Three Things with Tom Broughton (Cubitts Founder)

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honestly believe that the most interesting things are born out of some degree of tension between two opposing forces.
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The people are most interesting are always those that are brilliant at things, but then have a fatal flaw.
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there was this disconnect between these people I was seeing on TV, that had these incredible glasses.
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then you go into like an optician and it's just seemed that opticians were selling glasses designed for people who didn't want to wear glasses.
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We have all of the rules, 99 percent of the time, of the time we break it.
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It's this little rug pull that makes something interesting.
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the employee handbook is the single most important thing we've ever written it's a framework for trying to attract and retain the type of people that we want at Qubits.
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But, and that's not that we, we want the best people.
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We want the right people.
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Hello, I'm Jamie Mitchell and welcome to Altogether's Three Things, where I sit down with exceptional founders and CEOs and ask for their three things, three pieces of actionable advice you can implement in your business today.
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And today I am sitting in a workshop.
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It's best way of describing.
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how I feel and what I've seen today.
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I'm sitting in as in, in the workshop of a modern spectacle and I'm sitting with the lovely Tom Broughton, CEO and founder of Qubits, and I'm quite excited about our chat, so thanks for having me here.
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It's a pleasure, Jamie.
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Lovely to have you.
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So, I want to talk right off the bat about my real oversimplification that you are a man.
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Of juxtapositions.
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An accountant turned spectacle maker, and not just any old spectacle maker as we'll come to, a real, a really creative, and design led business through and through.
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a modern spectacle maker.
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what's going on?
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Is this, is this in your DNA do you think?
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A sort of, devil and an angel?
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Two sides to your personality?
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Or is this just how things have ended
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That is an excellent question.
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I mean, all the interesting stuff in life is about tension.
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Right.
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Like anything, any single thing unfettered leads to bad results.
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And the most interesting, I honestly believe that the most interesting things are born out of some degree of tension between two opposing forces.
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I think it plays really nicely into spectacles because they're this, they're this weird thing, which do sit between a whole different.
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A bunch of categories, right?
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Like they are a medical device.
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They are a piece of design, materiality, functionality, they're a piece of style.
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They are this weird thing that occupy all of these different worlds.
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And they are most interesting when they sit in the middle of all those different things.
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Where if you design a pair of glasses purely for function, it would lead you one direction.
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If you design a pair of glasses purely for style, it would lead you in another direction.
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I would contend that the best pair of spectacles are one that straddle all of those different things.
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And, and it just makes it interesting.
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and I think, you know, you can expand that into culture more generally.
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The people are most interesting are always those that are brilliant at things, but then have a fatal flaw.
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All the best, all the best
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going to get to your fatal flaw this early?
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I mean, the podcast will be too long if we just focused on my flaws.
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But, yeah, I think like, I love the idea of embracing.
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and that feeds into everything, you know, the way we think about our visual identity, the way we think about our product, the way we think about our brand.
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And so, yeah, I'm really pleased that you recognize the inherent tension that we try to build in all parts of our, I guess, communication and culture and
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come, we'll come to the brand.
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And I think, You know, my first, I remember the first time when you said you were an accountant before and I was, I was genuinely taken aback because having been a trainee accountant and having worked with a lot of accountants, you didn't really fit the bill.
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Yeah, that's
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This version of you
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Yeah, exactly.
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but let's, let's, let's tell people the story of Qubits.
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Well, I guess like with I started wearing glasses when I was at school.
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When I was a teenager.
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At a point in my life where anyone that knows, if you just get out a pair of glasses in class and put them on everyone looks at you.
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You suddenly become the Specky Four Eyed Kid.
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but luckily for me, it was at the point of my life where I was kind of working out who I was, I was getting more confident in myself.
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And I just thought glasses were cool.
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Like the
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Sorry, you are younger than me.
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Let's just, for the record, state this before I go and tell you that I too started wearing glasses as a teenager.
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But in those days, it was, there were one style and three colors of NHS
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Exactly.
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Well, the first pair of glasses that I fell in love with were the glasses that were worn by Morrissey.
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So, when I started getting into music and I thought the Smiths were amazing and then Morrissey wore these pair of glasses that were the NHS 524s.
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And so my, my, my, introduction into Spectacles came from a point of thinking, Wow, this, this cotidian product that's given out free by the NHS is really, really cool.
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And I realized in hindsight that most people didn't think that.
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And I'm guessing you probably
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either.
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No, but I'd love to wear a pair now.
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Yeah, exactly.
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and so I, I started from a different, I guess, entry point into the world of glasses.
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And I just thought they were this incredible thing.
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And then, you know, when Britpop came around, this is the late 90s.
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So now, now we're aging
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Okay, fine.
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A youth, A youthful man.
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And, Jarvis Cocker, I thought, at the pool.
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And like, I was just like, wow, this person strutting around with so much confidence, making this, at this time, I thought was incredible music.
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Glasses are amazing.
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And then I couldn't, because I grew up in Leicester, and then going to, going to Leicester, and I went to an optician on Leicester High Street, and there was this disconnect between these people I was seeing on TV, that had these incredible glasses.
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And then you go into like an optician and it's just seemed that glasses were designed for opticians were selling glasses designed for people who didn't want to wear glasses.
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And, and I just held that disconnect with me that like,
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yeah.
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Yeah.
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And then I started, then I started realizing you could go to a car boot sale and you could buy this amazing pair of glasses for like three quid and like start collecting frames.
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Just thinking this is really, this.
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Glasses are really interesting aren't they?
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Well, in my twenties when I could like afford it, I ended up buying a pair of Cutler Grose frames.
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And I think they're the most incredible, I just came across them as a like brand.
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I just thought they're the most intoxicating brand.
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They've got this incredible history in the frames.
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And that's what Jarvis Cocker wears.
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And I just thought like, wow, like glasses don't have to be the way that I've seen them.
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Like when I'm going to like the opticians in Leicester.
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but this is the point isn't there was the car boots, sales glasses.
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There were the luxury end of the market, which are gonna cost you a pretty penny.
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but you still become an accountant.
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Yeah, exactly.
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So I've never really known what I want to be when I grow up.
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Right.
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Astronaut, professional footballer.
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I think those days probably gone, I'm thinking now.
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I'm going, well you, no, you can go to space if Elon, if Elon hurries up with his Mars, Mars,
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But anyway, most of my decisions that I made to get to that point were all forms of career procrastination, because I never knew what I wanted to do.
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Why I chose my A levels, I did a degree, chose that because I didn't know what to do.
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Then I thought, well, I need to get a job and yeah, and then did, and then I joined an accounting company, but not to be an accountant.
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And when I was there, cause I thought accounting was really boring.
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They said, you get a bonus or whatever, if you do this qualification.
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So I was like, well, I might as well do that.
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So then I spent three years and qualified.
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actually, it's actually one of the most useful bits of training you can
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I mean, it's mad how it, yeah, it's really, really handy.
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and then did that for a bit, left there and then did loads of like weird, odd jobs.
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Like.
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I worked for a long time in children's television, I've worked for the BBC World Service for a while, I worked for Spotify in the early days of Spotify.
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So that was actually the last bit of work I did before committing full time to Qubits.
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So that would have been, it overlapped with the start of Qubits,
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2014.
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So Qubits day one,
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Yeah.
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it just turned 10, which I forgot to say, happy
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Thank you very much.
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Um, you started a business.
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It was
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Online.
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online originally, I think, right?
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You weren't thinking shops.
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Uh, so tell us because this has built up over years, right?
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What was really the insight that made you convinced to get off the career ladder and start this thing?
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well, I didn't get off the career ladder.
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there wasn't a point where it was like, Ding, the Eureka moment, this is what I want to do.
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I loved glasses in my twenties.
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I just started buying lots of them, buying vintage ones.
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I just had like, it was a hobby.
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And I was like,
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were you, were you selling them as well?
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Were you trading them?
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No.
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They were just
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you?
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Just me.
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Still got like boxes of them kicking around.
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And, I just thought they're really cool.
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I just thought glasses are cool.
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And then I just thought like, this could actually be.
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This could be like a self sustaining hobby that pays for itself.
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Like at the beginning, there was no plan.
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Like, and this is what, honestly, my aspiration at the
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Well, first of all, did you fund it yourself to begin with?
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Yes.
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Okay, so you didn't have to write a business plan?
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plan.
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You just had to start it?
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I
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Just had to start it.
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you started what though?
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Well, originally, so originally I started it with somebody that I used to work with at the county company and basically just, and it was always like, well, let's see where this thing goes, like we'll put some money towards it.
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Just when it was starting, he essentially said, I can't be part of this.
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I'm going to take a full time job at this other, other thing.
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So I was like, okay, I've got a decision to make here.
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Do I keep going or give up?
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And that was like, this is, is this folly?
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This is.
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This seems kind of ridiculous because I've got a good job that I should like be focusing on.
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I should have a
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and, and to be fair, a sole founder.
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I mean, you know, being CEO is lonely.
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A sole founder is really a lonely job, right?
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were
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you selling?
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What were you sourcing?
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basically got a
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a ragtag bunch of frames.
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That we'd like make like samples and
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and, and, and, how did it do?
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This online store of yours?
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Right,
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well, we built a website.
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We'd registered a brand and we got like a tiny amount of product and like a few bits of machinery.
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And that was it.
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And then it was just like, Oh, fuck.
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What do we, like, what do
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we do?
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And this, again, this is a, you have to put your own prescription into the website, buy a pair of glasses and hope that this unknown e commerce business will send you something back.
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but we launched a site and then like people did start buying, we like sold a frame on our first day.
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Did you know what was important to the brand, I'm going to use the word, from day one?
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it didn't really have a purpose or a mission or like, but I think the very tiny number of customers that we had, like what they liked, I think was, I don't know, like the authenticity of it.
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Like, cause we get an order in like, from if it was somewhere in London.
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We'd often like cycle around to their house and like take, we couldn't take, there's a measurement called your pupillary distance that you need to take to glaze the frames and like, we didn't know how to take it.
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So, You hadn't invented the online way of doing this yet.
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So we'd like literally cycle around to people's houses with a ruler and like knock on the door and just take, or like, we didn't have an office running out of my
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flat,
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but I mean, I had all these weird things where I had to try and pretend the company was more, was bigger and more authentic than it was.
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cubit street.
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And when we changed the address on everything to like, I think it was unit five, four cubits.
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So, people, would say the post would still arrive.
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But, to be fair, right, if you've, if you've managed to.
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Get a decent collection of unusual and interesting glasses.
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You're pricing it, I assume, competitively because of this.
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Were you playing the whole week I'd had the middleman line?
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Good,
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just think it's so over, people
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Well, it wasn't overused at the time, but it was, it was sort of, it was becoming overused.
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But you, you were, you were value, not value priced.
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Well, you were, you were saying a hundred quid cheaper than a Yeah.
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Luxury pair.
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You were coming around people's houses to measure it.
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Yeah.
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Because you're a cool online business that didn't need a shot.
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there's a story to it.
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An authenticity, that word that we, is now so overused and hard to find.
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I can get that, but it would have been slow.
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Honestly, I can talk about it now, but like those, that first year was horrendous.
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It was the worst year of my life.
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Without like a shadow of a doubt, it's like, cause you've basically, it's not just that you've spent all your life savings on this thing.
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It's like your, your repute, your ego, your reputation, you've been telling all your friends about this and you're basically looking after a failing, dying business that's about to run out of cash, where one of your best friends is always also working in it.
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So you have a sort of, yeah, duty to that, maintain that relationship and you don't know what you're doing and it's like.
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I never set out to be CEO, it just sort of happens.
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Like,
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So what was the, what was the turning point?
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It's sort of March, April 2014.
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We were, we were fucked, to be honest with you.
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Like, we're about to go out of business.
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Like, it was, yeah, it was horrendous.
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So, I was like to Joe, we need to start doing
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Orders trickling in, or?
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But like he's what, one a day.
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So it just wasn't paying.
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And we couldn't do anything.
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We couldn't afford to buy anything.
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Like, and
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You couldn't buy stock?
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You couldn't do marketing?
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You couldn't, you know, you were stuck.
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I mean, it's, you know,
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So it was
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you needed money.
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need, to do something.
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So we came up with a list,
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But that's what
00:13:38.509 --> 00:13:41.958
that was advising a bloke, Michael Hoville, who said, you just need to sell more stuff.
00:13:42.188 --> 00:13:45.739
And it's like, so obvious, but like, so I was like to Joe, like, okay, we need to sell more stuff.
00:13:45.908 --> 00:13:49.418
Why don't we try and get in a shop, people go to shops and buy stuff, let's get in a shop.
00:13:49.629 --> 00:13:49.798
So
00:13:49.839 --> 00:13:50.328
shop.
00:13:50.328 --> 00:13:52.009
Forget this ridiculous online thing.
00:13:52.778 --> 00:13:55.359
It's been done, it's been done this way for hundreds of
00:13:55.538 --> 00:14:00.938
like we need to get in a shop, we wrote down a list of shops that we liked, and the first one on it was a brand called Aobao.
00:14:02.183 --> 00:14:05.764
And, a friend of ours worked at Albam, so we knew a way in,
00:14:07.015 --> 00:14:07.288
on
00:14:07.354 --> 00:14:16.264
door, like rocked up and basically said, I'd love to, I met the founder, Alistair, and I was like, it'd be really cool if we can, if you could stock us and they were like, yeah, okay, we'll stop you.
00:14:16.374 --> 00:14:16.964
I was like, wow.
00:14:16.965 --> 00:14:18.384
Is it that easy?
00:14:18.384 --> 00:14:30.764
So we went in and the crazy thing, we hadn't even thought, like I say, the company comes from spectacle style of spectacles, and then suddenly this was like April, May, and then people were like, can we do these as sunglasses?
00:14:31.283 --> 00:14:33.783
And I was like, actually,
00:14:33.849 --> 00:14:35.649
don't have to cycle around people's houses.
00:14:35.933 --> 00:14:37.203
do them as sunglasses.
00:14:37.494 --> 00:14:37.984
We just have to
00:14:38.099 --> 00:14:39.278
Oh my goodness me.
00:14:39.639 --> 00:14:42.278
I love the fact you are not sugarcoating this.
00:14:42.668 --> 00:14:45.528
Boy were you naive, eh?
00:14:45.528 --> 00:14:46.889
But you were passionate.
00:14:47.230 --> 00:14:47.590
Yeah.
00:14:47.639 --> 00:14:49.629
You had a love for this object.
00:14:49.629 --> 00:14:49.899
Yeah.
00:14:49.929 --> 00:14:54.129
Which, by the way, is so evident in everything about you today.
00:14:54.700 --> 00:15:00.190
and, and, in a way, you, I mean, if you hadn't survived, then that would have been the story, I guess.
00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:02.044
But, you went to, from one a day to
00:15:02.130 --> 00:15:03.169
day to Five.
00:15:03.470 --> 00:15:03.750
Which
00:15:03.784 --> 00:15:07.684
was and you were not having to do anything on them'cause they were all sunglasses.
00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:15.210
And so that in itself was good, but then it introduced us to, there were two customers in a week that completely turned the fortunes.
00:15:15.460 --> 00:15:17.580
One, who ended up investing.
00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:23.470
Well, the first customer was, we, we got an order through from album, it was a bloke called, this name came up, it was Nick Hornby.
00:15:24.289 --> 00:15:26.595
And, it's his local, actually, no, he's brother.
00:15:26.865 --> 00:15:27.195
Nevermind.
00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:29.730
And I was like, that can't be, didn't it call me the author?
00:15:29.730 --> 00:15:30.279
Could it be?
00:15:30.870 --> 00:15:31.659
Surely not.
00:15:31.799 --> 00:15:35.235
Because I remember the first book I properly read was Fever Pitch when I was like 12, 13 years old.
00:15:35.235 --> 00:15:47.495
so, I went up and like, to just this frame, so I went up and met him, and he was really complimentary, and I was just like, when I was so close, what he didn't know, is I was like, probably a week before, I was about to jack it
00:15:47.570 --> 00:15:48.200
all in, Yep.
00:15:48.394 --> 00:15:52.154
and he was like, I really love what you're doing, great brand, keep it up.
00:15:52.455 --> 00:15:55.534
And then by the album sales, I was like, okay, we can get through this summer.
00:15:55.934 --> 00:15:58.384
And by this point, I've been trying to raise money, trying to get investment.
00:15:58.424 --> 00:15:59.835
It just been like endless rejections.
00:15:59.845 --> 00:16:01.034
And it's very, an
00:16:01.206 --> 00:16:02.970
endless, You had a plan then, at this point.
00:16:03.304 --> 00:16:04.615
I'd sort of put something together.
00:16:04.615 --> 00:16:07.615
I actually looked at it recently and it was kind of all, it was all over the shop.
00:16:07.625 --> 00:16:11.168
But like, anyone that's like raised like money and I'm sure you've been through the process.
00:16:11.168 --> 00:16:23.514
Like when you don't have any power or agency and you're desperate for it, it's so I've never been like so ghosted before it was just like, endlessly ghosting and like you speak to them and say I'll get back to get back to you.
00:16:23.514 --> 00:16:25.073
And it's just like, why am I doing any of this?
00:16:25.203 --> 00:16:30.344
And then out of the blue, we got this email from a chap called Gary Clark, who was like, I love what you're doing.
00:16:30.364 --> 00:16:34.894
I just tried to go to my local optician to get my pupillary distance and they refused to give it to me.
00:16:35.313 --> 00:16:37.744
I'm realizing that this model is fucked.
00:16:37.953 --> 00:16:39.333
I think what you're doing is great.
00:16:39.514 --> 00:16:41.134
if you, if you need investment, let me know.
00:16:41.298 --> 00:16:42.408
and Joe replied to his email.
00:16:42.413 --> 00:16:43.099
He was like, what's the save?
00:16:43.099 --> 00:16:49.308
Like, yeah, let's meet, met him that day on the Cali Road, and he chat about it and he was like, I'd like to invest.
00:16:49.308 --> 00:16:49.908
How much do you want?
00:16:49.908 --> 00:16:51.948
And I, I think at the time I didn't know.
00:16:51.974 --> 00:16:54.198
I, I hadn't even thought it, so I just.
00:16:54.573 --> 00:16:57.543
To get to that point, I burnt through 67 grand.
00:16:57.964 --> 00:17:00.244
So I think I just said that was a number that was in my head.
00:17:00.604 --> 00:17:02.224
So I was like, 67
00:17:02.304 --> 00:17:07.574
Grand As if, as if that's the most obvious amount of money.
00:17:07.983 --> 00:17:09.604
and then he was like, I think you need
00:17:09.653 --> 00:17:09.854
more.
00:17:10.034 --> 00:17:10.263
Yes.
00:17:10.269 --> 00:17:10.983
And I was like, okay.
00:17:10.989 --> 00:17:11.223
yeah, yeah.
00:17:11.334 --> 00:17:12.773
What, who is he by the way?
00:17:12.773 --> 00:17:13.104
What was he?
00:17:13.106 --> 00:17:18.784
see, so he worked in the city for like 20, he was like a, a asset manager, equity trader type thing.
00:17:18.963 --> 00:17:21.163
not coming from this world, but he maybe had made.
00:17:21.513 --> 00:17:24.323
Other investments of the, of the Ilka at the time.
00:17:24.323 --> 00:17:25.650
That was a disturbing effort.
00:17:25.650 --> 00:17:25.915
Really?
00:17:25.915 --> 00:17:26.181
Yeah.
00:17:26.181 --> 00:17:26.446
Gosh.
00:17:26.446 --> 00:17:26.936
I mean, this is
00:17:27.096 --> 00:17:31.207
Weird serendipity here again, but like he, he was like a hundred grand.
00:17:31.426 --> 00:17:32.787
And I was like, okay, a hundred grand.
00:17:32.846 --> 00:17:36.957
So we agreed the valuation and then we agreed the terms, then he invested.
00:17:37.227 --> 00:17:40.747
And so that hundred grand changed everything.
00:17:41.086 --> 00:17:48.846
Cause it also for that first year, I'd kind of made so many mistakes that I'd got a better sense of like who we were as a brand.
00:17:49.317 --> 00:17:50.836
and then I knew what we wanted to do.
00:17:50.846 --> 00:17:52.547
And by that time we'd had the album experience.
00:17:52.557 --> 00:17:54.557
So I was like, I need a physical site.
00:17:54.747 --> 00:17:58.047
You'd con you'd been convinced by that, that you needed to go Yeah.
00:17:58.047 --> 00:17:58.856
Full whack in.
00:17:59.096 --> 00:17:59.307
Yeah.
00:17:59.406 --> 00:18:04.942
and I just want to take a moment also on that and that first, that first anecdote that the, the.
00:18:05.696 --> 00:18:11.916
Reinforcement, the energy you would have got from that one Nick Hornby, keep it up.
00:18:12.356 --> 00:18:18.916
I mean, in terms of life funding or just air to breathe.
00:18:19.281 --> 00:18:19.711
Yeah.
00:18:19.946 --> 00:18:21.457
So, so interesting.
00:18:21.842 --> 00:18:23.852
And he doesn't know that, right?
00:18:23.892 --> 00:18:29.541
He doesn't know that what was probably just a nice casual comment has led to
00:18:29.567 --> 00:18:34.176
We'll be sure to get him, get him a copy of this and make sure he's aware of his impact.
00:18:34.537 --> 00:18:34.916
okay.
00:18:34.916 --> 00:18:37.396
We're going to have to fast forward this story because we've got things I want to talk about.
00:18:37.767 --> 00:18:43.146
you end up opening a shop in Soho with full, full optician shop.
00:18:43.146 --> 00:18:47.317
Or did you just, yeah, you went the full, this is the tradition model, but we're one, we're one brand.
00:18:47.356 --> 00:18:48.686
We don't sell this multiple brands.
00:18:49.017 --> 00:18:52.297
Who else, if anybody in London was set up that way?
00:18:52.981 --> 00:18:53.201
Mm.
00:18:53.701 --> 00:18:54.122
nobody.
00:18:54.237 --> 00:18:54.866
nobody.
00:18:55.436 --> 00:18:56.817
I mean, Specsavers
00:18:57.207 --> 00:19:09.432
Well, I guess you had like, people like Cutler and Gross who were doing a brilliant thing and a lot of there were a few brands that had stores, but, there was nothing that, that was like doing what we're doing and then like offering like bespoke, which was a big thing for us, which,
00:19:09.932 --> 00:19:14.642
how did, I didn't really ask this earlier, but what was, is the pricing.
00:19:15.214 --> 00:19:17.025
What's the secret to the pricing here?
00:19:17.454 --> 00:19:26.884
Is it just that the luxury end has gorged the market and was making too big a margin or did you cut out some weird costs that we didn't know was
00:19:26.964 --> 00:19:29.585
Well, essentially, what we're selling is a wholesale price.
00:19:29.734 --> 00:19:32.914
So the way most opticians work is they'll buy a product in and then apply 2.
00:19:32.914 --> 00:19:34.295
8 times mark upon it.
00:19:34.295 --> 00:19:34.984
And that's the retail
00:19:35.404 --> 00:19:37.174
it's the own label, it's the own label model.
00:19:37.174 --> 00:19:38.214
So
00:19:38.234 --> 00:19:43.285
you're buying in a frame for 100, you're then selling it for 280 and then you put the lenses
00:19:43.359 --> 00:19:46.990
But, but Moscow are doing that, they distribute through other stores.
00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.039
So they're predominantly a wholesaler who makes a full margin in their own retail stores.
00:19:51.329 --> 00:19:51.619
Yeah.
00:19:51.809 --> 00:19:52.099
Okay.
00:19:52.140 --> 00:19:53.200
I get it completely now.
00:19:53.519 --> 00:19:59.789
now look back in, back in these days, and I'm going to now talk about technology, DTC versus retail here and the journey you've been on.
00:20:00.170 --> 00:20:05.240
and, and I'm going to shortcut it by saying, I've heard you describe yourself as accidentally now a tech company.
00:20:06.089 --> 00:20:10.470
Uh, talk to me about, about that, because I think now I really think.
00:20:10.865 --> 00:20:13.674
Technology is quite an important part of defining you,
00:20:13.944 --> 00:20:14.535
absolutely.
00:20:14.855 --> 00:20:21.085
But it's one of those things that we've sort of stumbled into and perhaps because of complete naivety and low budgets.
00:20:21.470 --> 00:20:24.690
We've sort of had to become like, all right at it.
00:20:24.940 --> 00:20:26.319
So I'll give you a practical example.
00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:35.259
When, I mean, when we first opened the store on the 4th, 5th of November, 2014, when we opened at 37 Marshall street, Soho, Joe and I were working in there.
00:20:35.500 --> 00:20:38.950
And I remember we opened the door and our plan was to sell like two frames a day or something.
00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:46.650
And, and the customer came in at like 11 in the morning And it was our first ever customer and Joe and I were looking at each other thinking, shit, what do we do?
00:20:46.660 --> 00:20:48.069
Like, should we speak to
00:20:48.112 --> 00:20:51.234
Yes, this is another bit of naivety, you are not a retailer.
00:20:51.234 --> 00:20:52.164
And he went
00:20:52.450 --> 00:20:55.690
and he went over and picked up a frame, tried it on and said, I'd like to have these please.
00:20:56.575 --> 00:20:57.845
And we were like, what do we do?
00:20:57.845 --> 00:21:00.825
And we realized at that point, we didn't even have a card terminal.
00:21:00.964 --> 00:21:01.994
We hadn't thought about any of
00:21:02.065 --> 00:21:02.744
Come on.
00:21:03.055 --> 00:21:03.785
No, come on.
00:21:04.644 --> 00:21:06.375
I actually think this is a joke now.
00:21:06.875 --> 00:21:07.795
I really do.
00:21:08.515 --> 00:21:10.095
You are a, I'm sorry, I'm going to say this.
00:21:10.095 --> 00:21:12.255
This is a very successful business, everybody listening.
00:21:12.255 --> 00:21:15.464
If you don't know Qubits, this is an exceptional business.
00:21:15.494 --> 00:21:17.115
I'm a very loyal customer.
00:21:17.394 --> 00:21:19.164
Their retail experience is phenomenal.
00:21:19.164 --> 00:21:21.085
Their online presence and their technology is great.
00:21:21.224 --> 00:21:21.805
But what the
00:21:21.887 --> 00:21:22.746
fuck! I know,
00:21:22.924 --> 00:21:23.335
You have
00:21:23.604 --> 00:21:29.588
in the end we ended up bringing up the website, and then he ended up Buying it through the website.
00:21:29.894 --> 00:21:36.365
but what we realized then was, cause then we thought, okay, we need to look at these retail point of sale solutions and we looked at them and they're all shit and they're
00:21:36.410 --> 00:21:37.589
really expensive One size fits
00:21:37.704 --> 00:21:39.944
they all just felt like it was like Windows 3.
00:21:39.974 --> 00:21:43.734
1 and it was like, and we were just like, can't we just build our own?
00:21:43.734 --> 00:21:45.365
It can't be that difficult.
00:21:45.454 --> 00:21:49.865
And then, because we'd moved to this weird open source platform and we had a developer helping
00:21:50.109 --> 00:21:50.130
us.
00:21:50.150 --> 00:21:50.700
Okay, but hold on.
00:21:50.710 --> 00:21:52.750
Now you're talking the language of tech for a second.
00:21:52.750 --> 00:21:53.730
So were you techie?
00:21:54.365 --> 00:21:58.845
I mean, like tech oriented rather than like tech.
00:21:59.015 --> 00:22:02.994
So that we understood how, you know, when I was a teenager, I used to build websites.
00:22:03.005 --> 00:22:03.234
Right.
00:22:03.234 --> 00:22:03.634
So like
00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:04.333
right?
00:22:04.333 --> 00:22:07.689
So, like, that kind of Yeah, it was just
00:22:07.924 --> 00:22:08.184
Yeah.
00:22:08.194 --> 00:22:09.164
But it's just like, like
00:22:10.230 --> 00:22:15.039
yeah, And
00:22:15.105 --> 00:22:18.365
I was always just cynical about going and buying an answer to something.
00:22:18.555 --> 00:22:22.025
And my approach to like everything continues to this day is.
00:22:22.839 --> 00:22:30.609
If you try and buy an answer, you never get a good one and you're best to muddle through and learn yourself so you can ask a better question.
00:22:30.683 --> 00:22:31.673
so that's what we did.
00:22:31.733 --> 00:22:34.104
And we built like a patient management system for all the eye tests.
00:22:34.163 --> 00:22:37.814
We built that and we started building these little bits of technology.
00:22:38.189 --> 00:22:41.759
That bolted onto the business like a thing for measuring the
00:22:41.868 --> 00:22:42.798
glazing Yeah, okay.
00:22:42.798 --> 00:22:44.808
So I've got to correct my understanding.
00:22:44.818 --> 00:22:48.788
You were actually quite tech led very early on in this regard.
00:22:48.930 --> 00:23:03.226
I'm really intrigued in this point, by the way, because I've got, I've got quite fixated on the idea that this AI revolution might be the moment where those of us who feel least tech savvy will be able to tech nify our businesses.
00:23:03.611 --> 00:23:06.290
Terrible words I've just used there, but you know what I mean, right?
00:23:06.520 --> 00:23:11.161
And I love stories of businesses that aren't tech businesses that build tech products.
00:23:11.221 --> 00:23:16.417
So I'm really interested in the story of, I'm not going to buy this product, I'm going to build it.
00:23:16.417 --> 00:23:16.928
Yeah.
00:23:17.637 --> 00:23:19.738
Come on now, are you just a really
00:23:20.053 --> 00:23:20.222
No
00:23:20.417 --> 00:23:28.028
obstinate sort of, I am not going to pay money for something that's going to do half the job, or, and where's the self confidence and the belief in it?
00:23:28.028 --> 00:23:30.288
I mean, you open a shop without knowing how you're going to sell it.
00:23:30.627 --> 00:23:35.058
You make glasses without realising sunglasses are probably going to be your easy money.
00:23:35.479 --> 00:23:38.068
But here, oh, I'll build my own technology platform.
00:23:38.344 --> 00:23:41.134
Well, I think it's the Perspect combination of naivety and recklessness.
00:23:41.134 --> 00:23:42.828
But, The backs
00:23:42.894 --> 00:23:44.588
And we're back to the juxtaposition.
00:23:44.648 --> 00:23:46.509
Oh no, that's not a juxtaposition, that's an
00:23:46.784 --> 00:23:47.913
is probably
00:23:47.949 --> 00:23:48.669
the tension that's
00:23:49.003 --> 00:23:50.773
that, like, in, in, in hold.
00:23:51.054 --> 00:23:54.933
but, it, like, Technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself, right?
00:23:55.134 --> 00:23:58.733
And like, it was all about what is the, what is going to be the easiest way to do the stuff we want to do.
00:23:58.953 --> 00:24:02.903
Our whole approach to taking on the world of optics was to try and simplify everything as much as possible.
00:24:03.064 --> 00:24:10.933
The problem with technology that's sold to the entire industry, it's the opposite of that, it's overly complicated because it has to cover every, and so it was like, we're.
00:24:11.588 --> 00:24:16.229
We're, my problem was why are we buying something where we're not going to use 99 percent of it?
00:24:16.229 --> 00:24:22.068
If we spend five times more money than we do for giving that 1%, we'll still only, it will still, it'll still be cheaper.
00:24:22.169 --> 00:24:23.519
I'm not saying I disagree with you.
00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:28.288
I'm just, I'm, I'm intrigued where that confidence comes from for, for that You
00:24:28.307 --> 00:24:36.269
I think it was, I honestly think there's naivety rather than confidence, A legitimate reason was I didn't know that Qubits was going to last another year.
00:24:36.939 --> 00:24:37.759
And a lot of
00:24:37.804 --> 00:24:38.324
the software that
00:24:38.358 --> 00:24:42.088
that you sign up has minimum contract terms, like, and
00:24:42.242 --> 00:24:43.686
like, with
00:24:43.719 --> 00:24:47.659
and with our developer, we were already paying him a retainer to do the development.
00:24:47.689 --> 00:24:51.159
So my view was the incremental cost of us doing that is actually zero.
00:24:51.459 --> 00:24:57.969
And if it all goes down, it all goes down, but what I don't want to be doing is me personally tied up to this, you know, on the hook for this.
00:24:58.243 --> 00:25:01.334
Four year bloody thing that we signed with some innovation system,
00:25:01.692 --> 00:25:01.913
right?
00:25:01.913 --> 00:25:02.933
I get that.
00:25:02.933 --> 00:25:10.435
It also seems, by the way, that it has given you a very potent approach to technology and how you build technology.
00:25:10.465 --> 00:25:16.248
Because I remember when we talked about AI couple of months ago, and you talked about your machine learning stuff that you've done.
00:25:16.307 --> 00:25:21.917
And you just, I think you said you just hired a couple of relatively recent graduates or something like that.
00:25:21.968 --> 00:25:33.607
But basically you are You're, you're handpicking individuals to help you, not going to a company that builds technology where the margins and the costs and everything get layered on top.
00:25:33.627 --> 00:25:36.268
You're, you're being scrappy to this day on
00:25:36.625 --> 00:25:39.406
I want to hire developers, I don't want
00:25:39.557 --> 00:25:43.788
Again, that sounds like a tech company, not a spec, a modern spectacles company.
00:25:44.387 --> 00:25:45.178
But that's, you know.
00:25:45.722 --> 00:25:52.073
but it's, I guess it's apology to everything, not technology, but the way we design stores or do fit outs, like.
00:25:52.343 --> 00:25:53.603
are who?
00:25:53.678 --> 00:25:54.248
Who designs.
00:25:54.278 --> 00:26:00.788
So first of all, for people who don't know you, you choose predominantly unique locations.
00:26:00.788 --> 00:26:06.577
But you do a bespoke and very beautiful design, I would say in every single one of them.
00:26:06.577 --> 00:26:07.748
Who, who's the designer?
00:26:08.147 --> 00:26:09.288
Well, it's evolved.
00:26:09.377 --> 00:26:12.597
So at the beginning, it was me, which was why the first few stores were terrible,
00:26:12.788 --> 00:26:13.867
Well, you were also designing the
00:26:13.939 --> 00:26:14.834
actually also
00:26:14.923 --> 00:26:15.198
exactly.
00:26:15.728 --> 00:26:21.988
designer called Andy Sweet, who I should mention, who's based in Scotland, but like.
00:26:22.298 --> 00:26:26.038
we, when we, yeah, the first few stores were a bit of a car crash, but they're okay.
00:26:26.038 --> 00:26:27.087
They were authentic.
00:26:27.157 --> 00:26:28.178
They were rough around the edges.
00:26:28.478 --> 00:26:35.988
Over time, we've got better and we've worked with, we have slightly bigger budget, so we can work with really brilliant designers and interior architects.
00:26:35.998 --> 00:26:36.028
But
00:26:36.097 --> 00:26:39.167
you're not going to, you haven't got the sort of single
00:26:39.847 --> 00:26:40.298
it's a different one.
00:26:40.508 --> 00:26:41.426
Perfect design No, no,
00:26:41.438 --> 00:26:42.087
firm that's, you know,
00:26:42.452 --> 00:26:44.452
No, as you can imagine, we're very hands on.
00:26:44.522 --> 00:26:45.522
I'm very hands on with it.
00:26:45.843 --> 00:26:48.692
and Katie, our managing director is very hands on with it.
00:26:49.093 --> 00:26:57.923
but we've cut out all like, cause other people have a project manager and they have someone like who runs a whole process and goes to like retail fit out companies.
00:26:58.472 --> 00:27:06.643
The chap who does our retail fit out, I found him on rated people just, and he came around to my flat to do a little job bloke's good.
00:27:07.393 --> 00:27:18.542
Do you fancy doing a shop fit out and now off the back of it, he's built an entire business, but like you over, I just think people overcomplicate it sometimes because they underestimate their own ability to actually achieve a good outcome.
00:27:18.569 --> 00:27:19.496
a good outcome.
00:27:19.496 --> 00:27:29.883
Or they overestimate the complexing challenge of applying themselves to something new, which, you know, it could be insecurity that stops them doing it as much as overcomplication that gets them the other way.
00:27:30.313 --> 00:27:34.232
so let's talk about design because what shines through.
00:27:34.548 --> 00:27:46.978
Partly because of those stores, absolutely because of the glasses and entirely through the way you and the business talks is that love and passion for design.
00:27:47.637 --> 00:27:55.758
Again, is this an accident of the fact that this was your passion and your hobby, or did at some point you wake up and go, this is, this is what we're going to differentiate ourselves here with.
00:27:55.758 --> 00:27:56.428
Let's double down
00:27:56.512 --> 00:28:03.164
It's not, like, don't want to get all idea rams about it, but, like, I, like, I'm a fervent believer that design changes people's lives.
00:28:03.204 --> 00:28:05.744
Like, it's, like, it's, it's Everything good.
00:28:06.275 --> 00:28:07.285
Humanity is created.
00:28:07.355 --> 00:28:09.184
Well, again, this is a false statement.
00:28:09.394 --> 00:28:16.214
There's a design element to but like, I just think it's so unbelievably like important and like somewhat so frequently butchered.
00:28:16.505 --> 00:28:19.315
And so, like, we talk about it all the time.
00:28:19.474 --> 00:28:24.075
We have a whole bunch of like little internal sayings that help us think about how the role of design plays.
00:28:24.375 --> 00:28:25.930
But like Yeah.
00:28:25.930 --> 00:28:28.269
It, it's just, it, it is the most integral part of the business.
00:28:28.420 --> 00:28:34.442
Everything, all the little touch points, So I'll give you like, we have a saying, which is Which I find really useful.
00:28:34.442 --> 00:28:38.833
We've not quite mastered it yet, but it's that tension thing again, which is precision with soul.
00:28:39.313 --> 00:28:44.012
So we use that to try and apply that to everything we do to varying degrees of success.
00:28:44.012 --> 00:28:49.932
And what I mean by that is we are, we are a brand design is really important and authenticity and trust.
00:28:50.103 --> 00:28:51.363
An authority is really important.
00:28:51.373 --> 00:28:52.313
We're a medical product, right?
00:28:52.663 --> 00:28:54.633
So precision, we are precise.
00:28:54.633 --> 00:28:59.873
We sell a precise medical product that is heavily regulated, where a millimeter makes a difference.
00:29:00.063 --> 00:29:05.893
We need to have really clear rules about how we do stuff, but the tension comes from the soul.
00:29:06.292 --> 00:29:07.373
It's breaking those.
00:29:07.512 --> 00:29:10.772
We have all of the rules, 99 percent of the time, of the time we break it.
00:29:11.153 --> 00:29:16.573
And that injects this sense of personality and, because we don't want to be po faced and austere.
00:29:17.428 --> 00:29:20.208
It's this little rug pull that makes something interesting.
00:29:20.397 --> 00:29:28.178
And what we want to do is, obviously you can, you know, create really, like that, the, the, magazine or the spectacle that, is, on the desk here.
00:29:28.307 --> 00:29:32.337
Like the whole idea to, to do that is we have lots of precision.
00:29:32.347 --> 00:29:38.428
Like you can see that the image of that frame shot, really clear, structured, direct on in a very considered way.
00:29:38.627 --> 00:29:43.788
And then we'll, then we'll break it and then we'll find a way to, whether it's a little bit of idiosyncratic, like.
00:29:44.103 --> 00:29:56.032
text or illustration or whimsy to try and create that contrast between the precision and the soul between the authoritative, authoritativeness and the gregariousness.
00:29:56.372 --> 00:30:03.145
this is interesting, of course, coming, I mean, I'd like to say, I've thought this whole thing through with my initial question about juxtaposition.
00:30:03.145 --> 00:30:11.381
It actually just came to me two minutes before we started, but actually you can be design led and not have the tension,
00:30:11.402 --> 00:30:11.834
Yeah.
00:30:12.411 --> 00:30:14.280
not spend enough time on the soul.
00:30:14.301 --> 00:30:14.790
Yeah.
00:30:14.961 --> 00:30:17.111
And there's some brilliant brands that do that well.
00:30:17.403 --> 00:30:23.403
There are, But this juxtaposition and the soul, it's, it's, it's, I, I find that fascinating.
00:30:24.003 --> 00:30:26.513
Brand, let's talk about this very quickly, marketing.
00:30:26.604 --> 00:30:29.693
you've not really gone heavy on, I mean, you've done it.
00:30:30.368 --> 00:30:34.338
That the traditional DTC spending on on Google and Facebook and all the rest of you hate.
00:30:34.368 --> 00:30:35.858
You've stated how much you dislike it,
00:30:35.930 --> 00:30:36.618
Yeah, it's awful.
00:30:36.618 --> 00:30:37.669
It's corrosive.
00:30:37.679 --> 00:30:39.588
but you now seem to be almost.
00:30:40.344 --> 00:30:43.314
It's like an old fashioned FMCG business.
00:30:43.314 --> 00:30:52.443
Not quite spending all the money on 30 second TV ads, but it's, it's, I mean, it feels to me like you are massively overindexed on what we would call brand marketing.
00:30:52.509 --> 00:30:52.979
Yeah.
00:30:53.453 --> 00:30:59.544
I don't think I ever have seen a bit of marketing that says 150 for a pair of beautiful spectacles.
00:30:59.892 --> 00:31:04.932
you know, and I don't think I actually seen that much marketing that's, here's a really nice pair of spectacles.
00:31:05.864 --> 00:31:06.154
Yeah.
00:31:06.154 --> 00:31:11.346
Well, that, that newspaper, there'll be a few pictures of spectacles in there, but that's it.
00:31:11.675 --> 00:31:12.714
And I
00:31:12.817 --> 00:31:13.134
guess our
00:31:13.505 --> 00:31:16.240
is that other people will like that and be
00:31:16.270 --> 00:31:17.070
drawn to us.
00:31:18.651 --> 00:31:21.288
but it's like, it's attraction, not promotion.
00:31:21.827 --> 00:31:24.907
And like, that is a core, that's our, I guess our brand belief.
00:31:25.048 --> 00:31:29.357
And that's my problem with performance marketing or a lot of marketing.
00:31:29.607 --> 00:31:31.048
Like it's intrusive.
00:31:31.077 --> 00:31:34.667
It's based on a kind of arbitrage or algorithm or CPA to LTV
00:31:35.103 --> 00:31:41.617
Some blooming accountant, yes I say accountant, finance person, has wanted to see the short
00:31:41.647 --> 00:31:41.782
term
00:31:41.837 --> 00:31:41.988
ROI.
00:31:41.988 --> 00:31:42.843
But
00:31:43.087 --> 00:31:50.798
But the prob the problem with all of it is we, as human beings are, we always have a bias for stuff that is easy to measure.
00:31:51.127 --> 00:31:56.468
And we, but easiness to measure does not equate to importance.
00:31:56.708 --> 00:31:58.417
And this is my fundamental problem with it.
00:31:58.417 --> 00:32:03.038
And so all the brand stuff is really difficult to measure and like, to be honest, I'm not even gonna try
00:32:03.093 --> 00:32:03.303
and measure it.
00:32:03.323 --> 00:32:05.123
So how are you deciding how much to spend?
00:32:06.018 --> 00:32:07.817
We want to make a newspaper.
00:32:08.317 --> 00:32:10.448
Let's work out how much it costs to make a newspaper.
00:32:10.458 --> 00:32:11.337
And that's the budget.
00:32:11.633 --> 00:32:15.965
And And, and, then How do you persuade those who have to sign off budgets?
00:32:15.976 --> 00:32:17.996
Because you have investors, you have a board, and these things.
00:32:17.996 --> 00:32:20.915
You've had to grow up into, into the sort of the world of governance.
00:32:21.226 --> 00:32:26.826
You know, it's simply I'm just going to convince people of the quality of the work and we'll, we'll all
00:32:26.836 --> 00:32:27.226
happily
00:32:27.355 --> 00:32:28.256
in the output
00:32:28.365 --> 00:32:30.645
look, it's a cha and look, it's a challenge, right?
00:32:30.645 --> 00:32:40.976
Because when, you know, we took on PE Inve investment in 2018, and obviously they were of the view of like, what's your marketing as a percentage of revenue?
00:32:41.036 --> 00:32:42.806
How much are you spending on performance marketing?
00:32:42.895 --> 00:32:44.185
How is that, and all of those.
00:32:44.276 --> 00:32:46.976
And we tried stuff, but it never felt us.
00:32:46.976 --> 00:32:48.685
It's never, and it never didn't work.
00:32:48.766 --> 00:32:51.766
with the brand stuff, I just know it's important and it's all entwined.
00:32:51.796 --> 00:32:52.486
The stores
00:32:52.510 --> 00:33:03.191
the power but well the stores are now, and this is where, you know, for me, again, we people get confused with this concept of brand and it gets hijacked by marketing departments who decide it's what they make up about.
00:33:03.191 --> 00:33:04.300
Something to tell consumers.
00:33:04.480 --> 00:33:07.540
No, it's the, it's, it's, it's the interactions with.
00:33:09.030 --> 00:33:16.221
it's how they want, how they end up talking about you and whether they love you a lot and the stores are big part of that but there's another problem there.
00:33:16.230 --> 00:33:22.810
I mean, there's a small stores, small staff teams, culture and, and, and engagement in teams is everything.
00:33:22.810 --> 00:33:24.000
And as you know, how do you.
00:33:24.895 --> 00:33:25.905
How have you learned?
00:33:25.955 --> 00:33:29.115
What kind of approach do you have to your, to your teams?
00:33:29.115 --> 00:33:32.715
I notice there's quite a lot of longevity in your, in your teams.
00:33:33.365 --> 00:33:34.431
Any unique?
00:33:34.971 --> 00:33:41.171
like for us, again, I've made so many mistakes over the, the last decade when it comes to people.
00:33:41.201 --> 00:33:42.270
And I'm still rubbish at people.
00:33:42.310 --> 00:33:43.810
I'm not good with people, right?
00:33:43.846 --> 00:33:44.415
can believe that.
00:33:44.416 --> 00:33:46.256
but, like,
00:33:46.530 --> 00:33:48.601
culture is everything.
00:33:48.750 --> 00:33:51.151
And like, what we have is a brilliant culture.
00:33:51.181 --> 00:33:52.721
Like, and we're still working on it.
00:33:52.721 --> 00:33:54.020
And it's not like, and
00:33:54.125 --> 00:33:54.806
the problem, and, and,
00:33:54.861 --> 00:33:55.030
and
00:33:55.115 --> 00:33:55.836
How do you work on it?
00:33:56.306 --> 00:34:01.346
Like, we're just constantly trying to, so you see, what I don't want to be is culture that something's written on a wall.
00:34:01.491 --> 00:34:08.380
So, saying that, we have our values written on the wall, but it's, it's stuff that helps you make decisions.
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:08.570
Yes it is.
00:34:08.570 --> 00:34:16.481
And I think, I think the problem with all of the stuff around mission and values is everyone tries to be like Patagonia with some worthy purpose
00:34:16.550 --> 00:34:17.311
and they chase them out of town.
00:34:17.311 --> 00:34:19.010
Guess what you need in your values?
00:34:19.900 --> 00:34:20.590
Tension.
00:34:20.590 --> 00:34:21.221
Exactly.
00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:22.900
You need tension in the values.
00:34:22.960 --> 00:34:23.561
Then there can be
00:34:23.681 --> 00:34:24.010
Bed.
00:34:24.070 --> 00:34:29.471
Because then you have to make the, and then it's about deciding what not to do as much as it is to do.
00:34:29.621 --> 00:34:37.360
And we have made a bunch of hard internal decisions that have created a much more coherent sense of culture.
00:34:37.510 --> 00:34:39.581
And I'll give you a really practical example.
00:34:40.445 --> 00:34:41.936
Work from home policy.
00:34:42.335 --> 00:34:42.896
We got rid of it.
00:34:42.936 --> 00:34:43.715
We don't have one.
00:34:44.016 --> 00:34:49.655
So, if you work at Qubits, the expectation is you go to your place of work 5 days a week.
00:34:49.885 --> 00:34:50.166
Now,
00:34:50.525 --> 00:34:51.326
a lot of people say Which 95
00:34:52.025 --> 00:34:52.690
5
00:34:52.925 --> 00:34:53.525
have to because they're
00:34:53.601 --> 00:34:54.393
a week staff empty.
00:34:54.393 --> 00:34:54.824
Well, exactly.
00:34:54.824 --> 00:34:57.096
And we took One of our values is for all.
00:34:57.295 --> 00:34:59.505
And that applies internally and externally.
00:34:59.505 --> 00:35:07.021
Internally When we make a decision about like the, the, I don't know, terms of engagement or employment, it applies to everybody.
00:35:07.420 --> 00:35:11.731
Not just, and so like, for example, we publish all of our salaries.
00:35:11.780 --> 00:35:12.130
Everyone
00:35:12.181 --> 00:35:13.280
knows paid.
00:35:13.320 --> 00:35:13.561
What?
00:35:13.561 --> 00:35:14.061
Sorry.
00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:14.610
Okay.
00:35:14.710 --> 00:35:16.041
I love these moments.
00:35:16.300 --> 00:35:16.840
You do?
00:35:16.940 --> 00:35:17.291
Yeah.
00:35:17.755 --> 00:35:19.806
So everyone will know how much I, exactly how much I, earn.
00:35:20.795 --> 00:35:25.425
So, so we have grades and levels and then we, which has the salary again.
00:35:25.536 --> 00:35:27.635
And then people know what grade and level everyone is.
00:35:27.637 --> 00:35:32.065
So it's pretty easy for people to work out how much I earn.
00:35:32.550 --> 00:35:33.219
When did that
00:35:33.655 --> 00:35:38.295
we, during COVID, so during COVID was the time where, cause we almost went out of business during COVID, right?
00:35:38.614 --> 00:35:43.784
That was the bit where we'd gone, we took on this private equity money and the culture had gone awry, to be honest.
00:35:43.945 --> 00:35:45.485
We started hiring expensive people.
00:35:45.485 --> 00:35:47.094
We started making bad decisions.
00:35:47.094 --> 00:35:48.565
We started hiring the wrong people.
00:35:48.864 --> 00:35:49.945
We didn't have the culture.
00:35:50.539 --> 00:35:55.400
When COVID kicked in, it was, well, here, we've got an opportunity here, which is to do a big reset.
00:35:55.739 --> 00:36:05.539
And so that's when we wrote down our values and our manifesto and our mission and like what, what we wanted to double down on and what we wanted to accept.
00:36:05.860 --> 00:36:06.760
We're not, we're not going to
00:36:07.056 --> 00:36:10.949
Is this the first time you'd really tried to document all that stuff?
00:36:10.949 --> 00:36:13.449
Again, astronomical, isn't it?
00:36:13.710 --> 00:36:15.440
Because you're already a pretty big business by this time.
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:16.920
Yeah, exactly.
00:36:16.929 --> 00:36:17.539
With a lot of
00:36:17.949 --> 00:36:18.380
and that
00:36:18.420 --> 00:36:18.900
of difference.
00:36:18.940 --> 00:36:19.110
That
00:36:19.389 --> 00:36:23.840
process was hard, but one of the most important things we've ever done.
00:36:24.170 --> 00:36:27.130
And by creating that, it allowed us to make decisions.
00:36:27.159 --> 00:36:37.590
So when it came from work from home, It was quite easy to make the decision, even though it goes in the face of nearly what every other business was doing, it was the majority of our people have to be in the place of work.
00:36:37.699 --> 00:36:42.000
We, one of our values is for all, we want to have a policy that applies equally to everybody.
00:36:42.130 --> 00:36:49.119
So for the 10 or 15 percent or whatever that have flexibility, we're going to require them to come to the place of work because we believe that we should all be in it together.
00:36:49.119 --> 00:36:54.139
And we should, we don't want to create divides between people that work and go to the place of work and people that work from home.
00:36:54.570 --> 00:36:58.039
And some people have left as a result, but I think that's the right thing to do.
00:36:58.590 --> 00:37:00.150
And it means that it's much more harder.
00:37:00.190 --> 00:37:05.769
It's much more difficult to recruit people in certain, you know, e com or customer experience or those kinds of roles.
00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:08.039
But my
00:37:08.135 --> 00:37:12.735
belief, Well, yeah, lucky you don't want to do all that paid marketing, eh?
00:37:12.735 --> 00:37:14.385
Because they're really expensive folk anyway.
00:37:16.139 --> 00:37:22.639
and so, yeah, I think that's an example where like culture, then we attract the sort of people that want to be in that kind of culture.
00:37:22.894 --> 00:37:28.655
The minute you started opening out of London, shops, I can't remember which your first one was, but Brighton, wasn't it?
00:37:29.045 --> 00:37:32.525
So suddenly we've got a two hour gap, what were the learnings?
00:37:32.525 --> 00:37:34.005
What, what has anything changed or
00:37:34.476 --> 00:37:35.675
had to be adapted or?
00:37:35.715 --> 00:37:36.795
It goes to the same, same thing.
00:37:36.936 --> 00:37:39.813
If you have a strong culture, it looks after itself.
00:37:40.318 --> 00:37:47.108
give you a, like, when we had a poor culture, having a shop in, Spittlefields.
00:37:47.260 --> 00:37:49.411
Which is, you cycle there in 25 minutes from here.
00:37:50.110 --> 00:37:52.690
That became difficult managing special fields.
00:37:52.996 --> 00:38:00.827
Much more difficult managing a store that's a 25 minute cycle ride away, than when we had a strong culture opening a store that's two hours away by
00:38:01.009 --> 00:38:01.231
trade.
00:38:01.291 --> 00:38:02.702
How big is a team in a typical store?
00:38:03.387 --> 00:38:04.527
Three, four, five.
00:38:05.411 --> 00:38:06.561
It's quite hard.
00:38:06.882 --> 00:38:27.413
So, so the, the, the, cheat notes on multi site retail and multi site hospitality actually points to one simple thing, which is, is there a group of friends working together or do they like and respect, is this a fun place for people to be in what is actually quite hard and relatively low paid, although your, your roles are probably more.
00:38:27.543 --> 00:38:28.293
better paid.
00:38:28.293 --> 00:38:30.003
'cause there's technical skills required, I guess.
00:38:30.003 --> 00:38:30.063
Yeah.
00:38:30.094 --> 00:38:33.244
But still that, that, that matters.
00:38:33.304 --> 00:38:33.514
Yeah.
00:38:33.574 --> 00:38:35.074
Your culture can help that.
00:38:35.403 --> 00:38:42.063
But frankly, it comes down to who those three or four people are and where whatever you've put three or four people together who want to hang out.
00:38:42.153 --> 00:38:42.213
Yeah.
00:38:42.244 --> 00:38:44.043
As to whether they're gonna wear a smile to work every
00:38:44.054 --> 00:38:45.284
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:38:45.523 --> 00:38:54.094
But the way, one of the ways, obviously hiring the right people is really important, but you need to give them a framework for how they make decisions on a day to day basis without telling them.
00:38:54.373 --> 00:38:56.393
And that's, again, where the culture comes in.
00:38:56.623 --> 00:39:00.804
You don't want to be like, Here's the clipboard of stuff that you need to do in the exact same
00:39:00.838 --> 00:39:01.039
way.
00:39:01.048 --> 00:39:01.608
No, for
00:39:01.614 --> 00:39:12.664
are people that with a mate, like individuality and personality that brings them, but if you can give them a set of cool culture, which is that Cuba's, this is the way we do things.
00:39:12.884 --> 00:39:17.594
Then it just helps them on a day to day basis of making the right decisions.
00:39:17.603 --> 00:39:19.264
And I can't control.
00:39:19.273 --> 00:39:26.454
We have 142 people in the company now, obviously I can't, God knows what like they're doing now, like, but I trust them.
00:39:26.454 --> 00:39:30.603
so, but, but how do you know, what's your measure of success in that store in Brighton?
00:39:30.784 --> 00:39:31.393
What, what is the
00:39:31.423 --> 00:39:33.153
one of them?
00:39:33.284 --> 00:39:33.554
at?
00:39:33.574 --> 00:39:34.614
net promoter score.
00:39:34.673 --> 00:39:35.684
You do, Yeah.
00:39:35.983 --> 00:39:41.123
So after someone buys a product, like a week after they get an email and it's like, come, we ask you a few questions about it.
00:39:41.364 --> 00:39:42.643
And then there's a whole thing about, yeah.
00:39:42.673 --> 00:39:45.673
How, how likely would you be recommended to your, this friend, to your friends?
00:39:45.673 --> 00:39:46.934
it's a question.
00:39:47.009 --> 00:39:47.398
question.
00:39:48.329 --> 00:39:49.219
What are you doing?
00:39:49.219 --> 00:39:49.909
10 point scale?
00:39:49.909 --> 00:39:50.509
What are you getting
00:39:50.675 --> 00:39:53.733
80 to What?
00:39:53.784 --> 00:39:54.583
Yeah, it's good.
00:39:54.753 --> 00:39:57.704
But like it should, yeah, but it should, I think it should be higher.
00:39:57.884 --> 00:39:59.074
Like it's like.
00:39:59.143 --> 00:40:00.793
What did we say?
00:40:00.804 --> 00:40:00.983
mean,
00:40:01.074 --> 00:40:01.824
We count 100.
00:40:03.463 --> 00:40:08.213
Like, there is no reason why, and to me that is the most important metric in like the whole business.
00:40:08.313 --> 00:40:14.523
And like, what, what, we get, like, when the NPS comments come through every Monday morning, it's like, I read them first, like, I just read them, I
00:40:14.693 --> 00:40:16.423
them, straight, I guess every single one.
00:40:16.423 --> 00:40:18.719
So customer first thing, customer first, literally, and
00:40:18.833 --> 00:40:26.369
yeah, I guess, but obviously I just ignore all the good ones, you've seen the value in them Yeah, what's the value in, like, a good, it's
00:40:27.003 --> 00:40:27.304
it's, well,
00:40:27.358 --> 00:40:27.583
and
00:40:27.724 --> 00:40:28.443
needs to see them.
00:40:28.617 --> 00:40:30.657
They need to know the hard works paying off,
00:40:30.869 --> 00:40:34.889
but the hard work is about what we do about the ones that have left a poor review.
00:40:35.199 --> 00:40:35.389
Okay.
00:40:35.389 --> 00:40:36.188
What's gone wrong?
00:40:36.478 --> 00:40:41.018
Like, yeah, that, that, I guess it is customer first, but it's still just like.
00:40:41.759 --> 00:40:42.289
Yeah.
00:40:42.509 --> 00:40:44.179
So you have to now turn all of this.
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:47.079
Into three pieces of actual advice.
00:40:47.079 --> 00:40:49.309
And let's not make it start a business without a business plan.
00:40:49.318 --> 00:40:51.818
Although there will be a lot of reasons to do that.
00:40:52.289 --> 00:40:57.168
I think, you know, you wouldn't be where you are today if you'd try to write a business plan, cause it would put you off
00:40:57.568 --> 00:41:17.972
Well, I mean, to me, it's a lot of the stuff that we've talked about, really, about, about, like, Writing down, creating rules that define your behavior, because you can't like, that book that we wrote, the employee handbook is the single most important thing we've ever written, which is part of all of the culture.
00:41:18.347 --> 00:41:30.608
Just before people get turned off, I'm guaranteeing you, everyone listening, that that employee handbook would be one of the most enjoyable reads of an employee handbook that you've ever come across, right?
00:41:30.608 --> 00:41:33.458
This is not an employee handbook as people know it, I assume,
00:41:33.527 --> 00:41:33.688
Yeah.
00:41:34.143 --> 00:41:34.503
Yeah.
00:41:34.563 --> 00:41:35.043
Well, exactly.
00:41:35.253 --> 00:41:42.822
And it's like, it's a, it's a framework for, for, for trying to attract and retain the type of people that we want at Qubits.
00:41:42.992 --> 00:41:45.802
But, and that's not that we, we want the best people.
00:41:45.802 --> 00:41:47.103
We want the right people.
00:41:47.422 --> 00:41:52.182
And like, it also means that there's some very, very talented people who aren't right for Qubits.
00:41:52.202 --> 00:41:56.242
They may want to work from home and they're unbelievably talented, but that's just not for us.
00:41:56.483 --> 00:41:58.972
And it forced, writing that document forced.
00:41:59.398 --> 00:42:06.797
me to make difficult decisions, which has created the petri dish in which the culture has grown.
00:42:07.217 --> 00:42:11.818
And, like, if I would go back to the start, I would have written that right at the beginning.
00:42:11.818 --> 00:42:14.978
Because it wasn't that I had a new set of, like, theories.
00:42:15.188 --> 00:42:15.358
I
00:42:15.427 --> 00:42:17.418
still I think, I think there's a time.
00:42:17.427 --> 00:42:18.628
You may have written it late.
00:42:18.938 --> 00:42:22.818
I think there's a time, because I think you've got to let things germinate a little bit first.
00:42:22.827 --> 00:42:24.367
A bit like your business needed to germinate
00:42:24.413 --> 00:42:32.572
I would have written it before I take took on private equity investment because I didn't have that the company and the culture skewed.
00:42:32.932 --> 00:42:35.822
As if I'd framework, You'd have understood that.
00:42:35.822 --> 00:42:37.202
Yeah, I, I am, I get that.
00:42:37.713 --> 00:42:40.103
It does feel like it was a personal manifesto.
00:42:40.103 --> 00:42:44.632
I know you were talking about like a company employee handbook, but it sounds like, I would love to read it by the way.
00:42:44.793 --> 00:42:46.543
It sounds like it was a bit of a personal manifesto.
00:42:46.992 --> 00:42:57.115
I kind of, what's the, what, if you had to suggest to someone that writing it down though, give them some insight into how they should best construct or write something like this.
00:42:57.378 --> 00:43:01.815
I honestly think it's writing down what your personal.
00:43:01.945 --> 00:43:04.126
ethos is about people,
00:43:04.146 --> 00:43:11.365
but so, okay, this document does not therefore state state you know, the purpose of our business or the ambition or the vision.
00:43:11.885 --> 00:43:14.675
This is actually really just our community.
00:43:14.780 --> 00:43:15.561
Yeah, exactly.
00:43:15.650 --> 00:43:16.300
Because That's what we are.
00:43:16.300 --> 00:43:16.940
We're people, We're
00:43:16.992 --> 00:43:17.385
people, we're a
00:43:17.721 --> 00:43:18.880
of people who do a very people driven
00:43:18.885 --> 00:43:21.726
How do you measure whether it's worked as a piece of
00:43:21.760 --> 00:43:23.701
Well, we Well, you know?
00:43:23.990 --> 00:43:26.271
We, we, we measure our employee
00:43:26.326 --> 00:43:27.335
net score.
00:43:27.615 --> 00:43:30.146
I didn't mean, well, maybe I did mean that's the measure.
00:43:30.228 --> 00:43:31.217
it's, you get
00:43:31.253 --> 00:43:31.483
it.
00:43:31.981 --> 00:43:39.891
when everyone gets together and you get the sense of it, you get the sense of going around the office, or going around the lab, or going around the workshop, or going around the stores, and it's like, are we right here?
00:43:40.070 --> 00:43:40.521
It's not
00:43:40.822 --> 00:43:43.786
like You hear it referenced in the store, for instance.
00:43:43.786 --> 00:43:45.206
Or you hear something that's a
00:43:45.331 --> 00:43:46.340
theme and it gets referenced.
00:43:46.340 --> 00:43:56.746
it's it's not like My role is to create, like I said earlier, create the rules in which stuff, create the framework in which stuff happens, not to, and that's it.
00:43:56.806 --> 00:44:03.215
And like, you don't get explicit references to it, but it's when I'll give you like another practical example.
00:44:03.226 --> 00:44:13.166
And this actually is quite funny because it caused, when we're doing the due diligence for this investment, it caused an issue because I wrote, and this was way before I got the employee handbook.
00:44:13.186 --> 00:44:19.865
But one of the policies is, You get an extra day's holiday for every year worked, capped at 100 years.
00:44:21.155 --> 00:44:23.510
And And that
00:44:23.516 --> 00:44:24.005
was in the,
00:44:24.021 --> 00:44:25.701
that's in, in the employment contracts.
00:44:26.420 --> 00:44:26.990
And where,
00:44:27.155 --> 00:44:27.635
Oh God.
00:44:27.635 --> 00:44:29.635
Don't tell me a lawyer somewhere
00:44:29.721 --> 00:44:29.931
yeah.
00:44:30.621 --> 00:44:36.380
So I remember the, the, the lawyer do going, doing the due diligence said, oh, we need to, we need to remove this clause.
00:44:36.891 --> 00:44:37.880
And I was like, why?
00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:39.231
And they're like, because a hundred years is too many.
00:44:39.291 --> 00:44:42.981
If somebody, if somebody, what happens if somebody works there for like 70 years?
00:44:43.556 --> 00:44:45.126
And they've got like an extra seven days holiday.
00:44:45.126 --> 00:44:48.965
I was like, there'll be, there'll be, there'll be in their nineties or a hundred.
00:44:49.226 --> 00:44:49.405
They
00:44:49.925 --> 00:44:50.916
loads of holiday.
00:44:50.958 --> 00:44:51.460
was like.
00:44:52.076 --> 00:44:55.056
And so it's still in there and it's in the employee handbook.
00:44:55.056 --> 00:45:02.235
And to me, that's a really, and people like refer to it as like, and they're not, they just think, and it's the, the, the
00:45:02.548 --> 00:45:03.021
cues that
00:45:03.206 --> 00:45:03.715
gives.
00:45:03.735 --> 00:45:04.096
Cause
00:45:04.240 --> 00:45:07.380
You haven't gone the full hog on, you know, take as much holiday as you like.
00:45:07.721 --> 00:45:07.960
work.
00:45:08.610 --> 00:45:09.351
Our policy is for all.
00:45:09.360 --> 00:45:10.831
We can't do that with store staffs.
00:45:11.490 --> 00:45:13.561
So I have the same holiday policy.
00:45:13.561 --> 00:45:17.900
I've been at, I've got 10 extra days now because I've been here 10 years, but it's the exact same for everybody else.
00:45:17.951 --> 00:45:19.280
Nobody negotiates extra holiday.
00:45:19.300 --> 00:45:22.731
You can buy holiday or sell holiday if you want to, anyone can.
00:45:23.021 --> 00:45:29.251
And so, but that's becomes because we wrote down for all it's, but that's not for everybody.
00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:32.650
There's a whole bunch of cultures where it's much more individually driven.
00:45:32.670 --> 00:45:32.971
And that's.
00:45:33.420 --> 00:45:35.190
I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing.
00:45:35.340 --> 00:45:38.550
It's whatever's the right thing for the company and the brand that you're like trying, what you're trying
00:45:38.581 --> 00:45:38.791
to build.
00:45:38.820 --> 00:45:39.061
Okay.
00:45:40.001 --> 00:45:40.331
Love
00:45:41.110 --> 00:45:41.579
Number two.
00:45:42.125 --> 00:45:43.985
Tell me a second piece of advice.
00:45:44.414 --> 00:45:48.954
So, this is one, I guess, having gone through a journey on this.
00:45:49.329 --> 00:45:49.789
you just?
00:45:50.023 --> 00:46:00.873
be really honest about why you're doing it, like, cause people, most people aren't like, and I wasn't, and I spent many started as a hobby, started growing a lot.
00:46:00.873 --> 00:46:03.233
We suddenly got fettered by all of these private equity companies.
00:46:03.653 --> 00:46:06.514
And then for that bit, I, they were like, what do you want out of it?
00:46:06.523 --> 00:46:12.083
And I didn't really know, but I was frankly flattered by the fact that all these companies wanted to invest in us.
00:46:12.353 --> 00:46:16.614
And then we ended up taking some investment and for like a year or two, I was like getting on the whole.
00:46:17.003 --> 00:46:18.253
What kind of growth do we,
00:46:18.344 --> 00:46:20.804
You were having a midlife crisis equivalent
00:46:20.983 --> 00:46:21.554
exactly.
00:46:22.054 --> 00:46:22.454
Yeah, exactly.
00:46:22.454 --> 00:46:26.384
Which I should have probably done before I signed the contract, but there you go.
00:46:26.653 --> 00:46:33.324
But like, it really got me thinking about trying to understand what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
00:46:33.744 --> 00:46:41.853
and if your incentive, what, if you want to do is build something and then sell it and then have a change of lifestyle, that's really great.
00:46:42.324 --> 00:46:45.153
But be clear to yourself that that is like what you want to do.
00:46:45.264 --> 00:46:47.074
I wasn't, so I, I struggled.
00:46:47.143 --> 00:46:48.193
how do you answer it now?
00:46:48.632 --> 00:46:55.998
the intellectual challenge of taking a product that I really care about and making it exciting and relevant for a wide number of people.
00:46:56.197 --> 00:46:57.068
So what you're
00:46:57.083 --> 00:46:57.702
saying is be
00:46:58.117 --> 00:46:59.208
absolutely honest.
00:46:59.277 --> 00:46:59.398
Don't
00:46:59.557 --> 00:47:02.608
Because the aspiration reason yeah, completely.
00:47:02.757 --> 00:47:19.487
And like, I, there's so many brands, obviously it's out there and like you read their mission and honest, so many companies, the real mission statement is we've taken loads of PE VC money and we need to deliver a return of three to five times over a five year like cycle.
00:47:19.639 --> 00:47:27.489
so that personal journey that you're on doesn't feel like something that you are, selling to any employees in your employee home because their reason for hearing here.
00:47:27.519 --> 00:47:34.570
So if I was to survey the room, how would they describe their reasons for being excited to get up and come to work every day?
00:47:35.349 --> 00:47:35.829
What's their
00:47:36.344 --> 00:47:47.885
I'd like to think that they would say that it's being part of something exciting that is genuinely changing an industry and, you know, bit by bit, hopefully improving people's lives a little bit.
00:47:48.309 --> 00:47:48.880
I genuinely
00:47:48.894 --> 00:47:50.195
hope that that's what they would say.
00:47:51.400 --> 00:47:51.639
But
00:47:52.059 --> 00:47:55.179
maybe maybe serve an well No, but that's the point, right?
00:47:55.179 --> 00:48:00.039
So you are not actually, you know, you are not in the market to sell people on the idea of a company purpose.
00:48:00.039 --> 00:48:02.440
You are here saying, be honest about your own.
00:48:03.360 --> 00:48:06.175
Yeah, It's, a really, I love it actually.
00:48:06.186 --> 00:48:10.465
And it's a new way to challenge people on this, this, this thing called purpose.
00:48:10.465 --> 00:48:14.536
But, but your, your individual reasons, understanding them, being clear because.
00:48:15.076 --> 00:48:16.405
You can't lead a
00:48:16.576 --> 00:48:16.806
happening
00:48:16.876 --> 00:48:19.146
existence at work if what
00:48:19.266 --> 00:48:20.166
actually doing is chasing a
00:48:20.186 --> 00:48:21.536
rainbow, right?
00:48:21.835 --> 00:48:25.356
I call it, I call it that chasing a rainbow because you never get to the end of the rainbow anyway, right?
00:48:25.356 --> 00:48:28.436
But effectively that's your way of saying no, no why you come in every
00:48:28.820 --> 00:48:29.110
Yeah.
00:48:29.166 --> 00:48:29.606
Okay.
00:48:29.615 --> 00:48:30.246
Love it.
00:48:30.315 --> 00:48:31.266
It's a nice take.
00:48:31.585 --> 00:48:32.675
Third and final.
00:48:32.996 --> 00:48:45.496
Well, this will be linked to, I think, some of the things that I've referenced, but I've not been explicit about, which is don't hire people to solve problems, which, Every time in the last 10 years, I've had a problem.
00:48:45.525 --> 00:48:48.996
And I thought I could outsource the thinking of that by paying somebody to do it.
00:48:48.996 --> 00:48:50.016
It's been a disaster.
00:48:50.476 --> 00:48:59.356
All of the good decisions we've made have been from making lots of mistakes and almost chasing that spider into the corner.
00:48:59.356 --> 00:49:03.275
So it's not just like, help me solve how to run a retail business.
00:49:03.385 --> 00:49:05.596
It becomes, you distill it into.
00:49:06.036 --> 00:49:08.335
How do I install a point of sale machine?
00:49:08.755 --> 00:49:11.755
You break down a big, knotty problem into lots of different problems.
00:49:11.766 --> 00:49:12.139
problems.
00:49:12.139 --> 00:49:19.945
Oh, hold on Is that design thinking at work or is that engineering but they're similar Okay, don't outsource problem solving.
00:49:19.945 --> 00:49:27.206
I agree at some point the expertise of an outsider is needed but that's when you know what the answer.
00:49:27.326 --> 00:49:27.365
answer.
00:49:27.365 --> 00:49:27.795
Exactly.
00:49:27.846 --> 00:49:38.715
When you when you know what the right question to answer is, and I think we're just really bad at, like, I, you know, it's all system one, system one, two, system two, thinking.
00:49:38.721 --> 00:49:44.896
We don't like doing the hard thinking, so we wanna park that onto somebody who's got like a CV and experience.
00:49:45.045 --> 00:49:51.976
But you need to do that thinking and you need to make mistakes so that you can better articulate the question you're asking.
00:49:52.543 --> 00:49:54.900
And give me your latest example of that.
00:49:54.900 --> 00:50:01.981
And we have had a couple of them, but you know, give me a latest example where you have contemplated perhaps rather than actually outsourced the
00:50:02.206 --> 00:50:11.916
I mean, I can, I can like, like perfect example recently when we've, we've made the wrong answer this time that we've got this, you sort of got this big glazing machine downstairs.
00:50:11.916 --> 00:50:20.545
It's like, it's like a big bit of equipment, which is amazing, but it's run off a bit of software, that we were told that we needed to buy.
00:50:21.016 --> 00:50:22.005
And it's, it's terrible.
00:50:22.005 --> 00:50:23.576
It's the thing I was talking about earlier, Windows 3.
00:50:23.626 --> 00:50:24.005
1.
00:50:24.295 --> 00:50:25.985
And we've ended up buying, and we shouldn't have done that.
00:50:25.985 --> 00:50:33.556
That was a mistake where what we should have done is worked out exactly what problem it was solving and built it ourselves, like, and it's the
00:50:33.606 --> 00:50:34.650
same with people,
00:50:34.885 --> 00:50:35.206
like,
00:50:35.451 --> 00:50:36.501
that big machine down there?
00:50:36.646 --> 00:50:39.766
well, we should have bought the machine, but built the software.
00:50:39.985 --> 00:50:41.096
That's a mistake we've made.
00:50:41.235 --> 00:50:43.175
In the past one, we've brought in, we've hired.
00:50:43.780 --> 00:50:49.331
In the past, HR people to solve our cultural problems, it's been a disaster.
00:50:49.481 --> 00:50:56.411
What we had to do was do it all ourselves, do all the hard thinking, and then when we have something, we can ask the right questions.
00:50:56.440 --> 00:51:04.001
And now we're, we're five years later hiring ahead of people, not ahead of hr, but so we can find the right person that
00:51:04.021 --> 00:51:05.411
How many people do you employ?
00:51:05.501 --> 00:51:06.311
142.
00:51:07.099 --> 00:51:13.550
The question that comes to my mind is who's, who you, who are you outsourcing the problem to?
00:51:13.550 --> 00:51:21.150
Because it could become a, oh, I need to know, I need to grapple with this problem.
00:51:21.170 --> 00:51:29.119
And there are certain problems that only you Or that you should, sorry, not only you, that you, should grapple with, but do you have a difficulty with pushing down?
00:51:30.610 --> 00:51:31.190
Yes.
00:51:31.440 --> 00:51:35.269
But no, I know, no, no, I, I, I, I, I can, of course you do.
00:51:35.550 --> 00:51:40.190
I can, we can, I can see that, but it's, that is the same, the same question.
00:51:40.190 --> 00:51:44.360
Sort of outsourcing it the team.
00:51:45.019 --> 00:51:50.639
Yeah, but I need to do it to feel confident that I've right, right, made the right delegation
00:51:50.956 --> 00:51:51.125
decision.
00:51:51.195 --> 00:51:58.135
And the only question is, does that become a problem in your, I have an obligation to grow in how you scale?
00:51:58.425 --> 00:52:01.135
we'll just leave that as a cliffhanger, rather than try and solve it.
00:52:01.135 --> 00:52:08.335
But I do like, it's a nice, I do like, I do like that you have framed a very important issue.
00:52:08.335 --> 00:52:10.375
And I agree with you, I don't think enough.
00:52:10.780 --> 00:52:16.780
People try and solve the problem, or do start with asking the right questions or figuring out what the right question is.
00:52:16.873 --> 00:52:27.974
I do think like, and I've had no way to measure this, but my hunch is that the success of a business and a brand is positively correlated to the number of the questions that are asked within that company.
00:52:28.195 --> 00:52:29.474
Like I genuinely think that
00:52:29.625 --> 00:52:31.585
If only we could measure that somehow.
00:52:33.525 --> 00:52:37.025
I could carry on, but I can't because I've got Georgia waiting for me.
00:52:37.045 --> 00:52:38.005
Thank you so much.
00:52:38.065 --> 00:52:39.144
I've really enjoyed the chat.
00:52:39.155 --> 00:52:40.224
I want to come back and do it again.
00:52:40.815 --> 00:52:41.655
We'll find a reason.
00:52:42.135 --> 00:52:42.474
Thank you
00:52:42.585 --> 00:52:43.065
Thank you very much.
00:52:43.324 --> 00:52:43.844
Appreciate it.