The most common message in a CEO’s inbox

Apologies for the typos, this is an AI transcription

You're a bit, you're a bit too close to the mic. You're doing ASMR. What's that? Don't roll

And there's literally like YouTubers who are making.

I don't know why they still have that. It's like, come on, you're owned by Amazon. Now

What do you mean that like, you know, when the author's like reading it out the book, right. I just feel they could add more drama, more like noise, like make an experience. Like I just like put some music. I was dunno. I just feel there's this element of this a full listening experience is missing. I

Ah, You download it. So you're gonna listen to at least the final chapters cuz of the dos and don'ts of storytelling, which I'm probably gonna bastardize at some point. But basically, because he is a storyteller, the book is brilliant. The book is told so well through his own and he narrates his own book as well.

But I, I, I agree. I think like if you are gonna narrate your own book, which is a big thing to do, um, it takes weeks literally. Like if you've got a long book, it would literally take you weeks. Uh, you should have some sort of coaching through the whole process because yeah, you, you wanna keep people.

People's

You switched it to the, uh, pity us. Yeah. We're just doing our best. No, it's all good. Before we delve into a topic, something probably worth chatting about is, uh, yeah, we add your second stage, right? So, you know, Some people have lucky to have one bachelor party or a stag. And you think the

No, no, no. They were like, I've been to multiple stags. You were a very good stag, a bachelor like you give, give you a drink or food of anything and you will scuff it or drink the hell of it. It's just, that I was surprised. I thought you would be one of those people that go, no, no, no, I'm not gonna do it. Um, but you drank some vow stuff, and like, I don't think it.

Good thing. Peer pressure is bad kids. I don't. Yeah. You just should not do that. Yeah, no, you just like, I pump my brand here. Like I still remember in New Orleans when you rocked in, you went, Hey, just I'm here. I'm more in, I'm just like, what the hell? I didn't expect that. Like, yeah, we called you FY.

Like the fine Foy fun. Ru's okay. Foy is way more legendary. So yeah, on this second bachelor party, like it was a last. Decision. So I rocked in on Saturday and I just thought, Hey, I could be that like late substitution, who could up the pace. That was my strategy. I thought, Hey, let's this is a great time to screw you over.

Like, just come in. You didn't see me come in.

He's a, like, you know, a great, great singer.

We went to one randomly because we were hanging out with him. He. The brunch thing. And we went for dinner with him afterward and he was just random. Like, I'm doing this concert tonight. If you wanna come, we can get you in you just part of the entourage. And we're like, yeah, let's do it. That's awesome.

We were basically like looking for that Beyonce sort of backstage,

Right. I'm like, what can I forget my lines and all that, you know, they're standard stuff and this is it's private selfish, but I went okay, what would I really want someone to do for me in this situation I made 10 years ago. And I remember I messaged him on Facebook as well after I went, Hey mate, I think you're gonna be the really, really big one.

I just know you're gonna be really, really big. So before he went on stage, I showed him my Facebook. I messaged much on Facebook. I said, Hey dude, I showed him the message. He went, man, that's sick. That's like the way he goes, mate, that's old school, man. You believed in me. And then literally that moment was his last words.

And he went on stage and then it started like belting his lyrics. So I was like, that's pretty cool. So it's just like, so you were responsible for that amazing performance you put out Aja, you know, remember, just remember that moment. It was

Yeah. He does what he loves. Yeah. You know, he, he makes music at home or, or with people he's got a good team around him and he's got a really good core group of mates that have sort of kept him humble throughout he's like meteor rise, you know? So yeah. No, it's good. He's really optimized for happiness. I love it.

Happy

And, uh, they have started a new podcast format where they interview startup founders and ask them about their first five hires. Mm. Listen to these two different podcasts, two different, smart people say completely opposite things about their first five hires. I feel like I've matched quite nicely with what Alex homo was saying because I've gone for pure practicality.

I've got my highs. Like I've got my assistant, got my research shows, helping me like with all the sort of. The information element for the pods and the, you know, the app and all the rest of it. I've got recipe credit because I've, I'm trying to disentangle myself in the process so I can work on the business that is in the business, but then I am doing a tech company.

So I'm thinking in my head, I might take a designer. Do I need to get another software engineer? You know, CTO? I feel like my heart, I need the CTO, but I was gonna throw the question to you and ask about

Um, so literally five different types of like things, um, monsters or whatever you wanna call these monsters superheroes. And, um, five people who have like lived different lives, where they are their own characters and you need to. Basically, bringing them to your project, and who those five are, will really depend on the type of company you wanna build.

So I think it all goes down to the founders, right? The the the number, like there's one, two founders that they need to decide, uh, what type of company do I wanna be? Like, do I wanna build, build a real tech company, which has got lots of engineering, like really deep tech, like think of Facebook, like their first few founders were all engineers.

Right? One big mistake. I see, like loads of people do is they hire people that have not been in the start. And that is, and the earlier the better cuz you know, when you're first, like no matter what business you do at the start, it is so, so bloody hard. Like it's, it's ridiculously hard because there's just so much uncertainty.

There are no processes. There's like is literally like, all you've got is a name and you've got inbox. Right. We've got no emails coming in. Like, and this person, when they first joined, they would get, probably get like two, three meals a day. Right? Like eventually. Get to like 5,000 and like, to the point where it's just like, fuck, there are too many emails, but there is like no formula.

There is no formula process. So this person has to have hopefully experienced that. Otherwise, there are so many times when I've seen this happen, it's like you highest people have never been in the stop and they're like, fuck. Now, what's going on here? Like they're scratching their head because it's so new.

Yeah.

Can we, can we use the podcast, uh, for me to shamelessly interview a whole bunch of people we'll literally just line up outside. I'll do 5, 5, 5, 10-minute interviews back to back and I'll just get you to. And me as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Jay, it'd be like Jay said no. Ah, fuck.

I. No,, I had an idea of where it could go. So I had, I'd always create one. One of my hacks is before I start coming, I do create an investor deck, cuz it helps me or I create some form like a memo of like what I feel this business should be because I feel like every human needs to have a direction, a hundred percent storytelling.

Yeah. You guess in storytelling you're literally narrating

Yeah. So that story has to be good. Yeah, it has to be, it has to be good. There's a lot of, um, information out there like who you should hire as well. They say, you know, hire someone for potential. I'm I, I actually play a bit safer now, especially in the early eyes. I, I try to find someone. Yes, there's got potential, but at the same time, they've done a lot of what I want, because I don't take any risks.

Maybe I'm a bit, I'm in a more lucky place where people may want to work with me. Yeah. Because of my track record. But I don't take it, I like trying to find people that have got potential, but I've also done a lot of the job. So that's actually a bit different than contradicts a lot of like the books aside, how you convince me to do a podcast with you.

Yeah. Probably so yeah. You knew how, yeah. I knew these topics will. Random, but yeah. Yeah. Topics random,

A lot more fun, right? Yeah. So I knew I was gonna do it with a friend. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then after I, after I changed the jacuzzi, Amit, um, we, we, we came to conclusion. We should do the pod and hence,

Do you believe in

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we, I mean young, but yeah. Yeah. So, um, my cousin was a huge fan and he took me there. Like I don't listen to Robbins as much, or I don't do realistic now. I think I've got other. Like coaches, but at that time he was the perfect person I needed. Cause I needed someone who's gonna kick me off bum and yeah.

To do stuff. Yeah. And he, he really nailed that point of like visualization, affirmations. Visualization has been huge. And I, you know, I do write my goals. I'm less now firm on them. I say I'm not, I don't get it. Too tied by them. Some amazing bit of advice I was given was that, you know, it's good to dream goals, but actually don't, don't make 'em so rigid because actually life's the best things that happen in life are the ones you don't expect when you were

So there's this, uh, saying, I always come back to of, um, strong convictions, loosely held, right. And it applies to sort of nutrition and nutritional medicine. You should have strong convictions. But if there is enough evidence to the contrary and it's validated, then you should be willing to change your mind.

And it's the same thing with visualizations and road mapping and goals. You need to be willing to veer off the course of where you think the trajectory of your company is going based on user feedback. Based on the market, based on the industry you're going into, based on whatever the inputs are, you need to be able to sort of being flexible enough, which is why it's harder for big companies who are entrenched in sort of their culture and ideas and, and, you know, structure to be as nimble as a startup.

Yeah.

Like there is this, obviously, we talked about it. There is this fascination about tech stops and I'm sure, you know, whoever listening may have some friends, then a similar situation. So I thought I like it. Brainstorm a few thoughts around it. Cause if they get asked or if you are one of those people right now, that's listening, maybe this might be a couple of moves, um, to think about.

So I thought it'd be a good thread. Okay. Um, so imagine you're not in a tech startup, right. And you wanna get in tech start. So I think the first. The question is just, do you wanna get into tech? Cause you're just fascinated. Are you curious? What is your level of interest? Right. Cause, why I've learned, is a lot of my friends, all they wanna do is just feel a bit of tech.

They just wanna, they just wanna like have a bit of a taster, right? So you could, you could just show like at that point where, you know, they've seen a few movies, they've seen enough stuff about Elon Musk on Twitter and they're like, okay, you know what? This game looks interesting or shit, people are making some.

Even though we're going through a bit of a downturn, whatever, it's still hot. Um, I just say to him, Hey, like to make a few, um, tech investments, right? Yeah. The second step now, like now we're talking phase two is like, okay, you actually want to get a tech job. Right. You want to be in the tech industry.

Right. So that's another game. This one's more interesting. Right? Cause. There's also another simple game for this one, and this is how I actually started. So in when I was in finance, so I used to work on the trading floor for an investment bank. Like I was very fascinated with entrepreneurship. I was interested.

So I joined a team that was actually very new. It was like a new product right. In a new market. So there were a lot of entrepreneurs. Aspects of it. So we had to like create new processes. We were, had to get our name in the market. So there's a PR element. You like, this is hustle. Um, so that was my first gig.

So, I chose that job on purpose. Cause I knew it was an early-stage team. Really you'll find that in most businesses, wherever you are, there will be this, like this team, this innovation team. Yeah. Which has got like an R and D or they've acquired a business and it's much smaller or. You might have an idea to launch a product and say, Hey, can I run that product?

Like, there's always an opportunity or they may have an accelerator or an incubator within the business. Trust me. There's like weird shit. That's going on in all businesses now. Yeah. A lot of corporate businesses, um, even later stage startups, like even like Google, Facebook, even like I'm talking about these guys, they might wanna join a startup.

Right. Um, there are a lot of like very startup jobs. Um, even like, you know, even in. Being a doctor, like, you know, in the NHSS NHS innovation, many there's so many,

Like GP is like, you know, general primary care. Yeah. But there's also like fertility there's, uh, all the different niches, gastro skin, like all these different like tech startups in that space. So that's a really good point. Like research, what. Already out there and see if you can

Right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it's weird. There's a lot of stuff there. The other rule is okay. You actually, no, no, no. I actually wanna work for a tech startup. Like what do I do now? Right. So if that's the case, then highly recommend you start getting yourself more into go invest in a few companies given a small check could be a few grand too, if you've got more money than awesome, like throw, throw the cash in right.

Play with it. See what happens. Be willing to lose it as well. Cause high risk, because that forces you to research the company exactly. Themselves. Yeah, exactly. So you research it and your best bet is to find a business that's in your industry. Right. And in tech, because then your experience is, is useful for that business.

I've seen so many people and this is the wrong move where they're like, Hey, like I'm in, um, I'm in finance, but now I wanna like, you know, I'm in banking or I'm a doctor, and I wanna now go into a start, which is like nothing to do my industry. And I want this other random role. Right. Which I wasn't doing like that is like, that's like a zigzag, boom.

Like that's a, you know, that's just difficult. So if you're in health, like go to Livy or Babylon, or, you know, one of those businesses, if you're in finance, go join Revolut or go join Monzo. Right. I know both the founders of those two. So those two, those are two banks. I like cuz I know those two guys, but yeah, go out for those 2 26 or any of those guys.

Yeah, no, no. I was dunno. Those guys know Tom mix so they can let we'll sell those two, but like go find that right business. Is, you know, in your

You're not like a software engineer or anything. The first thing is to check out no-code tools, but a no-code is basically where you can. It's like, like a Wix website. So you can move things around the page. Any shopping platform like shopping Shopify, for example, is essentially a NOCO tool. A lot of the templates that you.

To just get the idea off the ground are already there made for you and you just mess around with those. And so you get, I, you get the idea, do this on the side. That's probably the first thing

Like I didn't quit my day job, even when I got to like, you know, hundreds of thousand followers or whatever. And I, I got like revenue coming in.

And so that's the first thing I said

So if you find someone who is an engineer, find out what they're working on, see what your skillset is and how you can help them on their side hustles. If you look on. There's a bunch of, uh, websites. That product tank is always a good one to see like what people are building and what kind of things, you know, they're trying to get feedback on.

So you can sort of getting a steer of like the industry and, and then, the last thing I would say is you always wanna validate something before you, you know, try and go for funding or whatever, you know, or if you wanna go join them, right. Exactly. You need to validate your product. So whenever I hear someone.

Saying they're building something Stealthy or they're building something and they don't wanna talk about it really irritates me. I, I, I think there's probably some examples where that's necessary if you're working on something top, top secret. Mm. The vast majority of, of cases. It's just because you're embarrassed about what you are doing or you feel like, you know, oh, someone might steal my idea.

Trust me, your idea's been done several times. It comes down to execution branding and how, how well you can

I think everyone's just, uh, unsure, but anywho. So I am always well shaken these days about ideas being stolen. So I guess that's like a phase. So what you've done is you start phase three. So phase one is like, okay, you need a little bit of tickle, right? And start, go, go, go make a few little investments. Right.

Phase two would be, Hey, like I'm going to, um, Actually want a job, phase three is I actually wanna do my own start. Right. And that's basically what we've been talking about. And so I think, yeah, if you wanna do your own start, I highly highly recommend it, I wish I did this. I wish I went to go work at a startup really?

Initially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Before even knew if I started, I was applying for jobs. I wanted to go work, um, at the stop. And, um, I actually, uh, was trying to apply for general manager roles, which was proper punchy by my way. Cause I was like 25, 26, and I was trying to get these gigs at like these like fast-growing companies.

And I actually know all the founders that funny. I know. What

Yeah. Um, so which is quite funny. Um, think it was giggles. He goes, oh, your company's worth more than mine. I'm like, well, but it just, you don't know. So I think, um, yeah, I feel that the best way to learn is to be immersed. People that are doing what you're doing. So I highly recommend the best move. And this is, you know if you've got any friends who wanna get in, teachers go join a startup, like work you with from the bottom and get that experience.

Cause then if you wanna into your own company and having, so having the intention to also know whether you wanna have your own company is important because a lot of these people will just go, Hey, I wanna work for a startup. That's fine. If you wanna have your own company, have that intention. Cause then while you're in that experience, you'll start learning and watching for other things.

That was a good thread. I like it. I think

It's my favorite time. My favorite time to show.

So, um, how do we do,

So fun, fun. That's what we did more of, uh, do, do you think your like audience knows there's a, there's a.

They're like, oh my God, he, he, he drinks

You right. And that's it. There's fine. It's going on? I can see their face, which is quite funny. Yeah.

Who's right. One person says one thing, and one person says another. And then Jay's answer to that was like, dude, you gotta build your Avengers. You've gotta like, see the jigsaw. And it just made me think one of the things that the best teachers always say to you is don't just repeat it. Don't just memorize it.

Don't just tick the box. You have to understand it. And I thought this was like similar. Like you, you could go with either piece of advice, but like, do you understand. Jigsaw fits together, how you're gonna build your team. So I love it. Yeah. All right. The second one, I don't know if I'm getting paranoid, uh, like the tech sample week, but I feel you were talking about me there though.

that's right. Like I said, some of my friends come to me and ask me for advice about how do I go into tech, but are you talking about me? Uh,

So, yeah.

And like, I, I probably will be doing some tech-related stuff within the NHS as well. So a lot, lots of great ideas following your advice, man, following your advice. Yeah. Yeah. And actually like by working at bliss growth again, like you, you do start connecting the dots. It's like, oh, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this?

And then yeah, it starts coming together. Uh, and then the first conversation was about AEN, and, uh, it was quite interesting. Like first, um, you talked. For artists, it was about making money. You were like trying to pimp him out. I was like, whoa, you can go on the cameo and you can get a hundred

And like, cuz it is kind of the same with if you're building a business like artists or. Is kind of the same in that regard? And then the second bit from that was you talked about playbooks and the artists that I really like, I go super deep into them and nearly everyone has got like, um, a big inspiration and then like in the music, they almost bring that inspiration out into their music.

Um, so like a good one is. Kae he's a massive Stanley Kubrick fan and yeah, dark fantasy was basically like a homage to stand yeah. To Stanley Kubrick or logic is like a massive kill bill fan. And you'll see Quin Tarantino's references throughout his music. And you'll see other hip artists that he's a fan of in his music.

So everyone's looking for inspiration and I kind of feel artists are then often will pay it forward and then you'll be inspired by these artists. And you. No.

Cause at the end day, my guess is where biography's coming from. But if you can actually just show the real, real shit, because I think sometimes biographies hold stuff back. I think if you can hold the real formula. So I guess for our friend AK, you know, right out the formula share it. It's great. Yeah. Or

Cause I, I definitely. Loads of things like being around you guys whole

No, cause we had sound issues and then like, while we, yeah, so I, we had

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