Solly Solomou, Founder & CEO @ LADbible Group: From Penniless Shop Offices to Public Company | E1259

All I knew was I had to make more money than I spent, and that was what I had to create. I didn't really understand the concept of taking on investment and growing a business, so from day one, we were profitable.

Solly, this is so special for me to have you in the studio. You've become a friend, and I'm an avid follower of the LADbible journey. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me on. I feel very privileged. This is my first and exclusive episode on a podcast, so I feel very privileged on that basis that you've had me on, and I'm very pleased it's with you.

I'm so excited that you made us your first podcast—your podcast cherry. The joys of editing always work.

1. How LadBible Was Born

Tell me, I want to start with the 12-year journey. I read that it started at a printer shop in a tiny, tiny office. Can you take me back to that? How did you come up with the idea for LADbible?

If I take you back to me growing up, I was the kid who was selling sweets at school. I was the guy who understood exactly which sweets were going to sell and which ones weren't, and then negotiated with the newsagent or the different places where I could buy the sweets. I'd buy them in bulk, bring them into school, and sell them.

I was that kid growing up. I also had clothes that I would buy and sell. Sometimes I'd have a knock on the door, and it would be one of my friend's parents coming around to buy some clothes. Growing up, I always had this urge to do business. I didn't even know what the word entrepreneur was, but I had this urge to go into that avenue. It felt natural to me.

I followed the course of going to university, which is where I started the business, and I was going down this path of, "I'm going to do a business management course, I'm going to work for a big business, and that's my career." The sweets, the clothes and all of this kind of stuff I was doing before university—maybe that wasn't exactly what I needed to be doing. I needed to be serious. That was the mindset I had going into it.

Coming into my third year of university, we had to pick a business to go and do a year in industry with. As we got closer and closer to it, I had all of these ideas of different businesses that maybe I wanted to do. I was chatting with my Enterprise Department professor, Professor Nigel Lockett—an absolute legend—and he said, "I've got this idea that I would like to potentially give people like you the opportunity to start your own business in a year in industry. Would you be my guinea pig?"

That was completely exciting for me because I could take this idea that I had and bring it to life. The university supported me with mentorship, funding and other things like that. If it didn't work out, I was going back to university, which just felt like the dream. I'd got this opportunity to start something without the risk of not knowing where I was going to go afterwards, at such a young age, with Nigel's brother as a mentor and a load of other support around it. This was just amazing to me.

Trying to explain to my parents that I was going to start this online student community for recommending different bars, clubs and cafés was a bit like, "What? You've gone down this path of education, gone to university, and we thought you were going to go down this route." We got over that hump, and in fairness to them, they were completely supportive.

Can I ask you a blunt question? Do you think you would have taken the risk if you hadn't had the mentorship, the funding and that year of, bluntly, guardrails around you to allow yourself to do it without the risk?

I believe I would have found my way into that path. At the time, I didn't know, but you find your place, your natural place. For me, ideas, creating something and building something were things I was passionate about. Before I knew it, this online student community was something that I had to bring to life.

Day one: did we have any money? Who funded this, and how did we actually start it?

Through my endeavors early doors, I'd made a decent sum of money. I had some money that I'd saved up—not from the sweets, which was probably a smaller play, but certainly from the clothes and a few other endeavors—and I invested that into it. I also got some funding from the university.

Can I be blunt? How much did you invest?

Straight away, I probably had to lay out about £3,000–£4,000 to facilitate doing the year in industry. Obviously, I had accommodation, and I decided to get an office space straight away, which was above a printer shop. It did look like a prison because it had prison bars across it.

And all in, you're paying about a grand a year for it?

Exactly. I had to keep the cost base low. I didn't understand the concept of getting investment. All I knew was I had to make more money than I spent, and that was what I had to create. That was my mindset from the off. I didn't really understand the concept of taking on investment and growing a business, so from day one, we were profitable.

Even with the first business, which was the online student community rating different bars, clubs and cafés, we were profitable.

So that was the first product for LADbible?

It wasn't. It was the gateway to LADbible. I was doing all sorts of crazy things to market this thing. It was a chicken-and-egg situation: I needed audience members to come to my website and consume this for free, and I then needed customers to advertise different cafés, bars and clubs.

I needed to get the traffic, which I was doing through all of these different means. I was utilizing the printer shop by getting bags printed with the logo and sending them all around the different takeaway companies. I was doing flyers and all of that kind of stuff. Then I was going around the cafés, bars and clubs and selling them advertising space. I had to get both of these sides operating.

My granddad, who's an important figure for me—this is a funny story—bought me this suit. I think he always wanted me to go into business and associated it with wearing a big suit. It was a big suit, with drainpipes—the kind of old-school suit. I remember, for the first couple of weeks, wearing that suit to go and see the bars, clubs and cafés. Quite quickly, I realized it probably wasn't a good idea, and I should put it away.

I was just figuring it out. It was so raw. I was trying to figure out how to start a business. I remember sitting there with a whiteboard, trying to work out: What's a business plan? How do I write this thing? How am I going to get that traffic? How am I going to get this advertising money?

I guess where it really kicked on was when I was exploring different forms of marketing to ramp up the traffic. Around the time, everyone our age was on Facebook. This was 2012. Facebook at the time hadn't even listed. It was still the dot-com, and you remember the old website, the blue and white. I think it had moved past "The Facebook" to Facebook. However, it didn't even really have a mobile app.

Everyone was on Facebook, and I explored email marketing, TV marketing and magazine marketing. It was all too expensive. Then I came to Facebook, and everyone was following this page called LADbible. It had half a million people on it. I thought, "You know what? This is interesting." It was mainly based around students, and it had half a million people. This could be a really interesting angle to market this website over here.

I got chatting to the person who created it, Alex Partridge, who also has a very successful podcast now, ADHD Chatter. We were chatting away, and I thought, "I'm going to offer to buy it." We had a bit of back-and-forth, he accepted, and I bought the LADbible page.

How much did you buy the LADbible for?

He was in the low thousands. I won't say specifically how much, but it was in the low thousands. I remember sitting there nervous because, yes, that's a great deal, but I'm sure at the time—

For whatever reason, and fair play to my mum, I couldn't transfer that amount of money from my bank. I don't know why; I just couldn't. I used my mum's bank, and I had to explain this to her. She was like, "What? What is Facebook? What is this thing?" I was like, "Don't worry about it. It's all good."

She transferred the money, we got access and it all came across. I remember lying there on my bed thinking, "What the hell have I just done? What the hell have I just done?" I'd just spent a huge amount of money. At this point, I was burning through maybe 60% or 70% of the money that I'd saved up from previous endeavors, the funding and everything else.

I remember sitting there thinking, "I've really got to make this work. I don't know how I'm going to make this work, but I need to make this work. I need to figure it out." Obviously, I couldn't have imagined where we are right now: 500 people across the UK, Ireland and the US, and 500 million followers across all platforms. It just wasn't even in my vocabulary then.

2. Do Founders Thrive Under Pressure or Safety Nets?

Before we go to the next step, I do have to ask: when you think about "I have to make it work," it's in stark contrast to, "I had the guardrails of a year, the mentorship and the funding." Do you think you operate, and do you think entrepreneurs operate, better in environments where there is downside protection, or in a do-or-die situation where you have nothing if this goes wrong?

Completely, completely. I believe entrepreneurs are creatives at heart, and I think if you have too much to lose, that creative process is ruined. For me, I believe in that pressure that creates the output.

I'll never forget, about a year down the line, we'd shifted focus to LADbible as the business.

You dropped the student website?

That was a little bit later on. We had a website developed; I'll talk a little bit about that. But our Facebook page went down. One day I woke up and it had just disappeared. There was no email, no nothing—it just disappeared.

Obviously, my heart sank. I went to work thinking, "How am I going to speak to someone at Facebook? How am I going to speak to someone who can help me sort this out?" In fairness, it wasn't too accessible to speak to them. I remember going across LinkedIn, messaging all sorts of different people, and we managed to get through to the CTO.

We spoke to the CTO at the time, who very kindly spoke to us. He didn't have to take the call, but he took the call. In fairness, a week later it was sorted. He explained what it was, we sorted out some paperwork, and it ended up being verification.

The funny story about that is that my dad's account was also linked to the Facebook account, and we were using that to post, as well as other accounts. We just had this extra account to post from, and we had to verify some of my dad's friends that he had gone to school with about 40 years ago to get the account back.

I remember being on the phone to my dad saying, "Dad, can you see this picture? Is that person that person? Is that name?" It was multiple choice. I don't know if you remember these kinds of security checks and all that kind of stuff, but it felt like the future of the business was hinged on this moment—on my dad being able to recognize this random person who he wasn't in touch with anymore from school and get it right. Thankfully, we got it right.

We went through all sorts of challenges along the way, whether it was figuring out how to get the account back via the CTO, going through this verification process, or trying to figure out how to deal with the level of traffic that we were generating because we'd have these huge spikes.

I want to go to that because you acquire the page from Alex, and it's already got half a million people. Now you're in charge, and you have to make sure that you can maintain and grow the traffic. How did you do that? I know it's a blunt question.

Very early doors, we brought in some brilliant people. At university, they would send bulk emails, sometimes accidentally, to everybody in the business school. I took all of those emails and sent a note around saying, "Who would like to do some work experience?" I had a huge number of applicants.

Even in the early days, when we had this office above the printer shop, I had about 5 people at a time on rotation coming through and doing work experience. These were really smart people—university undergraduates, amazing people—coming in and helping grow the business.

We had some really smart people early doors helping us figure out how to build this brand, take it in a different direction from where it was, have a website built and figure out how to deal with the traffic that the spike had created. We had student developers and all sorts of people in there.

As we got further along, we started to find people who had created their own accounts on social media. As we started to grow the business, we started to get more advertisers and generate more revenue from the website, which happened really quickly.

3. The First Steps to Making Money

How did you first start to make money?

It was through 2 means. The first was consultancy. We had all sorts of people getting in touch with us saying, "Can you help us grow our Facebook account?" If you remember that time, everyone was saying, "Is a Facebook like worth £1? Is it worth 50p? Is it worth £2?" I always remember those conversations.

Everybody knew it was something they needed to be on to reach millennials and young adults. However, no one fully understood where it was going to go. We had a few companies approach us, and we put deals in place that said, "If we help you grow your Facebook account to this number, we would get this fee." We did that a number of times.

Again, going back to that profitability since day one, that was always important to us. We got some annual deals in place.

Do you think that's a good thing? Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but if I was your adviser, I'd say, "You're sacrificing the growth of LADbible's core channel for consulting on the side to grow someone else's channel."

I guess even our business model today has a big aspect of consultancy. We work with Nike, Vodafone, Unilever and P&G—some of the biggest brands in the world. What they want to understand is how to tap into young adults.

Obviously, now, tapping into young adults on social is more well-known. Back then, it was this new thing that we thought was going to be something, and we probably needed to put some innovation cash towards it. Now it's obviously a much bigger thing.

Even in our interactions to date, where we've got the likes of Uber sponsoring one of our biggest formats, Snack Wars, there's an aspect of consultancy in that. That consultancy for us is understanding millennials and Gen Z, the audiences, and helping brands connect with them in an authentic way.

I'll never forget—you should have worked with Jaguar.

I mean, no comment.

No, I mean, the new car—have you seen the new car? It looks terrible.

You know what? Matte black. I'd have it matte black.

You'd have it?

I'd have it matte black.

I'd take it in matte black.

I'd take it in matte black. Maybe famous last words, but let's do a thing: if this show reaches 10 million views, I'll buy it for you in that.

Okay, okay, deal.

Do not watch.

Deal. That is amazing.

We do a lot around consultancy and helping brands connect with and understand how to speak to that audience. I'll never forget when we first started to get agencies and clients—big blue chips—contacting us. Unilever and Activision were the first 2, and the kind of thing they wanted to do was just put a TV commercial on our accounts.

We were like, "From an audience perspective, from a consumer perspective, that will feel really odd. You need to speak to them in a language that they understand. You need to understand the platform and the environment that things are in, and we need to make it authentic."

They completely trusted us. They gave us the keys to the campaign, gave us a broad brief and just said, "Make this pop." We got it trending on Twitter, got it massively blowing up across Facebook, and again, reached those millennial audience bases that they were after.

This then led us to a huge amount of outreach: continuing to work with Activision, continuing to work with Unilever, and also working with the agency that effectively got in touch with us, wanting to work with us in a bigger way across multiple clients.

Going back again to those early days, we had consultancy there, and then we also had the advertising on the core channel.

When did it really hit? When were you like, "Oh my God, we have something that could be very big"?

I remember this moment. We were in Manchester, our team was probably about 25, and we had the best people who understood how to create the best Twitter and Facebook accounts in the country. I'd say we had a group of them working in Manchester. Some moved up, and some were based in the north.

4. How to Hire Top Talent

I've got to interrupt you. How do you hire them? It is really hard to find these people.

That is probably my single hardest job in the media company: to find people who truly understand social.

Well, we all knew each other. It was like a community. Back then, we were direct-messaging each other on Twitter, chatting with each other on different messaging platforms and so on. We were in groups together, and we all knew each other.

For these guys, they were all in jobs. One was in a call center, another was working in a nightclub and others were in all of these different places. This was super early doors. Don't forget, Facebook was launched in 2004, YouTube was launched in 2005, Facebook had only just listed in 2012, Snapchat came in 2014, and TikTok came in 2016.

This was early doors, when people were not making a living out of something that they loved doing. We brought them in, gave them a career, and they loved it. Lots of them still work for us today, and we've continued that on.

I think that's why this is tougher, because, bluntly, anyone who is really, really good at content creation can create it themselves and make a lot of money.

Absolutely. I saw a statistic that 11% of the US population classify themselves as content creators. Obviously, the number of people who create content is much higher, but 11% is still a huge number.

For a lot of them, unless they get lucky with a big brand deal or have a partnership in place, it isn't a career. A lot of them fail. What we can do is partner with the big creators, and we do that with some of the biggest names out there, whether that's appearing on our shows—the likes of Sidemen and MrBeast and all of these different players—collaborating with them on campaigns, or giving content creators a career.

But just going back to the question that you asked me about that moment, I remember being sat in Manchester, in the Macdonald Manchester Hotel, and we managed to get Ice Cube, Kevin Hart and Stormzy, who was not big at the time, in a hotel room doing a rap battle.

We had Kevin Hart and Stormzy doing a rap battle governed by Ice Cube, the one and only, and it absolutely went off.

When you say it went off, you mean when you released it, it just went off?

I think it's on about 10 million views. This was before Stormzy was big. Kevin Hart and Ice Cube were obviously massive, but Kevin Hart has become huge.

For me, that moment—being sat there in a hotel in Manchester, getting 2 huge names in a room and having a rap battle with this up-and-coming UK star, and them doing it for LADbible—was a big moment. We had about 25 people, but from an audience perspective, it was huge.

After that, we started to really build out the portfolio. We built out SPORTbible and GAMINGbible.

Talk to me about the thinking behind that. Was it, "Okay, wow, we see the audience growth. Audience growth aligns to the stature of people. We need to have ballers on our platform, and that's what we should focus on"?

I guess we didn't realize it at the time, but we were on the cusp of a massive wave that was forming. Magazines, newspapers, even traditional media...

Traditional media, as we know it, was changing. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and the emergence of these platforms over time—we understood better than anyone how to interact with Millennial audiences and really give them what they wanted, whether that was escapism across gaming, tech, or sport.

We knew how to connect with them in an authentic way, better than some of the players that had traditionally been capturing that younger audience. I guess we’ve carried that through to Gen Z. As TikTok emerged and Instagram emerged back in 2014, I think it was, we were so quick to adapt, get on those platforms, and grow and scale an audience.

For us, it comes back to understanding culture, understanding those audiences, and understanding how to connect with them in an authentic way.

I’m literally just getting a tree of options for where I can go, and I want to do every branch of this tree. We’re going to take it one by one. You mentioned SPORTbible and the different verticals. Did each of them work very quickly? I think the biggest mistake that people make with content is that they don’t give it enough time. They start, and 2 months in they don’t have that many followers, and they’re like, “No, no one wants it.” It’s like, “No, no, no, it takes time.” Did each of them work very quickly?

It took time and investment. First things first: get the right people—the people who are living and breathing those different passion points, whether it’s gaming, sport, tech, or whatever it may be. Betches, of course, we can come on to that, but get the people who understand those audiences inside out and understand the platform and how to speak to them.

Then empower them with tech, tools, dashboards, and data that help them make better-informed decisions. Very early on, we had a tech team from the beginning of the company. We had a 2-person tech team—I think it was our 5th hire—and we grew and built our data, insights, and tech tools.

We empowered these creatives, which I guess in a traditional world you’d have on one side of the room, and the data people on the other side of the room, and they would just butt heads. For us, we very much encouraged and actually hired people who embraced creativity and data as 1. A good thumbnail can be the difference between 1 million views and 1,000 views, and really mastering that art is the same on every single platform.

5. Culture and Leadership Lessons

If you put the content forward in the right way, it can make a huge difference. Getting those people who understood those passion points and understood the platforms, and really scaling it out—we have just been relentless at this.

I often say in our world, you’ve got the legacy brands, then you’ve got the meme players, and in between here you’ve got a few successful people who’ve created brands that people resonate with, know, and love. Betches, for me, is a great example of that.

When I went over to the US and we looked at potentially partnering with Betches and bringing them into the fold in our business, I was asking people what they thought of Betches—Millennial and Gen Z women, what they thought about Betches over in the States. They’d built an amazing brand, but from the outside, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The immediate reaction that you get is, “I love Betches.” It wasn’t just, “I think I’ve heard of it.” It was, “I love Betches.” This was further reinforced when I went to a comedy event that they put on, which sold out in 10 minutes. They had hundreds and hundreds of people there at this amazing sit-down event, and they put tons of these on each year.

For me, that’s an example of building a brand that people trust and love. It’s the same here in the UK with LADbible. If you ask people about LADbible or one of our different brands, you don’t get, “They know it.” Quite often, you get a big smile on your face and, “Yeah, I love it.”

That comes back to our mission and what we’ve looked to do. I’m often asked, “Do you enjoy what you do?” I say to people, “We make tens of millions of people smile and laugh every day.” We bring smiles and laughs to people’s faces. We give people an opportunity to escape the madness of the world.

There’s so much mad stuff going on in the world. We give them 10, 15, 20 minutes, or an hour to escape that world, and we’ve also got the ability to change society.

6. Biggest Expansion Mistakes at LadBible

Did any of the verticals not work when you look at the expansions that you made?

Yeah, we definitely had failures.

Which one? What happened?

I forget the failures. That’s it for me: I always think that you learn. My biggest failure, honestly—and this is terrible—is that we waited 8 years to do YouTube, and that is criminal.

Yeah, yeah. What was the biggest?

We’ve had a ton of failures. I’d probably say not going into the US sooner. If I was to rewrite the script on our story, I definitely would have started the business in the US.

The reason for that is the size and scale of the market. You’re talking about a $400 billion market versus the £70 billion market here. It’s huge. We’ve been very successful here, and the UK market is integral. We want to be market leaders in entertainment in the next 5 years.

However, if we did the same thing in the US, it would be a different scale. We’ve corrected that. A couple of years ago, we started our office out in the States. Someone who had been with us for 10 years went and started organically, and then through being a listed business and having access to capital, which we did 3 years ago, it really gave us the firepower to accelerate that journey.

I would say that if I could rewrite the script and do something slightly different, I’d do it the other way around. However, we’ve done a great job of building a business in the UK and holding a market.

Do you think you would have won in the US like you have done in the UK?

We are actually in a relatively similar position. I often think back to when I was 18. I was offered jobs in the Valley, and I would be surrounded by very different people and very different types of companies. The honest truth is, I don’t know if I would win, because this competition is so different. The multitude of players is so different. I can win Europe. I don’t know if I can win the US.

You can.

Well, now I really regret it. I believe that we could, yes. The reason for that is that in the UK we’re very conservative. We have a nice chat before we do business. In the US, and in particular New York, it’s straight to it, straight to the hustle, and they celebrate success in a big way.

If you’re hungry, ambitious, and willing to roll your sleeves up, what a place that is to do business. I love the UK, and sometimes it’s a bit much when you go to the States. You go to New York and it’s straight down to business, and you don’t have those chats.

I believe it’s a great environment to grow a business, and the culture there is supportive.

What did you not expect about expanding into the US? What was the surprise?

It’s like a lot of countries in 1 massive country, and each one has such a different culture. The views are so extreme, again, to the left and the right. What you’re interested in and what is niche over here is not niche over there. It’s huge.

My brother has these old-school cameras, and I would never see anyone walking around in the UK with 1 of these. It’s niche. We were walking around in New York and saw 5 people over the course of a week who had these same old-school cameras. That really clicked for me that this place is huge.

You really have to pick something and be the best at it, even if it’s a niche. I guess what Betches has done, really homing in on that Millennial and Gen Z women’s audience base, is really understanding them in an authentic manner. They’ve done a brilliant job of going deep into that and connecting with them in an authentic way.

I’m learning a lot from them, whether it’s their podcast business—they’ve got a podcast business that has been very successful—or their 3 amazing founders, who are creatives as well as entrepreneurs. They have their own podcast that they do together, and each of them is a celebrity, a name in their own right. I’m learning huge amounts from them.

To go in there and think that you could just take the UK style and repeat it in the US is not going to fly.

So, in terms of expansion to the US, that’s what you didn’t do that you wish you’d done. What did you do that you wish you hadn’t done?

I’d probably say hire too fast at times. Over time, I had this mindset that it’s all about the vision, it’s all about the vision, it’s all about the vision. It’s all about the technical skill set, and I put no emphasis on culture.

This was early doors. I had no understanding of it. Sometimes what I would do is hire very, very quickly, bring people into the business, and think, “This person’s got an amazing technical skill set,” or, “They’ve got an experience that we just don’t have in the business,” without thinking, “Is this person going to gel with that other person to the left of them or to the right of them?”

When you’re creating a team, 1 great individual, for sure, can make a massive difference. But when you’ve got a team who are working together, trust each other, and create something amazing together, that’s something else.

For me, it’s putting more emphasis on taking a little bit more time with hiring, being clear on what the culture is, and also accepting that maybe that person with that additional experience or technical skill set is probably not the right person on the basis that they under-index on cultural fit and therefore are going to create chaos.

From my perspective, that learning over time—understanding who we are, what we are, and what kind of person works with our business—is probably the thing that I’ve got wrong a couple of times. Well, lots of times. Learning how to get better at that over time has been important.

When did you realize you hired too fast, and how do you correct for that?

The pandemic, as many talk about it, is the classic one. You went on a hiring spree.

Yeah.

We went on a hiring spree at a time when it was difficult to measure cultural fit. I’ve heard this before, and we grew. I won’t dwell on this one, because Jason Citron at Discord was like, “We went from 200 to 1,000 in the pandemic.”

Wow, 5x.

We probably added a couple of hundred in, so not quite to that level, but enough. We have a great culture. When you walk into our office, it’s noisy. You can hear everyone chatting. You can hear that whole creative process going on, whether that’s creating a piece of content, creating a new idea for a format, or thinking about how a client can weave into culture.

That connectivity and creativity in our business is our superpower. From that perspective, making sure that we get this right has always been important.

We’ve had a few points, whether it’s when we acquired a business—we acquired UNILAD, which was another business in our space. Again, there were lots of people with a similar culture, but people who were different. That was another experience in itself, where you’re basically putting together 2 businesses, 200 people each at the time, and trying to get them to connect.

How do we get the teams working together with slightly different cultures? I keep coming back to culture, because for us it’s so important. We’ve got it wrong and it’s impacted the business. We’ve got it right and it’s impacted the business in a really positive way.

It’s an ongoing investment to keep that culture, grow the culture, and evolve it, but in the right way.

I put out a tweet this morning that I’m getting a lot of love and hate for. I said, honestly, we all just talk shit about culture. The only thing that matters about culture is that you have momentum, that you’re moving forward, and that you’re successful. I’ve never met a really successful company with a shit culture.

Yeah, Revolut is a great example of that. It’s not a fluffy culture, but the company is humming, the IPO is in sight, and the culture is on fire.

You can have a lovely culture and the company’s going to shit. I don’t think so. That’s it. What you talked about there—

My definition of culture, and what we hold in high importance, is people who want to grow and evolve. We often talk about the mountain: the further up you go, the lower the altitude, the less oxygen, and the harder it gets.

We talk about the English football—or, for the Americans out there, soccer—tiers. Where we want to go is from, let’s say, a quarter of the way up the mountain and get as far as we possibly can to the top and to the pinnacle of the mountain.

The kinds of businesses that I classify up there, coming back to where we want to be, which is a global entertainment powerhouse, include businesses like Disney, Nike, Red Bull, and Apple. These businesses have created something incredible, from a product standpoint and from a customer-experience standpoint, in 1 lifetime.

For us, going from a quarter of the way up the mountain to as close as we can get to that pinnacle is going to take some serious work. We’re going to need people who are ambitious, hungry, and want to grow every year. Their job is not the same every year.

Every year that has gone on, my job has been different, whether that’s been going from a private business to a public business, having an American element to our business, or growing from 100 to 500. Each element of our business and its evolution has meant that my job has been different.

We need people who want to embrace that and are excited by that, as well as having each other’s backs and building a trustworthy culture between them.

I think values are important, and I think everyone gets them wrong, because you have to be for or against values. Our value is, “Direct is never rude.” If I sit down and say, “Solly, this is shit,” you can’t go, “That took me so much time, and I really feel hurt that you don’t like it.” It’s never rude. We’re all here to win and grow.

Some people disagree that direct can be too rude. Another one is, “Longer hours lead to more success. The harder you work, the more likely you are to be successful.” Some people disagree with that too. “You’re more strategic if you have more time off”—shit, all this stuff.

I think that’s a massive problem. People create values that no one can disagree with. Do you think your values are disagreeable enough?

Coming back to it, trust: do you trust that when you pass the ball to that person, they’re going to do their part to deliver what they need to? If you trust that and know they’re going to do that, then that’s 1 aspect of it.

The other is, can I be open with you and have you take that in the right way? Can I trust you to take that in the right way, and then have an open conversation on how we work together to make that thing better, improve it, change it, or whatever it might be?

For me, that trust element is so important.

I’m just going to wade in there. Do you really think we can? We live in such a woke, left culture where you can’t say anything without upsetting someone. You’re like, “How’s life after the fund?” I’m like, “Well, I’m actually a lot more vocal now.” You’ll see it on my Twitter. We did a great meme of Keir Starmer on a delivery bike, with me saying, “Allez, allez, allez.” We take the piss.

Well, I think that’s why the US expansion for you is going to go very well. It’s the perfect environment.

Do you worry about that as a leader, though—constantly upsetting someone?

We’re a professional outfit. To get to where we need to go, we need to have high standards. If those standards are not met, we need to address them and change them.

Another element of something that I hold in high value is excellence. Whether that’s for the audience, who are our customers, or a client, who is also our customer, we have over 500 million followers now across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. We generate over 3,000 views every second.

In order to produce that, you need to be living and breathing and understanding that audience, whether that’s through the analytics tools that we have, through your own understanding of culture, or whatever it may be. To really nail that and grow an audience base of that size and scale—500 million people, over half of UK adults consuming what we do on a monthly basis, and 2/3 of 18- to 34-year-olds in the UK—you have to operate with excellence.

We have some of the best people in the world who understand that and put those standards on themselves. We lift it and encourage them to lift it, but a lot of people naturally have that drive when we’re hiring them.

7. Amateur vs. High-Production Content – Who Wins?

It’s the same on the client side. If you truly understand your client and the business and what they’re trying to achieve, and you care about them and think about how to weave them into our environment, where we have this huge pool of young adults who are potential customers or customers of the brands we work with, then it’s going to work.

When you mentioned the size and scale of the audience, and then also the excellence of the team, I think about a constant dilemma. You used the word “democratization” earlier, and I think about this because I see your Sam Sulek—I don’t know if you know Sam Sulek, the weightlifting guy. He’s got a real bodybuilder style: huge, very amateur camera in the corner, on an iPhone, no captions, no beautiful visuals, no nothing.

Then there’s us: amazing visuals, amazing video teams, much bigger and more so. But are we in a world of democratized content, where Sam Sulek can put a phone up and do what he does? Or are we actually in a less democratized world, where more players like us win because of resources, skills, and teams?

I think there are different circumstances that require different elements of that. We recently worked with Tesco, and there was a brilliant clip of Father Christmas picking up his meal deal at Tesco. It was really quick-fire, behind the camera, and worked perfectly. It absolutely flew.

That’s a way in which you can weave brands into culture in a way that doesn’t necessarily need ridiculous production value or a TV advert. Equally, we’ve recently created some of Google’s TV ads, and we create broadcast-quality formats that people watch on the big screen on YouTube.

You have to think about the different environments and different needs. You still want to watch, as an audience member, a 6-part documentary series on Netflix or a series that you just want to binge-watch and get into. Equally, sometimes you just want to scroll and want some quick-fire, authentic content. You need that quick hit.

Different requirements need different things, and you have to tailor it towards them.

I think AI is going to be so interesting on this. When Sam Altman came over to the UK, he demonstrated Sora, their version of video creation, and the ability to put into ChatGPT a visual and a video that you may want to create. It is mind-blowing where things are going.

For us, in an entertainment business, you can imagine a world where we’re creating movies, and because of that democratization and the access to technology, using and embracing technology like that, the cost of creating a movie where maybe 25% or 30% of it is AI-generated or AI-assisted could be dramatically lower.

For us, as technology moves forward and things progress—and as we’ve demonstrated in advancing from Facebook, continuing to adapt and grow into new audiences around Gen Z, and embracing new technology—as we continue to embrace wearables or other devices and technology that are going to change the world and change the game around entertainment, we believe that we can grow and build from that and build out as an entertainment powerhouse.

8. Will AI Boost or Disrupt Content Creation?

I’m worried. I’m worried that AI will create an infinite supply of content. What happens, obviously, if you’re an economist—which you know I’m not, for sure—but as a venture investor, I claim to be 1? It reduces the price. Infinite supply will also mean discovery is inherently more challenging.

I’m worried about what happens to discovery in a world of infinite content supply. How do you think about that?

I’m an optimist, so I’m excited.

You are not British.

I’m genuinely excited by the movement forward in technology with the introduction of AI, whether that’s allowing you more time for the creative process. Some things, like desk research, have just become way easier. Sub-editing—

Dubbing. Even captions, coloring captions, and things like that. This used to take a lot of time.

Exactly. Language translation—I mean, some of the tools that are available for dubbing are amazing. We actually took 1 of our sports shows with the Australian cricket captain and turned it into Hindi. It got over 200,000 views in a day, which I thought was pretty impressive.

I think that’s it. If you’re willing to adapt and embrace it, it’s an opportunity. If you’re wanting to go against the tide, the world has never changed on that basis. Anyone who has leaned into change, I think, has benefited from it.

Meta has put something like $30 billion into AI, and the list goes on in terms of the other players. They were making that big bet in the metaverse and other areas. Everyone was like, “What the fuck?” Now we’re like, “That’s quite a smart idea, actually.”

Absolutely. What a pivot that is. What do we think is crazy today that will be standard? I always think back to putting your credit card online—“Never do that”—and finding your husband or wife online—“Now, obviously.” 1 in 2 marriages—

Mobile phones. They’re going to be this clunky item that we carry around right now and look back on and go, “Why did we hold that thing? Why did we do that?”

We’re going to have wearables that are going to make it way more seamless, so it’s not even anything other than an extension of things that you’d normally wear, as we see with watches and as we’ll see with glasses.

That’s actually why I bought this, because I wanted more detachment from my phone.

Interesting. I guess, from that perspective, maybe in 10, 15, or 20 years, that’s what we may be looking at. As wearables become more advanced and you’re able to put more processing power into smaller things, I believe that the phone will become something that we look at as a clunky item and look back at and ask, “Why did we ever do that?”

It’s a bit like car phones. Can you remember those? You’d have these big car phones in the middle of a car that you’d pick up, with the dangly wire, and people would use car phones in a car. They thought it was the greatest thing ever. What was that about?

I absolutely love that. I remember when we had TVs in the back of headrests when they first came out, and that was the ultimate luxury. I only ever saw them in car shows because we didn’t have any money, but I was like, “That’s peak.”

I totally get you there.

I love your excitement. I’m also worried about deepfakes. The team have used ElevenLabs, an AI voice tool, to recreate my voice and then call my mother, and you wouldn’t be able to know any difference. Do you worry about the ability for deepfakes to create some pretty challenging situations?

Yeah, I think regulation is going to need to catch up, for sure. That has been the case with every advancement in technology, whether that’s the way in which cybersecurity works around putting your information online or the way in which people interact and it’s governed.

It needs to be regulated. There are going to be people who abuse it, as we know, and we need to make sure that we catch up. There are lots of positives. I think there are going to be medical advancements that there’s no way we could ever get to without it. I’m sure that’s already happening right now, and I’ve just not quoted it.

There’s also connectivity in ways that we’ve not been able to do, whether that’s connecting you to someone or something that just gives you added value in life. However, there are going to be issues, and they’re going to need to be regulated and dealt with.

That’s where it comes down to the big players and the governments. It’s going to come down to OpenAI, Meta, and these players that are holding the keys, ensuring that they’re thinking about those things.

Sorry, I mean this nicely, and you’re going to go, “Dude, I thought we were friends. This is unfair.” You agree that regulation plays a key role, and we’re going to leave that in the hands of this government? Are you serious? A government where someone who thinks an economist is someone who works at Halifax can get away with that? A government where saying “No growth for 3 years” is an acceptable economic policy? Do you trust this government with regulatory provisions for this next wave of technology?

It’s a big question.

Sorry, it’s a big question.

It’s too early doors to say. Obviously, the initial signs are giving off a certain message. However, we need to see the proof in the pudding. We need to look back at things in 1 year or 2 years and see where they are.

9. Why Take the Business Public?

It’s difficult to predict where things are going to go based on not having a huge amount of history behind it. I’m remaining optimistic, open-minded, but also realistic. Let’s see what they do.

I want to go to the IPO. This is an incredibly special moment. The dream of an entrepreneur is to take their business public. Why did you decide to take the business public when you did?

It’s coming up to 3 years in a couple of weeks, which was a bizarre experience. We were meant to go to the London Stock Exchange, but with the whole pandemic madness that was going on, we couldn’t do that.

I remember sitting on the sofa with my wife and little boy, who I think was about 2 years old at the time, and ringing the bell on the sofa in this Zoom, multi-camera setup. It was madness. It was not the experience you’d think.

In terms of why we did it, we believed in the opportunity in the US and in growing our business out there. We have over 100 million audience members in the States, and we know that we’ve done the hard bit. Establishing the business and growing out there is done, and now we can accelerate that.

10. Expanding in the UK vs. the US

In addition, we’ve got a lot more market share here in the UK that we want to go after, coming back to being the market leader in entertainment here in the UK and continuing the momentum that we built.

We believe that by being an AIM-listed business, having the additional firepower, the profile, and the status, it would enable us to accelerate forward—to grow and expand the business. So far, in terms of the Betches acquisition, which has been amazing, and also having that firepower, the options, and the PLC status, it’s definitely given us a leg up in terms of going after what we believe we can be.

How much money did you raise in the IPO?

In total, around £120 million.

£120 million. Great. You have 100 million audience members in the US. Why not list in the US?

That could be an option in the future. As we grow and build our US business, a dual listing might be the way to go. But we need to build on the success of what we’ve started with the Betches business and our organic business out there, and really continue to build, expand, and grow that.

As we do have a bigger US business, it may start to make more sense for us to have a dual listing and look at what that might look like.

How has being a London-listed business been? I know a couple, and they say it’s bloody very, very hard.

Speaking from personal experience, it was a big learning curve going from being a private company to being a listed business and having a set of stakeholders who think and want information in a certain way, whilst also running your business.

Adapting to that, learning, growing, and understanding how to manage it was a whole learning curve in itself. I’m hungry and ambitious, and I enjoy learning, so there were points at which it was challenging. However, the learning curve has been amazing. I would never look back and take any of that away.

From the experience of going through it, it’s been fascinating, and certainly the benefits that I mentioned before have been brilliant.

Do you think pension funds support the UK public markets as much as they should?

I had a great chat with Julia Hoggett, the CEO of the London Stock Exchange, and she’s got some interesting plans. Those plans are going to take time, but I believe some of the steps that they’re putting in place will certainly revitalize and rebuild some of that UK investment that maybe isn’t there right now and is going into US markets and other places.

What’s the most exciting step? We’re talking language that I probably just do not understand. I had to ask a couple of times for it to be translated into layman’s terms.

Again, it comes back to investment into the UK market. There’s a huge amount set in ISAs and low-return pension funds that could be utilized to grow at higher rates, but also stimulate and encourage more innovation and more businesses in the UK market.

Keir Starmer joins. “Solly, you’re a brilliant public-company CEO. I’d love your advice on what I can do to stimulate growth in the UK economy.” What would you say to him? I asked Nick R.[?] this.

I think we really need to embrace tech and innovation in a bigger way here in the UK and nurture it further. We need to look at the environment and think about why businesses consider moving to the US versus being here in the UK, and think about how we can replicate certain elements of it to compete.

There are lots of pros to the UK market: the stability, the structure, and all of the disciplines that come with it. However, we probably need to look at the way in which it can evolve.

From my perspective, I’ve really embraced the UK market, whether that’s UK entrepreneurs who have acted as mentors. I was very fortunate to meet some really successful people early doors who had created amazing businesses here in the UK and helped me understand how to expand a business.

We’ve got the talent here, we’ve got the people, and we’ve got that mentorship.

Do you think the best founders want to build in London? 10 years ago, when I started, it was TransferWise, Monzo, and Revolut. There was a series of financial regulatory—not loopholes, but freedoms—that meant London was a great place to build a fintech business, and we’ve seen the fruits of that.

Now, I do not think the developers or great founders want to build businesses in London, and I’d like you to change my mind on that.

I think when you start a business—and this is just my personal experience—location isn’t even on your mind. It’s just survival or moving forward. I think we could do more to help along that journey here in the UK.

However, I still think it’s a fantastic place to grow a business. I know so many entrepreneurs who’ve been successful, and I know so many emerging entrepreneurs who’ve been given the opportunity to grow and build.

Would they be bigger in the States?

You’re talking about a 300 million-population country versus 70 million here. You’re talking about a market that in some ways is nearly 5 to 8 times the size of the UK, so you do have more opportunity in a place like the States.

However, we have been the home of some really successful businesses, whether it’s something like Dyson or other businesses out there that have grown and become the success that they are today.

How big is Dyson?

Good question. £20 billion? It must be more—£30 billion, £40 billion. I don’t want to quote an incorrect figure, but it’s huge.

You look at a business like Dyson, the innovation and the products that they’ve created, and the brand globally is phenomenal.

Before we do a quick-fire, I do have to touch on platforms. TV—we spoke before about how 70% of internet advertising, or advertising, is now online. Is TV dead?

TV has its place, and I guess it depends on what you categorize as TV. I’m a massive believer in connected TV, and the likes of YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and all of these different subscriptions that we have—we’ve all got too many. I believe that’s the future and where things are going.

Audiences on traditional TV are reducing, and behaviors are changing. Even when you are watching a TV show, whether it’s on a traditional broadcasting channel, Netflix, or Amazon Prime, you’re still dual-screening.

I don’t know how many times I get told off when I’m watching a show with my wife, Jess, and I’m just there scrolling on my phone. It’s a habit that we’ve created. In some ways, whether you’re watching sport or a series that you want to connect with your friends about, and you’re in WhatsApp talking about a score or something that happened, it does enhance that experience.

Traditional TV, newspapers, magazines, and so on—the numbers speak for themselves. That market has gone from being 70% or 80% of the market down to 20%, and digital is changing the game.

For a player like us that has a huge amount of attention and eyeballs across that young-adult demographic, that’s a great thing. For those businesses that adapt, again, that’s a great thing.

We’ll have terrestrial TV and magazines in 10 years’ time. Don’t get me wrong, there’s something about a magazine front cover.

When you’re on it, that’s true. It looks good on the wall.

Yeah, it looks great on the wall, but everyone else didn’t give a shit.

I’m sure there are going to be demographics that, as we move through the cycle, continue to consume them. For the Boomers, it’s going to be waiting rooms.

An app.

Exactly. Even then, everyone’s got an iPad and a mobile phone. Even the most non-tech-savvy people are now using mobile phones more than ever.

Should TikTok be banned?

Another big question, and I feel like there are quite a lot of political considerations underneath that. I think TikTok is a great product. The stickiness of the feed and the understanding of you, serving you content that you love, and the integration of shops—it’s really smart.

That’s something I’m fascinated by. In the next 5 years or less, TikTok Shop is expected to be a $1 trillion market. The social-commerce world overall is expected to be a $1 trillion market, and in China it’s already massive—absolutely massive.

I know so many people now, Millennials and Gen Z audience bases, who are buying from TikTok Shop. It’s a really interesting time where, for creators, it’s an opportunity to monetize through affiliates across TikTok Shop.

One of the things they’ve been able to nail is not just selling directly to consumers; they’re selling to consumers via creators. Their whole thing is that they want to be the next Amazon.

I was speaking to a friend of mine over at Snap, and he was saying those guys are 2 steps ahead. They want to take on Amazon, and they’re paving the way.

From my perspective, they’re someone you cannot ignore—not just because of the quality of the product and what they have on there, but also because of the innovation through Shop and other aspects of it.

I see us showing up in ways around entertainment across that. I see TikTok Shop being part of our ecosystem and how we play in that in the future. We’ve done some experimentation, and we can see that being part of our ecosystem and how it could evolve.

That was a very elegant weaving around the actual question. Should TikTok be banned?

From a product perspective, no. I believe the product is moving things forward, and I’m looking at it through that lens. In terms of whether it’s being abused and the data and information, that’s way above my head. I don’t know.

Do you mind your children having it?

Take me back to my youth now. The minute you tell me I can’t do it, I’m finding a way. I’m getting it. VPNs weren’t a thing back then, but I would have found a way to get it.

I think that needs to be carefully managed. My kids are 2 and 4, so I think I’ve got the best years to come where I have to manage that.

Would you let your kids have social media?

I would. I’m obviously aware of the pros and the amazing things that can come from that, but also the cons—bullying and some of the things that you can get access to.

This was no different from when we had dial-up. I remember sitting on the computer, and I think my parents were on the phone. I was shouting down the stairs, “Can you get off that? I’m trying to do my MSN,” and all this kind of stuff.

The stuff that you could access and the things that could have been said across MSN—it’s no different. But I think making sure that we’re thinking about the environment and how to make it safe is really important.

I think people demonize social media in the way that diet can be demonized. If you go on my TikTok or Instagram, you name it, there are protein recipes, inspirational talks from Tony Robbins and Alain de Botton, and great thinkers. There are baby videos—I think baby videos are hilarious.

I’ve curated a feed that’s really happy. I’m inspired, and I learn. Just like you can have carrots or doughnuts, you can curate your own feed or diet. Respectfully, it’s up to you. You’re an adult with responsibilities.

Completely. I’d love to see what your top 10 tiles are, but it says a lot.

Have you not seen that? It’s like, “What girls think your Instagram is,” and then, “What it really is.” What it really is is protein recipes and workout routines.

Completely. It’s all motivational videos.

Final 1. I’m probably too old now, but Snap for our generation is like—who uses Snap?

They’re huge amongst the younger demographic. It’s the number 1 messaging platform, so I’m sorry for calling it a messaging platform—for ephemeral photo messaging. It’s their version of WhatsApp and iMessage. That whole disappearing and privacy element of what Snapchat offers is massive for them.

They need it for the communication. It’s a bummer, absolutely. Also, the maps—I don’t know if you’ve been on the maps. You can see where all of your friends are in the world if you’ve got it turned on.

There are so many cool features in Snap, and they’ve got some brilliant technology and innovation. They’ve always been innovators. Quite often, you’ve seen them take features from other platforms, and other platforms have taken features from them.

Snap have been brilliant innovators, and I believe Snap is an interesting place over the next 5 to 10 years—whether it can compete with the TikToks and the Metas at this scale. These players are huge, and we’ve seen what they’ve done in AI, what they’re doing in e-commerce, and the kinds of bets that they’re making. They are massive.

I believe it’ll be a place for innovation and a place for young adults, in particular Gen Z. We’ll see how they connect with Gen Alpha, but it’s an interesting product.

If you could buy and short 1 of the incumbent social platforms, who would you buy and who would you short?

I would buy TikTok. I’d buy Meta, based on the big bets that they’ve made. Those would probably be the 2.

Who would you short?

Can we short X?

We could short X.

No way. You go against Elon? I think, as a product, it will evolve, and the whole AI product he’s creating and all these other aspects—I don’t think you could not back him on that front.

As a platform as it is now, I believe it needs to evolve. As a marketing platform, again, I think it needs to evolve. However, you’re asking me about a bunch of companies that are all at the forefront. I believe they’re all going to be winners.

I don’t think there’s any of them that I would particularly short, including X. I’d back the space. I believe in the future and where things are going, and all of these businesses are at the forefront of it.

I’d probably short some of those traditional players, but you’ve not let me include those.

11. Quick-Fire Round

Listen, dude, I want to move to a quick-fire. I’ll say a short statement. None of them are politically leading or dangerously difficult to navigate.

What do you believe that most around you disbelieve?

Probably that the impossible is possible. Sometimes I’m sure there are certain things that I say, such as us moving up the mountain and getting as close as we can to some of the biggest companies in the world.

I’m sure there are lots of people who probably doubt that. I’m sure there would be lots of people who would question the ambition early doors about where we wanted to be and where we are now.

I’m a hopeless optimist in that sense. I’m an optimist around ambition and what can be done, and what humans can do and achieve. I think maybe that’s probably the 1. Sometimes I do have to check myself and make sure I have the right people around me on that front.

What’s the hardest thing about being CEO of LADbible?

I’d say it’s the constant change and evolution. As we talked about before, every year is a new job. It’s a new job understanding how to navigate the US market, understanding how to navigate a public environment, and understanding how to accept that my team haven’t allowed me to meet Tom Holland.

For context, that’s someone we were filming with, and my team were very protective over him. However, I enjoy that. I enjoy that change and the variation. I love challenge.

I’m 1 of these people where, if I wasn’t doing LADbible Group, I’d be trying to climb Mount Everest or Kilimanjaro or something. I just need a challenge.

For me, LADbible Group fuels that. It fuels that challenge, tests me, pushes me, and challenges me, but I enjoy that.

The heaviest things in life are not iron or gold, but unmade decisions. What unmade decision rests on your mind most?

I’m not going to call out 1. I’m going to generally talk over this 1. There’s so much emphasis on the importance of making the right decisions in our jobs. You just sometimes need to make a decision, and that’s sometimes the paralysis you can end up in.

You take too long to make a decision and aim for perfection, but sometimes you just need to go with the decision, back it, make it quickly, trust your gut, trust your intuition, and go for it.

The moments I regret are when I didn’t listen to that intuition, left it too long, and questioned myself too much. That connection of intuition, gut feel, and making a decision on it is something that I constantly check and balance myself on.

What have you changed your mind on in the last 12 months?

Being a dad is the best thing ever, and it can also be the most humbling thing ever. Going from someone my daughter loves and is obsessed with as a 2-year-old to being someone who I feel she hates—the ups and downs of that roller coaster, where you love this human more than anything—is mind-blowing.

Taking it outside of business, it’s that up-and-down of being a dad and having something outside of business that humbles you in different ways. It’s an emotional roller coaster in itself, but a very special thing.

What’s your favorite consumer brand, and why?

Apple, I think, has to be up there. If you were to let me expand it, I’d go Apple, Nike, and Disney. These kinds of businesses—

Do you think Nike’s lost it?

No. I think it’s a very, very special brand, and I believe it’s lost its way. Sometimes businesses do, and we work with them. They want to understand Gen Z in a better way, and we’re working with them on that basis.

But I do think it’s got too much heritage and too much equity in the brand that has been built. You think back to the Michael Jordan advertisement, whatever it may be. Apple’s special. If you look at that brand, that product, the way they’ve expanded their product, and the quality of what they do, that’s special.

For me, I’d probably say Apple, but I’d bunch the others in there too.

You can be CEO of any other company for a day. What would you be CEO of?

I’d probably say Disney. I’d want to see inside Disney. Coming back to the entertainment powerhouse, I believe Disney has achieved that status.

They’ve managed to evolve from animation and TV shows to Disneyland, Disney+, Marvel, Pixar, and some of the greatest movies and experiences that you can possibly experience. There’s a whole feeling that comes off the back of that.

I’d like to be inside there to see that magic and how it all ticks, and go back into the history of what I know and see how it looks underneath the bonnet. That, for me, would be a fascinating company.

What character trait are you semi-shy, ashamed, or nervous about saying that you think is core to who you are and what makes you successful?

I’m extremely goal-focused, and I can really lock in on a goal. Everything else moves out of the way in that sense. The great thing about that is being able to lock into that goal, home in, and go for it.

The downside is that you miss things on the periphery sometimes. It’s good and bad, and I have to check and balance myself on that basis. But I’d say that’s probably the 2 sides of the coin.

1 final 1 for you. What question are you never asked by employees, journalists, or anyone publicly that you think, “I don’t know why no one asks me this”?

What’s it like being a dad and a CEO?

No one asks you that. How does being a dad make you a better CEO?

Before I had Alfie, our first boy, I would roll the dice on every decision. Everything was put on the table—no problem.

Having Alfie made me think about things very differently. It’s more than just me and Jess. It’s me, Jess, and this little human who’s dependent on us and what we do. Every action that we take, whether it’s a mannerism or a word that we say, they’re taking it in and can replicate it.

That goes all the way through to safety and making sure they have the life that you want them to have. The biggest thing for me is that it pushes me to be a better role model.

It makes me think about who I am and how I show up. I often look at it through the lens of, “How would I feel if Alfie did that?” or “How would I feel if Millie, our daughter, did that?”

I’d say that role-model piece and thinking about my actions a little bit more is the good thing from it.

Sorry, this has gone from inspirational to politically charged, which you handled very well, to inspiring at the end there. Thank you so much for putting up with my meandering pauses. This has been fantastic.

Amazing. Thank you very much, Harry. I really appreciate you having me on.