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How to build a profitable business, stay in control and then use it to do good things!
97 Plays9 months ago
Jonny White is the Founder of Ticket Tailor, a bootstrapped SaaS ticketing platform which helps event organisers sell 1 million tickets per month.
In this episode of the First-time Founders Podcast, Jonny explains how he managed to build TicketTailor to scale without a cofounder or any outside capital (Jonny attributes his success - for those of us who define success as building a profitable company that operates with purpose - preserving optionality, keeping things simple and taking actions today with a clear vision for tomorrow in mind).
Interested viewers can reach Jonny via https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnywhite1/ 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). Alternatively, if you’d prefer Rob to send you a free copy of Traction (the book by Gino Wickman which explains The Entrepreneurial Operating System) just complete the form here: https://www.eosworldwide.com/traction-giveaway?implementer_email=rob.liddiard@eosworldwide.com
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Transcript
Introduction to First Time Founders Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, welcome to another episode of the First Time Founders Podcast, the show where we talk about how to start a business from nothing and grow into something meaningful. I'm Rob Lydiard. I was the founding CEO of a software business called Yapster that was acquired in 2022. And I'm now an implementer of the entrepreneurial operating system, or EOS, which means I work with entrepreneurs. and Entrepreneurial leadership teams help them get what they want from their business.
Meet Johnny White: Founder of Ticket Tailor
00:00:23
Speaker
Today, I'm speaking with Johnny White, who's the founder of Ticket Taylor, a really successful, entirely bootstrapped um SaaS business that does about a million tickets a month. So helping organizers, event organizers,
00:00:37
Speaker
um sell tickets to get to allow people to gain admission to whatever it is that they're they're doing. um You've probably used ticket tailoring in your personal life. Now, the thing that's interesting about Johnny's story is he's an incredibly thoughtful, purposeful guy. As you'll hear when you listen to the episode, he's been able to leverage the success of his business to to support good causes, to to share the proceeds of growth of his team, um and just generally to make him feel good about the life he's leading and the role that his business is playing within his life.
00:01:14
Speaker
But when you talk to Johnny, what you realize is that he had to make some pretty difficult trade-offs at the beginning of the journey in order to end up with the freedoms and what you might think of as privileges at the state is at he's currently at now. So I wanted to have this conversation so that if you're a first-time founder that cares about a life of purpose and where money's important but only as a vehicle for achieving other things that you care about, you're quite likely gonna need to make some difficult choices now in order to preserve that freedom for later. um Many of us, unthinkingly, hire people, partner up with people, take financing from people in such a way that it limits our ability to to run the business that we really want, live the the life that we really want later.
Inspiration for First-Time Founders
00:01:59
Speaker
So I hope you find this episode instructive, inspiring. um I certainly did. So without further ado, I give you Johnny White, a ticket tailor.
00:02:16
Speaker
Joddy, welcome. Thanks so much for doing this, mate. Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Rob.
The Ticket Tailor Model and Clientele
00:02:20
Speaker
Today, we're going to talk trade-offs and purpose. I guess the only way we can make that sort of relevant in context for folks, if we start at the end, but we're going to spend most of our time at the beginning of your journey. Do you want to tell folks about Ticket Taylor, like what the business is, what your life kind of looks like today? People listening, a lot of them are going to be early in their journey, so they're probably just imagining building a great business, right, which of course you've done. But would you mind just explaining to people like how many employees you've got, like what the service is and does? Sure. You know, like the kind of how many people are involved, sort of founders, investors, all that kind of stuff. So then we can go back to the beginning and put it in context as to how you got here.
00:03:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So um yeah, my company is called Ticket Taylor. We are an event ticketing platform and we are basically like a software platform that helps. Well, we see ourselves as a software platform that helps event organizers ah sell tickets online. We make it easy for them to do that. um We work with thousands of um event organizers all around the world, um but our team is exclusively based in London. We're a team of 20 employees in London, and then we have a remote team of 10 contractors on our customer support team um who are kind of all over the world to cover all the time zones. Yeah, our platform process is about a million tickets every month.
00:03:41
Speaker
And we work with clients of all sizes. You know, we've weve had a lot of organic growth, so we we see a lot of um very small clients, you know, people running yoga workshops with, you know, 10 people attending um through to our biggest customers, you know, being like water parks, selling ah tens of thousands of tickets. um And so, yeah, real real variety there.
Leadership and Growth Without Investors
00:04:02
Speaker
um We're bootstrapped as well. We don't have any investors, which is really good. And we also, we're about, well, we started in 2010, so we're 14 years old and going a long time. And, you know, like, I guess we're pretty under the radar. We're not especially famous as a brand. Yeah, as I said, we're called Ticket Daily. You may or may not have heard of us, but you
00:04:27
Speaker
maybe have bought tickets to our platform without realizing it. We're often quite white label and quite behind the scenes. So you know our our platform plugs into websites as a widget. um and And yeah, so that's where we're at. And do you have to do board meetings and all that sort of stuff? Like how did decisions get made at Ticket Taylor? you know Folks are thinking of themselves being in your seat. They're the founder, but they need to bring people on the journey. Most people start businesses in pursuit of freedom. Can you just talk about the level of freedom you do and don't have in the context of Ticket Taylor? Yeah, absolutely. So um yeah, I mean, ah I suppose I have an amazing leadership team and ah so the MD and ah Director of Operations, ah Director of Product and Director of Tech. And what's amazing about that, and it wasn't easy to get that in place. um But what's amazing about getting that in place is
00:05:20
Speaker
ah Like my my feeling of responsibility has changed and quite drastically from feeling responsible for everything to feeling um like, okay, I just need to enable these people to do awesome work. And then everyone else reports into them. So so I guess like, yeah, we do we do have we have management meetings every fortnight. um They're very relaxed. And then we have like a quarterly planning and and kickoffs yeah every quarter. And then we do like vision stuff um every year as well. um ah But Yeah, I guess, you know, I'm someone who finds that stuff. I mean, I was just, we were just chatting before the before the podcast about and but what's going on at the moment. And we're doing ah quarterly planning at the moment. And yeah, it's stuff that I find very boring. um So I try to avoid it as much as possible. um It's all very important. but But I guess, I guess, like, yeah, we we we keep,
00:06:11
Speaker
We very much optimize for being lean and and being lean. the mo The more time we can spend making or you know creating impact, the better. And quite often meetings and planning and things like that is like, actually, ah yeah is you're yeah, you're not making at that point. so So we're very keen to kind of keep all that stuff as minimal as possible so everyone can um everyone can can do the work they need to do. so and And so you don't have to write monthly investor updates. If you want to give to charity, give to yourself, you don't need anyone's specifics, permission for that. you just You just need to make sure you don't lose the... like You've obviously got to gotta to motivate and inspire the team. But in terms of if you don't have some venture guy... um Yeah, no we've got we've got no one out no one external. like We're completely working for ourselves, which is...
Purpose and Profit: Balancing Business and Charity
00:06:58
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's just a huge blessing. And it's also ah it also poses a bit of a challenge as well, especially when it comes to growth and why are we're growing as well, um which is ah quite a big part of our story. um Because, yeah, I think for a lot of businesses,
00:07:14
Speaker
growth isn't a choice. You've got to grow because you've promised investors, you know, we said we were going to do this and so and and we need to deliver on it. And that's what all the, you know, so much pressure can come from, from those promises made um in the early days, but we don't have that. And so actually, we've had a few kind of like, um midlife crisis moments as a business, you know, where it's like, what are we doing? Why are we growing? You know, which is a strange thing. It's a strange thing to feel like, oh, yeah, the business is going well, why is that a problem? And the problem is like, well, what's the what are we getting our bed for? What's the how do I motivate the team around, around growth and
00:07:50
Speaker
And why are we growing like of course there's lots of things that jump to mind of like what growth is good fun it's like good for development and um and all these kind of things but um but for some reason like a lot of that stuff didn't feel like enough and so we've done a lot of work as well on bringing purpose into the business and um and you're talking about yeah you know like what kind of decisions we can make and yeah quite a lot of things we've done. um might be decisions that ah if we had investors might be a tricky thing to sell because um yeah like so one thing we do is for every ticket sold through the platform we donate a penny to our climate charity partners and so far it's like been over 400,000 pounds we've donated um to to to to these charities and um yeah it's like one of those things where
00:08:35
Speaker
ah it means yeah It's a decision that we can make at our discretion and um and gives us more purpose, gives us more meaning and and gives us more motivation to to want to grow. um Amazing. let's so Let's just spend a minute or two on on like present purpose and then we'll we'll get back to the decisions, the trade-offs you made in order to be able to have this this this like what feels like luxury of freedom of choice now. So how do you think about the purpose of of Ticket Todo these days? what are so You've mentioned the 400,000th charity. What are some of those charities? To what extent do you sort of you know share the proceeds of growth around the team? like Talk to me about some of those things that give your life purpose as a founder. Yeah. So on a personal level, my purpose is with the opportunity I've got, I guess the reflection I had was like,
00:09:23
Speaker
It's an amazing opportunity to be running a business that's found some success and work so naturally. um And so my purpose is, well,
00:09:36
Speaker
what in what like is There's some power that comes with that. And what what do I want to do with that power? like what do What do I want to say? What do one or um what do I want there um the meaning of, when all said and done, the meaning of that business to be? And I think i think what what's really clear is, if you run a business and the business is profitable, then um you can ah there's There's better ways of doing business than ah than the way that the businesses businesses which are traditionally done. um and you know i guess like we just ah This is the day of the general election results, and everyone's been voting yesterday on the you know a lot on what they want the economy to to be like. and
00:10:14
Speaker
um I think there's there's this idea that, you know, we can, ah you know, we choose our governments and it's the government's responsibility to make sure society is fair and and and whatever. and But actually I think, you know, as as a business owner, you've got a lot of influence as well and you've got a lot of power and in your world um in terms of how how money flows and and how things should be and what fair really looks like. And so, yeah, so I think i think there's a lot that, didn't sit right with me as I was growing my business that felt like, why has it done that way? That doesn't, I don't feel comfortable with that. And I felt almost like alienated, almost almost felt like, you know, at times it was like, I felt like, am I like anti capitalist or something like that, you know, I felt really kind of um this and disenchanted with it. But actually, you know, as I've like, yeah there's there's ah there's a lot that's that I've learned and a lot that's good as well about how how businesses work and and ah found my groove, I suppose. um And, and yeah,
00:11:12
Speaker
I think the way that there's it can be you you can easily fall into a trap where you think money is bad or growth is bad you know when going down those kind of routes. Because when you look at companies that have grown ah you know so drastically and bad things are happening, then it looks like, oh that That's because um you know growth is bad. But what what is bad is growth at all costs and obsessive growth for the sake of it is um is bad. And that's that's where it
Growth on Purpose: Strategy and Impact
00:11:40
Speaker
ends up. That's where it ends up when everything gets abstracted down to just the dollar and just the like kind of delivering for investors.
00:11:47
Speaker
you remove all the, um remove everything else, and it just becomes about that one thing. um And so bad decisions get made. And I think, you know, I guess like being an independent business, not having investors, we've been able to um think about how we grow our business more compassionately and more, more meaningfully. um So yeah, so we kind of think about All our stakeholders and we think about, you know, our customers, our team um and then the planet and our community as well. And how do we how do we make sure ah we we call it growth on purpose? this We kind of come up with this kind of like model. We call it growth on purpose and. um
00:12:24
Speaker
The, yeah, the as as a company grows, typically things around it can get worse, ah you know, for stakeholders, um you know, and we see it time and time again. And so we don't want that to happen and we don't want that to be a cost of our growth um as much as we can help it. So we want to be honest about all the negative stuff that that happens as a result of our growth. And we want to be like, making as much positive impact as well as a result of our growth. So we always want to link it to growth um and to our success. So a few of the things we do you know is like we have a profit share scheme where um we share 15% of the profits across the team. And we don't do that. you know It's not based on um
00:13:07
Speaker
like their salary or their job title is just shared out equally and because, you know, everyone's put in, like you know, salaries are already like set at a market, ah like a competitive market rate. So that's already, it's already been done. Like the idea of them doing bonuses on that as well is a bit, I don't know, for me, the idea of a rewarding team for success we've created. where that type of job sits ah you know as ah on the market that doesn doesn't come into it. So so we do this like profit share at the end of the year, 15%. We share out equally. um And yeah, there's there's a bunch of things we do for our customers as well. you know like One thing is like you know keeping low fees and so having 50% charity discounts. and
00:13:49
Speaker
um you know customer support for, ah we have 24 seven customer support. And that's for everyone. It doesn't matter if you're running free events, um or you're you know, our top paying customer, everyone gets 24 seven instant customer support with with this with our with humans without with our customer support team. And Yeah, I think that's really important. you know I think one thing that our competitors overlook, um because they're perhaps driven by um ah yeah like investor forces, is um the importance of a lot of the community events that happen. And that doesn't come through in dollar amounts to us. That doesn't come through you know if there's someone running a community event that's, um I don't know, yeah bringing people together around a passion, then
00:14:34
Speaker
ah It doesn't matter that that only makes three pounds or zero pounds for us. It doesn't matter and because we still want that. It's still important that that happens. There's still value in that. And I think that's hard to value when you're just looking at the the the bottom line. um And then and then and then yeah and then kind of coming back to the planet, and is like you know one thing is about obviously, as businesses grow, we produce more carbon or have more impact. We're using more resources. And so being very deliberate and very um
00:15:07
Speaker
ah about measuring that and understanding it and being honest about it um is is really important to us and then also like removing it like it's not I think the thing about carbon removals is they're not perfect and um but ah there's also varying qualities as well so we like make sure we get high quality removals to remove um the carbon that we produce and then you know in terms of being transparent about it we um We then work out our carbon footprint for the year and we divide it by the number of tickets that come through the platform. And then we show it to our customers and we say, look, this is the carbon cost of using our software. um And this is the kind this is the amount, you know you've done this many tickets, this is your carbon cost of ah of of using our software. because And then alongside that we show, and this is how much, um you know we've we say we say we've removed this, we've bought high quality removals to remove this, but and then also like how much we've done through our penny for the planet. so if they've sold
00:15:56
Speaker
you know, a thousand tickets and it's like we've also put 10 pounds um towards our um penny for the planet ah scheme as well. So, you know, I think that transparency and that ah there's a whole lot more we can do here as well about educating our customers um and bringing climate more, ah more present to our dashboard. And, you know, even the the yeah that climate impact of digital products is um ah not talked about a great deal. um But that's something you know we can we can bring awareness
Johnny White's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:16:27
Speaker
to that. So so yeah, so the where we found we found a lot of purpose in, um in well, i've I've found a lot of purpose in thinking about how can we use this business as an opportunity to create some change or ah to try and inspire a more purposeful and less extreme version of how we do capitalism. you know how can how can we How can we make it more compassionate? How can we bring the human, the soul back into it?
00:16:53
Speaker
um And um and you know the results are really good. um Yeah, particularly you know our customer happiness and our team happiness are very, very high. um And as a result, our growth is good. um And we have you know very decent profit margins and so on. So so we end up we end up feeling like we're in a very healthy place. We don't have like rocket ship growth, but we're in ah ah we're in ah like a place where we're doing 30% growth every year. um and ah Yeah, it doesn't feel like, it feels like that's very stable. It feels like we're on very solid foundations with that, which um which I'd much prefer than having like, hi yeah, rocket ship growth that feels like this could be pulled away from us because I don't know, whatever.
00:17:36
Speaker
the great tragedy of pursuing rocketship growth of course is most fantasy you meet who've taken VC money on the pursuit of triple, triple, double, double growth rates actually aren't even matching your growth rate anyway so it's the worst of all worlds. I mean I can imagine people listening to this and you're going to have newbies that haven't made any decisions haven't made any decisions or mistakes yet thinking John is my new hero this sounds amazing and then you're going to have the the founders that have have accidentally become rapacious capitalists rolling their eyes and thinking, well, it's all good for you for for you, Johnny. I'm a good person too, but I just am where I am. So let's um let's talk about how
00:18:11
Speaker
like the journey and how you've ended up where you are, the decisions and the trade-offs you made. and I mean, really interested in two areas. I'm interested in conscious trade-offs where you did the hard the hard right thing. And then I'm as interested in accidental trade-offs where you did the right thing and it was hard, but it's because the easier option perhaps wasn't available to you. Yeah. Sounds good. So let's go back. So how did this thing all get started there, Charlie? Yeah, it got started. I mean, um I wouldn't say I'm like a natural entrepreneur. um I'm a developer. My background is ah you know i' shy developer type. It's like my background kind of grew up you know learning to code at a young age and um was very much into it. And so I was building websites for people and was building a few ticketing websites and getting more and more demand for it. I could see there was an opportunity where
00:19:04
Speaker
add the internet back in 2010, where there were ticket agencies that really sit in the middle between um ticket buyers and event organizers and try and like dominate that whole thing. And then agencies were getting disrupted, you know, left, right and center by the internet because you didn't need the middleman anymore. And then, you know, and then this idea of software as a service was coming out as well, you know, base camp was quite inspiring about like, they're just renting software. So the idea initially was, I can rent ticket software to people. um And that's, That's kind of how it started. I started it as a side project whilst whilst kind of working on, um you know, whilst freelancing. So I i didn't didn't let any of my clients go. I was still like, you know, making sure I was paying the bills, just working on it, like doing some late nights for about six months. ah And yeah, and I've been trying to look for a product business. You know, I think the thing with freelancing, as everyone knows, or doing kind of agency model is like, um,
00:19:58
Speaker
It's, you're selling your time and you, well, as soon as you sold all your time, then you just feel like, oh, I've got to hire someone. And then that idea of like hiring to then fill a pipeline is just, it's not fun. If you're, ah if you're into software development hiring and sales, it's not fun. It's the, it's the really boring bit. So, so I didn't want to grow, you know, I didn't want to grow a web development shop. I thought I need a product. So I tried a few and this is the one that, um you know, this is the one that stuck or the one that felt the most, um ah yeah, i felt You know, like this is probably, I think there's a lot of people relate to this where but spending a lot of time building, ah if you if you're a software developer and you build a side project, it's really good fun. You know, you've got this green field to create whatever you want and so ah you're learning new stuff. And then you get to a product that's nearly close to showing someone. And then that's where you're like, oh crap, I've actually got to go and speak to people now. I've got to see if anyone wants this. And there's the bit where,
00:20:54
Speaker
previous projects have failed because I'm just like, I don't know what to do now. That says too hard. I'm just going to start something different. um And um I remember with this one, just feeling like I put so much effort into it and then being really nervous about, um yeah, whether anyone would actually want it. And I really had to take a leap of courage. And I thought, I'll do some cold calling. I'll just phone up some some some nightclubs. I went on to Google Maps and I bought Brick Lane up and I was just like, I'm just going to go down Brick Lane on Google Maps and just call each one. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't um pick up the phone. I just didn't have the courage. So then I did what I always do then. And that's now which is like, okay, I need a self help book basically to get me through this. So I found this self help book on eliminating fear from cold calling. And the book turned out but I literally just like read the first few pages. And the first few pages just like
00:21:44
Speaker
ah just gave me enough perspective and motivation, you know, to be like, okay, I don't, it's not that I need to learn how to do cold calling, it's just I needed that kick up the bum. um that That those first few, because I didn't read the book, I just got those first few pages and it did, did the job. And, you know, I made three phone calls. And the third phone call got through to um the manager of a club on Brick Lane, a cabaret club, and ah got a demo. And they agreed to buy the plan when it was ready. you know They agreed, they agreed um went round for a meeting and they agreed. And I didn't do any more cold calling, I just did that. you know There's a massively successful hit, ah success like massive hit rate, right? um But it was just so nerve wracking and it gave me enough. Having that one customer was like enough for me to be like, this is the one, this is the one I need to get over the line. And and um yeah, you know so and I kind of guess coming back to like, you know not being that savvy entrepreneur, you know that's not, I certainly wasn't because
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, cold calling, had success with it, and then I was like, no, it's too it's too stressful, what I don't want to do it. Same thing happened with Google Ads, you know, I put some money into Google Ads, and then I remember spending like 100 pounds, and then so someone signed up to one of the top plans, and I was like, oh, phew, thank God for that, you know, I can now stop the Google Ads because they've paid for themselves. You know, it's just like so nervous about like, all these things that the Obviously, the real ah the the kind of ah the more savvy logic would be like, oh, well, that's paid for itself. I should do more of that, as opposed to like, oh, phew, I haven't lost anything there. I should stop doing that.
00:23:12
Speaker
have so yeah so ah yeah and I guess go you know getting getting those first few customers was yeah a case of trying out all these different things um and having some success for them. SEO was good for us. Word of mouth was good for us. I did some cold emailing as well. um But you know like again, like our pricing was so low. like I think people were paying. anywhere between £6 a month to £80 a month. And so, you know, even managed to get quite a bit of traction. And I think having low pricing as you know, when launching was actually, you know, it's a good thing because it just it means it removes a barrier. I wasn't um I really wanted to prove that people wanted it. um And how long did it take for it to reach a scale where it could support you financially? Yeah, so it took about um took about a year. And for me, it wasn't really. ah Yeah, I
00:24:04
Speaker
I set that at £2,000 a month. And obviously that wasn't the full amount I took home because that was, you know, there's stuff to pay for as well, like hosting and whatever, an office rent and things. um But I set that as the point at which I can I can take the leap. i can I can let go of my clients when I get to £2,000 a month and I can survive whilst it goes to £4,000 a month or something like that. um But taking that leap bit was a real, like, um you know, letting go of my clients and thinking about being on it full time. I was, again, being the naive guy of not being, you know, not not knowing what I was doing. I just didn't really know what to do. I didn't know how to, like,
00:24:42
Speaker
ah because Because the growth have been organic, it's like, what do I do now? what's what What's the thing I do now to get it from £2,000 to £4,000 a month, especially now I've got more time to put into it. It's not just a case of waiting and doing a little bits and seeing seeing what comes of it. um And around that time, so that was when I thought, you know got more involved in the community.
Navigating the Startup Ecosystem
00:25:00
Speaker
I had an office in Old Street, and 2010 was around the time when um it was all kicking off, I think they called it, the Silicon Roundabout. Yeah, I love that. And yeah and you know it's all about like the tech community but um in London, um trying to compete with what was going on over in the States.
00:25:19
Speaker
and um Yeah, so I got involved in a lot of the, um went to a lot of pitching events um and talked about Ticket Taylor. One of the pitching events is, and these are just pitching events just to kind of like, just to show off your product, what you're working on. Someone asked me if I was bootstrapped and I didn't actually know what the word meant. I was like, what what is bootstrapped? I was like, oh, do you have any investment? And I was like, no, why would I, why would I have investment? You know, I was so naive to um the the market that we that we know today that of of how like startups work. um And so the more I learned about investment, I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds pretty good, actually. you know Why wouldn't I want um you know some money in the bank to give me some security um and to have more people around to like help me understand how to how to grow this thing? um And yeah, and so I thought, OK, that's what I'm going to do now. I'm going to go and pitch for investment. That's clearly what I need to do, because that's what all the other tech companies are doing.
00:26:15
Speaker
um And I remember I was pitching for 400,000 pound investment, and i ah but I didn't have a clue actually how to spend 400,000 pounds. It was like such a... I couldn't quite grasp what that kind of money did or how to how to spend that. you know it's like It was so such a different realm for me. so um So I didn't get investment. i think you know I went to a few pitches and investors picked lots of holes in the in in in the pitch. and um Can you remember the main the main objections? I mean, thank God, right? like it's It's awesome of you to be so transparent about the fact you've landed in this great place that we all admire and many people would envy, youve you could have easily ended up on the same path as and as those sort of like reluctant, rapacious capitalists, right? Yeah, um absolutely. And I think, yeah, I think there's a few things that
00:27:04
Speaker
uh save me like one yeah one was the one was the um uh yeah kind of just not being savvy enough and i guess like you know one thing i was also exploring as well is like bring on a co-founder because i knew that wasn't my skill set pitching to investors so you know i could have brought a co-founder could have easily we could have easily created a very slick pitch that was more you know someone more savvy someone more um kind of commercially minded um I think so you're very savvy, by the way, but I know what you mean, someone more full of themselves. No, but I mean, i I wasn't savvy at the time, I guess, you know, it's like, you know, it's, yeah, and and I guess also like also commercially focused, you know, I was more excited about bringing the customers on board than I was about the reality that our pricing was too low, you know, people tell me what pricing is too low, and I'd be like, I don't want to change it. i want
00:27:53
Speaker
um It's like one of their objections. They looked at it and they're like, you're going to have to sell a shitload of tickets. Yeah, that was one. yeah Yeah. So it's like this this this business model like is not doesn't stack up. And then another objection was just like the ideas I had for growth. you know um just like I guess I didn't know. you know I didn't know like what well um what how how growth how how you how you artificially create growth, how non-organic growth, how you create it, I still don't. um um But um yeah, so I had these objections. And then the other thing the other thing that kind of like set me on a um path was just meeting someone else who is was familiar with the bootstrapper community. you know I said before that I didn't know what bootstrapping meant. And then I met some guy at another event
00:28:35
Speaker
who was like, oh, do you know there's a whole bunch of people like he was bootstrapping really cool business. um And ah just like the language he was using just resonated with me so much, you know, he's talking much more about like, enjoying life and having a business that um supports that and a lifestyle business essentially. And I was like, that sounds amazing. So um yeah, he introduced me to things like microconf, which is conference all about like bootstrap businesses and all these podcasts and things. And it's like, wow, okay, loads of people are doing this. This is amazing. um And so we moved into an office together. And then, you know, we then became that kind of, as one-man businesses, um we became ah that support that you get when you kind of grow out of business or have a co-founder. And we would go for lunch together. And, you know, our businesses are at similar stages. So we could do the same, you know, we just talked about growth hacks all the time. That was like our favorite thing to talk about. And, ah you know, he hired a customer support agent. I was struggling with my customer support.
00:29:31
Speaker
and he was struggling with his and as it gets you gathered I've kind of always been ah like I'm quite like ah averse to risk you know with with with a couple of those and things that I was talking about before but um and he was talking about hiring a customer support agent and I just thought oh that just seems so risky and They're not going to do it as well as I want them to do it or whatever. you know And he went and did it, and he hired like four customer support agents and chose the best one, um like kind of did a probation with with four and chose the best one. I was like, great, I'm just going to copy what you did. And so it took all that discovery and risk out of it by having that support and having that kind of that person around who um who really related to the way that um I was doing business.
00:30:14
Speaker
And then we found others as well. me sorry second What revenue level were you at when you made that first hire, roughly? yeah um I think about 4,000, 5,000 MRR. um okay Yeah. So you can afford it. Yeah, I could afford it. Yeah. um And it's going to be painful to not have the person, I'm assuming. like I'm guessing we're going to pick up a trend here of hiring when it's unbearably painful. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's like half my time on customer support. I think that's really important, you know, as a fan. And you can tell yourself that story for too long, though, like it's really important as a founder to be doing customer support. um And ah because you learn a lot, but you can still learn a lot by spending 10% of your time doing customer support. and So and so it was good to
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's good to like go through that pain of letting go of something, you know. Yeah. So so just to summarize then, so you um you started, you had the agency and then that gave gave you the insight that there was this opportunity. you You reluctantly did some cold calls, got your first customers, which then sort of compounded because it was successful. And you thought about raising money because everyone was raising money. You when naturally didn't want to grow inorganically ah a level of aggression that would have excited investors. So suddenly found yourself on the bootstrapping path, but bumped into a bootstrapper and realized that your people were these other folks. And just thank God you just by that point, you just hadn't taken on a more aggressive co-founder and or investors. And at this point now, you're now you're on the path to, to kind of doing your own thing. Were there any, were there are any major further kind of potential forks in the road between their
00:31:51
Speaker
and where you are now, where you took a path that supports this working with purpose, but you could easily or accidentally have taken the other.
The Ticket Tailor Journey: Sale and Reacquisition
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's something that happened as well just before I met that person, which could be a whole podcast worth of content. But I actually sold the business. And so you can say this is a long journey, right? It's like 14 years. So that point where I got to 2000 pounds and um was thinking, how do I get this to 4000 pounds, you know, trying to get the investment. I had a call from timeout. um And they were like, Oh, we want to do ticketing, you know, they were thinking about being a customer. um And those conversations evolved, and then it turned into acquisition conversations. And, um and yeah, it was like, it was a funny decision, because it was um ah one, it was like, ah well,
00:32:42
Speaker
this would be this would be amazing like experience to go through selling a business you know you hear about people who sell businesses and you think oh those that sounds amazing I want to be that person um and have that like bit of success under my belt um but then at the same time it's been like well this thing's just gotten started and it wasn't like you know obviously it wasn't it was it was a decent amount of money but it wasn't like I can retire kind of money and ah So it was, yeah, and it was like, it was like, I probably could have made the same money, um you know, well, yeah, definitely could have made the same money carrying on the business. So it was like, it was a real, it was a real trade off. But, but one thing that I realized I really didn't have was like experience working with people as well. And so it was like, okay, there's this opportunity where I can go and
00:33:21
Speaker
get some experience working with people and, you know, have this story in my, you know, i of of of a success story to an extent of i building a business and selling it. So I went and worked time out for two years as a product manager. The idea was to integrate ticket tailor into um timeout. into the website, but the project didn't work out and ended up buying it back. ah Yeah, like the two years later. Are you happy? to I know we could, I would love to have a proper conversation about this, but like the abridged version then, are they? um
00:33:54
Speaker
like, can you describe the six months before you were able to buy it back? Like, how, because that is fascinating. Yeah, I know. And it just, it sounds, it sounds like it sounds very simple, right? Sell a business back, back, but as honestly, it did not play out. It was very, like, surprising how it played out. um So yeah, I was ah the project did The integration project, the time that didn't work out, and my job just changed into product manager on a different product. and um and I was enjoying it. you know I was learning stuff um and some really nice people, really um ah yeah had some really good friends there.
00:34:26
Speaker
and um But yeah, after I ah had 18 months had to work there, and after 18 months, a really good friend had handed in his notice. And I don't know, I just felt like I'm not really, I'm not really, move you know, I'm not developing as fast as i I can develop a lot faster, I want to go back and do some something on my own, or, or, and at the same time, as well, the management team is changing as well. So um it was There was a lot of change going on. And I was like, OK, I'm going to hand in my notice. um I'd had quite a long notice period because I think, yeah, because I've been brought in on this acquisition, um I had a three-month notice period. And I said, you know but the work I was doing didn't warrant that. I wasn't doing that important work. So I said, can I just leave after a month? you know Can I just do a month's notice period? And um they said, no, because we've still got your business. And we don't know what to do with it. So ticket tailor's still ticking along at 2,000 pound a month in the background.
00:35:16
Speaker
um And I'm still doing the customer support. It's not a lot, but I just do it at the end of my day at Time Out. I just be like answering the emails or whatever. And so they're like, we don't know what to do with your business. And I just thought, oh, what a shame. What a waste. There's this thing that I've put so much love into that has just sat there. There's a burden on this company. and um Yeah, my friend, um Lee, who you've met actually, and he said, oh, well, what you need to do is you need to, um ah you know, you've got an opportunity here to buy it back. And so ah you just need to pitch it um as the most attractive option for them to sell it back to you. Because if it's a burden to them, well, you know, running it, carry on running it will be a pain in the bum, because they've got ah youve got to train people.
00:35:58
Speaker
Shutting it down will be a pain because that will take time. and They've got a transition clients or whatever, you know Like could create brand damage for timeout if they I don't know whatever but um, yeah, so he said, you know Just make it really easy for them make it make it an absolute no-brainer. So so um that's what it did a create a few options put them all in spreadsheet and kind of had a buying back price to cover all the transaction costs, so all the legal fees and stuff, just so it's just like for them, it was just like, Oh, this is the option where we just don't have the business anymore. And there's no negative, like, you know, the legal fees are covered, basically for getting rid of it. And so then the three month notice period was quite handy, because I was still in the building, chasing the, um you know, the CFO, you know, every week, they're like, Oh, can we get that heads of terms signed? Because it's obviously not on anyone's agenda. It's like, this is like the annoying thing now that it's just like, we're focusing on something else, you know, it's like a rounding error. Yeah, exactly. so so So then it was really good being in the building because we could get the heads of terms done and and I could get the business back. And then it was great because I had a really fresh mind. And I thought that was when I thought, oh, perhaps I should go back and think about this investing thing. And that's when I met the guy, um Pietro, who ah who's the bootstrapper who like set me on the right path. Oh, my gosh. so I hadn't appreciated that actually there was quite a long period then from before then you thought started thinking yourself as a bootstrapper.
Strategic Growth and Ethical Leadership
00:37:15
Speaker
The exit wasn't after that, it was before that. Yeah, it was before that, yeah.
00:37:19
Speaker
Okay, so then you come back in, now you're, you've you've brought it back, you you're you are now the savvy Johnny that I know, albeit still not a like a douchey greedy one. wow we love you I know we don't have like forever, in the like the 10 minutes or so that we've got, well I've still got you, what um Are there any other big forks in the road but from that point of buying it back to to to to now? cause And I'd love to finish up by giving folks like just some advice on like helping people kind of get clear on their purpose and making some of the hard choices. Particularly folks that aren't in a weird way as lucky as you. You're kind of lucky that you were unlucky, right? like like Yeah, there's so much luck. There's so much that's played into it that's just like,
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I couldn't have planned. It'd be impossible to plan the journey that the business has been on. Totally, totally. Yeah, it's crazy to think that some folks are going to end up in a worse position by having earlier lucky breaks than you. yeah yeah any Were there any other big kinds of things? At this point, bootstrapping, I'd say like 5,000 MRR with um with my friends in the building with me and we find some more bootstrappers and we're real support for each other. It's absolutely so much fun, basically running a lifestyle. you know I get a dog, um yeah offices like walking distance, we take long lunches, we're loving it. you know and now
00:38:43
Speaker
Still, you know, don't have any employee. None of us have employees. We have like um ah contractors helping us, um you know, ah online. um which is responsibility, but it's not our responsibility of having employees um coming into the building and seeing you know watching you. work oh i like being you know just you know You can basically do whatever you want. um So it's really nice. And I remember when I got to 8KMR and I was like, okay, I'll stick at this point. you know This is enough money now. um And if I could just, and know or as always, there's this nervousness that's gonna be taken away from me. And it's like, if I could stick, I'd stick right now. um But I'm so glad I didn't because you know a bit later, you know I don't know, six months later or something like that,
00:39:21
Speaker
I was redesigning the website for the like the fourth time and I'm still not happy with it. um so is you know And I guess it's a point where I'm like feeling a real limit of um my abilities. and so um And I suppose similar to kind of when I was at the £2,000 trying to think how do I get to £4,000, it's like there's a there's I'm stuck now. I can't get any further. I can't redesign this website. I've tried four times, and I still can't. And so that's when like a friend of mine who's freelance designer, um he had just um he just become available. And I was like, oh, come and work with me for a few months. And it was so good working with him because decisions were getting made. The design was looking great. you know Everything leveled up. And um and yeah, sure, you know I felt some responsibility. Well, I didn't so much when he was contracting. But then I i said to him, do you want to join? Do you want to come on board as a part-time designer?
00:40:11
Speaker
And then that's kind of a real shift change then of getting mentally prepared to... step out of being a lifestyle business and becoming a growth business. I guess what was also apparent was the opportunity. It's like, yeah, okay, the business is doing well, but you know it was easy to see that we could be a much bigger player in the ticketing market, see that like so many people would benefit from this from this ah from the software. So it was like, I want to make the most of that. um And so I guess that fork in the road was then about really embracing um the idea of hiring a team.
00:40:45
Speaker
and being a manager and that comes with, you know, that comes with more effort, it comes with hiring effort for a start and management effort. and um And at that point, you know, for me, it was getting a coach was absolutely critical, um because, ah yeah, like, um I wasn't the best manager, obviously, you know, my experience was two years working at timeout of working with people. um And I trod on a lot of times at timeout, you know, and like, um ah yeah, so and so I think it was working with my coach was um Yeah, like ah um a real therapy session, you know, all about relationships, right? It's about like how to like create good relationships where I've been in control of everything. And now I need to let go of control and empower people and ah just wasn't something I was used to. It wasn't a way my mind worked.
00:41:32
Speaker
um So that was that was that was a real shift change. And then the next one of that. So that was like, that was like the shift change of like, okay, we need to hire people and obvious people to hire our engineers um and obviously had this part time designer. And so we were essentially a technology business of, you know, like five, ah five engineers and a couple more. um But um but yeah, that's not so strategic, right? That's just like, oh, we've got loads of engineering work to do. We can hire engineers all day and and um and so and and get that work done. But then the hard thing was then, um yeah, i I just knew I needed, I was doing everything else in the business and I knew that that wasn't sustainable or that we were missing more opportunities because I'd say I'm not, I'm not commercially, so I'm not the most commercially savvy person. And um and also like the ops stuff was like overwhelming and dull and for me and and so on. so
00:42:27
Speaker
And also all these other aspirations of like and how I wanted to grow the business. You know, I mentioned earlier about feeling disill disillusioned with um how businesses grow and then thinking, oh, what I really want to do is be able to focus more on that side of things. And so then the next kind of big conscious decision was um putting in a leadership team. And there's a mentioned kind of like, kind of at the very beginning of the podcast that have got this amazing leadership team um in place. but The thing that was hard about that was um it took a few mishires first. you know And I think the thing that um think that is hard to to realize or the...
00:43:04
Speaker
yeah, it took me time to realize was I really needed people who were experienced and and like make that investment, make that um make that leap of being like, I need to get great people because I need people who are better than me. And not that not the people I had hired before weren't necessarily better than me, but like they need to not just be better than them, they need to be like um self-motivated and they also need to be the people that are gonna be pushing pushing their their department. And so, you know, found, found amazing people who, are you know, very much, you know, like, our yeah, commercial guy very much like pushing on the commercial side or ops person very much pushing on the upside. And um so, yeah, that was, it was hard, like, because obviously, the
00:43:52
Speaker
outlay of that commitment of making senior hires hadn't done senior hires always, you know, I said you said before about this habit of like hiring when you really need it. And it was like hiring, we really need it. And there's also like hiring at a level where it's like, what can we get away with because don't wanna want to toas keep it as lean as possible. um But this involved actually taking a leap, more of a leap, you know, into the future and being like, no, this is what we need. and This is what we're going to need to get to where we want to get to. um And so getting that leadership team in place and making those making those hires. And then that then set us up for Oh, yeah, not only that, but I also needed people who aligned with this half baked vision I have around um around business as a force for good.
00:44:35
Speaker
um which, you know, which it very much was like half baked. It was more just like, I've got this uneasiness, you know, especially hiring for commercial role. um It's, ah we make compromises. on our commercials all the time in favor of purpose. you know like um where trader you know we we we do conferences in the states and we're trading off like how can we Should we do less conferences because we want to reduce the number of flights we're taking? Or should we tend send less people? or you know can we um you know
00:45:07
Speaker
we are um always trying to, or like, can we keep our fees lower for charities? You know, can we, um can we not increase our prices that much? You know, all these things where we're trying to um balance this, like, what feels meaningful, what feels right with, with also what is like commercial, there commercially, you know, we know we're leaving a lot of money on the table in a lot of places. And so finding that, like, finding that commercial person who empathized with that and believed in it as well. And, and that's who we found. And so that's, you know, that that's, that was amazing.
00:45:38
Speaker
I can see how that would be incredibly hard, you know because it's not like the nought you can go and find the most aggressive commercial person you know, and they're going to be inspired by one day buying this business when you sell it to private equity. It's quite different. John, in the last couple of minutes, tile this all together, do you have any advice for folks that are quite early in their journey? Maybe they don't know themselves as well as as you do now. um Do you really just need to put it in the lap of the gods and just, you know, just hope that, you know, you get a bit of misfortune at the right time to give you, to put you in, you know, get more freedom later? Or do you think it's possible for people to steal themselves by projecting forward and thinking about the life they want later? Yeah, I do. I think, um i think but I think, well, I know, I think um
00:46:30
Speaker
I guess my first bit of advice would be like, keep optionality open. um This is something I read, it was articulated I read in a Stripe article, but it really resonates with my journey and and how I think about things now, which is just like, When you're making decisions, sometimes we're closing closing doors and those doors can't be reopened, and they're very serious decisions, you know and you want to avoid those as much as possible. um And so taking investment is closing a door, right? It's closing a door on a freedom. um And because you can't you can't get out of that, you're now you now you now got this stakeholder, which you can't yeah is what you can get out of it, but it's difficult. It's difficult to get out of that. you Your job has changed. um so And it's not just investors. There's other things as well. but
00:47:12
Speaker
um Keep optionality open as much as possible will be very aware when you're when you're when you're walking through and closing a door um because that is restricting your future. that's restricting your future um The other thing is like um the value of keeping things simple. um I think when I'm working at Time Out, it's an incredibly complicated business. They had so many different things going on. um and The only way to solve complexity really is, well, it's not the only way, but the way that most businesses solve complexity is by adding more people. and Then that brings more complexity in itself and the business can't be lean when you've got more people and people are solving complexity. so
00:47:49
Speaker
um Really, like you know the another reason why we've taken a long time, 14 years to get to where we are, and the reason why we're still growing slowly you know relative to how fast we could grow is because we really take time to keep things simple. you know we really like um We know we could make more money if we became a payment processor, you know if we did white label payments, for example. But that complexity that brings is massive. you know Stripe does all that for us. And so we're we're saying, oh, we don't need to be making that money right now. We don't need it. Money is not like our main problem. um So let's not take on that complexity. At some point, we might take it on. At some point, we might say, like oh, yeah, we we we we can afford to do that now. But I think
00:48:32
Speaker
the habit or the expectation is to chase every carrot and to be like, oh, there's an opportunity there. Why aren't you taking it? Especially if you've got investors, right? If we had investors, they'd be like, you're mad to not um to not be taking this opportunity that could potentially double your revenue. um But we can take that decision. so Yeah, the value of keeping things simple, again, gives you a lot of freedom, gives you like um headspace, and ah yeah, and and to keeps your business lean, you know, keeps high profit margins, it keeps your team small. um And I think that's something that's something we've optimized for all the time. Like we say we're not going to get more than 30 people.
00:49:08
Speaker
And ah that's like ah intent that not only means we like really stress about hiring amazing people, but um also means we stress about not hiring people as well. So like, how can we not hire this thing? Or where are we wasting time? What can we automate? How can we stay as lean as possible? So I think that kind of keep it simple.
Final Thoughts and Advice for Founders
00:49:26
Speaker
um and And then that kind of like, I think that, I can't remember how you just phrased it, but something like manifesting or something like that. But ah yeah, like um that moment of making that leap of hiring the hiring our leadership team um came about through an exc exercise I did with my coach where he forced me to
00:49:48
Speaker
envision my life in two years' time um and what I wanted it to be like, and and then step back in time and kind of rear and understand the what decisions needed to be made. like what needs to okay If that's where you are in two years, where are you in 18 months? And actually we did it month by month. Where where are you in that? Where are you that way? there And what became apparent um when we get back to the present day is like, okay, I urgently need to hire these two people um and I need to get the job ads up today. So I came out of that session from thinking like, um you know, oh, I don't know if I should do it. Maybe I'll do it in a few months or ah perhaps I should tone it down a little bit. It feels all risky to feeling like, oh my gosh, this is urgent. And so, i you know, I do think that stuff works. I do think like having that really clear intention um and and and I'd recommend using a coach to help with that as well because it made it very practical as opposed to it feeling
00:50:39
Speaker
um ah like just dreaming something's gonna happen and then it happens obviously you have to put stuff into action for it to happen um but yeah no I totally totally believe in it and and I think I think having those visions of what you want what is it you actually want and I think ah the tech industry has glamorized acquisitions and it's glamorized investment as like, this is success. And ah yeah, and I don't think it is. I've been through an acquisition and it was... I've taken investment. So I think, you know, I think it's like, what is it? There's
00:51:19
Speaker
don't don't follow what that what what you're being told, what is actually um what is it that actually you really want. And you might not know what it is you really want as well. And that's why keeping optionality open, that's why keeping those doors open is important um and giving yourself that freedom um as much as you possibly can. ah couldnt I couldn't agree more. Knowing what you don't want and picturing forward is such good advice. Johnny, thank you so much for doing this. I've loved it. I've learned a lot and I'm sure people listening will have too. Thanks so much, Rob. Really, really great pleasure to be here.