so you do something with greeting cards

is that something you do from your spare

room nick jenkins former ceo and founder

of moon pig a company now worth 1.6

billion dollars my first proper business

was moon big which although it's been a

success of course it went through

various ups and downs like all overnight

successes it took 11 years i got to

confess i probably slightly stumbled on

it i look at it now and think wow that

accidentally was a really good business

model

unfortunately we too often we measure

the things that are easiest to measure

and the easiest thing to measure is how

wealthy someone is i'm reluctant to

create this illusion that that you know

if you work incredibly hard you can make

a lot of money and that will make you

successful you have to be a successful

human being the most exciting times i

ever had in my business were when my

back was absolutely against the one

thing this is going down bizarrely i

found that quite invigorating but at one

point my shells all said look nick this

is never gonna work it's never gonna

make money by the time i got to the end

of it i was pretty much down to zero

[Music]

nick jenkins former ceo and founder of

moonpig a company now worth 1.6 billion

dollars nick's achievements are

miraculous he's incredibly inspiring and

he created a business that's touched

many of our lives but the thing that i

found even more intriguing about nick

was he bucks most of the typical

entrepreneurship and success narratives

i think we're all sold the belief and

the story that in order to be successful

in business or any discipline in life

you have to undergo tremendous sacrifice

you have to work yourself into the

ground nick and his story and his

philosophy disprove all of that

he's got another way of doing it if

listening to this episode does anything

outside of just inspiring the hell out

of you and giving you very practical

business information it will definitely

prove

in my view that there is no such thing

as a born entrepreneur and also once you

become an entrepreneur the path to

success isn't the same for everybody

a lot of what you've been told is a lie

without further ado i'm stephen bartlett

and this is the dire of a ceo i hope

nobody's listening but if you are then

please keep this to yourself

[Music]

nick

super intrigued when i meet

entrepreneurs um because there's

a huge sort of narrative and i guess a

debate that's happened in the

entrepreneurial community about whether

entrepreneurs are

made whether they're born whether it's

something that can be taught and

um from listening to you describe your

early years and your school years and

your upbringing um

i wondered what your opinion on that was

and also whether you think you were born

on japan

i think there are some traits that are

common to all entrepreneurs well one of

those is decisiveness you've got to be

able to take decisions and when i after

i worked in russia for a bit went and

did an mba and when i was there there

were lots of people on that course who

were brighter than me um but and they

would come up with a beautiful

powerpoint presentation of five

different choices of strategic options

but actually sometimes he's just got to

say i haven't got the perfect knowledge

let's go with that one and take a

decision and so i think decisiveness is

a very and really an attitude to risk is

is the other thing i think i always took

the view that you know i started with

nothing i could end up with nothing

and i it i wasn't that worried about

about failing um

and that's quite important and so so i

think those sort of things are are

innate you can teach someone like that

to be a better entrepreneur and to some

extent i mean i i went off and said the

business i had nothing else to do to be

honest at the time i came back from

russia and i had a spare year and i

thought i couldn't think of a good

cunning business plan so i'll do an mba

while i'm coming up with a cunning plan

and that that was that probably

made my first business a bit better

because i i gave me more of an idea of

the rounded idea of business and

um and and so on so so i think you can

improve on that but i don't think but if

you're if you're risk-averse you're not

going to do it where does where does

decisiveness and um that risk appetite

come from do you think in people and

what i guess where does the alternative

come from where does the fear

um and the lack of willingness to

to make a decision come from in people

or in you like where did it where did

that decision come from in you i don't

know you have some people who are

physically courageous they will leap in

you know rugby players will leap in and

do things and and other people who who

are not and then you have some people

who are

intellectually courageous who will just

um

they're just not afraid of saying

let's do it um um no i'm not i'm i'm not

sure but i think i think it comes from

not having a fear of a fear of failure

or not you know we're all going to make

mistakes and things will go wrong but

but uh if you're frightened of ever

making a mistake

um then then then you won't do it much

times like if you if you ski and you're

frightened of falling over you're never

going to be a great skier so you aren't

going to fall over you it's quite also

you were just talking about almost that

mental assessment you made on what

failure meant because you were like well

if i go to zero that's okay yeah that

doesn't mean death no no no no it

doesn't i mean it wouldn't be great you

know but but but it's survival and i and

i've of all the friends i've seen who've

gone through that and i've had a lot of

friends who've gone through uh who've

gone through business failures the ones

i admire the most are the ones who it's

the way they've dealt with that and some

of them have thought well i can't change

that i can't so all i can do is change

the way i approach the next step and

move on and if you just dwell on

failure what does that mean how does

that reflect on me um then

uh then you'd never

yeah you you'd never move on so

i think it's our own in our own attitude

to failure that's that's quite important

what was your underlying drive to even

start a business versus just going and

getting a job at i don't know pizza hut

or something

i suppose i probably looked at that and

thought if that goes well i'll probably

make more money per hour than if i go

and work with pizza so there's an

element of one want to i mean maybe

there's an element of laziness that

comes into this it's wanting to take

that shortcut and think well well

actually if i if i start my own business

and and that goes

and it goes well then

obviously

it's it's better than an hourly paid job

one of my great philosophies on business

is just keep everything as simple as you

can possibly make it until you have to

make it more complicated

um people often start they start you

know way too complicated and and and uh

over-engineer things that you if you

read that book the lean startup it kind

of talks talks to some of those values

about just trying to is find find the

simplest way to test the hypothesis as

cheaply as you can without using losing

years of your life and there's nothing

there's nothing quite like not actually

having any money to do that so when the

moon pig when when we we raised money on

a very bitty basis you know there was

never like a well that occasionally

would pour something in it and you know

you you you hear it hitting the bottom

but it never actually filled the well up

so we never really have much money to

experiment with so we had to be uh

very lean with what we did and i think

perhaps the one the one useful thing the

only textbook that i ever went back to

from my mba years was a statistics uh

textbook because what i wanted to work

out is the least money i could spend to

get a statistically significant answer

to how much a cost to customer

acquisition is for a particular channel

because why spend two and a half why

spend 25 000 pounds finding out that a

particular channel doesn't work for you

when you can get the answer for two and

a half thousand um and uh you must see

this all the time but i i you get people

who say we're going to spend a million

pounds on our when you've got too much

money you just let's throw some money at

this and see what works well why waste

it when you can get the answer for two

and a half grand yeah and then and then

and then and i always look at that and i

don't think i don't think i've wasted

two and a half grand i've spent two and

a half grand some of that will have been

let's say i was aiming for a 10-pound

cost of customer acquisition and and

actually it was 20. well then 1 250

pounds of that was spent on acquiring

customers at the right price and 1 250

pounds was spent on finding out that i

should never do that again

and that's that's the way i would look

at that but if i spent 25 000 pounds on

it yeah then you know it would have been

it would have been a waste and also if

you can the more

you spend money to find out the answers

to things and when you've got those

answers and you're then putting that in

your business plan to raise money i'm

always more impressed when people say

right i want to raise money for

marketing this is what we've done so far

this is what it cost us so far so if we

scale this up that's that's what we can

do as opposed to just saying

please give us lots of money to spend on

marketing we don't know what we're going

to do yet um yeah i had this

conversation actually with my gym owner

the other day i didn't even know that he

was um aware of who i was but i was

leaving the gym he goes can i just have

two minutes pulls me into the back room

and um he tells me about this idea and

to be fair i can't say the idea because

he and we're going to talk about this

topic as well he thinks that if you tell

the idea then i'm going to run off with

it we'll talk about that

all the time yeah we'll talk about that

straight after but um but but so it's

idea for rolling out gyms in the country

he said i need to i need to raise

investment to put 10 of them in and i

was like

your this idea you have is totally

contingent on this central hypothesis

i'm just going to say he doesn't podcast

that um

people that drive long haul want to work

out in service stations yeah you don't

need to put 10 in to figure out if that

hypothesis is correct you can put a

shipping container in the car park

keep it there for free and if anyone

picks up the dumbbells that's that's an

indication that your hypothesis is

correct and then introduce another

variable which is cost yeah so then

charge them to pick up the dumbbells and

if you if you come back to me

in six months time and say steve they

picked up the dumbbells they worked out

and they gave me 10 pounds a month then

all you need is capital yeah and we'll

go make ten of them yeah yeah we're on

the same page

you know i'll prove what you can prove

on the least amount of money first and

evidence is evidence is always so

important um

and people miss that but let's talk

about that topic then so this idea of it

really really it shows me that the

entrepreneur is somewhat naive when an

entrepreneur comes up i'm sure you get

this all the time they picture an idea

and then they say

well they sound cagey to tell you the

full thing because they think you're

going to run off and do it yeah yeah

yeah

when i would say to them look if you get

the the day you go live with that the

moment you start advertising that idea

you're you're opening you're lifting

your skirts to the whole world so uh so

you're gonna have to go live with us at

some point otherwise you're not going to

sell anything and if you don't sell

anything you're going to raise any money

from anybody so at some point you have

to

uh you you have to tell people what

you're doing with moon pig there was no

way that i could i could protect that

idea the only way you can protect it is

be the best and and and be the biggest

amen yeah

i mean and then i we had probably 20

competitors that followed after moon pig

you know during our time then they would

they'd pop up and they'd flare up and

then they'd die off again um and and

even now moon pig is 65 to the market

when you started moon pig was there

anyone else doing personalized um sort

of gifting cards online yeah funny

enough that there was there was a very i

came up with a business plan and i

developed it and then i looked the first

thing i always do is i look around not

just at what direct competitors i've got

but how people are trying to solve that

problem in other ways because you know

if you're trying to solve a problem

clearly that problem exists already and

people are trying to solve it in one way

or another and and i did come across a

company that was doing um

personalized greeting cards

and and i approached them and said oh

i've got a choice i can either i've come

up with this plan i can either do it

myself or i can invest in your business

and um and

and anyway he the terms he offered were

ridiculous and also the other problem

was i could see that is we would we were

going to fall out over the content of

the cards because um

i just didn't think he had a very good

eye for cards um without that business

anything ever turned over more than 300

000 a year

and then it died about two years later

um and uh and moon pig went so i i went

off and did my own thing and what it

taught me actually looking back at it is

that is that it was all about the

content it was about the quality of the

of the cars the quality of the design of

the cars because actually the customer

doesn't really care how the car was

produced they didn't care about the

technology at all what they want is the

end product and and we have the best end

product that's so interesting because um

a lot of entrepreneurs are put off from

starting an idea because when they

google their idea that they have they

find 10 of the people that are already

doing it and i i really want to touch on

this point because i think it's quite

liberating for entrepreneurs listening

when i started my business in fact every

business i've ever started that's been

successful had a major

incumbent already and we might we became

the biggest and it's exactly what you

described it's those there's probably a

thousand small details that go into

making a successful bit listen more

let's just say there's a thousand yeah

thousands more details like into making

your business and it's and um you're

basically going to war on a thousand

details yeah and if you can um

you know if you can be better in just

certain ways and sometimes you only need

to be better in a few simple ways

i think it can i i agree and but then

then

if you look at the example of bread um

people have been eating bread for

thousands of years you know people like

bread we know what people prefer to pay

for bread that's half of your market

research done already you don't have to

say we've got something called bread do

you do you like it you can you can get

some slices you just ham in the middle

and call it a sandwich

all that's been done for you so then

you've then got to work out right well i

know i know that there's a market for

this so how do i just make it a little

bit a little bit better do i make it as

a you know add seeds to it do i put

cumin in it do i or do i have a shop

that is in a location where that isn't

well served so you only have to tweak an

idea that's already there so your chance

of success your chance of succeeding

your chance of surviving is considerably

greater because you've answered most of

the questions already before you've even

invested any money um the chance of that

becoming the chance of multiplying by a

factor of a thousand and suddenly

thinking that's like the guy in shortage

has just invented stuff called bread

it's amazing never had it before um so

you don't get that and i think that's an

important thing for entrepreneurs to

think about is that you don't have to be

unique i think that's you know people

always are what's what's unique about

you just got to be i agree with you

you've got to be better in some respect

and um and people tie themselves in

knots trying to think of trying to

invent things so i think it's a really

hard it's the hardest possible way of

making money i mean actually when you i

i read a report about the fact that the

the people who've most people who've

made money have made money doing

something they were previously employed

to do

because because they've spent 20 years

learning how to do something they know

all the contacts and then they start up

their own business it's logical not you

know when i'm looking at investing in

people i think well you know this

industry really really well you're very

convincing um and and you you know all

the pitfalls in advance perhaps of

course you're more likely to succeed

yeah but they also know they also

because they know the pitfalls they know

that where the opportunity to create a

better product would be as well yeah

yeah you know because so often i will i

will come up with a business idea and

look at it and it's only after i've gone

through this sort of fourth iteration of

the business brand that i think

and that is why no one has done this

before

that's very very true um

if you'd known how hard it would be

um to start a business and to

um make it successful do you think you

would have started because i'm here i'm

asking i want to know a little bit about

the like the importance of delusion

well funny if that's something i've

always believed that an element of

self-delusion is very very important and

i think that's one of the reasons why

actually

when i i when i finished my b i did have

the opportunity to go and join a vc firm

i thought i could if i can work for vc

firm for three or four years i'll get

more experience before i start my own

business anyway i went for a job

interview shock horror they turned me

down so i had to go and start my own

business and and i realized now that if

i had gone through several years of

investing in other people's businesses i

probably would have developed that kind

of

uh that hard skin of of this is actually

incredibly hard but this is why this

won't work and i see that

i see that a lot now in me now that i

look at as an investor i look at a lot

of things and i'm

i'm less wide-eyed than i was when i

started moon pig and i can see the

reasons why something won't work and you

become you can become too cynical about

it

whereas when i started moon pig if i'd

known all the problems that i was going

to come up against i may not have

started it and believe me there were

plenty of times in the middle of that uh

when i would have happily given it up i

mean people often say whether was there

a difficult period and they said there

was just one but it lasted from 2000 to

2005. um and and it was

[Music]

that was difficult it was it was tough

and i was wondering how to pay the

salaries and i'd talk to me about the

detail of that difficult period well

as as as you know better than anybody

that starting a business is one thing

and coming up with a product that people

might want is one thing getting

customers is probably the single most

difficult thing about setting up any

online business um and i think most

people underestimate that and we we

tried all sorts of permutations and bear

in mind this was 2000 so this was well

before social media so a lot of stuff

was very manual um i you know you will

laugh at this but when i was when i was

doing affiliate deals i would phone up a

company and say we'll put an advert on

your thing and if you send any traffic

to us we'll give you a bit of commission

on this and i'll send you a spreadsheet

every week to tell you how much i owe

you literally it was that manual and i

would write up a contract for each

separate contract for each individual

company had a big filing cabinet of them

i mean this you know that sounds like

very dinosaurish but that's how it was

and now it's it's much much easier um

but we were

we were struggling to find ways ways

that we could throw money at driving

traffic because everything that we threw

money at was too expensive and the only

thing that was really working in all of

this was the viral effect that we knew

that

we were we got very very good at

measuring everything and and we could

see that if we brought 100 customers in

that and those 100 customers we knew

exactly how many them would buy cards we

knew how many of them wouldn't come back

again but of the ones that bought cards

we knew that they would attract about

for every customer

that we had they'd attract a third of a

customer just because i send you a

birthday card you think it's funny you

look on the back of it moonpig.com and

so that viral effect was the thing that

kept us going for five years and it was

only really because i understood the

statistics behind that and i could

understand the model and think right

although everything else appears to be

failing although this online campaign

doesn't appear to be too expensive that

appears to be too expensive and we we

can't i couldn't tell you if someone

gave me 10 million pounds i couldn't

have told you what we could have thrown

it at um to make it work i could see

that just the customers alone were

driving the sales growth and if only we

could survive that long that we would we

would make it through um but i was the

only person who believed that all of my

shareholders at one point my shells all

said look nick you know it's not going

to work this is never going to work it's

never going to make money and you you

know we're not going to put more money

in and we really recommend that you

don't put any more money in too because

when this all goes wrong you're going to

have to have some money to pay the rent

and and it was it was that bad um how

much did you had you bet on this

personally well i mean i put in i was i

i'd gone off and worked in russia for a

while and i probably made about a

million and and by the time

uh by the time i i put about 150 000

pounds into mubic at the beginning to

get the idea off the ground

by the time i got to the end of it um i

i was pretty much down to zero i think

i'd taken all the equity out of the flat

which previously had no mortgage i'd

taken all my savings and all that so i

pretty much got down to zero

so at the point where people are trying

to discourage you to

i was pretty much already at zero zero

anyway so so and that that's when it's

that's when finally it started to turn

and um you know but i could i could see

i could see the stats i could see where

it was going

um it's just that you know after four

years of

i've had three or four different

business plans you know i know the last

business plan wasn't you know inaccurate

but this one this one's better oh and i

know the previous two weren't that

accurate but this one this one this one

works yeah

it's tough that's that delusion did you

ever genuinely consider quitting

no no i didn't know because that big

because i because i could see where the

numbers were going and i had i did have

a firm belief that uh the repeat rate

was there um the viral effect was there

and i could see how i could see how we

weren't spending we went through a year

we spent no money on marketing

whatsoever no money on customer

acquisition and we and our sales grew by

30 percent

you know so that's now i appreciate

having invested in lots of other

e-commerce businesses i appreciate how

unusual that is um it was my first

business so i didn't know quite how

unusual it was but but i knew that

actually look it's not as if there's so

many businesses i see now that the

moment you turn the marketing tap off

yeah just goes to zero yeah and all you

and

and that's one of the things i'm always

really aware of when i'm aware of now

when i'm investing is when is it i said

well what what's going to happen when

you turn that money to turn that tap off

because because when we did turn that

tap off it just kept on growing and

that's what i see is the real quality of

a business is when you're adding layer

upon layer of customers now you know not

all businesses are as good at repeat

business as moon pig was but but that

was that that was the the thing that i

recognized that kept me going through

all that and stopped me from throwing

the towel in and that's thankfully

because you had a great product

underpinning

yeah

the the main focus was was do people do

people like what we're selling um and we

knew that we knew it's a very very

popular product we could see that in the

viral effect with people not only do

people who bought it liked it but the

people who received it liked it so

the main focus was always on

create a really really good product and

then of course on top of that you then

got to make sure that you've got your

production right so that your gross

margins are right and and you're

tweaking all of those little knobs

within within within that uh engine um

and um

and the the key thing also just is

understanding um is understanding every

every metric and we looked at like it's

like a lose run that you're polishing um

every day you're looking at is there is

there anywhere where anyone's getting

stuck along this journey and and are

they not understanding what we're you

know the button that they're supposed to

press next are they getting confused in

which polish that one out so there was a

constant process that that time when we

weren't spending any money on customer

acquisition we were spending all of our

money on uh on customer retention and

just polishing that lose run

of the customer coming in through the

front door and going into the shopping

basket when you reflect on that and the

the fact that moonpig ultimately

succeeded in a market where many others

failed you talked about you know the guy

that you whose business you tried to buy

and you say what was it about what we

did that made us succeed or what was it

about me

nick that made this business succeed

what is your answer well i think i think

i probably did have a good understanding

of what people wanted in a card

and the if you get down to the

the simplest version of that is that is

that a card is about showing someone

that you've uh you want to show them

that you've that it's relevant you've

thought about them so you've chosen

something which is relevant to them that

they're interested in or that's that's a

something you both find funny

and you can weave their name into that

as well um to make to show that you've

made an effort and then the double

whammy i would always personalize moon

picard have it sent back to me and write

on the inside so that's like a double

personalization and it's it it basically

is about showing you've really thought

about them and that's and and and it's

amusing as well and and the the great

thing is quirky british sense of humor

that we we love slightly mildly

offending each other and then we we

stick the cards up in our fridge

so

if you focus on that focus on the on on

the product everything else everything

else follows in behind that focus on the

product and then make it very very

efficient um and uh and everything else

should follow whereas whereas if you

don't focus on the product and you're

just constantly selling something that

people don't really want it's incredibly

hard work

on the product a lot of people have this

idea i think when they start businesses

that you have to have your hypothesis

your idea of what this business is going

to become the product of yourself

perfectly nailed before you um before

you launch and then you know i made the

mistake of when i started my business

kind of being too romantic about that

initial idea so i was trying to force

the idea into the world as opposed to

listening um if we'd go back before you

started moon pig

what what was your hypothesis like what

in terms of like personalization what

you know how did you arrive at a card it

was it was very simple actually i i

thought through the different ideas and

i and and i realized right the this

internet thing is is going to happen so

i don't know much about it but no one

else knows anything about it either but

i did at least understand how to build a

team so i spent 10 years in russia

building a team of people and building a

successful business um and

and i went through this thing of what

things could i what how can i use the

internet to make a business and digital

digital products were all being given

away for free so everyone had this idea

that if you could download it it ought

to be free well that's a hard one to

make money in

the advertising business back in those

days was incredibly tough because there

wasn't much of a market

not much spend was going online and you

were spending more money to get people

to come to your site to look at the

adverts and people are going to pay you

for the adverts that was tough too

then i looked at physical goods and if

you take say a digital camera one of

those things i looked at if i took my

sort of satsuma fujitsu 32db i figured

that somebody at some point would write

an algorithm that would merely compare

the price of my fujitsu 32dd with

someone else's and then they'd buy the

cheapest one and that ultimately would

end up squeezing all the margin out of

that game so you'd end up with a lot of

physical stocks stuffed

sitting in warehouses and minimal

margins so so i looked at one of the

things that i can what are the things i

can sell on the internet where i can

actually improve the product make it

better and personalization is one of

those things it's very difficult to do

personalization in store because it

takes up floor space and equipment and

so on um and um

and i thought of a number of different

things including uh personalized cds

well i'm really really glad i didn't do

that one and

cards occur to me because i used to um i

used to typically buy cards and tips out

the caption and write something a bit

funnier um more relevant and more

relevant on the front and and and

equally journalist friends of mine would

uh whenever anyone left the office

they'd be given a spoof magazine front

cover which would take a day and a half

of graphic design time to put together

and i and i figured

we got digital digital printing was

beginning to develop at the time and you

got the internet and it made it possible

to combine those two to make it possible

for someone to order a single

personalized greeting card which has got

hands down got to be better than the

unpersonalized thing and then i could

charge more for the product online than

for the product in the shop but more to

the point there's no stock

so um so what we've got is a pile of

cardboard in the corner of the room and

a pile of envelopes that's the only

stock which i think represented about a

quarter of a percent of turnover so

compared to the digital camera business

where you might have a whole load of

digital cameras on the water coming in

from wherever you buy them from loading

the warehouse and so on um it's it was

um it was a very efficient business

model i mean

i i gotta confess i probably slightly

stumbled on it rather than you know it

it being

i look at it now and think wow that that

accidentally was a really good business

model um you get paid up front you pay

supplies in 60 days there's no stock i

mean it's it's uh it was great

so um

but but fundamentally it was a better

product and on day one right from the

very beginning my

the business plan i came up with when i

was doing my mba was i want to to make

it possible for a customer to buy a

single personalized birthday card which

technology has suddenly made possible

whereas previously that would have been

200 quids worth of graphic design time a

bit of lie through i mean just not

possible but core to that

is that the person who's receiving it

has got to think that's a really cool

card

and there was a point where you made the

decision to sort of step back from

operations

i i've always tried to my general

approach this is uh is

try to focus on the things that only you

can do

um and

when you really narrow it down and you

become a bigger company you realize that

actually

that really does narrow it down a lot

because i was trying to hire people

replace the things that i was doing with

people who could do it better than i

could do it uh and then once they're

doing it better than i could do you

think gosh well i'm not going to

interfere with that anymore so leave

them to it and then it eventually then

comes down to um

uh to a role i i

my role eventually that became that of

executive chairman so i

brought in a ceo and i became executive

chairman and i suppose then my role was

that strategic role of making sure that

we're we're pointing in the right

direction and also that we take those

big decisions

what are you bad at

i'm i'm or not good not as good as

someone else's actually say

i i think i'm i'm a i'm good at

short-term detail i can i can sprint on

real fine detail um so i can i can sit

on a spreadsheet for six hours overnight

and come up with a beautiful bit of

financial modelling but i i've got a

million one things going on and and so

so so i don't know that i'm necessarily

a complete a finisher um and there are

people who are good at that so

interesting when i'm looking at hiring

people i i will often although

um i

academic results aren't everything

that you always need someone who has got

straight a's at a level because

they're very good at understanding the

question and delivering it delivering

the answer so they understand what's

expected of them and they deliver it in

a very predictable way

whereas

ceos can often be quite maverick and you

ask them one question and they will

answer something else completely

different but much more interesting

and that's fine you can afford to have

one or two of those mavericks but

somebody in the company has to be a good

completer finisher um they understand

the question and they deliver it have

you this is interesting so there's

certain people in my in my in my

previous business where i knew they were

like useless at organization and process

and they were they were just dread they

could they were like unreliable

but they had one skill which was genius

yeah and so it would almost be like

making an

exception for them within the company

where okay they might take a long time

to reply to emails and stuff like that

but that one point of like creative

genius that they brought to the company

was worth it yeah did you ever have that

very definitely you've got you've got

some people

i think creative genius always comes at

a price yeah

and and it becomes because someone has

focused on one thing at the expense of

something else generally um

and

and so you just have to work with it um

and and say right okay well that's

recognized person doesn't do that and

actually those skills can easily be

dealt with by something else that get

them a good

pa someone who can organ get a good

complete finisher behind them who picks

up after them and and and then they will

come up with the ideas that nobody else

would have come up with yeah i think

that works

you know i hate i hate

powder i hate mixing powder with water i

hate protein powders that you have to

mix with water

up until now and

obviously he'll sponsor this podcast so

i'm tremendously biased but that's a

that's a true story i've never been able

to use the like my protein powders that

you mix with water because i always

think they taste absolutely awful

up until hull released their brand new

protein flavor the amazing thing about

all of these proteins is there's 20

grams of protein you get all of your

vitamins and nutrients 26 of those and

as huel always is it's nutritionally

complete

and if you are someone that's trying to

go a little bit lower on the calories

it's only 105 calories so when i wake up

in the morning especially i've been

working out a lot lately come downstairs

quickly blend it together in my

nutribullet

drink it's 100 calories and then my next

sort of main meal because i'm a

breakfast skipper will be

at lunchtime highly recommend it um and

i shouldn't say this because i don't

have any approval to say this but

there's some amazing amazing flavors

coming in the ready to drink range that

i've been lucky enough to try

um

and

one of those is my new favorite flavor

so stay tuned you were talking about

that struggle you had for the first five

years of music specific i heard you

talking some interviews about you know

three four five etcetera being

particularly hard but um

what was what was the personal

sacrifice of that i'm thinking now about

how easy it was to maintain like

relationships and friendships when

you know in your head you probably have

that red

read those red numbers from the

management accounts and sort of etched

into your mind at all times can't be

honest never really got in the way

that never got in the way

no no i

i'm a lot of people confuse um that's

all we're running your own business

you're working all the hours at godsends

um i never did if something needs to be

done i could i if and only i could do it

then i would do it and there were time

you know there's the odd time when uh i

remember once when our entire printing

team uh uh

were off ill and

i came back from a business trip to

australia for most from australia to

discover that we were three three days

behind on on our printing schedule and i

simply i simply got in the printing room

i was the only other person qualified to

use the printer so i just sat in the

printing room and i worked uh

24 hours a day for two for three days i

think to get it all done so yes there

were times but but i had a great social

life i've always been a great believer

also that that i i need to i like to

manage a business

you know during reasonable hours i don't

i don't think it's important that people

need to sacrifice themselves on the

altar of my business and i don't like

them doing that one because it makes me

feel guilty about skyping off um you

know if you've got all of your whole of

your people in the office and they're

they're working 24 hours a day and and

you're sort of you know taking half the

day off to go and do something fun

i

feel awful um so

so i try to make sure the same standards

apply and and

and that people should people should

work a proper you know proper day's work

in the hours that they would

like to work within reason um but i do

expect them to go off and go and do

something different and recharge their

batteries in the evening and the

weekends and

you know because otherwise you just run

out of steam and particularly it was a

creative business you know we're

trying to make people laugh if you're

exhausted and miserable um

um that's tough

it goes against a lot of the sort of

typical narrative doesn't it in

entrepreneurship like the hustle porn

star entrepreneur who just like back in

doesn't sleep and

just caffeine and just you know they're

like crying in the street

like

and they're like you know eating ramen

noodles and stuff like that what does

that what does that narrative make you

uh make you think

well i think that's true if you start a

business with a lot of people start a

business with nothing and a lot of

businesses fail and and as those

businesses are failing clearly obviously

you're down to your last pennies and

that's tough and and and so i think that

the thing that they're describing is

that is the last sort of death throes of

a business and i you know i've seen lots

of businesses that i've invested in go

through the same thing where there is no

money left you can't pay salaries uh and

the the founders are down to uh you know

they're living in the office um under

the desk and and exactly eating noodles

uh and and

so that happens um

but

it but it is it isn't it isn't an

essential part of the journey but

generally the death rows

and occasionally you survive i mean you

know i had i not had had i not had that

last bit of cash that i put in i i may

well have been one of those cases um

what about focus a lot of entrepreneurs

you know have

i get a lot of messages from

entrepreneurs that have multiple

businesses

three or four startups they're doing at

the same time well i wouldn't invest in

anybody that had multiple startups

but what way you know because if i'd had

three businesses going at the same time

as a moon thinking was going badly you

you focus on the one that's going well

because it makes you feel better so

i

and then the person then they then they

turn around to the investors who put

money into the third one and they say

i'm yeah and i've given up with that one

i'm off to so there is no way i mean

when i invest in a business i would make

sure that there's a clause that says

that the foundation the founder

shareholders have to be 100 focused on

that they're not allowed to have more

than a four five percent stake in

another unlimited company i'm pretty

strict about that yeah i i mean i just

think it's laughable yeah absolutely

laughable that people come along and

they get you i've got three ideas and

i'd like you to invest in this one

but i've got those just in case that one

doesn't work yeah

for me it's for me as well i i tend to

think all three will fail because you're

giving like 30 in my way that i've even

if you're not prioritizing you're giving

33

of your time and energy

and all your competitors are giving 101

and a lot of them might be sleeping

under the desk so if you're giving 30

you're it's already hard enough to

succeed giving 100

yeah so you're really setting yourself

up to failure but i think there's this

weird thing where entrepreneurs find it

impressive

to some some entrepreneurs find it

impressive to list multiple businesses

that they're doing and i swear if i hear

an entrepreneur come to me with an idea

and they've also got another thing

they're doing i'm immediately deeply

unimpressed by them because i think

they've got this focus problem um

and maybe they're you know like maybe

they sat down and

tried to think of a business idea and

for me like when business ideas don't

come from some type of inspiration when

they're literally just contrived from

i'm going to try and think of a business

idea

i think that it's typically more

difficult i think like some form of

inspiration even if it's a small thing

of inspiration as a it's integral to

success

and creating something unique um

but yeah that's another thing that

irritates me about

i i i i get just as irritated by that

the times when you have to push on

through that barrier and if you've got

three things going

and one of them is an easier journey

that's where you're going to focus

yourself when in fact the that is the

absolute time that you need to be

completely focused on on on crashing

through that wall that you've come up

against

and and that's where

the best inspiration i ever had and

sometimes actually

looking back the most exciting times i

ever had in my business were when my

back was absolutely against the one

thing this is going down this is going

down and bizarrely i found that quite

invigorating

um when everything is going incredibly

well

there were times when i think

everything's going very well everyone's

doing their job frankly i could be here

and not be here it doesn't make much

difference um

in terms of skills as well as an

entrepreneur you i heard you talk about

public speaking being integral to

you did public speaking at university i

did i did a lot of public speaking at

university and a lot of debating and

the skill i think that's important is

the ability to be able to persuade

people of your ideas not necessarily

public speaking but in every meeting

that you go to you need to be able to

look people in the eye and convince them

that your idea is right and and that

could be in a sales role it could be

sitting around a table with a bunch of

developers and one of them saying i

think this is the right way forward if

you can't articulate yourself properly

then you're never going to be listened

to and that's a skill that i think is is

um

uh it's being recognized in schools i do

a lot in education now so i i see now

more and more they recognize that that's

a skill that is

really important that people should be

able to look someone in the eye and be

able to explain yourself very very

coherently i i tend to actually believe

i'd go one step further and think i

can't think of a more important skill in

life and business then we i call i refer

to it as sales because and we think of

sales we think of trying to get cash out

of someone else's pocket by giving them

something but i think if it was like

meet a girl in a nightclub you know try

and communicate your idea to your team

investors employees um everyone you

encounter i think is a to some degree

you're trying to sell something and it's

usually yourself yeah but and those that

are you think about how that compounds

over the over 70 years of your life

being good or bad at that one skill

will anything change the trajectory of

your life more than being like a good

sales person

and that comes from as you say from

being able to articulate yourself and

speak and

yeah and just think coherently and put

down

a logical argument that people think yes

okay i get that i understand it how does

one get better at that

i think a lot of that's practice

um and

i i think you know people make this uh

sort of binary thing between public

speaking standing on stage and speaking

to a crowd of people um versus not doing

anything at all and actually in between

there's a whole load of stuff which is

which is

working within a team and being able to

and that that's where most people come

up against it is that they'll be sitting

in a meeting with four or five other

people and they've got something they

want to say

and they

they if they're too nervous about saying

something they just don't say anything

at all and then their ideas are never

listened to yeah and then they're

devalued in that context and similarly

it may not necessarily be a spoken word

you've also got to be able to write well

and convincingly then there's another

side of it which is the numeracy side

and i find i find that the the most

convincing is when i went i i love a

good spreadsheet but uh but when you can

express ideas in in numbers and you say

look this is the model that works and

you can prove it in in numbers

it is it's a very convincing thing

particularly

yeah i think right if we do this this is

the evidence we've got

that's what will happen yeah that's very

convincing um so there's there's there's

also being numerous and being able to

explain things in numbers which

is yeah yeah it's so true yeah you can

be like orally persuasive which is you

know anecdotal persuasion i guess and

then you can be persuasive with numbers

which is uh or graphics and that's the

other thing i i do see the quality of

decks in the last 15 years has

dramatically improved um and

in that all that they're much much more

engaging and and there's some real

creative genius behind some of the stuff

i mean occasionally they don't talk

about the numbers which is

a beautiful beautiful peaceful

presentation and in a big sort of you

know you go through the the docs end and

it's all fantastic it looks lovely

beautiful graphics and then you think

you have kind of missed out the point

about how you're going to make any money

but so there's a lot more so again but

that comes down to how you persuade

people how you present how you present

ideas not all of us

not all of us understand things by

listening some people understand by

seeing i see patterns in numbers but not

everyone does and i i realize that now

that that just because i happen to see

something one way doesn't mean to say

that everybody else sees it in that way

and you have to understand how people

how people communicate one of the on

that point about you know persuasion and

communication um one of the most amazing

things that happened to me inadvertently

was um well one of them's right here i

started doing a podcast and i from i

never the unintended um consequence of

me

being forced to speak on stage because i

was running around the world talking

about marketing um and being forced to

write out and i do quotes on instagram

write these quotes every single day at 7

pm on instagram and then write i used to

write this podcast i used to just be on

my own um was that i a and was able to

develop my ideas better so if you ask me

any question marketing well i've already

written it out i've written written an

essay on it because i had to do a blog

because i had to wear my personal brand

or if you asked me something else about

my life i've already spent

you know a thousand hours talking on

this podcast about it was i became um

much i'd say 10x better at communicating

and the impact that i had on my life was

just profound so my conclusive point

here is i really think for young people

that there are ways to force yourself to

accelerate that learning yeah one of

them is like keep like you know

keep a blog yeah start a podcast even if

no one's listening to it

um

and i i i people will start podcasts

because they're trying to make money or

because they want to be famous or have

loads of followers but i but i think the

more beneficial thing

is the skill um

the skills you'll learn from doing it

and oh my god sales is just everything

to me yeah

you're right when you have to write a

blog actually write the words down it

really forces you to think about how to

express things coherently

in a way that

verbally you can get away with a lot

less discipline

dragon's done

something we share in common yes indeed

yeah i've just uh just started on the

show

um it was a yeah i mean

the first pitch everything walking in

behind the cell i mean i first watched

it when i was 12 years old

it was also surreal how was your

experience when dragons dragonstone

and what advice would you have for me

let's do the first question okay well so

my so i i love the experience um i mean

partly it because it's it's very

forgiving television to make in the

sense that uh you arrive on set apart

from the fact there are seven cameras

which was distracting for about the

first hour or two other than that it's

people walking through the door and

they're saying this is who i am this is

my business

and it's one of those things that i

think i think if you're

if you're thinking about that as a

potential career

it's about as realistic as you can get

while still being entertaining these are

these are real businesses that people

have spent sometimes several years

developing and put their life and soul

into it it's not some concocted thing

that um you know here's 100 pounds

go and see how much cheese you can sell

on the market at the type thing that you

see in the apprentice these are real

businesses and i think it's been very

inspiring i've seen a ground a real

shift in

the time that i've been around in

people's attitudes to becoming an

entrepreneur um because of yeah

partly but you know partly because i

think there's also been a shift in

attitude generally yeah and a lot of a

lot of young people aspire to the idea

that actually when you're young and

you've got nothing to lose

you can afford to make more mistakes so

rather than so you can just go straight

straight into it after after school

start something and

crash and burn start again and you can

do it all now from your phone as well

you know you can set up a shop

using shopify on your phone in a couple

of minutes and sell you know you can

even drop shop drop ship things so you

don't need a warehouse or anything like

that so it's very incredibly accessible

now yeah um more people young people

want to be entrepreneurs than ever

before but uh but but i i think it's it

i'm i'm really looking forward to seeing

uh and seeing this new series because i

think you will add a uh kind of a

different a different dimension to it in

terms of thinking particularly the way

that businesses now you know the way

that particularly tech businesses and

the way that they're funded

um is yeah it's very it's very different

from 20 years ago yeah

one of the things i didn't expect as

well was how useful the other dragons

are when it comes to analyzing the

business oh yeah yeah because they all

come from different disciplines so

deborah's going to help me with the

numbers over here and peter's got his

background in tech and you know

logistics and all the amazing things he

does and tuca's going to be able to

really sort of interrogate the supply

chain and sarah understands the craft

industry and business generally and um

so it was it's really uh they said

sometimes you just gotta let them

interrogate the business from all of

their angles i i learned a lot i learned

a very very important lesson from

deborah about um the food business and

going to supermarkets

she was interrogating somebody and and

talking about their gross margin and she

said well of course

as soon as your sales go up

your gross margin will go down i'm

thinking

what are you talking about

and then and i asked her about this

afterwards and she said well the problem

is that supermarkets love to have young

pioneer brands in uh and they

um and they will allow you to be on

their shelves so there's pyramid of

products and they allow you these little

innovative little companies to be to add

interest to their shelves the moment

that it looks interesting and you want

to sell more of it the supermarket is

aha now let's talk about the price

because they they know how to make that

stuff even better than you do they know

how to squeeze you down to a barely

acceptable margin and so your margin

which looked okay at the beginning and

they'll say well you can sell a lot more

but we're gonna have to have a different

price and that's and that was a lesson i

learned from deborah so so sitting back

and listening sometimes and and you know

like you know tuca's knowledge of supply

chain

and in textiles in particular it's quite

quite fascinating

so jumping back to your business then

moving so eventually you sell the

business yeah um fully or in part well i

sold i sold most of it in 2011 and i

rolled over

i rolled over into the venture capital

investment in the new in the new company

we basically merged two companies we

merged photo box and moon pick together

um with a lot of venture capital money

and and so i reinvested in that and then

we sold sold it all out in 2016.

um

so there's a couple of things here that

was the first point where you became

really rich

well

we moving started making a lot of money

before we sold oh right so we were

probably making about 10 million a year

in dividends um so

because it was making money faster

faster than we could spend it on

advertising so so so we just paid it out

as dividends i think

we paid out about 30 million pounds in

dividends before we sold oh wow so um

quite literally printing money so so by

the time i sold actually it wasn't as if

it was transformational because um

i i hadn't spent the money i i've still

got all the money that i'd taken out as

dividends so when when you so if you you

really built enough wealth to take care

of all of your sort of base basic maslow

over your needs clearly you know yeah so

when you when you sell

how how does that feel well it was funny

i i was i i was interviewed afterwards

and uh on sky i think and they said well

you know what are you gonna buy uh what

are you gonna do now

and i was like

what did you do immediately afterwards

and i thought well i cycled home and i

made a peanut butter and jam sandwich i

mean that was because

there was a

it's slightly

it's a bit of a weird anti-climax

selling i don't know how it was for you

but i went into a large room and i had

to sign about 200 documents um on my own

and then i sort of done it now and they

get a great well money have been banked

later on

back of the bike cycle home that was it

oh there was no sort of you know

no trumpets you know no signings shaking

hands it was it was um um quite a

non-event really so the money arrives

the same day when you've sold um yes

yeah well not not all of it i think it

was done it was done in stages but

mostly arrived on the same day yeah yeah

and so that you sold the company over a

100 million at the time yeah rolled

shares into the the holding company as

well um to keep it sort of invested in

an interest in the business

um

yeah i mean that's a that's a

[ __ ] ton of money did was there sort of

a loss in because you've given up your

your business here you've given up your

focus yeah your baby was there a bit of

a lot like a loss of orientation like

what do i do now with my life

yes though at the same time i think i

got to a point where i delegated

everything within the company and i had

been largely focused on the sale process

for a year or so so after that sales

process was over you think well

now the day-to-day running of this

business has been left to uh the the

team they're all doing a fantastic job

they're all bright and they're probably

better than i am

so me sticking around in that kind of if

i decided to carry on running the

business for profit i could have done

but i but i i felt as though i'd run my

course i felt as i added everything i

could add to that business and there

were lots of other things i wanted to do

in life um so

um

in a way it was

it was a challenge to sort of create an

identity outside of that you know

because for a long time i've been missed

a rusher i'd gone to russia and everyone

knew me as the person who went to russia

and did things in russia and then i did

as i started moving i fell into

obscurity again people think oh poor

nicki does something with greeting cards

um

and i go home at christmas

to back to shropshire and my parents

friends would say

so you do something with greeting cards

is that something you do

from your spare room yeah anyway very

very very i mean having because i'd run

quite a big business in russia and and

then of course it started it turned into

something serious um

so it was an interesting challenge which

is how do you sort of reinvent yourself

after that and i i i actually stopped i

went into the charity sector um

full-time and i became a ceo of a

children's charity for uh

for a year full time and then i became a

trustee of that for another four years

why um

well partly because i think i i'd

i think i sort of satisfied i felt as

i'd satisfied everything that i needed

to you know i didn't want any more stuff

so i wasn't

it was it was going to be hard to get

motivated just by making more money um

so so i wanted to have

i wanted to make sure whatever i did

after that was useful so socially useful

in some respect but for that you've got

to kind of do the work you've got to

understand

how to make a how to make a difference

and

and that first year really made me

realize how complicated it is and how

difficult it is to make a to make a real

difference um in the world um

uh so it's fascinating um and and i

wouldn't have been able to do that if i

hadn't if i hadn't sold the company i

wouldn't have the freedom to go off and

and and do that it's not interesting

that people they typically it's this is

a super like generalization and it's not

necessarily the truth but it appears

that we all start quite selfish in life

it's like let me get rich and free first

and then you see that transition when

people do make money is their joy comes

from philanthropy and helping others

i think but i think

you know in that very privileged

position of of

having seen what it's like afterwards

because of course for most people they

they want more things

i think

money a lack of financial problems can

bring you happiness not having financial

problems financial problems brings you

misery when you're beyond financial

problems um

you're neutral and then there's and then

there's and then there's financial

freedom which is i'm now free i don't

have to do the nine-to-five job

i have the option if i want to do to do

other things beyond that pretty i'd say

it's pretty diminishing marginal returns

i mean i think for some people

the more money they make it's about it's

not about the money itself it's more

about uh their position in our you know

you know if you're very competitive as a

hierarchy of people and there's someone

up there who's you know who's made

jeff bezos up there

and they see themselves on that

trajectory they'll never quite be happy

until they're up there and they'll never

get there so yeah um

i i realized very early on that if you

if that i wanted to avoid getting into

that

into that sort of competitive mindset of

thinking that i have to be somewhere on

that trajectory i've kind of you know

satisfied what i what i need in terms of

in terms of

you know stuff housing and whatever um

and then thereafter it's about being

free to explore other things one of the

things i noticed about you that's like

very different to the other um

successful people that i've talked to

and we touched on that a little bit was

you and we talked about a little bit

earlier but my question is i'm slightly

related um is

there seems to be a lot of like neurotic

obsession with people's

businesses hobbies i mean i remember

sitting with eddie hearn here and him

telling me how like how i mean his book

is called relentless like how relentless

he is and to the point where he will

sacrifice his family

to for the business and he'll tell him

he'll speak to have the conversation

with his wife and say my business is

everything if i you know don't make the

date if i don't make this then it is

what it is i am obsessed

um you don't seem to be like that

and that makes one would then therefore

assume

that

the problem that sometimes comes with

being like that which is a severe

cost to sort of relationships

wouldn't be present in you

i think you can be driven by two things

you can be driven by demons or driven by

passion

and it's much better to be driven by

passion than demons yeah some people are

some some people were offended at the

age of 11 by a comment that somebody

made to them that they'll never amount

to anything

and they have struggled ever since to

prove to that person that a teacher said

something bad to them and then finally

they go back sort of 35 years they go

back to school and and and they find

this old teacher who says well i always

thought you'd make something of yourself

and they think

[ __ ] i was hoping it's going to be more

gratifying

it was it was

you know the teacher might just say i

just felt you needed a bit of a kick um

to get yourself off you and it worked

didn't it um so um

some people are driven by

and the people who driven by demons are

often it doesn't make them happy like an

itch they're scratching and it just

makes it makes it worse amen eddie hands

basically like that and he he was quite

honest about that his dad basically he

was always trying to live up to his

dad's expectations of him

and i remember saying to him i remember

saying to eddie i was you know what's

the goal then eddie well you know we're

gonna sell it for five billion yeah and

then what

and then he's like well you know then i

you know i'll have my cigar and i'll go

to the beach do you actually think you'd

go to the beach cigar you just told me

you're obsessive and right and he goes

probably not probably probably

and actually the difficult thing is then

what do you do afterwards i think

because

i think it's one thing a lot of people

they think a business of starting a

business is about you start a business

and then you're working towards an exit

and happiness comes and exit it doesn't

happiness comes from the process of

building a business and working with

people and pulling together bright

people watching the work and creating

this thing i love the learning process i

think that's perhaps one of the other

things that i learned out of all of this

is that

i really really enjoy learning

and it doesn't matter how much money

you've got you can't learn japanese any

quicker but you can learn a little bit

quicker if you've got some really good

but basically you've got to put the work

in doesn't matter how rich you are you

can't buy that you've actually got to

put the work in that drives you so do

you think you're a balanced person i'm

trying to get i'll be honest what i'm

trying to understand here is

a lot of the entrepreneurs that i meet

that the reason why they're successful

is because of as you say you described

it perfectly because of demons or

something yeah and then that costs them

somewhere else yeah you seem to be as

was the case with the um the ceo of

delivery who sat here a couple weeks ago

fairly balanced person so i'm assuming

then you have really well-balanced

relationships

i think i got great friends and great

great friends and great relationships

and and a lovely family and um

um but but that's partly comes down to

it and part of it comes down to standing

back and thinking you know what is

success and i look at success that more

rounded thing what makes you a

successful human being

and and if you look at that then you're

constantly looking you're constantly

measuring yourself by well like actually

what do my friends think of me what do i

think i'm a good person am i a good

person i think i'm a good person um how

am i going to look look back at my life

and be embarrassed at the way that i've

trodden on people on the way up and and

and in which case you know don't tread

on people on the way up

so it depends on what you regard as

success what you define as success in

the beginning i think unfortunately we

too often we measure the things that are

easiest to measure and the easiest thing

to measure is how wealthy someone is um

so

when i go back to talk to talk at

schools about about all my old school

about about and you're invited along

presumably because everyone's heard of a

business that you've created i i'm

reluctant to create this illusion that

that you know if you work incredibly

hard you can make a lot of money and

that will make you successful you have

to be a successful human being

what is a successful human being well i

think it's all the you know those things

that one you've got to be you've got to

be a good citizen you've got to make

your fair contra you've got to make a

good contribution to society now if

you're good at business um you are of

course helping to pay a lot of the bills

which is a great thing um if you pay

your taxes properly but the um

but but but equally it's about the way

that you treat your employees it's about

the way that you treat the people around

you um and

all of those things i think the things

that you look back on your own life and

you think did i did i lead a good life

um was i was i was i a good person um or

do i regret look back and think you know

i was a bit harsh

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as you look ahead in you know the next

chapter of your life yeah we talked you

talked there about how the journey is

actually there where all the fun and

fulfillment lives yeah um and you kind

of like because i think we all kind of

like mentally map out what the next

phase of our life will look like we

don't necessarily know the details that

have a business plan but we understand

like the the fundamentals of that phase

what what are you what are you hoping

will be

part of that phase um

at the stage of life you're at where

money isn't you know money isn't gonna

mean that you can can or can't eat um

what are you trying to put into that

chapter of your life well um the other

thing i've realized um and i i listened

to something bill gates said which is

that if bill gates had become a doctor

he could have affected quite a few

people's lives but by going into

business he affected millions of

people's lives and he was very good at

making money and so i don't see anything

wrong with pursuing i mean now

i'm actively pursuing the businesses

that i that i'm involved with and i

would love to make more money but then

that gives me the freedom to do

something useful with that money it as a

whole other dimension to why are you

doing it i mean i'm chasing because i

need another lamborghini

because i've got a very old battered

discovery and a lamborghini

it's just not what i was going to say i

can imagine you're in a landfill no no

i'm just a very very tired old discovery

which i'm driving into the ground before

i buy an electric car but there's got to

be a reason for doing it and and you

know the reason

the reason for creating companies partly