Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the investment season of How to start up a podcast for anyone starting or scaling a company hosted by me, Juliet Fallowfield, founder of the B Corp certified PR communications and podcast consultancy, Fallowfield and Mason, where we teach you how to own your PR in-house raising. Investment can be a daunting process, especially if you've never done it before. From knowing how to write a pitch deck to what type of investment is right for your business. There are so many things to consider. So in this ninth season, you'll hear from successful founders and entrepreneurs on what we should be doing now, next, or never when considering investment. If you have any questions on these topics or more generally on communications, I'd love to hear from you on juliet@valleyfieldmason.com. I hope you enjoy the season.
Speaker 1: (00:44)
Valuing your business is one of the most important yet challenging aspects of raising investment. You have to be realistic while also not underselling a proposition. In this episode, I hear from Ed Lee, co-founder and director of investment and consultancy firm, Beau Ridge Capital. Ed and his team work alongside business owners to implement growth strategies, build infrastructure, deliver efficiencies and embrace technology, while also working closely with them through funding rounds, growth capital, and ultimately exit with sifted reporting that the pre-series a investment deal number has hit a three year low ed shares timely advice on where to begin when valuing your business for investment, as well as how the recent market changes have changed everything for founders. Thank you, ed, for joining. How to start up today? It would be great if you could kick off with a brief introduction as to who you are and a bit about the business that you founded.
Speaker 2: (01:33)
Yeah, sure. So I am, uh, ed Lee. I founded a business called bowbridge, along with my partner Adam Lorensen. So my background is, um, I trained as an accountant, spent 12 years in practice, uh, most of which was at K P M G advising large cap European P funds on their consumer m and a activity. And I left there in 2017 to set up bowbridge with Adam. And that focuses mostly on privately owned or entrepreneur owned or family owned businesses that need support and guidance, you know, along a, you know, myriad different ways, but doesn't necessarily know the advice that it's not getting.
Speaker 1: (02:11)
So why did you start the business?
Speaker 2: (02:13)
So we started the business, um, because we identified a need for privately held businesses, particularly entrepreneur owned and, and family owned businesses that were, were under advised. So you get a lot of consulting and advisory firms who are focused on bigger businesses, large corporates or people that are gonna give them repeat customs, so private equity houses, venture capital firms, et cetera. And we felt that there was a, um, a large sway of business that needed lots of help that wasn't getting help and because people weren't set up in a way to do so. But my sort of background was working with large companies, but I always wanted to come back to smaller businesses. I felt, you know, in advising private equity houses who were then acquiring and and investing in companies. I felt a bit removed. I felt like, you know, it was almost sort of parasitic in a way.
Speaker 2: (03:05)
And I wanted to get much close to the businesses because that's, you know, in, in my experience of of years and years advising private equity houses, there are loads of things that I'd seen across many different, um, lenses that would lend themselves to supporting businesses. And we really wanted to buck the trend of microspecialization. So if you were to hire a McKinsey or a Bain or, or one of those sort of big consulting shops, you'll get a working capital specialist, you'll get a pricing specialist, you'll get all sorts of different specialists. You have these micro specialisms, they're brilliant at what they do, but it's just not feasible for small businesses to hire those sorts of people. And so what we wanted is sort of my background being the finance, the deals side of things, and Adam's being very much the, the digital technology, the brand marketing growth strategy side of things. We felt that between the two of us, we could set up a business that supports these smaller companies in a really lean and, and nimble way. Which means that we can dip in and out, be involved in the long term, but not overburden them with costs that they can't afford to afford to incur
Speaker 1: (04:14)
Well in time as well. Because we all know when we start a business, there's so many different things you need to lend your time to. And if you are being nimble and giving them exactly what they need at that moment, I'm sure they're very appreciative. Given that this season is all around investment and people are starting companies, they're scaling companies, they're growing companies, I wanted to ask you a little bit about how founders should approach valuing their business because they're going out to market and going, right, we're seeking investment and this is what we think we're worth. Is there an overarching common mistake that you see founders do when it comes to this? Perhaps we should start there.
Speaker 2: (04:50)
Yeah, it's a really tricky one 'cause it, I mean it's hard to be, there's just so many individual examples and instances and every company's different evaluations and, and thinking about 'em will depend on the stage of the business, its sector, it's position within the sector, people involved in the business, the growth prospects. So there's lots and lots of different things. It's hard to give general advice, but I'd say as a starting point, you've gotta have a business plan, you've gotta have a strategy, you've gotta have spent time preparing your historical numbers. Or if you are very early stage at least, and you don't have those historical numbers, at least have done your research and understand the market that you are in before you think about anything to do with valuation.
Speaker 1: (05:34)
So that preparation piece is super important.
Speaker 2: (05:37)
Absolutely, hugely. Because if you haven't done that and you are asking people to come and invest in your business, you'll either trip up very, very quickly or you'll cause frustrations through the process because they'll ask for information and you won't have it. You'll have to go away and prepare it. And you are constantly making an impression throughout any discussions about investment. And if you can run a really stick process, then that will give investors or potential investors confidence that you are very capable in terms of organizing the process, organizing the business, organizing yourself at the same time
Speaker 1: (06:10)
And communicating it presumably, but as well, having all the answers. It instills them in confidence, it instills trust and being able to communicate your business. So I pre presume yeah, 1 0 1.
Speaker 2: (06:20)
Absolutely. And and momentum's really important as well. So if you sort of start a dialogue with a potential investor and they ask for information and then you go away and think, oh God, I've gotta go and spend weeks preparing that, and then you go back to them, then you sort of lose the momentum. Whereas if, if you present them with a full suite of information, if you've got everything ready, if you've preempted the due diligence questions, which is a really, really important thing, you know, what are the issues in my business? How can I address those in advance of any discussions with third parties, you can then go into a process, have those initial conversations, they will ask for information, you'll send them information, you'll have lots of pre-prepared, uh, responses that you can, uh, come back with to any questions that they have. And it'll lead to a much slicker process and a much shorter timeframe over which you can, you can do the fundraising and get back to running the business.
Speaker 1: (07:13)
Well, exactly, because it's a whole other job. It's interesting you say this 'cause we work with clients and their PR communications and we give them core copies, sort of banks of hero, beautifully written, proofread to an inch of its life that they can just pull down from and they've got those answers at the ready. So I guess what you are trying to instill in people is that preparation of knowing you should know your business better than anyone anyway, but if potentially you are not strong on the numbers, you might be an amazing fashion designer, but you are not great with spreadsheets, who could you go to for help and advice on that?
Speaker 2: (07:46)
So yeah, there's a number of different options. You know, a lot of, you know, it depends on which stage the business is. Clearly one of the things that we do at Borid is we are very active in terms of helping businesses that are a slightly early earlier stage. And we work with them over, over the long term. So this isn't just a sort of through an investment round. We are very actively involved in the early stage of a business and we then wean them off as we go. So we will start to hire, you know, managing directors or you know, finance directors, et cetera as we go. So as the business grows, it sort of, it builds the capability from within. But, but upfront and on, on day one, typically these businesses aren't in a position to be hiring all of those people.
Speaker 1: (08:25)
And they might not know which people they need yet either.
Speaker 2: (08:28)
Well, that's another point, which is, I, I always think founders are under advised in terms of at a business level, but really under advised as a shareholder. And so they might have an accountancy firm that helps 'em, they might have a law firm that helps them, but they got nobody thinking about the entirety of the picture. And I think one of the key things about the smaller businesses and, and people that run them being under advised, it's not just the, the lack of advice they're getting is that they don't know the advice that they should be asking for as well.
Speaker 1: (08:59)
Yeah, you really don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 2: (09:01)
Exactly. So in terms of solving the issues around getting the right advice at the right time when you don't even know what you're missing, it's a really tricky one because yeah, you know, there are lots of people out there who've been on the path before. So I would say getting involved in the networks, you know, I think a lot of the incubators and accelerators that you see out there for the, are very much targeted on the venture world, which we don't get involved with at all from our perspective and actively and purposefully. So it feels like there is a big gap there in terms of the ability of founders and sort of early stage businesses that aren't sort of hooked into that, that VC bubble to actually access that advice and, and there's very few people focused on it. So it is tough, I'd say go to people that have been there before and done it before. Don't be afraid to ask for advice. You know, you can be a lonely place as a founder, even if you are a collective of founders, you know, two or three people who have founded a business together. It can still be a lonely place and it can sometimes be embarrassing to ask for. Yeah, ask for advice or to, you know, ask what you think might be a silly question. Oh
Speaker 1: (10:05)
God, the sooner you get comfortable with that, the better you save a lot of worry and time or you do what I did and start a podcast and then you ask everyone for advice and record it a podcast
Speaker 2: (10:16)
And a business at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: (10:18)
Yeah, definitely not a good idea when it comes to time efficiency. But in terms of work therapy and advice from people, it has been a complete godsend. But it's just putting your hand up to ask and being really comfortable with the things you know you're not good at. And I think that's a lot of time people are like, everybody's looking, everybody cares what I'm doing. It's like, no, no one's looking. If you're lucky, they're looking. But also if you go out and ask people for help, typically, and this is where the podcast has been amazing, everybody wants to help and everyone's happy to help but share their advice from their own experience. So definitely something I've learned anyway. But going back to the valuation of a business, are there some basic do's and don'ts other than the preparation side of it? What should then people consider next?
Speaker 2: (11:00)
Yeah, so I would say don't be too wedded to a particular valuation before you start conversations with potential investors. In, in mapping the potential investors, you will be doing a lot of thinking about who is most relevant and most interesting and likely to be most interested in whichever you know, business you're running. And in doing so, you'll probably look at a lot of comparable businesses and think about what their valuations might be. You know, in the age of crowdfunding and things like that, you'll see a lot of this is actually quite public information. You can, you find out pretty quickly what valuation people have raised at, which is all helpful, gives you good context. I mean, there are rules of thumb in terms of valuation. So, you know, people often talk about an EBITDA multiple for a lot of early stage businesses that isn't a luxury that they necessarily have in terms of being, you know, many being pre profit. Um, and certainly quite a few being pre-revenue as well. So, um, there's definitely a truth in, you know, the earlier stage of the business, the harder it is to value and the more opaque it is. And, and at that stage it, it comes to more what's the founder's track record, what have they done before, what, what have they got here? Is there something really backable you know, a lot of the time you get
Speaker 1: (12:11)
So value and reputation and previous experience
Speaker 2: (12:14)
For sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Wow. And I'd say a lot of the time you get people who just come with a glorified marketing business, ultimately, you know, it's outsourced on production design. Everything else in the business doesn't actually have much to it, uh, as a starting point. Um, whereas other times you'll have unique capability or, or intellectual property that will mean that the day one valuation is, is much, much higher. As businesses get more mature, you look into, you know, the EBITDA multiples become more relevant. I'd say a revenue multiple or a referenced revenue multiple is definitely something that is considered, but it isn't how you derive a valuation. I'd say ultimately it's really future cash flows, um, the profits that a business is gonna make over the, the coming years and working out what return that would give you on your capital. Now that's at the more sort of sophisticated investor end of things, but yes, a lot of people get confused about the number that you read in the paper versus the actual value of a business.
Speaker 2: (13:18)
So there's a difference between the number you read in the paper, which is the enterprise value. So that is X times your EBITDA multiple, and then actually the equity value is a totally different number. And that's the, that's the cash value of the business because you buy a business debt free and cash free. So if you've got a business that is, I don't know, making a million turnover and it's a value at eight times that, then your enterprise value will be 8 million. But if you've got 5 million of debt on the business, then your equity value is actually 3 million. And quite often in early stage businesses, people don't really take into account that sort of, you buy a business on a debt-free, cash free basis. And so therefore there can be a lot of sort of uncertainty about what, what the real value of a business is, because people don't really think about the balance sheet side of things and think about working capital and how much cash is tied up in that.
Speaker 1: (14:09)
How can you tell if businesses value themselves too highly or does every business value themselves too highly?
Speaker 2: (14:18)
A a business can't value itself , so,
Speaker 1: (14:22)
So who values them?
Speaker 2: (14:24)
It, it depends on the scenario that you're in, but quite often you'll have a founder, uh, going to investors wanting to raise at x valuation. That would be typically how, how it starts. Um, you will very quickly get feedback about the valuation. Investors often say, oh, valuation is not the most important thing. It's about picking the right founders and, and, and finding the right businesses. But, but I don't think that's true, to be honest. I think, you know, e everything, well at least it shouldn't be true. You know, everything is a trade off between what is the value and what percentage stake am I gonna get in the business for my pound? And so valuation comes back to the, the root of all of it. I'd say if one person comes back to you and says, well, it's a bit of a punchy valuation, uh, don't be too disheartened. I'd say if two or three or four or five come back, um, meanwhile you're not having loads of fruitful conversations about, um, people who you're gonna get over the line, then I would say rethink your valuation quickly. 'cause I think what, what can happen a lot of the time that people forget about the wider funding environment. So two years ago there were all sorts of businesses being funded that probably shouldn't have been and probably wouldn't be today. Valuations that didn't make a great deal of sense to most of us. Then
Speaker 1: (15:44)
A lot of people talk about these glory days and it was so recent , but it,
Speaker 2: (15:48)
It was, it was, uh, maybe not frivolous but not far off frivolous in terms of there was an awful lot of cash out there, mid and post covid. Uh, people weren't spending very much money. A lot of angels had pots of cash. They weren't getting a return on, on cash from, you know, interest or anything, anything particularly elsewhere. They were uncertain in terms of equity markets. Equally, the, you know, equity markets were, were pretty full as well. And there was the, the sort of the mid to late covid, uh, tech bubble that came as well. So people were looking for ways to deploy cash and I think VCs set the tone on this as well. Uh, particularly American, American VCs, the UK tends to follow, follow behind, but uh, there was definitely, um, a lot of businesses that probably shouldn't have been funded, that were funded who are now raising down rounds and, uh, if they can now and, and people can easily forget how the wider markets can really impact what the value of your business is. You know, your bus, you might be exactly the same business two years ago as it is today, but you should have entirely different valuation expectations than you did then.
Speaker 1: (16:56)
It amazes me how little people read the press and look at their competition and actually know who their competition are or asymmetrical competitors in other markets to see what's going on out there. Sort of, you need to put your head above the parapet more than you realize it.
Speaker 2: (17:10)
Yeah, definitely. You've gotta understand exactly what other people are doing in, in the industry. I mean, if, if you're setting up a business, you need to have mapped the market fully, right? You need to understand who's doing what, who's innovating. Totally.
Speaker 1: (17:22)
I think a lot of times we obviously looking at it from a press perspective, but people are thinking, well, we wanna be in vogue. It's like, well, your client doesn't read Vogue. They're reading this whole other magazine that you've never even thought about, but you knowing who your client is and knowing what you're trying to do with them and where and how and when, I think is huge. And it applies, I think, to all sectors of running a business. So yeah, very interesting similarities there. So how important is the valuation to the investment raise process?
Speaker 2: (17:50)
I'd say it's really important. 20% of businesses fail in, in the first year. 50% fail in the first five years. I think 90% end up failing overall. And so on that basis and, and particularly on the basis that the single biggest reason for a business failing is for lack of liquidity, then I would say the valuation is crucial because there's a tendency to be, um, to be greedy, uh, in, in many respects. So it's, people don't want to dilute too much. They want to raise as little as they possibly can because they're gonna go on a trajectory that is in a certain direction,
Speaker 1: (18:28)
Raise as little as possible.
Speaker 2: (18:30)
Exactly. They're gonna raise as little as possible so they can prove as much out and dilute as little as possible. Um, so that they can then raise again in a few months, but it'll be at a much higher valuation because they then evidenced, yeah, product market fit or they've evidenced something else, a key thing, got particularly big new clients, et cetera. And so whilst that is minimizing their dilution, it's giving them a really short runway. And so if we go back to what we're talking about in terms of how the markets can change, what you found is that 18 months ago, a load of people who had less than six months of runway of cash was suddenly in a real predicament because the VC world had totally switched off. The angel investors were sitting there going, hang on a second, not sure what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: (19:13)
Uh, and I can see a much better return on my cash coming from elsewhere in, in due course as interest rates go up and suddenly the funding market effectively closed. And then businesses are desperate to raise money in a really short term. Existing investors are thinking, well, you know, do I want to follow on here? New investors are hard to find. And so actually I always tell businesses they need a minimum of 18 months of cash runway, even if that means diluting more than they otherwise should, because you can't run a business without having at least certainty of, of, you know, being able to deliver at least the next 18 months of your plan. 'cause if you start making decisions based on cash and cash constraints rather than what's for the best of the business, then your longer term trajectory is gonna be significantly affected by
Speaker 1: (20:02)
It. Interesting is someone I think told me in season one, and my team I think are very grateful for this 'cause it happened very early doors, but keep six months of salaries in the cash in the business. You don't spend nights and time worrying about the fact you're running outta a salary. And I was like, oh, you've got such responsibility. You've recruited a team. How do you cope with that? It's like, they're fine. They're being paid for six months with revenue stops tomorrow. I don't lose an ounce of sleep because I know that they're gonna be looked after. And I think that's where time for me is more precious than money sometimes, because if I'm wasting time, that's just pointless exercise. So if I can save brain space on things like that so that 18 months, even if you are diluting a bit more, it gives you that bandwidth of head space and time runway as well to not worry as much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: (20:47)
I think that's exactly right. And, and you know, for a business like yours, which is mostly people and, and a bit of rent, yeah. Um, you know, I think six months is, is fine. I think for other businesses where, you know, you've got a significant stock that, that you need to, to continue to replenish or, or other cash needs. I think a longer term funding runway, it is important. It clearly for each business it'll be slightly different for, but for me the rule of thumb is always 18 months. And a lot
Speaker 1: (21:16)
Of people say that with the investment when you are going after investment, that it's almost like they stop their day job, which is already busy enough and have to switch to a raise mode. And it takes up so much time and lots of, I mean, so her works today and there's so many people I know are mid round and they are up against it and they're like, I've still gotta do my day job. And it's really hard. So to keep going back into that mix, it's sort of take a little, keep going, take a little, so you are 18 months, I think. Yeah, sounds very reassuring.
Speaker 2: (21:42)
Yeah. And, and look, 18 months is, is a long time and typically a lot of capital for an early stage business, so it might be a prohibitive amount of, of dilution. The other thing I'd say on this is particularly in the, in the bubble times, a lot of businesses, uh, and people running businesses for forgot what a business is actually meant to be, uh, which sounds silly, but it's in the sort of the, the WeWork, um, you know, days where that was valued at ridiculous amounts of money and, and things like kazoo. Uh, when that was at a 10 billion valuation, you forget that businesses are there to be profitable. Ultimately, even if you're burning through lots of capital in the short term, you've, you, there has to be a path to profitability. And for a while people seemed to forget and think that you could just be subsidized by investment and shareholders, and that path to profitability wasn't as, um, crucial.
Speaker 2: (22:39)
And it's crucial to deliver on a timely basis, uh, as it it would otherwise be in a, in a sort of normal inverse comm environment. And so I think there's a sort of a healthier realization now that getting to profitability is a really, really important step and, and running a business, not sort of within itself, but, you know, not being profligate in terms of, you know, anybody can spend thousands and thousands of pounds on acquiring customers, uh, and, and spend 20 pounds acquiring 15 pounds, you know? Hmm. Uh, you, you've gotta have the business behind it to really make that work and you've gotta evidence it as you go. But, um, that, that focus on profitability is something that's, that's much more sharply in focus now than it, than it was maybe a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: (23:24)
So if someone's looking at that 18 month runway, how often that should they be putting a value out to market, how often they should be reevaluating themselves, I suppose is their internal sort of audit work they should be doing, but even if they're not going after future investment?
Speaker 2: (23:39)
Yes, I, I, I'd say you, you, you don't need to discuss or even have in mind valuation unless you are looking at speaking to either existing or, or potential investors. So you don't need to spend time thinking about, oh, what's my business business worth today? Unless, unless you're out in the market. But I'd say you need to be planning for when you next need capital from as early as possible because all of that yeah, work that goes into preparing the financials, getting yourself ready for the scrutiny of diligence. If you do that on an ongoing basis and run the business well and file things properly, document things properly, have all the right things in place becomes much easier when it comes to, to the funding round. But then also you don't want to get to a position where you run outta cash in three or four months.
Speaker 2: (24:33)
So you've gotta be raising, you've gotta be constantly thinking that if you get to less than a year of cash, you've gotta know exactly how you're gonna be raising in order to mean that you don't run the risk of tripping yourself up in a, in a few months time. Because people can take advantage of those situations as well. So people can run the clock down on you if, if they think that you are, you, you, they're the only option for you. Then there's a very real scenario that you can end up being taken to the wire. And then they say, well, you can either do it at the valuation, I say, or, or you go into hibernation mode. Mm. And yeah, I've, I've seen it happen before and it's not very pretty. And, and the only time I really see that happen is if a, the business hasn't planned enough in terms of how it's going to raise or be, it's too reliant on a single investor.
Speaker 1: (25:23)
That's really interesting. 'cause I think a lot of people probably quite naively think, oh, they're investors, they're gonna be on my team and my side. You as a founder running your business, they are also in business. This is about the numbers. And we've talked to previous guests about finding the right investors about what other value they could add to your business. Can they become a mentor? Are they gonna be on your board? Can they introduce you to the right people? There's added value there, but this isn't just a nice thing. They're not just there to help you along. They're gonna be wanting to make the money out of it at the end. And I think running that clock down, yeah, that would fill anyone with fear, I'm sure if they're just solely relying on
Speaker 2: (26:01)
One. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not suggesting it's the right thing for an investor to do. 'cause actually to me, far more important in that is having a happy and settled founder. Um,
Speaker 1: (26:13)
Sounds like you're nesting chickens, , there's no anxiety around the founder of the Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: (26:18)
Exactly. But, but they've gotta be in a position where they can really grow the business. Ultimately you're backing them and, and their vision
Speaker 1: (26:24)
To get back to that day
Speaker 2: (26:25)
Job. And so if you, if you've screwed them over in, in terms of on your entry valuation Yeah. Then where's the incentive for them to, to make this work for everybody? So, good point. I think you've gotta be reasonable, you've gotta be consistent, you've gotta be fair. Ultimately, it's a subjective thing. And there's many things, things that we've looked at that we've said, we're not gonna invest in that because the valuation's not right for us. But we absolutely wish them all the best. And in some cases we actually work with them even though it's not an evaluation that we would support, uh, in terms of helping them through their fundraise. And so for me, you know, there's, there's a lot of people with a lot of bravado trying to make a name for themself. But actually you, you very quickly learn that actually aligning outcomes is actually really important.
Speaker 2: (27:11)
And that's one of the, the reasons why we wanted to set Boba up was because we saw the traditional consulting world, the private equity world and the corporate finance world. They're all very well established, great industries, but there's conflict of interest everywhere with them. So, you know, a consultant will come in and get paid for, for the work that they do. It may be good work, it may be bad work, but the app, then their recommendations may be implemented. They may not in the same way, you know, they will then walk off and into the sunset having been paid. And you are a hostage fortune as to whether or not they've done a good job. Equally, you've got, um, private equity world, you know, they're thinking in terms of shorter term horizons than you might be in terms of running the business, particularly for growth capital type investors.
Speaker 2: (28:00)
You know, they might be thinking three to five years those decisions might be very different from what a longer term view might be. And then with, with corporate finance, you're only really incentivized if a deal happens. And actually in many instances a deal not happening is actually the right outcome. And they're only set up to run that wholly contingent structure on the basis that they can really only give you six months attention. And if it doesn't work, you know, whether that's for a fundraise process or for a sale process, you don't, you won't get that much time and they won't get that embedded in the business. And for us, we wanted to remove all of those conflicts of interest. We wanted to sit in the middle of all of those three quite different buckets and provide everything from the consultancy, the advice, but also the funding. And if we weren't gonna do it all ourselves, the source of the funding from elsewhere and actually aligning everyone's outcomes in doing so means that the founders don't need to have too much conviction to work with you from the start. You prove it as you go. And then success is everybody sharing, uh, you know, positive outcomes. Yeah. So I think that's a really important part of what we do and and why we do it is because there's so many different areas that people can have, you know, differing needs and, and desires.
Speaker 1: (29:17)
Well, it sounds like you're all on the same team, which when you're a founder and you are isolated and vulnerable and at the coalface, having someone genuinely on your team and on your side with a sort of a number against it would be really reassuring. And it's, it is really interesting. The two business models that we have are quite similar in terms of empowering the founder to do certain work, um, and letting them stand on their own two feet as well and breaking that. And that's actually weirdly where we scored quite highly. We've just become a B Corp certified business and we scored points for breaking that agency model, the PR agency model. Because you, if you just say what's actually everybody understands is that we, nobody really likes PR agencies, let's try and fix it. The trust is already built. So Yeah, it's fascinating actually. Right. It mirrors quite a lot. Um, are there, well there's one thing that we do with guests. Ask the previous podcast guest a question for the next guest. And Joe Fairley, who co-founded Green and Blacks with her husband, had a question for you, which was, was there something in your childhood that would give a clue as to what you do now?
Speaker 2: (30:20)
Gosh,
Speaker 1: (30:21)
Or not?
Speaker 2: (30:22)
I mean, it, it's probably a really, really boring answer, but I guess, you know, I was always, always interested in business. Um, I didn't know quite what shape that would take, but I went and did a business degree, uh, trained and accountant. You work with lots of people. It's not a surprise that I've got here, but there was nothing particular in my childhood I'd say that uh, that, that led me to think that I would get here.
Speaker 1: (30:45)
Huh. Okay. And is there a question you'd like to ask for our next guest? Anything around starting a business? Anything that you have experienced as a founder? Anything you are curious to ask someone? Ask
Speaker 2: (30:56)
Someone. What about something like, um, what cartoon character would best, uh, summarize you and how you run your business?
Speaker 1: (31:04)
Oh, I love that. Oh God, it's just gone. Made my head gone down a rabbit hole of my road runner or Bugs Bunny . Well
Speaker 2: (31:12)
It could be a combination of two .
Speaker 1: (31:16)
Yeah. Whichever the chatterbox one is probably. Um, but that's a really fun question and we should all have a cartoon avatar to be like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: (31:23)
I hope all the other questions haven't been really serious business you want .
Speaker 1: (31:27)
No, not at all. Um, is there any last golden nugget piece of advice that you'd like to offer and you found it, it could be around investment, it could be around anything to do with starting business.
Speaker 2: (31:36)
Uh, be yourself. You'll come unstuck if you're not, don't get too carried away with the ups and too depressed about the downs.
Speaker 1: (31:44)
Oh, that'd be okay. With the rollercoaster thing that every single guest tells me, I'm like, I'm not okay with the rollercoaster. I accept it's there, but I, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: (31:51)
But it's a lot. There's huge ups and downs and it's not a linear path in terms of running a business. And actually it would be pretty boring if it was true. But I, you know, everyone says all celebrate the successes and all that sort of stuff. I'd say um, it's probably a bit more cautious, a bit more boring, but you know, never, things are never as good or as bad as they sometimes seem.
Speaker 1: (32:09)
It's really true. Uh, for me, someone was saying, you've gotta celebrate the small wins and actually take stock. So at the end of your day, write three things you wanna do the next morning before you go into the rabbit hole of your inbox, but also three things that you fix that day. So for me, it'd be like I fixed our email signatures that now have a new logo or tiny little things that, like when I put my it help desk hat on, I managed to conquer. That gives me a little bit of job satisfaction. 'cause it, you run at such a pace, it's very hard to take stock of what you've actually done. And friends are like, oh, you're doing so well. I'm like, no one else has seen my p and l. So how do you know what well is? But yeah, that, that rollercoaster is real.
Speaker 2: (32:48)
There's a, a wise man, um, who I've worked with a lot over the years once said to me, never lose sight of distance travel. So you, you are constantly in the grind and you're constantly, you know, pedaling away trying to get this thing off the ground. And then actually if you take stock and look back at what you've achieved, you can be pretty satisfied with it.
Speaker 1: (33:07)
It's true. And putting numbers around that. So for us, we did it in our teams like 80 podcast episodes. For me, I like numbers. So putting things I can remember and go that's significant. That's to be proud of five full time from September. We've now got 72 new hours in the week that we get to play with in the team. Like things like that that you can just take a breath around and be like, it's okay. It's all gonna be fine.
Speaker 2: (33:29)
So
Speaker 1: (33:29)
True. Yeah. Hang on to sanity. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: (33:31)
Also take time out as well. It's so, it's so easy to be so sort of totally absorbed in your business that actually eats into your day-to-day life. Take time out.
Speaker 1: (33:43)
I was, who was I talking to? I think it was yesterday we did a press event for a client and there was a writer who's become self-employed as well and she's got her own business and she's like, I keep working really long hours 'cause I really enjoy it, but then I burn myself out by accident because I've become obsessed with something and it's midnight and actually I've forgotten I need to sleep and get up in the morning and exercise. And it's that boundary setting that I've really struggled with. 'cause you get carried away and overexcited. Um, so that's really good advice as well. Thank you and congratulations. Everything that you and Adam have done are of Darch is brilliant. And it's lovely to see these new business models coming through that are sort of breaking the system. So congratulations.
Speaker 2: (34:18)
Well, thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1: (34:20)
If you'd like to contact Ed, you can find all of his details in the show notes along with a recap of the advice that he has so kindly shared. Thank you for listening to how to start up. I hope these conversations offer you some confidence, encouragement, and reassurance that you are on the right track. If you can join this podcast, I'd be so appreciative if you were to rate, review and subscribe as it will really help other people starting a company discover it. Of course, if you've got any questions at all on PR, communications or podcasting, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me because at Fallowfield and Mason, we love supporting startups.