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The founder who bootstrapped a multi-million pound exit 4 years after quitting his day job
124 Plays1 year ago
In 4 years, Eddie Whittingham went from working 9-5 (first as a policeman and then as a lawyer), to bootstrapping a cyber-security startup as a sole founder and selling it to a NASDAQ-listed company in a multi-million pound exit. Since then, he's bought an 1891 chapel and converted it into a premium co-working space in Greater Manchester, founded GoFounder.com (accountability for high-potential founders) and co-founded GrowGrows.com (a premium children's' sleepwear brand).
In this episode of the First-time Founders Podcast, Eddie describes how 'a daft lad from Scunthorpe' built a business and sold it to achieve a life-changing outcome for his family, with some of the mistakes made and lessons learned along the way!
Interested listeners can reach Eddie (https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddiewhittingham/) at eddie@ministryofwork.co.uk and Rob (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertliddiard/) at Rob@mission-group.co.uk (or to book some free time with Rob, visit https://www.eosworldwide.com/rob-liddiard).
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Transcript
Rob Lydiard's Transition from CEO to EOS Implementer
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the First Time Founders podcast, the show where we talk about how to start a business from nothing and grow it into something meaningful. I'm Rob Lydiard. I was the co-founder, CEO of a software business called Yapster that was acquired in 2022. I'm now a professional implementer of the entrepreneurial operating system or EOS, which means I work with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leadership teams to help them get more of what they want from their business. In practice, that means setting and actually hitting targets, executing with more discipline and accountability against the vision,
00:00:30
Speaker
and improving organizational health because we can be a bit chaotic in startup land. That's my day job, but in my spare time, I love talking to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leadership teams and suppliers about the first time founder experience, the trials and tribulations, the highs and lows that we're going through and that we've learned along the way. If that's you, if you're interested in any of these themes, please don't be a stranger. Use the links in the show notes to reach out and say hi. Whether you want to be on the podcast or just have a chat, I'd love to hear from you.
Eddie Whittingham's Journey from Police to Entrepreneurship
00:00:57
Speaker
Today, I'm speaking to Eddie Whittingham. Eddie's a successful founder that recently exited his business and rolled his proceeds into acquiring a beautiful old church building outside of Manchester and restoring it to become a co-working facility that's got city-level facilities in a suburban environment. It's brilliant because he's showing other first-time founders what you can do with the proceeds of a first initial. Eddie would describe it as modest success.
00:01:25
Speaker
to go forward and continue to do interesting creative things whilst providing for your family. He's a fantastically modest guy, but actually he's super wise. And I think you'll get an awful lot from this episode, particularly if you're interested in building a bootstrap business that can change your family's life from an exit that isn't necessarily a unicorn outcome. So without further ado, my conversation with Eddie Whittingham.
00:01:54
Speaker
Eddie, welcome to the First Time Fan's podcast. Thank you for doing this, mate. No, pleasure. Thanks for having me, mate. So you're now a Northwestern property magnate, right? But before I tease you mercilessly about now being a passive investor if co-working is passive, do you want to give the folks the potted history of your backgrounds here and how you got your hands on the ill-gotten gains to be able to afford to renovate that beautiful old building you're speaking from today?
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Background being I was in the police for just shy of 10 years, various roles, 999 response, did a little bit of covert stuff, and then fraud investigation. While I was there, decided I didn't want to do that forever, so I studied law, qualified then as a lawyer, moved to Manchester to do the job, but very quickly realized I hated it.
00:02:41
Speaker
I then started a business first off was just selling time for money service-based business didn't really know what I was doing to be honest my sort of first foray into being a business owner and then sort of within sort of six months of pivoted that into an online cyber security business a SAS business so built that up over the sort of course for three years and just got super lucky right time right place kind of story usual story and got acquired by a by an American company and then
00:03:11
Speaker
I had to do a bit of an earn-out for them a couple of years, and then I sort of started a few other ventures. So I've got like a founder-focused business where we help typically founders with ADHD focus on the most important work. That's called GoFounder. Co-founded a baby sleepwear brand with a friend of mine. That's called GrowGrows. And then I bought a chapel built in 1891 with this sort of idea of turning it into a co-working space, which is where I'm sat today. That's awesome. Where's the space? In Swinton, Manchester.
00:03:40
Speaker
Fantastic, so it's kind of like city facilities, suburban location, right? Exactly that, yeah. That was kind of the business plan, I guess. It was, you know, I've worked in most of the co-working space in Manchester City Centre and my criticism has always been wise and nothing like this on the suburbs for the people like myself who can't be asked traveling in and doing the commute. So yeah, I saw this building, obviously it's a beautiful sort of old chapel. I was like, if we convert this and do it properly, I think we could do well out of it. So yeah, here we are.
00:04:08
Speaker
Amazing. We're going to go back through all your war stories of operating service, service and technology businesses. But first, tell me, what is it like as a property owner? Is it as pissy as it looks? Is it passive?
00:04:18
Speaker
Well, I don't know. Ask me in a year, maybe. We're still very much in the setup, so we've only been open a lot. I think it's our fifth week now. So still super early. I'm still doing a lot of the troubleshooting and the day-to-day sort of care of the building, emptying the dishwasher and all that sort of glamorous stuff. So a few people have ribbed me. It's all a good-selling business, but I'm basically now a janitor.
00:04:40
Speaker
But no, it's good. So far, so good. Like I say, we're about 30% occupancy. So quite happy we're on with our head of track for where I thought it would be. Yeah, asked me in a year once we've fallen, and I could find someone else to pay to loan to the dishwasher. Tell me about the space because I genuinely I'm fascinated by this. I listen to, I don't know if you do or not, but I listen to a lot of business related podcasts, not just in my target market of B2B
00:05:08
Speaker
assassin services and I do find myself looking enviously at the property girls and boys quite often. Can you just talk to us a bit about the space like what caught your eye about it, what the process was of turning it from what it was into what it is and then we'll go into you know like the boring businesses that you and I have spent most of our careers in.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah,
Transforming a Chapel into a Co-Working Space
00:05:27
Speaker
sure. So, I mean, sort of the intention behind the building anyway, firstly, was to obviously deploy some of the capital from the sale of my business as an investment and looked at all the typical investment routes and realized I thought I could, if I did it right, could make a better return. So the beauty about obviously the sort of building that I've got, I guess, is both an investment, a capital investment, but also, you know, an income.
00:05:50
Speaker
So that was kind of the basic logic behind it. My other sort of business side of it was always, if I found a cool enough building outside the city centre, I think that would be enough to draw people in, provided it's finished with a sort of premium standard. So I kind of was tentatively looking for buildings that I thought could do that. And then,
00:06:09
Speaker
of all places. I saw this come up for sale on Rightmove, so it's a chapel originally built in 1891. It's not massive, it's sort of in total now. Now we've done the work, it's about 5,000 square feet, so not massive by any stretch. It's like a usual reception toilet, shared kitchen, a snug extension of the kitchen.
00:06:28
Speaker
We've got a content studio, a couple of meeting rooms, eight private offices downstairs, and then 36 co-working desk upstairs, and then a sort of breakout lounge. So in terms of co-working sizes, that's quite modest. But yeah.
00:06:43
Speaker
It's obviously, you know, the purchase of the building was one thing, but then the actual works convert was another, because when we got it, it was an original, you know, church hall, really, with some facilities at the back. And what we've effectively done is put another floor in the church hall to give it the sort of space that it needed to make it viable, really. So been a bit of a mission getting here with all the work that needed to be done. But yeah, it's turned out all right.
00:07:10
Speaker
What, for folks that are inspired to follow your lead, roughly how long does it take to take a building like that from what it was into what you've just described and then like ballpark sort of costs. I know it's like how long's a piece of string and it depends on what kind of crazy building the people listening to this go on to buy but just like within an order of magnitude.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, so bought the building in 2021 and then we only just opened in January. Part of that was planning related. The actual construction work was sort of probably more like 18 months-ish of sort of hard construction. So that wasn't maybe as long as people might think. But in terms of that building cost, again, completely depends on the building acquisition or obviously people get loans or whatever.
00:07:58
Speaker
Um, so, so that, that'll depend on one thing, but you know, talking sort of million pound renovation, really. So it's a, it's a serious undertaking, isn't it? But it is awesome. You know, I mean, on this podcast, like we talk a lot about the struggles of being a first time founder and all the dumb shit we do and all the bad stuff that happens to us. We'll see. It might be one of them. Yeah. Yeah. But at least it's a hard asset and it's awesome for someone to, um, to realize some value in one thing. And then.
00:08:25
Speaker
roll it forward into something that's different, but related. Yeah, truthfully part of it was also like, you know, it's all good selling your business and I'm very, very lucky and privileged to be in that position. But it was like, well, what do I do now? You know, I'm 38. I was going to say, you're not as old as you look, are you? No, I'm not. Despite how bad I look.
00:08:46
Speaker
But it's more like, what do I do now? I don't want to, you know, I've sort of like lost my colleagues and my team as such. So what do I want to do? And really my interest area, my passion is around startups. So I was like, well, almost if I build something where I then surround myself with that, that's going to be amazing for me, right? You know, like it's my interest area. Hopefully I can help the people in here as well grow theirs. You know, if I can offer any help or make connections with people who might be able to help that sort of thing. So it kind of,
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's just sort of sat quite nicely, I think, in my area of interest, sort of passion area, but also my skill area as well.
The Challenges of Starting a Business
00:09:22
Speaker
So yeah, good. I'm super inspired by it. I can't wait to come visit. Okay, so let's go back to the biggest cock-ups or like some of the most notable memories from before life got easy, because folks that are coming into your space are no doubt going to be going through those trials and tribulations.
00:09:43
Speaker
Can you remember the first time the novelty wore off one of the businesses that you were running and you now look back and think, I didn't handle that perhaps as well as I could have? Yeah, good question. I think the novelty wears off really quickly, if I'm honest. When you first start, you have these
00:10:05
Speaker
ideas in your head of what it's going to be like. And then when you sort of get into the grind of it, you realize that if you're not careful, you've just created another job for yourself, but it's a job without any of the security that you had before. So it's true though, isn't it? Like it's hard because I remember I'd quit. I just, the reason I quit when I did in the, in the legal profession was I'd just gone from being a trainee on like a sort of, you know, an average sort of salary to like a half decent salary.
00:10:32
Speaker
So, I knew if I didn't make the jump then, I never would. That was something I was quite aware of because I was like, if I get comfortable in it, we're going to just get mortgage up to what we can afford, et cetera, et cetera. So, that was an element. But then, obviously start a business. I had no business experience whatsoever. So, I was kind of just winging it. Well, as we all are, that's disclosure. I still am winging it. But it was, yeah.
00:10:57
Speaker
I think in those first three to six months when you realise actually it's not as easy as you maybe first thought it was going to be. Were you bootstrapping or did you raise outside investment for the security service business? Did you have a decent amount of savings to cushion you or did you go into it under capitalised?
00:11:14
Speaker
Probably under capitalized looking back now. I didn't know that at the time, but I guess that was from the naivety of a business. I genuinely didn't even understand investment at that stage. Bear in mind, I've spent most of my working life at that point in public sector, really. So I was pretty naive view of business generally at that point.
00:11:36
Speaker
And I guess my aspirations at the time of starting were very different. When I first started, it was, can I just do something that will replace my income versus, you know, trying to grow something in scale and exit. I didn't start out with that intention of selling a business. So it all happened quite organically, which.
00:11:52
Speaker
For me, actually, it was probably a good thing. Totally. So to your point, in terms of one of the early cock-ups I made, as I was transitioning from the service-based business to the SaaS business, when it was just an idea, really, and I'd not really proved it, I went to meet with an investor to kind of, yeah, someone who was introduced to me because they obviously knew I was doing a cybersecurity business and it was SaaS, so obviously that's quite an attractive proposition for investors, went to go meet him and I told him all about it and he
00:12:20
Speaker
And he said, like, you know, how much money did you want? I had no fucking idea. I was like, oh, 200 grand. And he pretty much laughed in my face. Not in a horrible way, but like, I clearly didn't really know what I was asking for, why I was asking for it. I hadn't prepared properly for it, because I didn't know what I was doing. And that was a nice wake up call in a way, because I was like, actually, if I do want to try and get investment, I'm going to take it a lot more seriously than I'm doing. But also, it was a blessing to these guys anyway, because it
00:12:50
Speaker
it probably put me off trying to get investment and I became more committed to bootstrapping which actually is what really sort of set me off in good stead for what I'm doing now because
00:13:04
Speaker
there's a time and a place for investment. I used to be anti-investment, but only because of the bootstrap kind of success I had. Whereas now I'm way more open to it, because I can see that if you get investment at the right time, it can really propel you. But if I look back on my journey,
00:13:21
Speaker
I don't think investment would have, it might have got me a bit further forward, but my exit value would have had to have been a lot bigger to get the same as what I got. So there's that balance sometimes to be hard, I think.
00:13:37
Speaker
There's definitely been a culture, and this is probably why I used to kick against it a little bit more. There's definitely been a culture of like overly celebrating investment rather than profitability, which I find absolutely bonkers. But yeah, there's still awareness that some businesses do need investment to scale. That's just a reality. Can you remember what your kind of revenue or income
00:14:01
Speaker
goals were in the early days and and how you got there like roughly how long it took like was it a handful of big customers was it quite a lot of small customers can you just help people get a picture of of what it looked like once you were semi-stable
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, so in the very early days a lot slower than you probably would think I think I did a linkedin post about this a few weeks ago because I found Um, so my old sort of account stuff in like first month. I think I did 400 quid So first month I did zero the second second month I did 400 quid the next month I did like 800 quid or something but definitely that so quite slow to start with um, you know, that's obviously
00:14:41
Speaker
the revenue, not what I made out of the backup. And this is teaching companies and their employees how to stay
Growth and Expansion of the SaaS Business
00:14:48
Speaker
safe, right? Not at the minute. Not at that time. It wasn't. No, that was when I was selling basically services to law firms, like private investigation stuff. So it was really like my end stuff. When I got into the SaaS stuff, that started out very slowly. So that was the first customer I got from like a kind of network, anything was paying me 15 quid a month.
00:15:10
Speaker
They had three members of staff. But what that did give me is confidence that, do you know what, if I can sell that £5 per employee per month in my head, and I'm going to sell that team the same training as I'm going to sell this company with 100 employees at maybe not £5 per month, but it'll come down a little bit, but you know, that sort of sliding scale.
00:15:35
Speaker
then there's something really scalable about that because but ultimately my business model was we deliver new training every single month for your staff to take so we made it every single month delivered it via a SaaS platform we had some other bits alongside it like a simulated fishing platform to sort of test users and things like that but but yeah the fundamental basis was if we build one piece of training we can roll that out to
00:15:56
Speaker
a thousand companies, it doesn't matter. That's the idea. That's what made it probably quite attractive. And even though those early customers paid me pennies, it was still worth it because it gave me that confidence to build on. So then I kind of just slowly climbed the ladder really.
00:16:14
Speaker
you know, that first client had five employees, the next client maybe had 10, then they had 50. And then sort of our biggest deals as we were, well, when we was fully up and running, you know, like 5000 employees, for example, so we were Taylor wimpy, we're one of our big clients. So yeah, stuff like it really varied in terms of income based on the deal size, you know, our average deal size might be like two grand a year, but then some of those big deal sizes could be 25 grand a year.
00:16:43
Speaker
Right, and it adds up quickly then, doesn't it? Yeah, and interestingly as well, we had a lot of the smaller ones, which was good in a way because as a SaaS business, you churn, obviously, the goal is to keep that as minimal as possible. We had next to no churn, and even if we did, I could sleep a little bit better at night knowing, you know, I wake up on the first of every month, we've got X many customers paying X, Y a month,
00:17:06
Speaker
And even if the wheels fall off, we're not going to lose 50% of them. We might lose one or two a month. So it's a really good business model for that reason alone. But again, there's no, I want a fucking genius and went, oh, I'm going to do that business model. It just, I came to that fairly naturally and just kind of as part of the path of building a business and pivoted and saw the opportunity. And I think that's sometimes the best way to do it.
00:17:30
Speaker
I love how modest you are about it. How did you win the customers? What in practice was a dumbed down go-to market? Was it LinkedIn, emailing?
00:17:39
Speaker
using the phone, like talk people through it granularly. Yeah, we did a bit of everything. Because again, I was like, I have got no fucking idea where to even start. So first customers was doing kind of cold, nasty networking, which I didn't particularly enjoy. And it was never going to scale the business, but it helped me basically validate it. So as an example, we were trying to sell cybersecurity training to businesses. So quite logically, I was like, right, well, if I go to a couple of events that are being held by
00:18:09
Speaker
For example, one of them was by a bank to educate businesses about cybersecurity. I can kind of sit there and mingle with everybody who's clearly got an interest enough to come to an event for free in the center of town and taking the time out of the day to do it. And then obviously try and sell more wares there. And that's where I got my first couple of clients from really doing a couple of those.
00:18:28
Speaker
And then after that it was a real mix of cold, we did loads of cold emailing, we did loads of LinkedIn outreach, and we did loads of paid ads eventually once we had the revenue to do it.
00:18:43
Speaker
But again, it was interesting for us because we were trying to educate people around data security, personal information. GDPR obviously became a big impact on the business that I probably hadn't originally accounted for and that was part of the look. So we were effectively spamming people about securing themselves against spam. So we got a few sort of snails, obviously, about it. It didn't quite tie in with GDPR
00:19:12
Speaker
you're sort of hammering us with emails and stuff, but by the same token. You've got to get out of there, haven't you? Well, yeah. And that's where sometimes you've got to do what works, right? And I think one of the books I read, which is pretty old now, was called The Predictable Revenue Model. I remember that. Yeah. It's a classic, isn't it? And it just teaches about CRMs and cold outreach and almost a bit of training for your brain that
00:19:37
Speaker
to get some success, you've just got to have a huge hopper at the top, put thousands in and you might get one or two out the bottom and that's fine, providing you're obviously profitable to do so. But then the real kind of kicker for us where we started gaining more traction.
00:19:52
Speaker
Was gdpr really so obviously people gave a shit about that a few years ago less less so now Yeah, it's a real scare thing for people that weren't sure about it. They were really worried about it and We'd we were making better training Than our competitors on that topic because the training was pretty I mean, it's a pretty fucking dry topic anyway, right? Oh
00:20:15
Speaker
But the training was even worse, don't have that. So we just made something mildly interesting compared to what was out in the market, put some ad spend behind what we were doing, and that helped sort of grow the business quickly. What a great story, though. It's so inspiring. And particularly now that you've got a space where you're trying to attract and inspire a new wave of entrepreneurs when you're like, start a simple business for which there's a demand, like an intrinsic demand, and then hopefully a growing demand if you get the luck of some sort of tailwinds, like a new piece of regulation.
00:20:46
Speaker
Build something small but repeatable that you don't need to build again and again and again. Just validate it by selling it. I mean, in your case, 15 quid a month. And it's amazing that you're sat there in a church that you bought with the proceeds when it started with 15 quid a month income. And then just put yourself out there and tell the story and sharpen up the story. And eventually you'll hopefully get to a place where it's viable and ongoing. So all of that sounds good. And everyone knows you had a happy ending. What would you say were your biggest
00:21:15
Speaker
points of maturation as a business owner, stroke manager, because of course, I'm similar to you, I had a legal background, qualified, then realized it wasn't for me and left. So I hope you won't mind me saying, being a young lawyer doesn't particularly prepare you for elite leadership, does it? And like, winning hearts and minds of the average, the average employee. So any any particular learnings that you can pay forward for others in terms of
00:21:43
Speaker
because I'm assuming you got a bit better at managing by the end of the journey than maybe you started.
Effective Hiring and Team Management
00:21:47
Speaker
Are there any particular standout moments with your workforce that
00:21:51
Speaker
folks you might not be able to learn from. I think I always tried to be fair. That was my ultimate thing, transparency and fairness. So I'm a pretty relaxed guy anyway. And my attitude towards all life, not just business, is like, I will give you 100% of my trust until you give me a reason not to trust you, basically. So I will trust people implicitly. I will give them responsibility. And I will try and also help them
00:22:18
Speaker
succeed really like that's probably what I get the most joy out of so if I know if you if you came into my business today and you had career goals of whatever they might be then I'd sort of work backwards from that and say right well let's try and start putting a path towards that and I've always kind of taken a view I'd rather really higher on attitude rather than then you know degrees and things like that
00:22:45
Speaker
One of my best members of staff had done a degree in art. I needed an illustrator. He was working in a pretty crap job at the time in his own words. And we just got him in as an intern, paid intern, just to get started and just kind of see if there was really a role for him, because I wasn't quite sure we'd never hired an animator at that point, whether we really needed it. And then his work was so good. I was like, oh, shit, we need to hire him.
00:23:13
Speaker
So hired him on a pretty modest wage because that's all we could afford at the time. But then within two years, his wage had doubled because... Brilliant. This isn't... I'm not trying to blow smoke at my ass. It's not that we needed to.
00:23:27
Speaker
I wanted to reward him because he was really good and I don't think a lot of businesses necessarily do that and then it didn't all breed loyalty. I could have just kind of tickled him along with a couple of grand pay rise every year. You wanted to do the right thing right and keep him? 100% and the value he was bringing into the business was worth it. So let's keep those staff engaged.
00:23:46
Speaker
I'm just going to jump in quickly because I love this. I had a similar experience. I'm assuming that that little bit of success with an early star who you treated well and he reciprocated, then created the environment for some less good people to do the dirty on you, right? Yeah, that's the problem. So if that's the way you are, then there's always going to be those opportunities where that happens. And I'll tell that there's a story where someone
00:24:17
Speaker
In my view, that's an advantage. When people listen to this podcast, they might be going, oh, actually, you sound a bit of wanker at it. But let's just say, right? I don't think so. The backdrop is good, right? Best intentions, give people opportunities. Loads of founders are optimists. They're going to be making the exact same starting assumptions.
00:24:35
Speaker
I think so. So this was a chap, we were trying to hire a sales role, notoriously difficult roles to fill. And this particular in mind, he was studying part time cybersecurity on a Tuesday and a Friday morning. So I was like, man, you know, he's got a sales background. It presents well. And
00:24:58
Speaker
Ultimately, you know is studying in an area that's gonna be massively useful to us and help help with the sales lingo, right? And you've got the pattern recognition from your illustrator who you plucked out of Yeah, so I was like, right, I think this is you know, this guy could could do is a really good job here and so I said well a lot I tell you what rather than
00:25:18
Speaker
Well, in recognition of the fact you are studying in something obviously hyper-relevant and could help the business, I'll pay you full time even though you're not going to be like a day and a half a week. I want to pay you full time because I think that's the value you can bring and also that's me investing in you and saying, well, I really believe in you and I think what you can bring to the business.
00:25:35
Speaker
And then, so all well so far, then first day, he arrives late. Second day, which is fine, like, you know, we all sometimes are late. Second day he took, like,
00:25:52
Speaker
a couple of hours for lunch, I wasn't there. He then left early without even, I was at a meeting, without even an attempt to ring me or email him, he just left. So my other staff are like, what the fuck? Eddie's pretty relaxed, but he's not that relaxed.
00:26:08
Speaker
And then the third day, this was on the Wednesday, he rang in sick because he'd microwaved a beef lasagna and that made him sick. I'm not even sure you can get Paulie from it. But again, I was like, look, he might just be having a week from hell, right? It's probably me, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
and then he didn't come in the next day and then the day after he I don't know sorry the day out so he's ill on the Wednesday on the Thursday he sent me a sick note which I've you know I've A not even asked for B I've never even seen a sick note so like I was really blown away I was like why have I got a sick note because you've only been off a day and then on the Friday he sent me his wife's sick note which
00:26:53
Speaker
Unfortunately, that sort of felt the end. So I spoke to HR and all the usual sort of stuff that you have to do. Then he sent me a very abusive email afterwards when I'd let him go about how horrible I was. You do sound like a tyrant to me. Yeah. And I sort of said, I was like, dude, I've offered to pay you full time for three and a half days a week. And I don't know what else you want from that.
00:27:22
Speaker
Did it change your hiring process? I mean, did you reference check the guy before? Because I did reference checks at the beginning of my entrepreneurial book. So the irony is that's the only hire I've ever done where I've done it by the book. So I've done. Really? Yeah. So I've always just been, come in, have an informal chat. Maybe we'll do a bit of a paid internship, whatever it might be. But it'll be quite informal. This one.
00:27:50
Speaker
I must have read a fucking book that week about how to hire. And I did assessment interview, assessment day. We did all the checks, we did the whole scoring system. Really? Yeah. And it was quite... Oh no. And almost like maybe there's
00:28:09
Speaker
Did it put you off doing it again? I love that. I love that system. That's the only thing I found that works eventually. It's amazing. You had a metric experience. And look, I've only, you know, my team, the max was only 10 people, so it's not a fair litmus test. Right. I'm sure anyone listened to this with an HR background or, yeah, like Eddie, no, don't tell people this. I guess for me, if I go back to it, I think I work better with people
00:28:39
Speaker
based on their attitude, then probably their aptitude, because I think you can kind of teach some of it, but you can't teach attitude. So I guess it probably has put me off that model of hiring, really. I mean, digging into it, what do you think went wrong then? Did you ask the wrong questions? You score incorrectly with a reference book with the references bullshit? Do you think this guy genuinely just felt like just went off the reservation between prior employment and working for you? I'm not sure.
00:29:06
Speaker
He certainly said all the right things. As those people often do, right? Yeah, yeah. But then he should be a good salesman, right? That was a frustrating thing. I was like, if you're actually in the building or working for a moment, actually doing the work, then, yeah, I don't know really. Maybe, probably a victim as well of, with some people, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile, won't they? Yeah, that's true. So I think probably, it made me think I probably need to be a little bit
00:29:34
Speaker
not stricter because that's not my style, but maybe not think everyone's in it for the best reasons always. Did it make you clearer? Did you find yourself getting clearer and clearer and clearer of people as you went on your journey? I don't know, to be honest. I don't know if I've had a massive transformational leadership journey or anything. You'd have to probably interview some of my old staff.
00:29:59
Speaker
I think I've got better at it and I certainly like 100% when I first took my first hire on, I think I expected them to be like a co-founder and like almost as bought in as I am. Even though they were getting paid like, you know, pretty rubbish money at the time.
00:30:16
Speaker
So I probably would say unfair expectations of early employees because of my naivety. And I think that changes. I got obviously a bit more mature in terms of owning a business because
00:30:31
Speaker
you have to and you have to also let go a little bit but by the same token I don't always see those standards as a bad thing because while I'm very relaxed I expect it to be to want to really work hard and I make no bones about like work shouldn't be a negative term like working hard shouldn't be a negative I'm not
00:30:52
Speaker
I hate all the hustle bullshit, but I also hate the fact that that's now killed. Work is a bad thing. As long as you enjoy it, obviously, and not everyone does, but your job as a business owner is to try and make the work enjoyable for your staff ultimately. It's so interesting. I think one of the things I find really refreshing about your story is that given that you enjoyed some success, you got to a place where the business was acquired and you self-admittedly
00:31:19
Speaker
are like, I didn't have to optimize this business or, or develop myself to within like an inch of my professional life in order to end up having a successful outcome. Because so many people start businesses where they raise too much money too quickly, they don't find product, they must increase their expenses too quickly. And then they kind of have to get elite at an unnatural speed. Otherwise, the company will definitely die. Is it a fair characterization of your journey to say because you made some smart decisions early, deliberately or not,
00:31:49
Speaker
it meant that the organization wasn't under so much pressure that you kind of had to be. Probably because we grew quite organically. So it was never like, you know, I think that's the problem. If you get if you if I started that business again today, and you give me a million quid, I'd suddenly have to hire 10 people, right? Like overnight. And, and then you, you struggle to build the dynamics. Like is a really good example, actually. So
00:32:13
Speaker
The sort of number one hire that I made, the first hire, fantastic, really good worker, amazing, you know, all rounder, like super intelligent, super nice, had everything. And then it got to my first daughter was on the way, and she handed a notice in and that like really took the legs from me because she was effectively the right hand man. And I was I was like, Oh, wow, how close to your daughter being born?
00:32:42
Speaker
Oh, well, yeah, that was the bit. So she was an amazing member of staff, but that was a bit like kicked really, because she handed notes in a week before. Just totally out the blue. Yeah. And like, so again, what one thing I tried to do, which didn't work, was I tried to sit down with the staff. Well, I did sit down with the staff every single month, took them to like a local coffee shop, sat down, sort of talked about career progression, where they want to be, if they've got any problems or want to raise. And the idea with that was,
00:33:07
Speaker
was a mutual thing really because then I could hopefully help progress them but then they could also tell me you know where the problems are you know give me at least a heads up right. I did the same thing yeah and it was effective for me I didn't get blindsided like that. I didn't buy anyone else and unfortunately just on that occasion I did which was which was a bit of a you know a bit of a punch to the gut. What did you do? Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt.
00:33:34
Speaker
I'm curious to know how you dealt with that, because presumably your daughter came along and you'd now have to be like... Yeah, so the good thing...
00:33:41
Speaker
I think that I had been doing already anyway was not that I necessarily clocked that that individual was going to be moving on. But I kind of was identifying as we were growing that, crikey, I've got people in roles here, which if they do leave, I am nacked because I don't have that knowledge to pass on. Or I certainly don't have the time to pass that knowledge on because I probably knew I could probably do at that stage that everyone's job apart from the animator.
00:34:07
Speaker
But even if I could do it, I still couldn't pass on that knowledge because I wouldn't have the time to because of the other stuff that I was doing. So fortunately, I'd just hired almost a junior. I think it was only six weeks before.
00:34:24
Speaker
But again, I just said to the girl who came in, I said, look, if you can basically use the next four weeks notice period that she has to learn absolutely everything and be a sponge, take it all in.
00:34:40
Speaker
You're getting paid, I don't know what she was on, maybe 21, but I'll put you up to what she was on, I think. I can't remember the exact deal, but it was like a real mega incentive where she was like, shit, I've only been in the job four weeks and I can get like a fucking eight grand pay rise if I just... What an incredible opportunity for her, yeah. In the US world, we call it like, yeah, documenting your core processes to protect you from that.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, and we sort of had started to do bits of that. But yeah, she, again, like, she was phenomenal, because she really... The new one that came in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then so was the old one, because she did help really, you know, train her. I think for the one who was outgoing, it was kind of like a job she felt she couldn't have delayed on. Yeah, makes sense. Which is, it's just that happens, right?
00:35:24
Speaker
God, so you're quite lucky that you had a successor in hand. But it wasn't entirely like, again, you're being modest, aren't you? Because you clearly had recognized you had to keep some risk and hired. But imagine you didn't. No, quite. And I would have been in a bit of a problem there, I think.
00:35:41
Speaker
I'd have certainly had some issues with clients and things like that. So it's a good lesson in general. And it was advice I was given years ago. And it's one of them classic bits of advice that everyone says that you listen to, but you probably don't pay much attention to, but then maybe singly. Manana, right? Manana, we'll document the system as far as everything tomorrow. But it was just the bit of advice that still rings true is higher before you're ready to really, as long as there's cash flow in the business.
00:36:07
Speaker
there's no point waiting until you need the hire because you've got to fucking train them. And it takes, you know, three to six months for them to get up to speed, probably 12 months in a lot of roles. So I was always trying to hire a little bit ahead of time for that reason. And that definitely sort of saved my bacon on that one. And one of the things I think is interesting, anybody that listened to this is going to, it could labor under the misunderstanding that you've just had a completely charmed existence.
Health Challenges and Work-Life Balance
00:36:35
Speaker
One of the things that's so
00:36:36
Speaker
nice about you, but I remember when we were chatting before this, you just casually dropped the, like, didn't you at one point pass out at night for the stress, though? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, God, found a life right is not glamorous, is it? It's pretty, it's hard. There's long days.
00:36:55
Speaker
I worked weekends as long as I can remember. I didn't take money for as long as I can remember. We was living off my wife's wage. She was a teacher at the time. And this sounds a bit like, oh, where is me? But we were genuinely going out where we lived near a Wetherspoon's and we had like eight quid. And we're like, well, I can buy a couple of pints each. And that's our night out for the week. And vividly remember that. And even trying to celebrate small milestones in the business.
00:37:24
Speaker
The first American client we had like a little list. In fact, this is a good bit of advice people. We had a little list on the fridge of
00:37:30
Speaker
you know, things we wanted to achieve and then little rewards at the side. And I can't remember who made me do it, but it was awesome. It was such a good piece of advice because you'll be the same and people listening to this will be the same. You don't celebrate stuff ever. You just, you achieve it and then it's next thing, achieve it, next thing. So this was quite useful because it just made you stop. Even though it was kind of a bit like, a bit daft, like for example, the US client, first ever US client, next to that was, there was like a US theme fucking,
00:38:00
Speaker
restaurant in town or some shit. So we went there. You didn't take the Mrs to New York? No, no God no. Because we didn't have the money. Like the first US client, yeah, it was probably 800 quid a month or something. It wasn't mega. So it was like, you know, a 50 quid meal, but it was just a way of marking those little things.
00:38:17
Speaker
or it's like X revenue, then we might have a weekend away, that sort of thing. So that was quite a good thing to do. But yeah. But again, you're being positive. I love your optimism, your positivity. What did, we'll move on from it quickly, but what did cause, where?
00:38:33
Speaker
What caused it to get too much for you and then what physically happened? Because I think that is something people can also take out of this, even when you get a good outcome. Interestingly, it was around the time the person had the notice in. Wife was eight or nine months pregnant at the time.
00:38:48
Speaker
I was obviously well under the caution in terms of work, trying to work all the hours, make sure the wife was okay, prepping for the baby arriving, sorting the nurse route, all the usual sort of stuff that you have to do, especially when it's your first child. It's brutal. Yeah, it's like, it's completely unknown, isn't it? So it was about, I think it was about four weeks before my daughter was born. And I think I've gone to bed just not feeling very well. Got up in the middle of the night to have a piss.
00:39:15
Speaker
and then I just I think I'd sort of stumbled like near the bath in the toilet and then and then the next thing
00:39:26
Speaker
I remember was sort of coming round and my wife said she ran in because she heard me sort of fall and I was laid, we've got sort of a toilet and a bath next to it like a freestanding bath and I was laid in between the toilet and the bath. My head was sort of like twisted around looking sort of into the corner so she couldn't say hi and I was completely out.
00:39:46
Speaker
That must have scared the shit out of her. Oh, well, it got worse. So then, so they call it like a vasey vagal, which is where basically is an issue with your blood pressure. So when you're poorly, your blood pressure is low. If you get out of bed too quickly, it'll drop again. And then if you have a wee again, it'll drop again. And so then you just go straight out.
00:40:06
Speaker
So that's what happened. Obviously, she didn't know this at the time. So she's trying to wake me up. She's really scared. I think she'd rang 999 at that point, because she's like fucking out. She she in genuinely in her words, she thought I was dead because the way I was like laid. So that's not an ideal situation. While she's on the phone on 999.
00:40:24
Speaker
I jump upright, I can't remember this by the way, jump upright, my pupils are dilated and I started in her face screaming, wolves, wolves. So I have a vague recollection of in my subconscious thinking I was being attacked by wolves. But as I got up, I thought,
00:40:46
Speaker
because I didn't know I was just disorientated. My wife was then screaming in my face, so I wasn't sure if we'd been broken into and I'd been hit around the head or something. So it was genuinely like for her it must have been terrifying, right? That is bunkers. And then the police obviously had heard, or the political 999 call had heard me shouting wolves.
00:41:06
Speaker
Before an ambulance got there, the police got there to be like, what the fuck is going on here? Thinking it was like domestic violence, obviously. And then it wasn't, it was just me being sick into a bowl. But yeah, it wasn't the finest. And like, it's hard, you know, you can't pin exactly
00:41:23
Speaker
what caused that. But if you look at the stress period that we were under at that time, because also at that stage, I had been approached for the acquisition, but that was long and protracted. They reached out originally in the August and my daughter was born in the May. Yes, that time. So I had- That was a real long courtship.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah. So I had the potential acquisition kind of playing in my mind. I had a member of staff who just said the leave, my wife's nearly gonna pop, etc, etc, etc. So it doesn't take a genius to figure out that's probably what caused it. People don't know what their limits are until you cross it. I remember it's not quite the same, but I know I ended up on a bloody ventilator with COVID.
00:42:07
Speaker
I'd been doing like demos and stuff right up until they put me on the oxygen. And I'd never, my body had never failed on me before. And it was really frightening. I was in the hospital for like five days. I couldn't, I'd go for a wee and it would feel like you were suffocated in the two minutes it took to get from your bed and off the oxygen to the toilet and back again. And I remember thinking like, my God, if I'd have had a heart attack or a stroke or something because of the stress I was under,
00:42:32
Speaker
That might be a recoverable right might live if you survive it, you might live the rest of your life.
00:42:37
Speaker
yeah carrying the physical impairment that you brought on by working like a lunatic yeah and it's really frightening it is isn't it and that is the reality of like not the reality but that is a thing people need to be aware of when they're sort of growing a business it's very easy and i was guilty of this and i probably still am to some extent and i see it all the time it's very easy to get caught up in the romance and the excitement of building a startup without necessarily realizing how hard you're working and that sounds weird if you if you're not a founder but
00:43:07
Speaker
when you're in it, because you enjoy it. You end up doing stupid long hours or you're working weekends, you're not having breaks, you're not going to holiday. Sometimes you're not socializing. It can have a real negative impact. With the hormones, right? Not realizing. Pardon? The hormones, right? Your body's in like a fight response or a flight response for half a decade. Yeah. And that's why I'm bald. I had a lovely, thick, luscious head of hair at one point.
00:43:34
Speaker
It's all right, you look like the Jason Statham of co-working. Yeah, that's what I'm going with. You're styling it out. No, definitely. I was in much better shape before the founder journey. But I think it's really important to speak to, particularly if you can laugh about it. Yeah, a lot. I hope you were. He has a happy ending at the end.
00:43:50
Speaker
I agree, I see it in founders all the time as well and that like recognizing that they have to embrace some structure and then look after themselves. And also there's a risk that you just chase it indefinitely and I think that as founders you need to be alive to that.
00:44:07
Speaker
that just because you work hard, just because you've got talent don't mean you're going to get that luck. I think you need those two to be able to benefit from the luck, but it's quite within the realms of possibility that my acquisition didn't ever go through and I'd still be
00:44:25
Speaker
working as hard and my business would have been as good as the one they bought, they just decided not to buy it for whatever market reasons like COVID for example, they might not have bought that. So it was on a flip really whether they bought it or not. And yeah, it wouldn't have meant my business was any worse or better. It just was a decision that was made and that's the look element really.
00:44:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's why it's got it. Yeah, if you can make it so that it's sustainable, whatever the outcome and worthwhile in your family makes a big difference. Eddie, this has been so good for folks that are across the country. Are you happy for people to reach out to you on LinkedIn or whatever? And I guess people in the Northwest, can they come in and have a look around Ministry of Work, grab a coffee or something?
00:45:04
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, if you want to get in touch, just LinkedIn, Eddie Whittingham. But yeah, if you're sort of local-ish to Manchester and you'd like to explore a new sort of co-working space or a private office or even the concert studio that I'm setting now, then yeah, just reach out again. Happy to set up a bit of a tour and have a coffee and a bit of a chat. Yeah, it'd be good to. Brilliant. I'll put the links in the show notes. Eddie, thank you so much. This has been amazing. Oh, pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Cheers, mate.