Latest / Gimbal Podcast / An Inside Look at Simon Squibb's Inspired Team

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An Inside Look at Simon Squibb's Inspired Team · Gimbal Podcast

0:00
What does your day-to-day look like?
0:01
We have one of the best teams in the world.
0:02
How do you do this in a sustainable way?
0:04
Every single person in this world has a beautiful gift inside of them.
0:07
What's your dream?
0:08
What's your dream?
0:09
You guys have a dream?
0:10
This is gonna be a weird answer, right?
0:12
I don't think you guys will expect this.
0:14
Today on the show I'm speaking with Calum Church,
0:17
the creative director for Simon Squibb.
0:20
Simon gets millions of views every single day,
0:23
simply by going on the street and asking people,
0:25
what's your dream?
0:26
Were you there from day one, the inception of that idea?
0:29
Did you come up with that idea as the creative director?
0:31
Where did that come from?
0:33
The way that came about was,
0:35
Simon had been posting on TikTok himself doing talking head videos at the time,
0:40
and these would typically average 5,000 views, something like that.
0:45
Not a lot, but nothing at the same time,
0:47
and he'd build up a small following from this.
0:50
At the time, TikTok had just launched a new feature, TikTok Live.
0:54
And Simon went on there, started talking to people,
0:56
giving people business advice, and all this sort of thing,
0:59
like talking head stuff.
1:00
And by the end of the live, he realized,
1:02
oh crap, I've got some gifts.
1:04
Some people had donated money to me for doing this live, right?
1:08
And Simon's philosophy is he didn't want to charge anyone for help.
1:12
And during this TikTok stream, he was helping people, right?
1:17
He decided that day that he would go out and give this money to someone,
1:21
to be their first customer.
1:22
So he went into a supermarket in the UK called Tesco's,
1:26
walked up to this lady, and asked,
1:29
well, at the time, he didn't actually ask what she was doing, he asked,
1:31
would you ever start a business of your own?
1:34
In Simon's words, this lady's eyes lit up,
1:36
like this smile beamed from ear to ear.
1:39
And she just lit up talking about this idea,
1:42
this business that she had, that she wanted to do,
1:44
but ultimately something was stopping her.
1:46
So Simon spoke to her at a moment,
1:49
and basically she's lacking belief in herself.
1:51
So Simon almost symbolically offers to be her first client,
1:54
gives her this money, you know?
1:56
$100, a couple hundred dollars, something like that.
1:59
You know, it just completely opens up this lady's world.
2:02
She's like, thank you so much.
2:03
And Simon naturally felt great after this interaction he'd had in this supermarket.
2:08
But he only had one regret from it, which was that he didn't record it,
2:13
you know, so that he could share it with other people, right?
2:16
He did the same thing.
2:17
He went straight to the bank, picked up some cash,
2:20
and went into a restaurant in the UK.
2:25
When straight up to the front desk and said,
2:27
would you ever start a business of your own?
2:29
And it was a dude this time.
2:30
And you know, he spoke about this idea, and again, you know,
2:33
Simon sort of broke down the limiting beliefs and whatnot.
2:36
And so we posted it online, and this time it didn't get 5,000 views.
2:40
It got, I think it was 65,000 views at the time,
2:43
which was a lot of views for us when we were like,
2:45
figuring it out back then.
2:46
Yeah, I was just like, right, we have to build on this,
2:49
you know, absolutely.
2:50
So I picked up the camera, we went out in the street, super rough,
2:53
asking people, would you ever start a business of your own?
2:56
And we started to have some progress, started to get some better clips,
2:58
better views, interesting stories from people,
3:01
and started having some success online.
3:03
And then I think we had a couple of clips that was like,
3:06
maybe a couple million, but it was very inconsistent.
3:08
It was up and down.
3:09
It was wild, like, but when we really started to hit our stride
3:13
with that series, and it became, you know,
3:16
recognised worldwide, and Simon really became well known,
3:19
was when we changed the hook, you know,
3:21
we changed that hook, would you ever start a business?
3:22
So what's your dream?
3:24
And the reason for this was because, you know,
3:26
not everyone necessarily wants to start a business,
3:29
you're somewhat alienating that audience there,
3:32
if they're not business-minded.
3:34
But the reality is everyone has a dream.
3:36
And if you think about what a dream really is,
3:37
well, to be honest, it's only finding out how you can build
3:42
a revenue model around doing the thing that you love,
3:44
which is a business.
3:46
One of our, you know, big ones back in the day
3:49
was about 25 million views on TikTok,
3:51
something similar on Instagram as well.
3:53
Got called Davide in the streets of London,
3:56
wanted to start a restaurant called the Black Pearl.
3:58
Yeah, ever since then, we've just been building on it, you know,
4:01
and, yeah, I guess they want some history.
4:03
So does that mean that you just go out on the,
4:05
like, you're in your schedule?
4:07
It's like, well, it's Wednesday.
4:08
Let's go out and find some people
4:09
and ask them what their dream is for the next couple of hours.
4:11
Like, how do you do this from an operational standpoint?
4:14
Yeah, well, I guess back in the day,
4:15
we did kind of schedule it out like that,
4:18
where we had a smaller team and less going on,
4:20
less busy, busy lives, I guess.
4:22
Whereas now, we have a very talented team.
4:25
Our, you know, lead videographer,
4:28
lead editor, guy called Dudley,
4:30
pretty much follows Simon nearly everywhere,
4:32
you know, Simon will go on family holidays
4:34
and Dudley will fly out too.
4:36
And they'll go records and dreams.
4:38
And, you know, whatever Simon's doing,
4:40
you know, whether there's meetings,
4:42
whether there's events that he's going to
4:43
or whether they've actually dedicated an afternoon
4:45
or a morning to recording content.
4:47
Dudley's there and you, you bet it best believe he's filming.
4:50
One of the many ingredients that I think make it work is,
4:53
well, absolutely a team.
4:55
But more than that, a team that's fully committed,
4:58
you know, a team that lives and breathes,
5:00
not just what we're trying to build,
5:02
not just the content but the mission,
5:04
what it stands, what it means.
5:06
We're trying to give everyone the freedom
5:08
to be able to pursue a life that they love,
5:10
you know, and I think that matters
5:11
to the team that we have, you know.
5:13
One of the things that I see from Simon on Instagram,
5:17
there's a lot of pictures of him with people like yourself
5:20
and like eight other crew members.
5:22
And it seems like you all just kind of fly around the world together
5:24
and like you can see the team attachment
5:27
that you were just describing,
5:28
like everyone's really bought into the messaging.
5:30
So much so that wherever Simon goes,
5:32
it seems like they all seem to go,
5:34
how does Simon or you in the leadership position that you're in,
5:38
how do you elevate other people on your team?
5:40
Because if they have missions as well
5:42
or if they have ambitions,
5:44
like how do you foster growth in that in your company?
5:47
Well, it's really about finding out
5:49
what these people want to achieve
5:51
and seeing if there's a route that we can achieve that together.
5:54
Like I said, fundamentally,
5:56
the main thing that we look for when we're hiring
5:59
or whatever or looking at candidates for roles is passion
6:03
and, you know, commitment and do they care?
6:05
Do they actually care about the mission?
6:07
And there's a few different ways that we can figure that out.
6:10
You know, skills is, we have one of the best teams in the world.
6:13
Skills can all be learned, skills can be trained,
6:16
but you can't teach passion.
6:18
You can't teach purpose.
6:19
You know, like when we kicked this all off a few years ago,
6:23
I met Simon and speaking to you candidly,
6:25
I was a 21-year-old kid,
6:28
editing videos in my bedroom.
6:29
I was pretty junior, right?
6:32
And, you know, I did some freelance work
6:34
with Simon for some time.
6:36
You know, editing podcasts, that sort of thing.
6:39
And after a few months,
6:40
he turned around to me and he said,
6:42
Callum, you know, we're really aligned on mission,
6:44
you know, and I'm launched in this company.
6:46
It's going to be greater lead, you know,
6:48
influence a lead and I need to build up my content,
6:50
build up my personal brand.
6:52
I need a content guy to join me for this ride.
6:55
Are you in?
6:56
Do you want to do this with me?
6:57
And we shook hands, we teamed up.
6:59
I often reflect on that moment because, you know,
7:01
like I said, I was a 21-year-old kid,
7:03
pretty young, not nothing special, you know,
7:07
skills wise or whatever.
7:08
About a year ago, I was on a hike with Simon,
7:11
on a hike in Hong Kong with him.
7:13
And we were talking about the business,
7:14
talking about goals for the next year and stuff.
7:17
And also just reflecting on, you know,
7:20
I guess how far we'd come and stuff.
7:22
And I asked him, Simon, you know,
7:24
a few years ago when we teamed up on this
7:26
and you chose a random 21-year-old kid
7:30
to join you for this huge lofty mission.
7:32
Bear in mind, Simon had just, you know,
7:34
come off the back of a huge exit selling his company
7:37
to PWC hid millions of millions in the bank,
7:39
more money than he'll ever need.
7:41
He could have hired the best talent in the world.
7:42
Why me?
7:43
You know, why me and Jack?
7:45
Why did you want us to join you for this mission, right?
7:48
And he turned around to me and said,
7:49
Calum, because you had the one thing that money can't buy.
7:52
It's purpose.
7:54
You can't buy it.
7:55
You know, you can have the best talent in the world.
7:58
But if they don't care about their mission,
8:00
they're not going to be staying in the office
8:02
till midnight, you know,
8:03
and want to be there and enjoy being there
8:05
and living that, of course they're not.
8:07
What has been the method that's led to the most success
8:10
finding the right people?
8:11
You know, we have a team of like, you know, around 14 now.
8:15
And I've had the privilege of, you know,
8:17
having some awesome characters join us for this ride.
8:20
You know, I've been thinking about this a lot recently
8:21
because I just had a new member of the team join me.
8:24
He's a guy called Clemens, awesome guy.
8:26
The story of how he joined the team is really the story
8:30
that best represents how, you know,
8:32
some of our best people come.
8:34
Clemens was a few years ago stuck in a corporate job.
8:39
He was doing the typical stuff you're supposed to do.
8:42
He's, you know, based in Germany,
8:44
stuck working in a corporate job in Germany.
8:47
And just hating his day to day.
8:48
I think, you know, when you go through the education system
8:51
or I'm bringing whatever, you know,
8:53
most people get, get taught that that car
8:55
or that house is going to make them happy
8:56
and they get into debt and they get traps, right?
8:58
And Clemens in his own words said, you know,
9:00
he very nearly got trapped.
9:01
He was working this corporate job.
9:03
Learning good money, I guess month by month,
9:06
not enjoying his lifestyle at all.
9:08
And very nearly committed to that by getting into debt,
9:11
by buying the sexy car, by buying the big house.
9:14
Fortunately, in Clemens' words,
9:15
he found Simon's content and started watching the content.
9:19
And, you know, thinking about, you know,
9:21
how he can work on his dream and like escape, right?
9:25
Fortunately, he did and, you know, he fell in love with the content.
9:28
And a year ago, I started getting emails from this guy.
9:32
My email inbox.
9:33
Hi, I'm Clemens, you know.
9:35
I'd love to join your team and, you know,
9:37
I think I maybe I checked out the first email
9:39
or something, I was like, yeah,
9:40
I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, you know.
9:42
And then the next day, I get an email and it's like,
9:45
oh, it's this Clemens guy, okay, okay, all right, okay.
9:48
And then the next day, I get an email.
9:50
And the next day, I get an email.
9:51
Anyway, weeks and weeks go by and I'm getting an email
9:54
from this dude every day.
9:55
At this point, I'm kind of thinking he's nuts
9:57
or crazy or something.
9:58
I'm like, oh God.
10:00
You know, anyway, long story short, 167 days later.
10:05
167 emails later.
10:06
No way.
10:07
I open his email and he says,
10:10
I'm flying to the UK to come to your next community event.
10:13
I'd still love to work with you guys.
10:14
Let me know.
10:15
So I hear the reply button.
10:16
I was like, you know what, Clemens,
10:17
you've earned your short, let's chat, you know.
10:19
And I meet up with him at this event,
10:22
just to figure him out, you know,
10:24
and I kind of went into this conversation thinking like,
10:26
okay, let's figure out if this guy's actually crazy.
10:28
Yeah.
10:29
Because it could go either way, right?
10:30
Like, yeah, I just went very poorly.
10:33
Yeah, exactly.
10:35
You know, fortunately, he was crazy,
10:36
but he was crazy for the mission, you know.
10:38
And we've been working with Clemens for like,
10:41
what, about a month now, he's really awesome
10:44
and bringing him in.
10:45
I was very honest with him bringing him in.
10:47
I was like, dude, I don't know what your role is in this team.
10:51
I just know that you have a role here.
10:53
So we got him in loosely and, you know,
10:54
he slowly molded into like an operations guy.
10:57
And I just know he's going to be really great
10:59
because he lives and breathes it.
11:01
Candidly, you know, and honestly,
11:02
all of our best talent in the team is homegrown,
11:05
to be honest. I mean, you know,
11:06
we're very fortunate we're at a position now
11:08
where we are hiring in top talent coming in.
11:10
But over the years, you know,
11:12
by and large, our talent has been pretty much homegrown
11:15
and been very passionate characters like Clemens.
11:18
What kind of roles are there within your team?
11:20
Honestly, the truth is it varies across different teams.
11:23
You know, typically I like to pair like a creative mind,
11:26
outside the box, think super creative and artist.
11:30
I like to pair an artist with like that more
11:32
coordination, operations, organized mind.
11:35
I feel like those are a real power pack,
11:37
especially when it comes to creative teams at least.
11:39
You know, someone to run the day-to-day
11:41
and someone to make sure that we create beautiful stuff.
11:43
You're talking about teams is kind of like the big picture.
11:46
They're like, what do you mean by?
11:47
Is it like the content team?
11:49
There's the health bank team.
11:50
There's the whatever else that you're working on team.
11:53
Is that kind of like the big picture stuff?
11:54
And then you fill them with people wearing multiple hats
11:56
within each team?
11:58
Well, the Simon Swip content team.
12:00
And they'll be, I guess, like smaller teams within that,
12:04
you know, like a partnership team.
12:06
You know, they'll be, you know, content creative.
12:09
Or maybe like short form team,
12:11
YouTube team or long form team.
12:13
What's the largest team within your entire organization?
12:17
I mean, we have an international team,
12:18
which is pretty big and growing.
12:21
And you know, this is where we translate all of Simon's content
12:25
into all the different languages
12:26
and, you know, more importantly, cultures of the world.
12:29
Truthfully, it kind of depends how you group it, right?
12:32
Because there's crossover.
12:33
There's crossover.
12:34
So it kind of sounds like you guys have little ponds
12:38
of people that just kind of operate together,
12:40
but independently.
12:42
Is that kind of how it works?
12:43
Just like this team works on short form for Simon on this
12:46
and they just go for it?
12:47
Yeah, I guess so.
12:48
I mean, and also like people can wear multiple hats.
12:51
So like, you know, Katie, Simon's EA,
12:53
like, you know, she's there day to day,
12:56
you know, out in the street recording with the team
12:58
and capturing people's details,
12:59
but she's also, you know, like the dream is details
13:01
and whatnot, but she's also managing Simon's day to day,
13:04
managing his calendar and whatnot.
13:06
But then also, you know, she helps
13:07
some of the YouTube production stuff as well,
13:09
because she's got a great production brain
13:11
and she wants to produce great, you know,
13:13
like documentaries and content and whatnot, right?
13:16
So it bleeds all into each other a little bit.
13:19
So which is why I say it's quite hard to explain exactly
13:24
without just straight up showing you an org chart, I suppose.
13:27
And are you the one kind of overseeing everything?
13:29
I lead the creative across the company.
13:31
So as creative director, I am responsible for making sure
13:35
that, you know, we have great content going out
13:37
across the ecosystem.
13:39
A large part of my focus kind of goes
13:40
into launching new formats or launching new teams,
13:43
building new teams, you know,
13:44
so one thing that I'm working on right now
13:46
is help bank platform content itself
13:49
and trying to build a, you know,
13:51
a media media team, media business
13:54
for the platform itself as well.
13:55
What is help bank? Tell everyone about help bank?
13:58
Yeah, so help bank is our platform
14:01
that we launched about two and a half years ago now.
14:05
And help bank is really a place for people to go
14:08
to get help with their dream, you know,
14:10
whatever that is.
14:11
So, you know, when we first launched the platform,
14:13
we were thinking of this as the community
14:16
that watch and enjoy Simon's content, you know,
14:20
and whether that's a community of dreamers
14:22
or maybe that's a community of people
14:24
that have already achieved something in their own lives.
14:26
Bringing this community together to help each other
14:29
because people like Simon, he's just one guy.
14:31
But if we could build a movement, you know,
14:33
a central hub for people to come together
14:36
to help each other with their dreams,
14:38
man, would it be a lot easier to pursue that, right?
14:42
But we're also building out tools now on that platform as well.
14:45
The people can use that can streamline
14:47
how they build their business and simplify
14:49
how they build their business.
14:51
You know, we're using AI and things like this now
14:53
to service that and to do that.
14:56
Is there one business in particular that comes to mind
14:58
when you think about the impact that help bank has had on them?
15:02
It's really hard because they're all great,
15:04
honestly, and the thing is like the most beautiful thing
15:08
is that everyone in the world,
15:10
every single person in this world
15:11
has a beautiful gift inside of them.
15:13
If only they just unlock that and find a way to unlock that
15:17
and live that day to day.
15:18
You know, some people it's locked away behind,
15:21
you know, a limiting belief,
15:22
some people it's locked away behind,
15:24
you know, quite frankly, just getting the break
15:27
that they need in life to be able to do it.
15:29
Some people it's locked behind, you know,
15:30
they just need to gather a little bit more knowledge
15:33
about how best to do it and advice and guidance.
15:35
One of the standout ones is two twins, right?
15:39
They're based in London and, you know,
15:41
they rang our doorbell.
15:42
We have a doorbell of dreams.
15:44
It's basically a place everyone can go
15:45
to pitch their dream to our community.
15:48
And, you know, we have this doorbell up in London.
15:51
We have this doorbell up in New York.
15:53
The maggot twins were one of the first people
15:55
to ring this doorbell right when we first launched it.
15:58
They pitched their dream of starting a cleaning company,
16:01
you know, to this doorbell and we got them involved
16:03
in some content and whatnot.
16:05
Told them they should start creating their own content.
16:07
Anyway, long story short,
16:08
they started creating their own clips online,
16:10
talking about how they were, how they clean places,
16:14
no one else asked them to clean.
16:16
You know, and they basically go to like some random public place,
16:19
you know, maybe maybe an alleyway
16:21
or maybe some landmark in London.
16:24
And all these unique places, you know,
16:26
chew the tube, the London underground like trains
16:29
and stuff like these places.
16:31
Like no one wants to clean these places.
16:33
No one asked them to clean these places and yet they do it.
16:36
And they have this great content.
16:37
They've built up their own community as well.
16:39
And they're doing really well now.
16:41
You know, when we first met them,
16:42
they had a, I think it was a family of five,
16:44
living in a one, one bed studio flat,
16:47
studio apartments, just crazy stuff.
16:50
And since then, you know, they've been able to, you know,
16:52
buy their own place out in the suburbs
16:55
and, you know, have their family move in.
16:57
And it's just a really touching, beautiful story.
16:59
That's amazing. That's a cool story.
17:01
I love it.
17:02
What does your day to day look like?
17:04
Is it like maybe a weekly cadence or a monthly cadence?
17:07
A lot of it is, I guess, creative leadership,
17:11
offering a creative brain to different projects
17:15
to make sure that we are executing as best we possibly can.
17:20
For example, right now, like I said,
17:21
a lot of my focus is on help bank content itself
17:24
and leading that team, you know, in all areas,
17:27
you know, leading it somewhat operationally
17:29
and setting the tone for how we run it operationally
17:31
and working with Clemens, who's my operations guy on that.
17:35
But also, you know, leading the creative as well
17:37
and working with our creative team
17:39
to make sure that, you know, that's as good as it can possibly be.
17:42
So it's quite broad there.
17:43
But then I guess the flip side of that
17:45
is that I'm still very involved in Simon's YouTube channel
17:49
or getting more and more involved in the day to day again
17:52
to make sure that that's as good as it can possibly be.
17:54
And I'll be on, you know, brainstorming calls,
17:57
packaging ideation, that sort of thing.
17:59
Maybe reviewing footage as a team,
18:01
discussing how best we execute on this
18:03
and also planning out fresh concepts
18:06
and new ideas and planning for new content as well.
18:10
So when you ask me what I do in a day,
18:13
I feel like my days get crazy and crazy and crazy
18:15
that it's almost quite hard to answer.
18:18
Yeah, but I guess it's really, it's creatively leadership
18:21
and pushing forwards how best we think
18:24
about approaching our content
18:26
to make sure that we execute on it effectively.
18:28
What does good Simon's group content look like?
18:31
You know, you mentioned like your hook.
18:33
Previously, what is the rest of it?
18:35
In some ways it's subjective, right?
18:36
Like what is artwork, you know?
18:38
Like what is art?
18:39
Like, you know, people see art in many different ways.
18:42
So in some ways it's subjective.
18:44
But to me, I think for the most part,
18:46
it's fundamentally storytelling, right?
18:50
You know, it's like how clear is the story?
18:52
Are we pulling on the right tools
18:54
to be able to tell that story effectively?
18:56
You know, like is the music choice correct?
18:59
You know, are we lingering on a certain shot long enough
19:02
to illustrate a certain like story?
19:04
Are we even clear on what the story is itself
19:06
and are we thinking about that in the forefront of our minds?
19:10
You know, I was just speaking with the team yesterday.
19:12
Not even on content specifically,
19:15
but it was on something that was on our platform
19:18
that was like this fills off brand to me.
19:19
We need to change it, you know?
19:21
So I guess it's like,
19:22
truthfully, it's reflecting, you know?
19:25
That's really what the role is.
19:27
You know, like my job is to empower our team
19:30
to be the best creatives they can possibly be.
19:33
And creativity is a very personal thing.
19:36
Two people might look at the same thing
19:37
and see it differently.
19:38
Like two people might take a piece of footage
19:42
and come up with two very different results.
19:45
Now, what is good?
19:47
You know, like you could say like, you know,
19:49
okay, it's how many views it's going to get.
19:51
And, you know, for the most part,
19:53
that's kind of how we judge it.
19:55
But like, it's really to help people unlock
20:00
their creative creativity and help people to really live that.
20:05
You know, have you ever heard of like the Michelangelo effect, right?
20:10
This is something like Chris Williamson's spoken about recently.
20:13
It's where, you know, you see the best in something, right?
20:16
Where you can, you know,
20:18
Michelangelo can see a piece of rock.
20:20
But within that, you can see David, you know,
20:22
is very famous statue, right?
20:24
As a creative director, you help people see David in the stone.
20:29
It's interesting to hear you speak
20:31
compared to some other people that we've spoken with.
20:35
Because a lot of people in a similar role to yours,
20:38
I think the work that they do is in service of the audience.
20:43
And I think it sounds like you're really working
20:46
for the people who you are kind of supervising.
20:49
It's kind of like, you want to make sure
20:52
that everybody on your team is excelling to the best of their ability.
20:55
And as a result of that, that's how you make great work.
20:58
Do you view yourself as kind of like the servant of like,
21:00
you're serving your own team more than you're serving the audience?
21:04
Simon's audience?
21:05
Yes, because it's downstream from it, you know?
21:08
Like, if I best serve the team, then the audience is going to be served.
21:10
You know, my philosophy on all of this, right,
21:14
is, you know, my meaning of life, if you like.
21:16
And I'm going to get deep for a moment, but I promise this will be related.
21:19
It's creativity.
21:20
I get an awful lot of fulfillment and enjoyment from creating things.
21:24
And I get that because I truly believe that it is the purpose of
21:29
not just us but the universe.
21:31
And I want to best help my team to bring those beautiful gifts to the world.
21:36
I want to help empower everyone to bring that out.
21:40
Because I think that's why we're here.
21:42
And I think, truthfully, everyone is a creative.
21:44
Everyone is an artist.
21:46
Doesn't matter who you are, you know, some people can create
21:50
beautiful dialogue and converse with someone and convince them to buy.
21:54
You're a creative, you're an artist.
21:56
You know, someone can, you know, be an artist in the more,
22:00
more traditional sense of, you know, maybe they're a painter,
22:02
maybe they're a content producer.
22:04
Maybe they are, maybe they're like poetry.
22:07
Maybe someone's a little bit more technically gifted.
22:09
Maybe they, they're great at building platforms and coding.
22:12
Well, that's creativity, is it not?
22:14
Because you're making something.
22:16
Maybe someone's a politician.
22:17
Well, you're great at creating and convincing people with the way you speak
22:22
and how you carry yourself and leadership.
22:24
That's a form of creativity.
22:26
So without getting too deep,
22:28
I've actually forgotten what the original question was now.
22:32
You certainly are someone that's unique compared to a lot of the people
22:37
that we've spoken to.
22:38
We work in a world that I think is widely regarded as content creation,
22:42
creating content.
22:44
And you are describing it as art, which is really interesting.
22:48
And I think one, particularly in YouTube education,
22:51
one observation that I'm making through this interview is a lot of people
22:55
in YouTube education make stuff to help you learn something or to get better.
22:59
And with Simon, you're kind of like inspiring people.
23:02
You're giving people a feeling,
23:04
which is an interesting type of education.
23:07
It's very different from Alex Hermosi or Daniel Presley,
23:10
like where they're giving tactical advice and that kind of stuff.
23:13
What I'm seeing from Simon and hearing from you is like,
23:16
you're giving people energy to go and find their purpose if they haven't figured it out.
23:23
So that's pretty interesting.
23:24
That's cool.
23:24
I didn't think about that until I started talking with you.
23:27
Yeah.
23:28
Well, it's why storytelling is the most powerful gift
23:32
and skill set anyone can have and build and learn.
23:37
I'm curious how you think about the functional side of content creation
23:42
because views are important.
23:45
If there weren't views, it would be hard to continue doing what you're doing
23:50
and hiring and expanding the team and those kinds of things.
23:53
But views can be perceived as kind of like a grubby goal to work towards.
23:57
And I think that's why a lot of people are like,
23:58
oh, this is content creation.
24:00
We're trying to optimize for views.
24:02
How do you think about views from your holistic perspective?
24:07
So there's two different ways to think about this right.
24:09
A lot of the time, people don't like to approach content from the perspective of an artist
24:15
because they're not playing the game of content.
24:18
They're not clickbaiting or they're not trying to get the views and get the audience in
24:22
and get the subscribers or whatever, you know.
24:24
So there's two different, it's all a balance, I suppose.
24:28
Like there's a balance to be had between playing the game and creating beautiful artwork.
24:32
You know, like you can go, let's call it like the views method
24:36
or you can go, let's call it the art method,
24:39
which is maybe a little bit more like just creating something
24:42
as if no one's ever going to see it.
24:44
And it's just something that you're going to be proud of.
24:46
Was the views method is creating something to play the game
24:50
and capture attention, optimize retention, those kinds of things.
24:55
And there's been plenty of movies that I've watched
24:58
that have really touched me and moved me.
25:01
It made me feel a certain way.
25:02
Perhaps it was boring at times.
25:04
Perhaps if I wasn't watching it in a cinema, maybe I'd leave or turn it off
25:08
or maybe if I'd scrolled TikTok a little bit
25:10
and drilled some dopamine through my brain,
25:12
maybe I'd get bored and switch off, right.
25:14
So there's a balance to be had between reaching people
25:18
and making people feel something.
25:20
I think maybe the reason why people take my perspective on content
25:25
as a little bit more holistic compared to others within,
25:28
let's call it like the business space,
25:30
is because people in the business space are creating for a result.
25:34
They're creating for signups, they're creating for revenue,
25:38
they're creating for X, Y and Z.
25:40
Whereas our team, yes, revenue plays a factor,
25:44
but truthfully it's impact first.
25:47
That's why we index a little bit more on artwork
25:50
versus playing the game.
25:52
We're still playing the game, you know, we want views.
25:55
We want to reach people, you know,
25:56
but equally, if we're just focusing on retention,
26:00
so much so that no one feels anything
26:02
as a result of watching our content, we failed.
26:05
So the best way to explain this is a video we created
26:10
that really blew up Simon's brand on YouTube,
26:12
which is a YouTube video titled,
26:14
30 Years of Business Knowledge in two hours and 26 minutes.
26:18
Now this video really came about as a result
26:21
of lots of people DMing Simon asking for advice,
26:23
asking to be his mentor, asking for answers to things.
26:27
Simon, naturally, he's one guy,
26:29
he can't answer all of these like thousands,
26:31
tens of thousands of messages that he gets, right?
26:34
So he wanted to create a video
26:36
that would just end all of the DMs.
26:38
Here you go, here's one link, everything is there, right?
26:41
So we created this video in this month's discussion
26:44
of recording where Simon just splurged everything
26:47
he knew about business all in one go.
26:49
And at the time, you know, that kind of ended,
26:51
long story short, that video ended up
26:53
saying a bit of a trend on YouTube.
26:55
But, you know, at the time,
26:56
that was a really weird video to make,
26:58
two hours and 26 minutes, it's too long.
27:00
You're supposed to create videos that are 15, 10, 15 minute long,
27:03
you know, who keep protection, right?
27:04
Why are you giving it all away in one video?
27:06
We could make like 50 videos out of this.
27:09
You don't know why you do it, you know?
27:11
And it's funny how when you go so against the grain like that
27:15
and you create something for the sake of creating it,
27:18
you know, as opposed to how is this gonna perform
27:21
in the algorithm?
27:22
It's ironic how that becomes the biggest business video
27:25
ever on YouTube.
27:27
It's set the trend when it came out
27:29
and everybody copied it afterward.
27:32
We even talked about it at our team.
27:33
We never ended up doing it,
27:34
but it was definitely on the table for a long time.
27:36
Yeah, but I guess just to finish my point,
27:39
it's just funny how when you create and you index
27:43
and you have the bravery more importantly to index
27:46
a little bit more on artwork versus the game
27:51
or what I want to create versus the game
27:54
that you have the best result.
27:55
And it takes a lot of bravery,
27:56
even I feel this now as well,
27:58
especially when people have teams
27:59
and they have costs that they have to uphold
28:01
and, you know, we need to deliver,
28:03
we need to get views otherwise, you know,
28:04
there's a problem here.
28:06
It takes a lot of bravery,
28:07
but that's where the magic happens.
28:09
I think Simon is in an interesting position
28:12
because of selling the company
28:13
and he has all of this runway to afford to go all in
28:18
on artistically merited content
28:21
and pushing the dreams of him and his team and you
28:24
and everybody for someone who is not wealthy.
28:27
How do you do this in a sustainable way?
28:29
How do you like, how do you push your art
28:31
to make it sustainable when you don't have
28:34
a bunch of money to do that?
28:36
Yeah, I guess again, it's a balance.
28:38
An artist still needs a business person to sell their art
28:40
if they want to make it a sustainable thing, right?
28:43
Like again, it's about,
28:45
you can't index 100% on artistry,
28:48
make a bunch of paintings, but not sell them,
28:51
because you're gonna be homeless, man, you know?
28:54
So it's like, I guess like, you know, I'm very lucky.
28:58
I am a creative through and through.
29:01
I'm very lucky that I have great partners
29:03
with me in on this.
29:04
I guess like that commercial side
29:06
that we're talking about here,
29:07
I'm very lucky that I've had that covered
29:10
from people like Simon and Jack
29:12
that are partners with me in this business.
29:14
So you need, you do need that commercial mind.
29:17
And again, it's not a dirty thing, you know?
29:21
It's still like, like I said earlier,
29:23
I called these guys artists as well, right?
29:25
Like creatives as well.
29:27
I guess my advice, look, look,
29:28
if I was to give advice to that artist, you know,
29:31
that just wants to create their art,
29:33
I would say team up with a business person, you know?
29:36
Cause you'll be surprised how these people are looking for,
29:39
you know, people that in their words have talent
29:42
they can lean on to produce something that they can sell.
29:45
Do you know what I mean?
29:46
I don't know if that answered your correct question.
29:48
No, I did, it did.
29:49
It was interesting to hear the perspective.
29:50
Okay, you see the world in a different light
29:52
than I think most people do.
29:53
And I think that translates really interestingly
29:57
into the content that Simon puts out.
29:59
We always end our show with asking each guest
30:02
who a creator that they really respect,
30:05
that's on their radar is, and I'm curious
30:08
who is someone that you're really excited about right now.
30:11
This is gonna be a weird answer, right?
30:13
I don't think you guys will expect this.
30:15
They're not, they're not a new creator,
30:17
but my mind is as you are asking that question,
30:20
instantly goes to PewDiePie.
30:21
Oh, interesting.
30:22
The reason why I just have so much respect for the dude,
30:26
like he's kind of the epitome of what we're trying to do here.
30:28
Like as a teenager,
30:31
starts creating videos in his bedroom,
30:33
playing horror, horror games, video games,
30:36
somehow starts to make a living from it,
30:38
you know, sharing it with his audience,
30:40
sharing his unique passions and hobbies with the internet,
30:44
builds up a following, becomes the biggest YouTuber
30:48
on the planet, starts a family and moves to Japan
30:52
and makes for the artwork rather than the game.
30:57
I just think that's something about that to really beautiful.
31:00
And I guess as someone that I kind of grew up watching as well,
31:04
seeing that journey, I just have a lot of respect for it.
31:07
And he's not the perfect guy, no one is.
31:09
But that's a lot more lived in my opinion.
31:12
I'm so glad you picked him,
31:14
that it's funny to say he's an underrated pick,
31:17
but I actually think he is.
31:18
Like I completely agree with you.
31:19
I grew up watching him.
31:20
And at the time, the content he was making
31:22
was the content that I really liked.
31:24
And now he's pivoted into this like family lifestyle,
31:28
just like enjoying every single day.
31:30
And I'm so for it, I love it.
31:31
You know, watching that kind of vlog content is very simple.
31:34
Isn't it ironic how, and sure, okay, fine.
31:37
Maybe you could argue that his viewership has dropped off
31:39
since he's taken this like latest step, you know,
31:43
into family life and focusing more on the artwork
31:45
than like the game or making money or whatever, right?
31:48
Isn't it funny how that audience still kind of hangs around as well
31:50
and still enjoys that content?
31:52
Like if someone started off making his style of content
31:55
like he's doing now, it would be very, very hard
31:58
for him to grow quickly, right?
32:01
Over a long time, I was unsure, right, you know,
32:03
but that audience still hang around.
32:05
I just think that's so awesome.
32:07
Like he's just creating for the art and he's just,
32:09
hmm, he's just done it right, in my opinion.
32:12
Yeah, I completely agree.
32:13
He's kind of found his enough and he's kind of owned it.
32:16
And I think that is something that's really respectable.
32:18
I don't know if, I think everybody's kind of chasing more
32:21
and he's kind of been like, no, I've got enough
32:23
and he's just enjoying everything else.
32:25
Callum, thank you for the interview.
32:26
I appreciate this man is a really cool chatting with you.
32:28
Yeah, likewise, I enjoyed this one.
32:30
Thanks guys, appreciate you both.
32:31
All right, that's the episode.
32:32
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32:35
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32:47
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