Series 3, Episode 2 - David Harris, Entrepreneur and Serial Investor

Considering embarking on an incubator program? Or pitching for investment? David Harris has been on both sides of the table and can shed a little light on setting the tone for a success.

Co-founder, business mentor and investor, based in Bristol, UK, David tells us about his journey from struggling start up to extraordinary exit. He shares his insights about building the right team and what it looks like to be 'investor ready'.


Host: Charity Wilson
http://linkedin.com/in/charity-wilson-6502789b

David Harris
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-harris-0ba569/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bristol-private-equity-club/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Founder Friday podcast brought to you by the Canopy community. I'm your host, Charity Wilson, and each episode I'll be chatting to inspirational company founders and learning from their insights. This Friday, I'm joined by an entrepreneur and serial investor. I'll be finding out what he defines as investor readiness and what he looks for in the individuals and startups he supports. I'll also be asking him what kept him going during those tough years of bootstrapping. Enjoy. David Harris, thank you very much for joining me on the Founder Friday podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 0:47

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

David, you're a founder, you're a business mentor, you're an investor, you wear many hats. How would you introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_01: 0:58

Yeah, so I suppose nowadays I start with the investor bit. So I was lucky enough to sell my business, the business that I co-founded five years ago. And since then, I've spent quite a lot of time just putting money into small businesses in the Bristol area, some kind of wider than that, southwest. So that's kind of primarily what I do. But I also mentor some of those, but also other kind of businesses that I'm not financially connected to and individuals, just sometimes individuals as well. So helping somebody with a CV or whatever's necessary. So yeah, I do those things. And I also have a job now. So I do two days a week. one of the companies that I've invested in, in an executive capacity. So I get my hands dirty with those guys, a company in Bristol called One Big Circle. That's really good fun. And then I sit on the board of another company as well called Oko Health. So yeah, lots of, as you say, lots of different hats.

SPEAKER_00: 1:57

Yeah. Very busy man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58

Yeah. There's other things to fit in there as well, personally, which is, yeah, it's good. No, I'm very lucky indeed.

SPEAKER_00: 2:06

Did you realize that you'd be taking on a job when you... got involved with One Big Circle.

SPEAKER_01: 2:13

Uh, no, I started mentoring them actually, uh, probably about three years ago. So, uh, it was one of the companies in set squared in Bristol that just needed a bit of help. And I kind of, I knew the founders kind of personally anyway. And, uh, yeah, so they'd been going for about a year or so and said, Oh, we could do with a bit of guidance. And I just, you know, did that, which is fine or pro bono. And it, you know, I think it helped them and it, it was interesting to me. And then about, about a kind of, you know, six months a year after that they said oh we're looking we're doing reasonably well but we're looking for some investments at some point soon can you point us in the right direction I know you're connected with the investor community in Bristol area in the Bristol area and I said well actually just so happens that At this time, I'm quite keen on getting more involved in something. And so I put some money in, but I also, as I say, got involved two days a week. So I get my hands dirty now, involved in all sorts of things with them. So whether that's a sales and marketing campaign or recruitment or making the tea or whatever, just whatever's necessary. It's really good fun. I really enjoy that. But then I've also got that sort of, I'm the chair of the company as well. So I've got that governance role, just making sure that the strategic direction of the company is correct and the governance of the business is good. And so, yeah, it's good. So I joined, gosh, 18 months ago now, and there were, I think, eight or nine people at that point. And now we've got 24, 25 people. So it's grown quickly. It's good. It's really good fun.

SPEAKER_00: 3:50

I get the impression from having listened to you talking about investment and chatted to you previously that you're quite adaptable in your approach to how you support companies. So, you just sort of look at the way a company is evolving and look at how you can, you know, fit the needs of that company rather than some investors I know have a a real formula and they only invest in certain ways. But do you quite like the fact that sometimes you'll be very hands-on, sometimes you just let people kind of do their own thing and fly?

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

Yeah, I'm really kind of open-minded. As I say, I'm really supportive. I really kind of love the idea of helping small businesses in the Bristol area because we had a lot of help when I started my business back in 2006. So I kind of feel as though I should put something back. financially and otherwise so it's really good so I'm very open minded about the kind of companies that I help out with and that might be on a kind of just financial footing just to put some money in but actually the good ones are where I invest a bit of time and effort get involved and provide a bit of guidance either to the business itself or to the individual usually or individuals leading the company so yeah and it's I think Much like you guys down in Cornwall, there's a really good, vibrant community in the area of people who are motivated and innovative and all that kind of stuff. So it's good. It's good. It's really good getting involved in those kind of things.

SPEAKER_00: 5:28

And it adds so much value, doesn't it? Having somebody who's got some experience being sort of hands-on in your company and just sharing their insights, just like you're doing today by very kindly joining us for the podcast. It's great to have somebody more than just adding you know, the cash flow side of it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:48

Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talk about this in the kind of investor community quite a lot about this kind of smart money. So, you know, any companies that are looking to raise cash, that's one of the bits of advice that I would give is, you know, try and look for some smart money, i.e. somebody or some people that have some understanding of the domain or the... the industry or the discipline or the technology or whatever it is, try and get some investors that actually can put some money in, yes, but also provide a bit of time and guidance and contacts and anything else that might be actually useful to the company. So, yeah, as I say, in Bristol, that's what I try and do anyway if I can.

SPEAKER_00: 6:30

Well, Before, because I really want to touch on so many things I'd love to ask you about, especially on the investing side, because I know there's so many people, I'm sure, well, hopefully listening and a part of the Canopy community that are either looking for investment now or at some point, you know, they know that that's part of their roadmap to success. But if I can, just looking at your experience, if I can take you back to founding your own company. You went from no employees at all to 100 employees and you executed a great trade sale, which I'm sure had its challenges. But what did that journey look like from sort of founding the company to actually exiting?

SPEAKER_01: 7:20

Yeah, so I left uni in 97. I worked in three different companies and kind of just was always a bit, you know, I worked hard and I did well, but I was always a bit frustrated with the way perhaps those companies were doing things. They were very good companies. And in 2005, I decided that I wanted to do something by myself. And that was essentially build a software and systems engineering company in the defence and national security domain. But I knew that I couldn't do it by myself. So I knew that I needed a business partner or partners. So I spent a bit of time trying to find somebody. Thankfully, I was playing in a squash league at the time and I bumped into a guy called Jez Williams who was, he'd run around the court like a madman and he was chasing everything and And so very determined. That's one thing I learned about him on the court. But I obviously remember I was chatting to him afterwards and he kind of said, oh, he was a systems engineer and software engineer, technical background. And I just kind of got to know him. And actually, after a little while, realized that he could be a good business partner. So just took him aside and said, oh, you know, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? And that was, you know, that was the kind of the initial foundation of Purple Secure Systems and we spent about nine months quietly writing a business plan at weekends and in evenings and lunchtimes and whatnot. And then eventually, when we got to version 13.2 of our business plan, we eventually handed our notices from our nice, comfortable, well-paid jobs and started our business in May 2006. So it was, yes, you're right, it was just the two of us. And we were renting a desk that was£150 a month, which seemed like an extraordinarily high amount of money at the time. More

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

than yourself. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 9:15

absolutely. That's right. Yeah, we took nothing out of the business for 18 months. And even then, after that period, we spent another 18 months taking sort of, you know, minimum. sort of wage-ish. And so we properly bootstrapped the company. And yeah, so we effectively started growing in the defense and national security domain, just doing consultancy stuff to begin with. And then after time, we managed to take on a few employees and grew our client base and just started to gain some momentum and a bit of a reputation in the industry. And after a few years, once we had that kind of position, we were in a place where actually we were nimble and we were innovative and we were agile and we were very different to a lot of the big players. There's quite a few big players that kind of dominate the industry and they could kind of see that we were very different. The ultimate customer could see that we were very different to them. So not all the time, but actually most of the time we had more work than we could handle and actually recruiting people was our big challenge. So recruiting the calibre of person that we needed in our business was challenging. We started the business in Bath. We moved to Bristol about four or five years in. That made a really big difference to our ability to recruit people.

SPEAKER_00: 10:43

Was that just because of the location, because you could attract more people to Bristol maybe, or because it was just more of a hub for university graduates?

UNKNOWN: 10:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:55

All of those things, actually. Yeah, you're spot on. I mean, it's a bigger city, first of all. Bath's a bit of a funny place because it's slightly awkward to get to. So you track to a much kind of wider community around Bristol. And yes, graduates. There were a lot more graduates who were available to us. So we had this kind of big upsurge in people. And it felt like we had two or three people joining us every month for two or three years. It probably was that, actually. So it was really really busy time and uh and then yeah so eventually we got to a size in uh gosh where are we so we got to 2016 which is when we actually sold the company we're probably about 65 70 odd people at that point and um we sold the company to a big american organization we got we started getting interest two or three years before that people you know interested in buying the company and we were like well not really right at the right time and it We got into a slightly protracted discussion with one of those and eventually just went out to market. And a big American company called CACI bought Purple Secure Systems in 2016. And my co-founder and I stayed on for 18 months on an earn-out deal, which we hit all our numbers early, which was great. And then eventually they just said, you know, do you want to stay on? And we said, yeah. Thanks, but no thanks. We're going to go and do some other things. And that was the end of 2017.

SPEAKER_00: 12:26

Just for those people who don't know, and I include myself in that, what's earn out? What's an earn out deal?

SPEAKER_01: 12:33

Earn out. So basically, when we were bought, we were given about something like two thirds of the cash back. upfront so they they gave it you know as the shareholders we were given all the money that two-thirds of the money that we were uh promised and then the remaining third was contingent dependent on us achieving a certain set of profit targets over a two-year period so we basically and we were confident enough that we would read those numbers. So we stayed on and we made sure that all happened. And as I said earlier, it happened early because we did quite well. And as I say, they gave us the remaining third of the cash at the end of that period and then said, you're welcome to stay on if you want to. And we said, No, thanks.

SPEAKER_00: 13:20

We

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

want to go and do some other

SPEAKER_00: 13:23

stuff. Our work here is done.

SPEAKER_01: 13:25

Yeah, it's been lovely. But, you know, sometimes you've got to do something different.

SPEAKER_00: 13:29

Was that hard watching or relinquishing control? You know, you had the 18 months to kind of, you know, you're hitting those targets. But was it difficult to watch somebody taking something you'd built?

SPEAKER_01: 13:43

Yeah. I mean, in one sense, it was. In one sense, it wasn't. We had grown to about 100 people by the time we actually left there or thereabouts. And so we knew, obviously, everybody in the business, but not as intimately as we did when it was early days. days so in that sense it had become a little bit less intimate but and actually the buyer that we had the company that bought us they bought us they made a couple of changes and did a bit of integration but generally speaking they left us alone to get on with it and we carried on as normal so they There wasn't interference, as it were, which was great. But when we left, there was definitely that sense of, oh, my God, my baby's gone. I've lost my sense of purpose and meaning. It was a very strange feeling afterwards. Obviously, financially, we'd done really well out of it, but it was a bizarre thing.

SPEAKER_00: 14:44

You were in an unusual, I guess it's unusual, position of... having been sort of a hundred percent, you know, share holders because you didn't, you didn't go and, or you didn't hit the point where you needed to raise capital in that way. But obviously, which is great because it made the buyout that much sweeter, but at the same time, letting it go, like you say, you're letting go of your baby when you've bootstrapped. when you've been through those prolonged periods of hardship. And I'm particularly interested in this because I'm still in that point. Like so many people. I'm particularly interested in those moments of just sacrifice where you just have to have that belief to keep going. You have to believe in it 100% because you're giving up a salary. And you must have had those kind of moments on your journey. Yeah, you really...

SPEAKER_01: 15:44

Yeah, you really, really do. So back in 2006, when we started the company, my wife and I had already had one child. He was, what, two years old at the time. And then literally after I handed my notice in at my nice, comfortable, well-paid job, she told me that she was pregnant with twins so that and I very nearly I nearly said to Jez oh I'm thinking about going back to my job because anyway we did thankfully we didn't do that and we pressed on so it was hard it was extremely hard and because financially and but it was exciting as well at the time you know we were living on adrenaline we were scrimping and saving on absolutely everything that we could we were you know holidaying cold beaches in Cornwall in March and you know

SPEAKER_00: 16:39

and my own

SPEAKER_01: 16:40

hair in the shower and everything I mean it was just

SPEAKER_00: 16:43

not even July or August you were in

SPEAKER_01: 16:47

March stay away from the stay away from the holiday school holidays so you know it was it was but you're you're absolutely right you've got to kind of belief and focus and we managed to build a really good small team around us and that made all the difference. It felt like, for me, it felt like I had a responsibility to them to make sure that their jobs were secure and they were enjoying what they were doing and they were growing and learning and all that kind of stuff. So both Jez and I worked our nuts off, as our team did actually. We managed to get them enthused enough about what we were trying to do that every Everybody mucked in and worked really hard. So it was really exciting times and perhaps possibly kind of my most favorite part, really, in a funny kind of way, even though it was brutally tough. So, yeah, that was a good time. But you're right. For anybody in that stage, you've got to take a couple of moments every week or two or whenever to remind yourself of what you're trying to achieve and why and you know what you gave you know the reason you're doing it because um because you need that you need that

SPEAKER_00: 18:06

brilliant it's nice to hear you know when people have had those challenging times and then they come out the other side of it and and actually they look back and those are some of the happiest memories the tough times and the happiest memories

SPEAKER_01: 18:19

absolutely and do you know what there was i was given a bit of advice actually in the um in the incubator by a very kind chap who'd done really well in several businesses. I managed to grab a bit of time with him and he said a few things. But one of the things that really stuck with me, he said, look, just survive your first three years. He said, don't worry about doing stuff strategically. Don't think about investing. Don't just survive the first three years. And what that means is, is you'll have proven a bit of a point. You've got yourself in a position in the market. You will have learned a hell of a lot about what your market looks like and how you need to satisfy that and all that kind of stuff and I always thought that was really sound advice you know get just get to that three-year point and then you can start thinking a little bit more about investing and growing and whatnot so

SPEAKER_00: 19:10

and about yourself no doubt as well correct

SPEAKER_01: 19:14

exactly exactly a lot about yourself and it and each other you know in our case we had co-founders they were just the two of us so we were sort of learning on the job as it were about each other's strengths and we weaknesses um so yes you're right but but about yourself as well

SPEAKER_00: 19:29

i'm really interested in the um the incubator experience because i know you're a real advocate for it um and you mentioned set squared in bristol um and obviously there's a launch pad there's lots of you know incubators all over the place but um you really feel that there's um a benefit to that kind of experience that's sort of more intense support than you'd get if you're trying to go it completely on your own. Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01: 19:56

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, for us, it was fantastic. I can't really imagine what life would have been like without it, actually. So, you know, having all the kind of space and the facilities is obviously that was really good but all the support that came with it as well so the people the kind of mentoring that we had which is very important which I'll say this with just being careful about what I say here because whenever I do mentoring I always say to people that I'm mentoring look I can tell you lots and lots and lots of stuff and give you lots of guidance and advice but what's really important is you decide which bits of advice are relevant to you and you take the bits that are relevant and make them work in your own setting don't just take what I say carte blanche just you know filter filter really hard we used to have a non-exec on our board he was brilliant he was really good but I always used to think he used to come along to kind of board meetings and sessions that we had kind of 60 60 percent of what he would say would be you know, not helpful, useless, whatever, 30% would be actually really good, but perhaps not right at that time. And 10%, 10% would be absolute golden nuggets, superb, really relevant and really helpful. And so, you know, that, you know, we, we got that kind of guidance advice in the incubator. And that was, as I say, that was helpful, but also being sitting alongside other companies and sharing the experience, sharing experiences and sometimes contacts and that kind of stuff. It all, that, that, that made us feel, oh, it's not just us that are, you know, encountering some of these challenges and problems. It's really helped. It's a nice kind of feeling to know that it's not just you going through some of the kind of difficult

SPEAKER_00: 21:40

challenges. Because even with a co-founder, it's still quite a lonely experience, isn't it? So actually to have it being part of a community where you recognise the challenges

SPEAKER_01: 21:51

is awesome. Huge, huge, absolutely. And I don't know what, you know, what... way things did people did things you know before I mean it must have been really kind of difficult and as you say a lonely experience if you're if you haven't got those people around

SPEAKER_00: 22:05

you maybe they just read the art of the deal something like that

SPEAKER_01: 22:09

yeah I'll just read a book yeah it's not quite the same is it

SPEAKER_00: 22:14

no not really um let me ask you a bit more about um the incubator experience so you've talked about um how it was beneficial particularly for um co-founders and you've talked about like sort of the power of two um if you're going to go into that kind of incubator experience do you think it's important to already have your your core team your co-founders or do you think it's something you can come to with a fresh idea and and kind of look for the other people is that is that something you help facilitate for example I know some places do that

SPEAKER_01: 22:46

yeah that's a that's a good question actually I don't it's it's not The answer is I don't think that's straightforward. What I do really believe in is this kind of notion of having founders or even just a founder who understand two things. And that's, for me anyway, the demand side of the business, which is essentially the market, the customers, how you access those customers, all that kind of stuff. So skills around that. And that's basically what I brought to the company when I was... I'd co-founded Purple. And then somebody who knows how to kind of do the delivery of it, make sure that the customer gets what they need. And that might be a technical thing. It might be an operations thing or all of the above. So if you have somebody or some people that understand those two domains, basically you've got a business. And for us, and I think this is why co-founders work quite well, because if you've got two people that understand those two sides of the equation, then it works. When you've got one, it's more challenging because you need that one person to cover both sides. If you've got five or six co-founders, you're probably going to cover all of them, but you're going to get different views on each side and simplicity is actually quite helpful. So basically, if somebody is coming into an incubator environment, and I do actually see this sometimes when companies are starting out and they only have sort of one side of the equation nailed and they sort of have thought about the other side and they talk about the other side but they don't know it intimately then that's one of the things that and I think a lot of mentors that I've worked with are quite adept at working out that that's important and having people in the leadership team that covered those two bases is particularly important. So, yeah, it's sort of the first thing that I will look for if I'm investing in a company or trying to help somebody is how are those two bases covered?

SPEAKER_00: 24:58

Absolutely, especially when you're learning so many other skills, skills that you never even dreamed that you needed before you enter into the world of leadership. Being an aspiring entrepreneur, there's just so much to learn. And it being such a lonely journey, it's great to have those complementary skills covered already with a co-founder or maybe more. But imagine that sometimes you must see people who are very academically skilled or really able in the particular field in which they're trying to innovate, but maybe don't have those skills covered. What do you do in those instances?

SPEAKER_01: 25:42

Yeah, so I've seen this quite a lot, actually. So, you know, Bristol Uni and UWE and, you know, the universities around here and other academic institutions pump out, you know, really bright people with some fantastic ideas. The challenge is always making a commercial sense to that. And again, I've seen investor packs where you've got a whole group leadership team you know four or five people with PhDs coming out there is but actually that's sometimes you know a little bit scary to me because I think well where's the business element of this where's the person that really understands the market and knows how to access that market more importantly actually so so yeah and the same applies to Sometimes you kind of see just generic students coming out with no industrial experience. And that's one of the advantages that Jez and I had. We'd both worked for seven or eight years and we'd learn a whole load in that time that really benefited us. We definitely wouldn't have been successful if we'd started out when we were graduates. So having some of that knowledge and also contacts in your market is particularly helpful.

SPEAKER_00: 26:56

Very useful. Definitely. And then you, from the point at which, in your role, for example, the point at which you're meeting people who are maybe in that incubator process, or they've come to you and they feel that, you know, they've got something really exciting and they're meeting the demand and delivery side of things. How do you get them on the next step for being investor ready? Either ready for the kind of investment you want to make or a broader investment with Bristol Private Equity or somebody like that?

SPEAKER_01: 27:35

Yeah, so again, it depends on the way the company or the individual is set up. So I can think of a couple of instances where actually I've been mentoring somebody or some people that are already actually quite well-versed. And that's one of the things I think I don't know what things are like down with you guys, but certainly in SetSquared in Bristol, they're really quite firm on making sure that people are investor ready and have a bit of a process. And that means, generally speaking, makes people 80 to 90% of the way there. So if they're in that process in an incubator, they're actually quite well positioned. Sometimes the thing that they... might miss is actually that commercialization piece. So quite often what I will see is somebody will describe the market for their solution and they will say, oh, it looks like this and these are our customers and this is how they behave. But they don't necessarily go a step beyond that and say how they are going to access that market. So how are you going to sell to those institutions or individuals or whatever it may be, how does that work and what proof is there that you can actually do that? So that's definitely one of the things that I've helped out some people get their pitch deck ready for is to make sure that they know how to actually access the market as well as understanding the market itself. And the other thing is, and this is what I look for a lot anyway when investing, is basically the leadership team and how able, capable they are as individuals, not only, you know, to meet all the things that they need to do, i.e., you know, market, finances, delivery, all that kind of stuff, but also are they able, are they likely to be able to grow and evolve and develop as people and manage people and all those kind of things. Because in the early days, it's all about nose to the grindstone and working your nuts off to achieve everything you want to achieve. And you're doing it all. You're executing absolutely everything. Whereas as time goes by, when you get to 15, 20, 25 people, your role has to change. You start to have to think a little bit more strategically. You have to manage people. You have to pass on responsibility for doing stuff. And you have to communicate with all the people that work for you and all those kind of things. So trying to make sure that somebody understands that at the very beginning and thinking about what might happen if you do grow and how you need to evolve as well. That's, as I say, just one eye on that and thinking about it and expressing it as well to investors, I think always goes down really well. So those are the couple of things I try and personally, I try and help out with if there's a gap. Sometimes there isn't, but actually quite often there is.

SPEAKER_00: 30:44

And it's a really important skill, isn't it? Delegation and understanding where your own skill set ends and where you need to bring in other people who've got, you know, who can fill those gaps and have, you know, their own vision and their own ideas and allow them to sort of drive things forward as well. You've said before that team is everything. In your experience going from two founders to obviously growing a team, and I think you said you had about five or six sort of core members of the team management-wise that were leading things. How did you build that? How did you set the tone for an effective team that communicates well? Did you have systems or was it a personality thing? Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 31:29

Yeah, so we had, I mean, it was systems, but it was cultural as well. So we definitely set the tone. You know, Jez and I started the company. We got to about between, I think, 20 or 25 people before. We basically had a really flat management structure. So we had Jez and I and then everybody underneath. And it was great. And we knew everybody. It was intimate. It worked and it was fine. And very few systems and processes. But that doesn't scale. It only gets to a certain point. So we got to about, as I say, 20-odd. And then we introduced the idea of having a management team. So instead of having just Jez and I, we brought four people up from within the business and create a management team of six and introduced some processes along the way as well, just relevant, lightweight stuff, which actually... We seemed to get right most of the time. That was really good. But the individuals within that management team also, because they'd been brought up from within, they had the you know we had the advantage of knowing and trusting them but they also knew the culture and they knew what we wanted to achieve and so they were just as hard working as we were so it was it was a really really positive experience and they wanted it you know they really keen on taking on that responsibility even though none of them had done anything like it before it was you know completely new we were making up along the way so we were all learning at the same time so it was as I say it was hard it was really tough and there were some bumps and lumps along the way but nevertheless we managed to you know make sure that we we got that right because it doesn't you know you can't otherwise you can't scale if you get that if you don't do it or you get it wrong you don't get to a certain size because because you have to you have to make that happen

SPEAKER_00: 33:31

yeah definitely and I think it's

SPEAKER_01: 33:34

it's

SPEAKER_00: 33:35

Growth of a team, it can be something that's quite scary initially. In other ways, it's really exciting. But setting the tone and knowing that it's built on a foundation of trust or a shared vision is so important. And I think there's so much. Honestly, I could spend a whole podcast just asking you about that. So maybe we can come back to that at another point. I'd love to find out exactly how you did it. Yeah, it's such an important thing. I'd like to ask you also about your, you've touched on this already, your mentoring for people you're investing in and through SetSquared and things and your NED roles. You seem to be motivated quite heavily, like you said, in paying back into the entrepreneurial community. Is that something that you can see yourself doing now? long term? Or do you think you will go down the route of just sort of being involved in a few companies and managing your time in that way?

SPEAKER_01: 34:43

No, I'll almost certainly carry on doing but all of those, it's a bit greedy, isn't it? But yeah, no, I love, I really enjoy just listening to people's kind of ideas at the early stages and their, you know, what their, either their pitch and why that's relevant and what, you know, how they, And their general enthusiasm as well. I mean, I'm an absolute sucker for some of the companies that turn up and I get really excited about it. I have to say, I can't invest in all these companies. I'll have to leave my money left. But I love that. And when I first started out actually investing in... some of the some of the companies that I thought it'd be oh because I had a sort of technical background I thought the companies that I put money into would be technology companies but but actually it's turned out there's some have Some are technology companies, but there's lots of different types of organizations that are not doing technology at all. And for me, it's very often, as I said earlier, do I really buy into the person or the people leading that business and believe what they're able to achieve, what they're trying to achieve? So, yeah, no, I get a lot of satisfaction out of that. And I think I'll always end up putting money into companies that meet that. But also, I definitely learned, because I spent two, maybe three years, I spent three years doing that investing and mentoring and other things by myself, so biking and traveling and all that kind of stuff. But I realized that about myself. I realized that I really missed that hands-on and working closely with people. And That's one of the reasons I got involved with One Big Circle two days a week, because I realized that actually going to work and getting involved in things and making contribution. And, you know, that's really, really important to me. And I get a buzz out of that. So, yeah, it's good. So I don't think I'll stop either of those. I think it's unlikely I'll not do either of them.

SPEAKER_00: 36:59

I think you've kind of answered my next question, which was going to be what defines or motivates you. I guess part of it, like you said, is the buzz of making a contribution. But is there anything else that you'd add to that?

SPEAKER_01: 37:15

Yeah. I mean, certainly looking back when I was involved at Purple, and this definitely applies at One Big Circle and the other business, Oko Health, I sit on the board of as well. What I really like is seeing people grow. So basically... Often, they come in sometimes relatively junior or even at kind of a mid-level. And you see people kind of learn and evolve and take on more responsibility and stretch themselves and get outside their comfort zone, but actually learn loads from that. And it's immensely satisfying to see people do that. It's brilliant. That's one of the things that really does motivate me. So I think, yeah, I've had a lot of experience and been lucky enough to be involved in lots of growing companies. So there's plenty of that. What else? But I think, I mean, I'm not kind of particularly financially motivated, but I do think that it's important to have financially successful businesses. I always think about profit long-term and investing in companies that have a proposition and trying to make money good decisions long-term, not just for the short-term. That's why I had a good experience of not taking external investments and looking for somebody to get a return within three years because actually we were thinking about a 10-year plan. So that was a good experience for us. I do recognize, and I've learned loads since leaving my own company, why investment works or can work and why it's relevant and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, lots of different motivations really. But

SPEAKER_00: 39:03

mainly seeing that growth and helping other companies to achieve their goals, which is awesome from a customer's

SPEAKER_01: 39:14

point of view. It's great. I've often had customers that are big companies and worked with them and in many ways they're great companies and brilliant profiles and all the rest of it, but it would drive me mad to work for them. I couldn't get involved in some of the ways that they operate and the speed and the, oh, dearie me, it's painful. So small businesses, small, medium-sized scale companies, definitely where it's at. It's a much more exciting place, I think, anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 39:48

Well, I think they're very glad that people like you are out there ready to support them. It's certainly exciting from my point of view. Do you have any other advice that you would like to share with budding entrepreneurs or people about to go into incubators or people who've just got an idea from your experience and from what you've learned on this journey?

SPEAKER_01: 40:15

I think I'd revert back to that kind of supply and demand thing. I remember doing an economics course level and the teacher just introducing this idea of, you know, you've got this demand side, i.e., you know, customers who demand stuff and what, so, so understand. So having somebody that really, really understands that and gets to the bottom of that, um, And then having also somebody think about, and that might be the same person, think about the supply side, i.e. the delivery of the thing or the things or the service or whatever it may be. And everything else is sort of non-core. So everything that supports that, it still needs to get done. But it's not strategic at all. So, you know, the kind of infrastructure or the, you know, the financial management or, you know, that stuff, it needs to get done and it's important, but it's not strategic. And the strategic thing is where you should be spending, you know, 95% of your time and having your team spend 95% of their time. And I always think if you do that, you're far more likely to be successful and balancing between the two. So making sure that there's a connection between the two, but there's proportional amounts of effort going into both of those. So it definitely worked for us. And in the businesses that I'm involved in, I always try and steer to try and make sure that the balance of resources are balanced. appropriate in that sense so when you're yeah absolutely so when you're starting out having that kind of model and of course it evolves over time as well so you know the demand side is you'll learn more about the demand side as time goes by if you if you're not there you're probably doing something wrong you'll also learn more about ways to satisfy that demand i.e. the supply side as time goes by as well. So it might be a new technology or a new process or somebody really relevant or whatever it may be. So yeah, so that's, I would definitely kind of think about that. And then the other things that we've kind of touched upon, we've talked about working, obviously very focused, working really hard, but actually also trying to keep some balance and some context. So, you know, Jez and I made a commitment to ourselves to, basically not really work weekends we did work the odd weekend actually but not very often we were really really keen to we worked really hard during the day we often did you know evenings I did I was a kind of morning person so i often got you up really really early to do stuff so we were like uber productive during the week but we were really clear that actually we want to try and leave our weekends for for us and our family so trying to keep some context and some balance is really important as well so so yeah i suppose that's a couple of other things that i would add

SPEAKER_00: 43:20

yeah that's really important because burnout must be really high amongst the um entrepreneur community Is there anything else I should have asked you while I've got an experienced, insightful person who's an investor? Is there something else I should have asked you or do you think I've covered it

SPEAKER_01: 43:40

all? No, I don't think so. It seems like we've covered quite a lot of ground, actually. I've talked a lot about a lot of stuff. I don't know whether it's helpful or relevant.

SPEAKER_00: 43:50

It's all helpful and relevant. We're very, very grateful. The only other thing that we didn't actually... clarify was who won at squash so

SPEAKER_01: 44:06

that was definitely me yeah I did I did beat him as I say I mean I was a reasonable squash player and he wasn't bad but his yeah I managed I just kind of just kept the going to rally going and he was running every I've never seen someone so red in my whole life but I remember at the end of the game thinking this guy's determined he's really determined and so it turned out to be when we worked together so so yeah he lost but he gained a business partner

SPEAKER_00: 44:38

is that the best way to find a co-founder do you

SPEAKER_01: 44:41

think it is definitely get on the get on the get on the squash court absolutely yeah

SPEAKER_00: 44:46

David Harris, thank you so much for your time and your insight. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 44:52

You're very welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 44:58

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