.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: And she goes, 20 grand, it just took you 20 seconds.
20:49
SPEAKER_03: And he goes, No, it took me a lifetime.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
20:51
SPEAKER_03: So I think you know, if you're going to take risk as an entrepreneur, and you're an entrepreneur, you know this, you don't pay yourself what all your mates in corporate are paying.
21:05
SPEAKER_03: You take risk.
21:06
SPEAKER_03: You yes, you get to keep the profits, but you don't keep the profits because you share the profits.
21:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: You take a hundred percent of the risk, that actually creates a different ability to leverage that value.
21:17
SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of us we get to the stage where we're so unsure that we're going to succeed that we compromise our value.
21:26
SPEAKER_03: Which kind of brings me back to one of the answers that you uh that I gave you is to scaling, which is believing in your conviction.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: Which the reality to all of that is not so much to believe in your conviction, but to understand there are two sides of the story and it's not just your side, I need this money to succeed.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: It's they actually need me to succeed.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Or I needed to succeed.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: And the problem that you're solving and what you're bringing to the to the community.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's hard work being an entrepreneur.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Would you looking back, would you have done is there any point in your life you think you would have taken a different road or the road untraveled?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever think About this, are you one of those people where you or you uh I'm full force ahead, everything worked out as it should.
22:05
SPEAKER_03: I could spell entrepreneur for years, despite my degree in French.
22:09
SPEAKER_03: So that wasn't that wasn't it is a French word.
22:12
SPEAKER_03: Um look, I think um there was an opportunity where I thought I I got narrowed down uh in university for this corporate job with a French English company called Arger Wiggins.
22:23
SPEAKER_03: And there was like I think ten of us from Ireland and the UK and France made it to the last whatever ten.
22:29
SPEAKER_03: They actually told me that I should be an entrepreneur and that I wasn't suited for corporate life.
22:34
SPEAKER_03: I'd finish I hadn't even finished university yet.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: So that it was a big problem because I didn't know what entrepreneur meant at that time.
22:39
SPEAKER_03: I remember that because it was in the UK to fly home with a plane.
22:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking what the fuck was entrepreneurial.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: What is the yeah?
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Let me find the dictionary when I get home.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Encyclopedia.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: I was I was young enough, I had the encyclopedia, you know.
22:52
SPEAKER_03: You grew up in a household of entrepreneurs.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh my parents, yeah.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: My parents were entrepreneurs, so I feel like that was in green into me super young without even really knowing it.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Like I think there's certain things that happen in your childhood, you don't realize it when it happens, but later, like it you can look back and go, oh, subconsciously, yeah, of course I kind of ended up the way the way that I did.
23:12
SPEAKER_03: But your folks then would have like you growing up.
23:14
SPEAKER_03: So I my old man was a teacher.
23:15
SPEAKER_03: My mom was quite conservative.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: So how do you I mean how do you you would have grown up in an environment where you made money, lost money, up and down, hike?
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we lived in in really nice places in Hong Kong, and we lived in really, really small places in Hong Kong.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: And I remember going to my dad's office, you know, when I was 13, 14, 15.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't have an internship.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I kind of just worked there every summer.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: He just told me what to do, and I just kind of did what he said, but always saw him on the phone and kind of dealing.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: So my dad did trading, you know, like import-export.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, but my mom also did the same business, and I think it was kind of interesting growing up because um I would go into the office and they had two you know big offices at at either end.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: My my dad did all the electronics, and then my mom did all the products that were not electronics.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, my mom decided she just wanted to come in and collect her paycheck and not work anymore, so it became one company.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: But for a while there, like that was the whole environment kind of every day.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: I used to go to my grandmother's after school because they would work obviously to like six or seven, and then they come pick me up.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I think that kind of got into me from a from a very young age.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: But for you, very different story, right?
24:20
SPEAKER_00: How did you end up this way?
24:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I mean the what uh what I've learned from my children who've grown up with entrepreneurs is essentially that you passively learn.
24:29
SPEAKER_03: Right.
24:30
SPEAKER_03: And I think I mean I stumbled into it because I didn't um I look, I don't know, man.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I didn't I just never fit it in.
24:40
SPEAKER_03: Um let me would you hire me?
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Well it depends.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: If if you put on a clown suit and speak French, I will.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: 100%, 100% right now.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: I would hire you.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: This was just one requirement, a clown suit and a little French, and one video, just one little video.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: It's all it's all I need, then I'm happy.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: We're moving straight forward.
24:59
SPEAKER_03: I think I think one of the one of the key things that kept driving me to is I'm very influenced by a book that I read in French called Candide by Voltaire.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: And it's just about traveling around the world and exploring new things.
25:09
SPEAKER_03: And I think that um what entrepreneurship does give you early on in life is the ability to sort of be free and travel around the world and learn new things.
25:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:19
SPEAKER_03: Um I think what it gives what is giving me later in life is I don't know if you're finding this, but we're both around the same age, is that it's just the satisfaction of you know, you see so many guys in the 50s coming towards the end of their career or their jobs and not sure.
25:33
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, well, fuck it, we'll just do something else.
25:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, something else.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: If you're comfortable with that, you can kind of move around.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's the creation.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: I think the thing I love the most is like sitting around, whether it's you're sitting around by a table or you're by yourself, and it's this idea, right?
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's the beginning of an idea.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: And of course, it takes many people and time and all that to develop that into an actual product, service, whatever it is.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: But that's the part that I really, really, really, really love.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the scaling and all that comes kind of after that.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: But to, I mean, to think of something that you know was just literally something that you just came up with, and then X months later, this is a product or a service or something that uh that actually exists.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: I there to me, there's kind of a a a little beauty to that.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: And I get a lot of satisfaction around uh and it's always always never just me solo.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I have an idea, I bring it to a team, they test it, they make it better.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And I love that whole evolution and process.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I'll never be done doing that.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: There'll always be another idea, there'll always be something to kind of work on and and and do.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, Rikesh here, the whiskey chief.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: If you made it this far in the episode, first thing, thank you so much.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: As you know, it takes a lot to put on these kinds of episodes.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: So if you can like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: But if you had to go back, let's say to university, and I've thought about this a lot, um, and I'll introduce the next whiskey.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: If you had to go back to university, would you study French and economics?
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Like still back then, I'm not saying today.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Like if you had the choice to go back to university, I'd probably do it today, isn't it?
27:07
SPEAKER_00: You would still do French and economics.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: Because I did economics, and I completely regret that.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: I would I would a hundred percent not do economics.
27:14
SPEAKER_03: Well, I did a bachelor of arts and you had to choose, and the French I did was uh like a licence en francais.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: It was it was a so full poetry and prose all in French.
27:22
SPEAKER_03: And economics I felt helped me think around economics.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: I feel like you would you you learned better than I did at least.
27:31
SPEAKER_03: I put well I don't know.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: I mean I don't know I don't know.
27:34
SPEAKER_03: I just think yeah, today, you know Well, I'll give you an example.
27:38
SPEAKER_03: One of my s both of my sons have degrees in in uh bachelors of commerce, but my youngest one, he's finished and he's like absolute waste of time.
27:45
SPEAKER_03: I spent the first two years learned how to model, and then year three I just used Chat GPT.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So I think what are you gonna What's changing now?
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: Correct.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: So you got what what what's not going to change is the ability to think, the ability to analyze.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and where did that hit for you?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Was that in university where you heard the ability to learn, so to speak, like to be able to take information, trans that's what I I got.
28:06
SPEAKER_03: When I failed the first year of French, uh, that's when it hit.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: I ticked the wrong box.
28:11
SPEAKER_03: So I I was doing a Bachelor of Arts and I was picking economics and I thought I was doing like conversational French.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
28:17
SPEAKER_03: Because I wanted to spend a bit more time on the extracurricular activities, and but I ticked the wrong box.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Goodness.
28:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then and and I ended up taking the one that was more in-depth on French.
28:29
SPEAKER_03: So I had to repeat the exams.
28:31
SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
28:31
SPEAKER_03: And then I had a crash course over one summer understanding French philosophy and French poetry.
28:36
SPEAKER_03: And that's when I fell in love with Voltaire and Camus and things like that.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's pretty amazing.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we were kind of lucky there in a way that we had so many different things we could study and go in so many different directions.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: I feel like today there's a lot of conversation, at least when I was uh in the UK, uh Scotland mostly, but London as well.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of uh discussion today about people getting back to, let's say, blue-collar jobs.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of like discussion.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey, kids today should be learning how to be plumbers, kids today should learn how to be electricians because that's not something that can be replaced by AI.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: And I find that a little crazy because not even five years ago we told all these kids to become coders, right?
29:14
SPEAKER_00: And they all became coders, and then now that's obviously not the same job it used to be.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: But in your world, how are you implementing AI into yeah, but what you do with entrepreneurs and research?
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Is it is it prevalent?
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Is it still something you're toying with?
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Like what's your level of I guess AI uh adoption into this last week kind of passively when we caught up.
29:40
SPEAKER_03: I think you have to embrace it.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:42
SPEAKER_03: I think you have to figure out where is it effective and where isn't it effective?
29:47
SPEAKER_03: So we are at work, uh, and not just at work personally, trying to find out where does it help and where does it hindrance?
29:54
SPEAKER_00: But how are you doing that?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Are you watching YouTube videos?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Are you taking a class?
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Have you hired an AI expert to say, hey, come redo my organization with AI?
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Like how are you practically?
30:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, practically YouTube.
30:06
SPEAKER_03: Uh it's YouTube.
30:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a lot to learn.
30:08
SPEAKER_03: EO Jumpstart July.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: I did I did the AI accelerate.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I need to catch up, actually.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's worth it?
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Was it interesting?
30:15
SPEAKER_03: I do, yeah, because it takes some of the uh some of the hype out of it.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:19
SPEAKER_03: Um but it I mean, yeah, I mean it's like anything, right?
30:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean, did you did you think you'd be taking the rotary phone out of the wall and putting it in your pocket along with your Casio calculator and your and your and your Pentex camera?
30:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, right.
30:33
SPEAKER_03: So if you so what do you say if you're not moving, you know, you can't stand still in life because if you're standing still, you're going backwards because everybody else is going forward.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:40
SPEAKER_03: So I I think you just gotta look at it.
30:42
SPEAKER_03: Today it's AI.
30:43
SPEAKER_03: God knows what it'll be tomorrow.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we'll the fight against the machines, obviously.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about this third.
30:49
SPEAKER_03: You don't think we're fighting them now?
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's definitely true.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about this third whiskey.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: So this is an Aberlaur 16-year-old double cask.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Doublecast simply means it spent some time in bourbon and some time in Sherry.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, we don't really know, or maybe at least I don't really know how much it kind of went into either one.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Again, you're noticing a theme here.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I've gone today with kind of like a little bit of an introduction to Scotch and a bit of a range, but also some of my go-to favorites, right?
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm trying to very subtly and subconsciously put forward to you that there are good Scotch whiskeys, being the Irishman that you are, right?
31:30
SPEAKER_02: There's very good Scotch whiskey.
31:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: So I so this is another one, 16-year-old Arbalara.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: So this is now more like that sherry bomb, right?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Which you either like or maybe don't like.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: But for me, this is what got me into whiskey, let's say 12 plus years ago.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Like I loved this after dinner, like a little bit of that sherry, you know, fruit.
31:51
SPEAKER_03: Like that's too sweet for me.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, and it and to each their own, right?
31:55
SPEAKER_00: This is this is the original style that kind of got me into drinking whiskey.
32:00
SPEAKER_03: Whiskey, what was the number two there?
32:01
SPEAKER_00: The uh that was the Glenn Fluss.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: That was your that was your uh go-to, would you say?
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Would you you like that one?
32:08
SPEAKER_03: I'd I'd bring Glenn over for a drink.
32:10
SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't bring your man here and then he's beeping.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: You bring Glenn, not Abe.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, bring Glenn.
32:15
SPEAKER_03: Abe's grand, but he's a bit too sweet.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Try adding a couple of drops of water.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: It might kind of change the format.
32:21
SPEAKER_03: I did the Abe.
32:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we could open it up.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of drops here if you need it, but yeah, there you go.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk a little bit about EO.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, for those who don't know, EO entrepreneurs organization.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: That's how we know each other, actually, and and kind of gotten to know each other a little bit, let's say a lot better this year.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Why and you're now the the the founding president of that is a cool title.
32:44
SPEAKER_03: Go back to university who said that the fucking second wow.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Founding president of the Greater Bay Area Metro chapter.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the first time.
32:52
SPEAKER_03: GBAM the code.
32:52
SPEAKER_03: GBAM, Greater Bay Area Metro chapter.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like a uh a woke version, I think the both sounds.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Wow, who are we offending?
33:02
SPEAKER_00: If we don't have the metro, is it the metro?
33:04
SPEAKER_00: What is the part that is?
33:07
SPEAKER_00: We need it.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay, fine, great.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: And why did you what attracted you to EO?
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Tell me like tell us a bit more about your story about you know why you're doing this right now.
33:17
SPEAKER_03: Um I'm down for hanging out with entrepreneurs because the last couple I mean, I was in it, I was in YEO a long time ago in Australia, which is a version of this.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: I think YEO became EO.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: So what EO is 30 years old, 30,000 members.
33:32
SPEAKER_03: Um wouldn't you agree that it being an entrepreneur is lonely a ton?
33:36
SPEAKER_00: It can be, 100%.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't know exactly who you can talk to about what.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have your employees, you have your family, but it's not the same as talking to another entrepreneur.
33:46
SPEAKER_03: 100%.
33:47
SPEAKER_03: And you you surround yourself with smart people and good people and they give you advice from what they're everybody lives to give you advice based on their parameters and their experiences.
33:56
SPEAKER_03: But I I I I love when we all catch up in our forums or together.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: It's like we just fucking know that it doesn't matter how positive you are.
34:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's good shit and there's bad shit, but you're dealing with it.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it's uh you don't need to say it.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: We're all we're all going through it.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: It's that shared journey, I guess, or that shared experience.
34:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I think and there's a real level of respect.
34:18
SPEAKER_03: So when I was approached by Morgan and James, I thought that it was just in the middle of COVID.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: My own business had suffered, and lots of my friends who were entrepreneurs, we were all training together and doing the typical A-type entrepreneur personality, pumping ourselves up, Hong Kong will be back, Hong Kong will be back.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: Right.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: I was gone for three years.
34:35
SPEAKER_03: I thought it'd be a really good idea to get this back off the ground.
34:40
SPEAKER_03: And I don't regret it at all.
34:42
SPEAKER_03: Um I think three things for me that get out of it is one is just personally, the ability to connect with yourselves and other entrepreneurs, and there's no bullshit.
34:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, except for that whiskey, but other than that, there's no bullshit.
34:56
SPEAKER_03: Um but the second thing that I get out of it is you start seeing other entrepreneurs coming in.
35:03
SPEAKER_03: And they you can see I mean I don't know if you've seen it, but I've seen it.
35:06
SPEAKER_03: Guys who come out of forum, oops, their second form, the third form, or connected with like they just feel relieved.
35:12
SPEAKER_03: I've had I've had on I've had EO members' partners say, fuck, he's become a better person since he's I mean, that's pretty fast to see that kind of set.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so just to explain, I guess, for anyone who doesn't know.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: So a big part of EO is this thing called forum, which is where you get placed with between six and ten people, uh, and you try to meet obviously once a month, and you share things in this group for about four hours that you ordinarily wouldn't share with anyone else, right?
35:38
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the whole concept of forum.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: What is it about the way that that's structured that you think really is successful?
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we don't have to go into you know what is what happens in forum.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking more like taking a step back from that.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to reflect myself as well, having gone through, you know, we've been going through the this experience together.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: What is it that works about this format that I guess doesn't work in other other ways?
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Like what is it, what's unique for you?
36:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think let's caveat, I think we're very lucky.
36:06
SPEAKER_03: I think our forum's very lucky.
36:08
SPEAKER_03: I think we have an incredible bond that we've just created.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: If I look at the whole concept of forum, I think it's the it's it's three things.
36:16
SPEAKER_03: It's the five percent.
36:18
SPEAKER_03: It's which I love to define as people say, What's the five percent?
36:22
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's when you tell everybody else 95% of your day is gone really well, there's five percent you don't tell.
36:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we have to tell that five percent.
36:30
SPEAKER_03: The second thing it's the vulnerability.
36:32
SPEAKER_03: When you expose that five percent, you expose yourself, you're vulnerable.
36:36
SPEAKER_03: And the third thing is it's there's no advice, it's just sharing.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's quite important because that's I think what makes the learning process quite valuable, because you're not saying to me, you shouldn't drink Irish whiskey.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you should do it this way, you shouldn't do it that way.
36:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, or I've been done this.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we get advice all the time, right?
36:54
SPEAKER_00: We get advice from whether it's employees, friends, whatever, people you look up to look up to.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh, once in a while our wives have an opinion, yeah.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would say, yeah, it would be nice if it was.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I and I agree.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: I think this is a very, yes, I mean a safe space is probably overused as a term, but it's much more than a safe space because I think you're right, it's about that vulnerability and that confidentiality that you know what you say, you know, it's kind of uh, you know, fight club, what happens in fight club stays at fight club.
37:23
SPEAKER_03: Do you find when you step out of form and step back into your business?
37:27
SPEAKER_03: You're a different person in relation to how you think about your business.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: I find that I like being forced to reflect.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: So I'm generally, I would argue, somebody who reflects quite well.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: So my my birthday happens to be in the middle of the year.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: So I always kind of use that because you know when you get one year older, especially now, I think in your 40s and 50s, like your parents would say was it a good year or a bad year?
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you kind of think about it a little bit more, right?
37:49
SPEAKER_00: And then end of calendar year, of course, that's kind of a natural kind of reflection time.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't doing it every month.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't, you know, really kind of forcing some of the harder questions.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: So for me, what I really love about it is it's just a structure that almost kind of makes me do that.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: That and then have to share that.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, I get as much out of sort of sharing my own, you know, kind of reflection and learning as as I do from kind of hearing where other people are at.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: And then you kind of develop this, yeah, obviously deep friendship, but also a caring about the result of other people and where they end up.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's still all pretty new, to be honest.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think it'd be interesting to see, you know, hopefully our form, you know, you go five years, ten years.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a long time to share every month in a very intense experience with people.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: I bit I was looking for something like this, to be honest.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, so like I had gotten to the point I felt like, you know, where I'm I was doing okay as an entrepreneur, but I was looking for to to expand my learning to yes, network and kind of meet other entrepreneurs.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: I think everyone wants to do that, but I think this has taken it to an an even better level than I could have imagined, to be honest.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think that this is delivering more value than I originally signed up for.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's always more, right?
39:04
SPEAKER_00: There's this is again, this is kind of an early thing.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, for those people out there who are entrepreneurs, I would say look up EO if you're near a chapter, you know, check it out.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: If it's something that that works for you, I think EO is a a big thing.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: What so being president, what do you hope to kind of get out of that?
39:20
SPEAKER_00: What's what's this, you know, what what what what are you trying to achieve for for this chapter?
39:27
SPEAKER_00: Following year, there's a big it's a big responsibility.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: First of all, I'm very grateful that they asked me.
39:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:32
SPEAKER_03: And I'm really grateful that we got it off the ground.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: It took us about a year to get it off the ground.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And now yeah, so the way it works is you get it.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure some politics, and I mean that's every organization in the world.
39:42
SPEAKER_03: All right, look, there was, but I I mean, you know, at the end of the day, you gotta keep your eye on the prize.
39:46
SPEAKER_03: So each you says you're a president for a year.
39:48
SPEAKER_03: I would love to be able to walk away at the end of this year, which is June, and know that the chapter has succeeded in its goals and is sustainable, and the board that are coming in behind it, and the president's coming in behind it, is Alex is doing a great job.
40:01
SPEAKER_03: I'd love to know that that's all working beautifully.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: I think sustainability has to be the goal when you're the when you're you know year one, right?
40:08
SPEAKER_00: So see just like any entrepreneur kind of uh endeavor, you're starting something new.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is part of a bigger organization that's been around forever, we get that, but year one is always the purpose in a lot of ways.
40:20
SPEAKER_03: It's a creative thing that you said about entrepreneur.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: And I think setting the culture, I think happens in that first year, setting norms, which is obviously part of the culture, like all of that happens in that in that year one environment, right?
40:31
SPEAKER_03: I kind of dropped that with Gura, didn't we?
40:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, special shout out to our friend that fourth whiskey here.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: This is a a single cask sample, one of my favorites at the moment.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: So this is a Beaumore.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: So we're moving over to Isla.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: What's unique about this 26-year-old Beaumore, 48%?
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is a cast sample out of a cast that's still aging.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: Still there, still there, still aging, still going up 1998.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: So this has what I like as the sort of little bit of peat, a little bit, and there are droplets if you want that.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: A little bit of peat, a little bit of sherry mixed together.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: I think this is an interesting flavor that I might be wrong.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm more of a Scotch guy than kind of anywhere else in the world, but I think this is relatively unique to what Scotland's able to create because of the aging, the peat, and the sherry all combined.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it's the only person.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a little bit of that.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, style.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Let's see what you think.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: To me, that has depth, that has flavor.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: This is nice.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is more your style, right?
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this has kind of got some interesting notes, this has got some flavor.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: The Avalaure too sweet for you.
41:45
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of Glenn and Bull.
41:48
SPEAKER_03: Glenn and Bull.
41:49
SPEAKER_03: Glenn and Bull.
41:50
SPEAKER_03: They're my two mates from the evening, Glenn and Bull.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: So obviously, very successful career, lots to do with entrepreneurship.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: That's all you know, you got into it maybe a little bit by accident, a little bit of adventure.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And so what's next for you?
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Like at this point in life, like what excites you about, let's say, the next five years or the next 10 years?
42:09
SPEAKER_00: Like when you wake up, like is it growing your business still?
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Is it selling your business?
42:14
SPEAKER_00: What what where do where do you want to go?
42:15
SPEAKER_03: Two things that really excite me is one is watching my I've got adult children.
42:19
SPEAKER_03: I love I love watching them at 24 and 22.
42:22
SPEAKER_03: I love watching them evolve, and I love watching how my relationship, my wife, evolved because you move through a different cycle as a couple and as parents.
42:33
SPEAKER_03: And then you got, I suppose, the next transitions, grandparents, god forbid.
42:36
SPEAKER_03: But anyway, that excites me.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: And we got a few years ago.
42:40
SPEAKER_03: Let me get a bottle of that.
42:41
SPEAKER_03: And then again, and then I think that the other thing that really excites me is the business because we've created a business which focuses really on two things entrepreneurs and families.
42:52
SPEAKER_03: So with the on and this is really based on my own journey, entrepreneurship is hard.
42:56
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't fucking matter what anybody says, right?
42:58
SPEAKER_03: And you work really hard and you work really hard.
43:00
SPEAKER_03: And then if you get if you're fortunate enough to get a liquidity event, you then got your your your legacy of wealth that you gotta protect.
43:07
SPEAKER_03: So our merchant banking business is all about taking care of the entrepreneurs, and our family office business is all about protecting the the affordable the wealth legacy.
43:15
SPEAKER_03: And what I learned about only got into sort of family office businesses is you get these second and third gen family members who you know they they grow up with cash, they grow up with an entrepreneur parent, and there's always one on the lineage who's entrepreneurial, and the pressure they're under is massive.
43:33
SPEAKER_03: And then you get the private banks picking their pockets.
43:35
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm quite excited about our business.
43:37
SPEAKER_03: Am I interested in selling it?
43:39
SPEAKER_03: And no.
43:40
SPEAKER_03: Am I interested in holding onto it forever?
43:42
SPEAKER_03: Not really.
43:42
SPEAKER_03: And there'sn't it growing and I I love to see this whole sort of transition.
43:48
SPEAKER_03: I have this yin and yang transition, the customer life cycle where the entrepreneur comes in, they build up their business, we help them.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: Then they get that liquidity event and they become a family and we protect their family wealth legacy.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: And that just circle perpetuates.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: And when did you add that merchant bank part to the equation you've been helping entrepreneurs for decades?
44:08
SPEAKER_00: When did you add this piece to s to to understand that hey, when a when an entrepreneur has an exit, actually they don't really maybe know what they're doing because they've been so focused.
44:18
SPEAKER_03: When I woke up one morning and realized all the money I made in exit was out the door.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: Um, because basically what I realized is you make had I was lucky, I had a couple of exits and I've had a couple of near car crashes as well.
44:28
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of it is because you don't know.
44:32
SPEAKER_03: And I'm in a privileged position.
44:34
SPEAKER_03: I have people come to the door and say, Hey, can you help us with this business?
44:36
SPEAKER_03: Can you grow it?
44:36
SPEAKER_03: Can you do that the other?
44:38
SPEAKER_03: And fortunately, I've learned enough around the hoops of finance to understand all the different intricacies of structuring.
44:46
SPEAKER_03: But I've spent enough time with entrepreneurs, both on my own journey and others.
44:50
SPEAKER_03: See, you're watering that down.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a little bit.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: I like a little bit.
44:54
SPEAKER_03: This is why the Indians don't do whiskey.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Why?
44:56
SPEAKER_00: Why don't the Indians do the Indians are probably the biggest market for whiskey in the world?
45:00
SPEAKER_00: You're talking down 1.2 billion.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm sure you're drinking whiskey.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: Do not pollute good whiskey like that.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: I think you could add a little water and open it up.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: You can if you open it up.
45:12
SPEAKER_03: Add a little bit of water to open it up.
45:13
SPEAKER_03: It does, it opens up the flavors.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, see, I think it I think you should be able to drink whiskey however you want.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, if I uh if I'm not gonna put Coca-Cola in here, but I think if I want to put a little water, I think it helps.
45:24
SPEAKER_03: I think you should be able to drink whiskey how you want.
45:26
SPEAKER_03: That's why I'm not touching the dandelion tea over here.
45:29
SPEAKER_03: That's what it reminded me of.
45:31
SPEAKER_03: That one.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: I think that's good.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: You had a reaction to that.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: That was the point I was trying for, right?
45:37
SPEAKER_03: It seems like when I go visit my grandmother in Clon Bell and she'd have this sherry and it was fucking touch for ages.
45:42
SPEAKER_03: I love that.
45:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's to each their own.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that's how palettes develop, right?
45:46
SPEAKER_00: Based on a whole lifetime of what you drink, what you you know eat, and all that kind of stuff.
45:51
SPEAKER_03: So you've added water to that now.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: I I added three drops, and I think that three there were three fine drops up.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think they were three precise drops.
45:58
SPEAKER_03: So our glasses are our gases about the same size, then.
46:00
SPEAKER_03: So I'm sure I had three drops of whiskey.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think, yeah, you are you're welcome.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: That's why I did it, to get more whiskey.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: Sludge it.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: That's a nice drop.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: That's what I did.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so going back to this merchant, man, I find that very interesting because I think as an entrepreneur, just sharing, like, I I worry about that all the time.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: I I worry about it.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: I think I worry about like, okay, if I'm very successful, let's hope I get the exit that I want.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Will I know what to do with that money to hopefully not have to worry about money for the rest of my life?
46:34
SPEAKER_00: I think all entrepreneurs want maybe at a core level, some level of financial freedom, right?
46:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you never work again, you you know, you just go on a golf course, whatever, but you want that pot of money that's earning enough that covers your costs.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, whatever happens, you you want to have some safety net, don't you think?
46:52
SPEAKER_03: Was it Andy DeMello who said that the source of all unhappiness was attachment?
46:58
SPEAKER_00: So we should just enjoy and uh think so.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: Go go where we go.
47:01
SPEAKER_03: Well, I I put it this way everybody says they want that pot of capital.
47:04
SPEAKER_03: But the problem with us entrepreneurs is that we actually want to create.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what I've done so far.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: Every time I've got that pot of capital, I put it into the next one, and then the next one, and then the next one, and that's and sort of here we are, right?
47:16
SPEAKER_00: That's that's and then you look back and go, probably maybe I should have taken a little bit out at some point and put it into something else.
47:21
SPEAKER_03: So that's why I that's why this it that's why we created the private office business, which is for the families.
47:25
SPEAKER_03: And and I do genuinely take the yin and yang symbol.
47:28
SPEAKER_03: So one side of the yin and yang, which is probably the black side, is the entrepreneur creating, but the white side then is actually protecting that both legacy.
47:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's and I'm not sure that you and I are wired the right way to do that because we'll always want to create.
47:43
SPEAKER_03: So the guardrails need to be put together around.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I need someone else doing that so I can be free to just go and create and then tell me, hey, don't spend all of this that way.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: And like, because I'll always put and I think the big lesson I've learned, so I did invest a lot in kind of so my my journey a little bit because I did well in private equity, I invested in other private equity uh funds, didn't do well.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: I did well in startups, so I invested in other startups.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: Luckily, I think I'm kind of two out of ten gonna hit really well.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and I think you know, I'm kind of knocking what it hasn't happened yet.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: I think I'll I'll make more kind of uh net net.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: But all of that has taught me rather that I'd just rather invest in myself because I know people like the working go thing, I know what I'm doing, but it doesn't give me a lot of confidence that should that all fail, right?
48:31
SPEAKER_00: That that I don't I have a safety net.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what entrepreneurs are dealing with?
48:35
SPEAKER_03: I think that comes back to balance, right?
48:37
SPEAKER_03: So we need we need to learn how to take something off the table, we need to learn how to give that to somebody to manage.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I agree with that.
48:42
SPEAKER_03: But at the end of the day, we shouldn't trust them 100% to take care of that.
48:45
SPEAKER_03: And I think the second thing is we should always believe in ourselves.
48:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean, just look look at now, right?
48:51
SPEAKER_03: We're in this really interesting transition where you know, banks, digital assets, tokenization of real-world assets, wealth is changing.
49:00
SPEAKER_03: I mean, my uh my 24-year-old's like, he's going, well, why the fuck would I buy a house?
49:05
SPEAKER_00: Right.
49:06
SPEAKER_03: You know, I'll buy Bitcoin.
49:07
SPEAKER_03: And you're like, hang on, why would you do that?
49:08
SPEAKER_03: And he goes, Well, hang on, I can transport it, I can pay it, I can move it, I don't have to buy it, take taxes, you know, not performing houses and stuff like that.
49:14
SPEAKER_03: So I I I I don't know.
49:16
SPEAKER_03: I think you and I will always uh people like us who are entrepreneurs, and what are the well, I think it translates as men of enterprise.
49:22
SPEAKER_03: We'll we'll always go forward, but we do need to make sure we don't bet the farm.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's the key in and kind of finding that about.
49:30
SPEAKER_03: But then I ask you this if you don't if you didn't make those punts and if you didn't learn learn those lessons, would you be sitting here adding water to good whiskey?
49:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know if those are necessarily related.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: Equally, neither is your clown French.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh well I was younger than young then.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: You have no excuse.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm young now.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: We got a long way to go.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: So speaking of exits, though, I have an inter I have a question for you.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: So how soon would you will you work with entrepreneurs at how what earlier stage do you work with them?
49:59
SPEAKER_00: Would you stay?
50:00
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so everybody asks that.
50:01
SPEAKER_03: But the classic question is uh what stage you already said?
50:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when we're getting involved.
50:06
SPEAKER_03: Ever since I kind of got in the door, we have a no dickhead policy.
50:09
SPEAKER_03: So the stage that we work with is that businesses don't aren't run by dickheads.
50:13
SPEAKER_03: Right.
50:13
SPEAKER_03: Okay, and then that could be at different stages.
50:16
SPEAKER_03: Um if it's an early stage business but has potential and we feel it has potential, we're happy to get involved.
50:23
SPEAKER_03: Um if it's a later stage business, we're happy to get involved.
50:25
SPEAKER_03: It all depends on do we feel we can add value?
50:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
50:28
SPEAKER_03: And the second thing it depends upon is do we feel the business adds value?
50:31
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:31
SPEAKER_03: I've no interest in working with a business that doesn't add value.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't do anything.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: So based on that, so how early do you advise the clients you work with to think about exit?
50:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you do you think do you, you know, because I I hear I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs who sometimes it's hey, I'm building this for the exit.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: I've got a three-year plan.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna IPO or I'm gonna get an acquisition.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm all in on that.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's the number one question investors ask, right?
50:57
SPEAKER_00: If I'm gonna give you a million dollars or$10 million or$100 million, it doesn't matter.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: I want to know when am I getting that back, hopefully, with some upside, right?
51:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think for some other investors, hey, I want to uh sorry, for some other entrepreneurs, I want to build a great business.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm not worried about the exit.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: If we build something great, the exit will come.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Do you see this?
51:16
SPEAKER_00: Do you see these views come up when you talk to entrepreneurs?
51:20
SPEAKER_03: If you break that out, there's lots of different views.
51:23
SPEAKER_03: There's a view of the entrepreneur, there's a view of the investor.
51:25
SPEAKER_03: Right.
51:26
SPEAKER_03: So with investors, every investor has a different uh investment horizon.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: An expectation, yeah.
51:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
51:32
SPEAKER_03: So a and you know, some funds are closed funds, some investors have a timeline when they want an exit.
51:39
SPEAKER_03: So that drives their behavior and when they invest in the business.
51:43
SPEAKER_03: As an entrepreneur, I think what it comes down to is what is your expectation.
51:48
SPEAKER_03: And I and then that comes back to what I said at the start about knowing yourself and managing.
51:52
SPEAKER_03: I do like that ex I do like that terminology about an entrepreneur can go down with the Titanic.
51:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:58
SPEAKER_03: So you know, if your goal is to build your business to exit, then you have to build a really good fucking business if somebody wants to buy.
52:06
SPEAKER_03: And then the exit will emerge.
52:08
SPEAKER_03: But if your goal is to build your business to exit so you can make a million bucks or two million bucks or five million bucks or a hundred million bucks, I don't think that's a good goal.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't I that I don't think people should set their sights on.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: But that's the way to do things.
52:22
SPEAKER_03: But there are businesses that you might say in three years this business won't be what it could be in zero to three.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: So I need to get out of it and order to let it well you were saying at the beginning to let it, yeah, to let it go in order to do that.
52:35
SPEAKER_03: And I think that that level of perspective and that level of thinking comes with the experience and space.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: You have to give yourself space to and I hope getting the right advice, right, and the right advisors.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: I think that's kind of the hardest thing for entrepreneurs sometimes is yes, you have a board or maybe an advisory board, but maybe hopefully you bring on someone like yourself.
52:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you you know know what you don't know and then bring in the right people who have hopefully more experience than you to guide you through that path, right?
53:02
SPEAKER_00: And a little bit of that scale.
53:04
SPEAKER_03: So okay, so from a personal perspective, um knowing what I don't know, I just love that Zen philosophy of the empty cup.
53:13
SPEAKER_03: Right.
53:13
SPEAKER_03: So I just have to presume I don't know.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, as always, the whiskey's never finished, neither's the conversation, but thank you.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: Huge thank you to David for coming here having a chat with me.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: Solange, my friend.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: Solange that great to great to chat.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: Seriously, Solange.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: Last favor we're gonna ask you is to sign your name on this beautiful glass here.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: Um we're we're basically collecting for every episode one glass to symbolize every episode that we've had.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: So sign it however you want to sign it.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, for cash here, the whiskey chief.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: Firstly, thanks so much for for watching this episode.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: It really means a lot to us.
53:56
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