From Side Hustles to Scaling Success: Alex Walker Talks About Grit, Growth & Navigating Tough Times

In this episode of Your Mind Your Business, host Carina McLeod sits down with Alex Walker, Managing Director at Havas Market, for an unfiltered look at the realities of entrepreneurship.

From launching his first side hustle at 19 to building a successful second venture acquired by Havas Market—all while managing a full-time corporate role—Alex's 25-year career offers valuable lessons from both sides of the business world.

What you'll learn in this episode:
💡 How to balance risk and reward when growing a business.
💡 Strategies for overcoming challenges like downsizing and economic downturns.
💡 Why resilience and self-belief are essential for long-term success.

This is more than just a success story—it’s a candid conversation about the grit, growth, and resilience required to thrive as an entrepreneur.

🔔 Don’t miss it! Subscribe now to Your Mind Your Business for more authentic insights into the realities of entrepreneurship.

#Entrepreneurship #ResilienceInBusiness #BusinessJourney #YourMindYourBusiness #BusinessPodcast#BusinessInspiration #PodcastLife #EntrepreneurMindset #LessonsInBusiness

Follow us on:

👉 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@YourMindYourBusiness/
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-mind-your-business/
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/your_mind_your_business/
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@yourmindyourbiz

Transcript

Fun building a business. It's fun hiring people. It's fun renting an office. But the real grit comes when you're then actually having to let people go and downsize. Welcome to Your Mind Your Business, the podcast that dives into the real grit of entrepreneurship.

I'm your host, Carina McLeod, entrepreneur and fitness fanatic, and we have a special guest today, Alex Walker from Havas Market. Welcome, Alex. Thank you very much. I'm really excited to be here. So for our audience today, it'll be great if we could start off if you share a bit about who you are and a bit about where you're at before we then go and hit rewind and start on your entrepreneurial journey.

Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm managing director over at Havas Market. So Havas is a big, media network and Havas Market is really the performance media ecommerce specialist within the group. So we have a team of about 30 people over there and we're helping clients whatever their ecommerce challenges might be.

Fantastic. That's great. And so that's where you're at the moment. Yeah. But I guess what we really wanna dive into is that journey because we can be like, wow.

Okay. So you're managing director. It all sounds fantastic, you know, on the outside, but, actually, we know that there's so many different challenges and setbacks that you would have gone through throughout that journey. So let's start back. If we go back to the very start of your entrepreneurial journey, where does that take you?

It takes me a long way back. I mean, you're completely right. When you're sort of an entrepreneur, people only see the outside or they hear that label and think, oh, that's amazing. But as you say, it's a huge long journey. For me, it probably started about 22 years ago.

When I was at university, a friend of mine came to me and said, oh, you know, Alex, you're quite good with computers. Can you design a t shirt, for the sports team? And I did. But then, the switch in my brain said, well, not just about designing it. Can I actually get them printed?

Can I make some money out of this? And it was just such a buzz sort of a couple of weeks later seeing everyone walking around town wearing the t shirts I had designed, bit of money in my back pocket. You know, university was a bit of a sort of hard graft. I had to sort of work to sort of pay my way through. And I think that was the thing where it was just so organic.

It was just like, okay, how do I do more of this? And then, started asking people, well, you know, do you need t shirts? Or does the sports team need t shirts? So that was really sort of the beginning. So my first business, wasn't in e commerce, but it was always in the sort of agency world.

And so my first business, Indigo Clothing, really became a t shirt printing promotional clothing agency. And it started as a side hustle, and then, we would come on to it. I'm sure, but my next business was a side hustle as well. So I've always sort of had that bit in me as, okay, I'm doing the day job. And in that case, it was being at university and studying.

But the reality is I wanted something more and I wanted something to have on the side and that's how the the t shirt thing started. I love that. That's super that's awesome, especially the fact that you were studying at the time. And that's something new to me because we've spoken in the past, but I didn't actually know about the the printing side, at the start of your journey. So when you were at university and you you had that, as you say, a bit of a side hustle, what was your what was your mindset like in in those days?

It was quite interesting because I would also say that the phrase side hustle probably hadn't even been invented in this sort of hype around entrepreneurship and, obviously, all the kind of platforms you can now use to sort of build a business, whether that's Amazon, TikTok, whatever it may be. None of that was around. So I think it was really came from a place of 1, just like a passion project. Like, this was fun. As I said, like, seeing people kinda wear stuff I designed, that was just generally cool.

I think secondly, and it felt more like an output was having the extra cash. But obviously, that was super useful. So it's like, okay, how do I kind of get more of that? And I think, in a way, I almost tried to hide it. I think that, you know, what's incredible now is again how open kind of entrepreneurship is.

And it was amazing just listening to how Havas, chief people off the other day. He was actually on sort of the BBC talking about how Havas actually have a program called Side Hustle. And people are allowed to have side hustles and it's celebrated. When I was at university, I was desperately trying to hide from my tutor and other people that I had this thing on the side. I was sort of scared that I might get a slap on the wrist and, you know, I'm not studying on my you know, focusing on my studies and so on.

So, yeah, I think it's changed quite a lot since those days where it almost had to be a secret. Oh, definitely. So, would you have called yourself an entrepreneur in those days? No. I didn't like the word.

Actually, someone called me an entrepreneur and, it made me cringe. And maybe I think I still slightly cringe at the term. I say, things have moved on. I think, I just thought I was doing business. I was just sort of a business person.

But at the same time, I didn't even because I wasn't very deliberate about going into it. And it came from a more creative place. I I didn't even, yeah, label it, I suppose. It was just like, well, this is what I do. And then, so people heard about it and you then get a bit of a reputation for, oh, you're the one who sort of, you know, makes stuff happen in terms of sort of business and sort of hustling along.

So that just sort of had a bit of a snowball. But, yeah, I never had a had a label for it. So it's fascinating how it's now all evolved. Yeah, definitely. So your business, a printing business, Indigo Yep.

It's still going? Still going. It's been through so many evolutions. The way it worked, I suppose at the time, it sort of I got to that point at university where you had to start thinking about getting a quote unquote real job. But I was quite enjoying it.

And I sort of taught myself how to sort of build a website, so it's a Microsoft front page and so on, and putting this thing together. And suddenly, I was number 1 for t shirt printing in Google. And I was getting inquiries from L'Oreal and Evian, and I sort of had to pretend I had different, email addresses on the website like accounts at and studio at. And then when people ring up for a quote, I say, oh, just let me just put you on hold, and I'll check and sort of pace around the room a second that, you know. So you really have to, sort of, come across as bigger than you are.

I thought I had to anyway, because I just thought those businesses wouldn't trust me if I didn't look bigger than I was, you know, a 19 year old with some t shirt samples under the bed. And, yeah, it's something But I think that was the real catalyst is by sort of having that Google ranking. I sort of decided, well, actually, like, there's enough kind of business here. But I still sort of going back to the point about getting a real job. I was in this sort of quandary of like, is this the right thing to be doing?

Like, I'm investing in a university education, and t shirt printing is the archetypical student side hustle, I suppose. And so it was all a bit accidental again. I went to the careers department, and there were 2 leveraged files. And again, this is dating me because it probably all on computer now. There was 2 leave arch files for internships.

1 was, A to M, M to Z. And I picked up the first folder, I turn the page, and it said advertising. And then the 1st agency written down, because they were alphabetical, was an agency called Alison Mitchell. And I had my laptop next to me. So I emailed Alan, there's lots of A's here, from Alison Mitchell.

And said, oh, you know, I'm looking for a summer job. And Alan replied immediately saying, well, this is amazing. We need someone to help with sort of digital and you seem to understand about Google. Do you want to come and work in the city of London? So just down the road from where we are, sort of my first job was based kind of here in the city, doing kind of Google and so on.

And I was transparent with Alan. I told him about my t shirt business, and he's kind of a bit of an entrepreneur himself. And this was all the day before the days before sort of mentoring and WeWork and anything like that. And to know, you've got something here. Like, why don't you rent a desk off me, get your 1st employee.

You can keep your day job working for the agency. So it's derisked. And then, if you need like the help from the finance director or the creative studio, we're here. So this is amazing. So I think, thanks to Alan, it sort of kept me on that entrepreneurial journey.

Because I think if I had just sort of happened to have emailed a completely different individual and ended up taking a job at another advertising agency or a job in the city or whatever it may have been, I think that probably would have been the end of the t shirt printing thing. So it's just funny how sort of a set of circumstances, all very accidental for me, sort of carried on this sort of entrepreneurial journey that I was on. I love that. The fact that it was almost like you were an entrepreneur with another entrepreneur who completely understood where you're at and supported that. Exactly.

And the impact that then that has then on your future. Right? In terms of, as you said, had you have gone a different route, had you have not met on your route, would you still have your printing t shirt company, you know? Yeah. Exactly.

I don't think I would have. And I think it's been so formative as well because if that sense end of paying it forward, since I become more sort of senior and established in my career, again, you're thinking about how do you support other people that you sort of see a little bit of yourself or ambition or kind of creative spark. And, yeah, how do you encourage that? And, yes, in a way, like, we work in other places and obviously any kind of shared office space. They've kind of created this sort of framework and business around kind of entrepreneurs and startups and giving them a space.

But I really value the fact that I could sort of be an implant in someone else's business and recognize that I knew nothing about business when I was 20. And so, actually, to have those people to ask questions of, to be naïve. To just sort of be in that safer space to build a business. I think, again, it could have been a very different journey if I just rented a desk and had to sort of try and solve it myself. But obviously, again, things have evolved and there's now other kind of frameworks.

But I suppose it goes perhaps to one of the core points of having a support network. Whatever that may look like around you is probably a key thing to get going. To do it alone must be so hard otherwise. Oh, 100%. And this isn't the only business that you've started up.

Right? So, you then what happened? So you worked with Alan. Yep. And then what happened in terms of your next role?

Because you then ended up, creating your second or maybe third. I didn't know this one existed. So Yeah. Exactly. It's such a potted career journey, but it all sort of each one sort of builds on the story.

So. My business was growing. 2008 came along, global financial crisis, if you remember. And in the t shirt printing business, it's one of the first things to sort of be cut is that sort of discretionary marketing budget. My biggest client was 3 m.

We were doing a 100,000 t shirts a year for them. Suddenly, it all just got turned off. It wasn't sort of a soft landing. It was just like revenue from month 1 to month 2 suddenly changed drastically. I had 8 staff.

And, you know, I had to really sort of go through that sort of harder bit. I think, you know, it's fun building a business. It's fun hiring people. It's fun renting an office. But the real grit comes when you're then actually having to let people go and downsize.

But one of the transitions I did, I managed to keep Indigo going with a smaller team. But I thought, okay, that worry about real job. Came back again. So then a friend of mine said, well, why don't you go and do an MBA? And then that way, you can kind of catch up academically with people who have perhaps been in kind of more professional services careers.

So I did an MBA in, France, then went on exchange to New York. And when I'd come back, I sort of came back with fresh energy. But I was thinking, okay, maybe corporate career is a bit steadier. And then, I got a phone call from a headhunter from Amazon. Who sort of said to me, well, look, we've got kind of a marketplace division growing in in our office in Slough.

We need people to actually understand sellers. You've been a bit of an entrepreneur, but you've got this sort of MBA background as well. Would you be interested in coming for an interview? So, you know, completely out of the blue, unplanned as my life seemed to be going at that point. And, yeah.

Before I knew it, I was sort of working in sort of the marketplace team at Amazon. So I'd gone then from being an entrepreneur, I suppose, to sort of being in a more corporate setting. But I think for me, Amazon was amazing because I was still speaking to entrepreneurs sort of day in, day out. I absolutely love speaking to say, sellers like Music Magpie based up in Macclesfield who are sort of pure entrepreneurs. I think they're Amazon's biggest sellers at the time.

So I got a real spark still about being connected to entrepreneurs. And for me, I think Amazon was a bit like an e commerce university as well. Obviously, it was paying the bills, but you just learn so much as you know. So, yeah. So there went a bit of transition.

So entrepreneur, indigo clothing, MBA and Amazon. And then, fast forwarding a bit, this is without going through step by step of the CV. I ended up getting poached from Amazon to sort of one of Amazon's big vendors. And so, I had these two bits of experience now. I'd worked for the retailer.

I'd worked selling into Amazon. And I went to, a Kantar retail event. So Kantar, part of the WPP kind of advertising network. And we're over in Amsterdam. And I noticed that everyone at the table, sort of the great and the good of FMCG, was sort of saying, oh, you're the ex Amazon guy.

How do you do this and how do you do that? I think much of the annoyance of the Kantar folks that were there obviously selling their services. And that's where the light bulb came on. I was like, okay, I I can do another agency here. But this time around, how do you help brands grow on Amazon?

And very kind of growth oriented. So rather than sort of being very much sort of big strategy, like kind of advertising agencies were doing, it was more around just tactical support. You know, how do you grow on Amazon? What do you need to do with the detail page? So that was Yeah.

Business number 2 was born called Expert Edge. But again, it was a side hustle. It wasn't the day job. I love that. So effectively, you had 2 side hustles at one point, when you were working in your kind of, as you say, sort of real job.

Yep. Just going back, actually, you mentioned something earlier about the 2,008 Yep. Being a kind of, I guess, a pivotal moment in the fact that you had to let people go. How old were you at that time? Oh, gosh.

Yeah. Mid twenties. Mid twenties. So, yeah, that was quite difficult, I think. But again, in hindsight, you learn so much.

And, yeah, because you realize that as much as we would invested a lot of time into culture, we're a really kind of close group. And we did Christmas parties instead of going to this local pub. We used to get an EasyJet flight and go to a different city in Europe. You know, we really spent time with each other. And we're all friends, and we had even sort of family members.

Because when we were growing, someone would go, oh, my cousin's available, my sister's available. And so, you know, we really were quite a close knit group. So it was a real challenge for me, I think, in terms of just trying to straighten that balance. It's like, I'm going to be in serious financial difficulty here unless we sort of make some hard decisions. So, I think you learn more about running a business in the hard times than you do in the good times, because it's not easy growing a business when the economy is going great.

But it's easier trying to manage a business when everything around you is tough and the macro environment is against you, or your business model may not be quite right in terms of the product market fit. Then, yeah. I think you sort of almost learning kind of 2 x at that point. I think I never learned as much as I did about cash flow, p and l management, how to kind of balance, you know, when you pay a supplier versus, you know, making sure, then, they the fundamentals, they never could miss payroll. You know, that's, I think, that's sort of school of hard knocks.

No MBA or university course or some influencer on LinkedIn can tell you how to do those things. So that was, yeah, hard. But I think, I now value those experiences. I wouldn't want to wish them on anyone, but I think it makes you a more rounded business person having to run a business in in hard times as well as good times. Yeah.

100%. How do you how do you stay resilient, you know, when you are going through those tough times? Because I I guess that's, you know, as you said, you created a really strong bond and they were almost interlinked with you in in from a personal perspective as well. Yeah. I think certainly with people, I think trying to be as honest and transparent as possible.

There's always a challenge with transparency. You're almost putting a burden on someone or you may be showing something confidential. But I am a sort of believer in, yeah, trying to sort of explain sort of why. I never I sort of heard this phrase once called mushroom management which is sort of keeping your employees in the dark. And for me, that's the antithesis of what I wanted to do when I ran a business.

So some of it is around sort of bringing people along the journey and what's going on and what you're having to do as a leader. On a personal front, again, sort of having kind of a support network around you, friends and family. But not just sort of talk to them like kind of therapists and say, talk about work, but just to have that separation. And that was sort of interesting when you're saying at the beginning, kind of fitness fanatic.

Because for me, sport has always been such an important firewall to sort of work. Like, even going back to like school days when you're doing a levels or something like that. To be able to part of a sports team, to be able to sort of close the door or close the book and focus on that and be part of something different and bigger than yourself. I think, was sort of quite important for me. And as I got older, did less team sports and more, you know, running long distance running.

So it started with a sort of 5 k and 10 k. And that archetypical sudden you're finding yourself signed up to London marathon. Okay. What did I do? But again, I think in those times when work is tough, it was so easy to lace up a pair of trainers and just run.

And maybe, you know, you're running away from the problem. But it is that sort of sense of sort of freedom. And obviously, you get the endorphins and everything else, and you feel a lot better. So, I think that's been a key bit. I've noticed that when times get tough, having exercise or sport or And look, let's face it.

Not everyone enjoys sport. But I think it's just having something that's other, completely other, whatever that your thing may be. But making your business your identity and your whole life, I think, is quite a dangerous path to go on. You you've gotta be more multifaceted. Otherwise, I can see how, you know, the dark times in business can really bring you down otherwise.

Yeah. Definitely. And I like the way you sort of use the word firewall because it is true that you need you need that separation, and you need to have that opportunity to block it all out, definitely when it comes to comes to those tough times. So I know I just went back a few steps on back to Indigo, and you moved on and you've spoken about the Amazon agency that you built up. Being from the Amazon agency space as well, I know sort of that it's, it's not always, sort of, I was gonna say unicorns and rainbows maybe.

There there's a lot of hard work that goes on in the scenes. Like, what are the biggest challenges that you've found that, have been really significant set or significant setbacks that you've been confronted with during that time? Yeah. I think as you, of course, all know the Amazon agency space has evolved quite a lot. So I think when both you and I started our businesses, there weren't many people particularly coming out of Amazon that had this kind of knowledge and the skill set.

And I think the sort of the market was quite wide open. A lot of people were really interested in kind of someone that could support them with their Amazon growth journey. And in a way, I was kind of mindful this might happen again. But I've seen it a little bit with SEO in those Google days when I first started sort of optimizing for the key phrase t shirt printing. But lots of agencies or people and would pop up and all suddenly become Amazon experts.

And lo and behold, I think that kind of prophecy was pretty kind of insightful. You know, 5 years on from founding the business, suddenly their way of going to market and sort of going outbound to people and saying, oh, you know, we do Amazon. And being unique with that message suddenly sort of disappeared. So, yes, you do sort of have to adapt, think about the business model, thinking about kind of how you continue to deliver kind of best in class service for clients. But also, what you can do beyond, say, just the Amazon piece for us.

And I think that was essential for it's just not standing still. I think that's one of the things, you know, in hindsight, you know, my indigo clothing business has been going for nearly, let's say, 22 years. But it's very static in terms of it still does the same thing. A brand comes along and wants a 1000 t shirts. Yeah, no problem.

It's this much. And we'll get them sent in 7 days. I think for me with the Amazon business, it's been about having to have this sort of future state mindset. It's like, where's the market going? Where are the clients going?

Where are platforms going? Obviously know that sort of Amazon is not the only kind of platform in town. We've got a lot of excitement around social commerce and TikTok and so on. So, yeah, I think with this kind of business model in particular, it's standing still is probably quite a dangerous thing to do. It's incredible.

Congratulations though because the fact that you have, like you just said, 22 years of having a printing business, that's in that's incredible. And then you've gone on to your producing products and then you're going on to an agency which is completely different and I guess comes with complete different set of challenges. And as you say that that forward thinking. Do you ever have those moments where you get into or have you in the past, that element of self doubt where you just start questioning, are you in the right place? Have you done the right thing?

Of course. I would hope that that is normal as well. And people understand that having self doubt I mean, if you remember kind of, you know, Amazon leadership principles which you were joking about earlier, like, are still such a big part of how certainly, I think, you know, there's that one around being vocally self critical. I think it's quite important to be humble and, you know, without kind of overstretching, you know, I think sort of it's a sociopathic tendency to think that, you know, everything is great and you know all the answers. I think you always need to be in learning mode.

You've always got to be questioning, was that the right thing to do? I think that's that humility is super important. So I think I kind of embrace it rather than sort of worry that it's a negative. It's just that is who I am. I'm always learning.

I'm not always gonna get it right. Just be open to the fact that, you know, being self critical is okay. I think that makes it easier than always saying, oh, well, we expected to do x and we only managed to do y and then that becomes a negative. It's more like just, you know, seeing that introspection as positive. And that's a really that's a great thing to have because we were talking about this earlier.

Right? Social media. There's all these shiny success stories, which is the reason why I created this podcast in the first place was because it almost makes it out like it's really easy to run a business. Right? And so when you start running a business and you believe that these shiny success stories do actually happen and they don't, it really can take part.

It can become quite toxic, and it can play on your mind, right, in terms of, hang on. What am I doing different that's not seeing the results that I'm seeing, for example, on LinkedIn? Yeah. No. Exactly.

You're spot on that word, toxic. I mean, that's why when you reached out to me, I said, do you wanna talk about this? I was like, yes, absolutely. There is so much nonsense from grifters on these kind of platforms that will show a picture themselves next to a fast car and say you just need to have a nice bath at 5 AM and work a bit harder and you're going to smash it. And if you're not, you're lazy or you're not doing something right.

And look at them. They're 19 and they're already kind of millionaires. It's nonsense. You know, you have to recognize that on all of these platforms, people are just trying to show a version of themselves or a story that they want to project. And look, LinkedIn in particular, you know, people are not going to be honest.

They're not going to talk about all the down times or when they lost a client or when they had a difficult conversation with an employee. Ultimately, it's a shop window where they're going to make it all look like unicorns and rainbows. So I think it's just being really kind of realistic in terms of expectations of these platforms. But I think for me, the other one is just blocking out nonsense. So maybe, you know, quite drastic potentially.

I don't know. But maybe sort of 5 years ago, I just deleted Facebook and recognized that that came with a bit of sort of shame that there were friends. And, you know, I lived in New Zealand before and, you know, had friends I rarely see. So Facebook was anyway seeing kind of photographs of what their families were doing. But at the same time, I just felt that it was a relatively difficult kind of experience to just continue to see all the positives of everyone's lives and their holidays and so on.

And I just sort of wanted something that didn't just sort of create that nagging feeling of all the times I call maybe I'm not succeeding because look at these people on holiday having a wonderful time or whatever it may be. So I perhaps was a bit early in thinking about the dangers of social media. Because obviously, there's huge amounts of positives and they're great platforms. But for me, personally, I just decided what did I want to see each day and what did I not want to see. So Facebook came off.

Instagram, Twitter at the time. They've all gone. So the only social media I use is LinkedIn. And then, even then, I'm brutal about cleaning things out of the feed. So if there is something I don't like, whether it's politics, whether it's someone, as I say, just making up nonsense about how successful they've been and, you know, what they've achieved and so on.

And that makes me feel bad. I think I'm just in this place where I can just hit the x and I'll train the algorithm. I don't wanna see that or just block it. And then, that way, what I see is perhaps stuff I'm more interested in with actually it's colleagues or what's going on in the trade news and so on. And I don't have to be exposed to it.

So I think just recognizing that you don't have to be passive and be exposed to all the sort of toxic nonsense there is around entrepreneurship in particular. It's just, I said, I don't think you have to go as far as taking the app off your phone. But you can really take action. You don't have to just sort of be hit by it day in day out. Hats off to you on that because I love what you've just said there in terms of social and almost seeing that ahead of where we're at now of what you said about blocking out the noise.

Because I think that's the hardest. Right? There is so much noise out there with everybody sort of saying, I've done x, I've done y. And the bit that really resonated there was that nagging feeling and knowing there's something that doesn't feel right here and that you've just mentioned, like, pressing x, training the algorithm that you wanna see something else, I think is really, really a huge valuable I'm trying to think of the word. It's just something that for anyone listening today should really be taking on board because I think that's where people almost become pleasers, people pleasers.

You know? As in, oh, well, I'm not gonna come off like you mentioned about New Zealand. I'm not gonna come off Facebook because I'm gonna upset people Yeah. That I have that connection with, but actually you're putting yourself first Yeah. Which is so important.

So, yeah, as I said, hats off to you because I think I think I've got a lesson there. So for me for me actually being the host, I will definitely take up on that because I end up doing drastic things. Going completely the other way, and then I it ends up creeping back in again. Yeah. I think so.

It's just sort of recognising that end of the day, whatever it is, whether it's, you know, your phone and answering emails when you're on holiday or browsing social media is just sort of recognizing at what point you need to make an intervention. Because these things just everyone does them. Everyone around you is doing them. And so it just you're in a rhythm that you perhaps don't realize you need to perhaps to sort of change the path or change the course just a little bit. It's nothing fundamental.

But it just, again, it's that slight protectiveness around mental health. So in my mind, it's no different from sort of, yeah, going for a run. It's just like if something feels like it's too much, then what am I gonna do about it to separate myself from it rather than just accept that that's the status quo? Have you always had that almost intuition when you know something just doesn't feel right? Or is that something you've developed over the years?

I think it's something you develop. You know, it's all of us and again, it goes back to that point about learning. I think business is about learning. There's no fundamental. And you learn by doing or certainly I do.

And I think a lot of business people do. You can listen to podcasts. You can read textbooks. You can go on an MBA. Whatever it is.

And you can get the theory. But I think you do need to sort of go through things. And I think for me, protecting my time and my mental health and being more explicit about that has become perhaps a bit more of an active thing rather than just sort of feeling like I'm always sort of going with the flow on everything. So, yeah. That's certainly been my experience.

Definitely. And what other stress are you go into sport. You mentioned about sports. I guess you're still doing your running, taking part in sports. Yeah.

Exactly. I'm a typical kind of middle age kind of thing. We're getting a bit older and the joints hurt a bit more, than they did perhaps 10 years ago. So I sort of recently sort of found cycling very much thanks to a sort of mutual colleague of ours as well. So, a gentleman called Chris Lindsay who used to be a senior category leader at Amazon.

We were working together on a project a couple of years ago. And Chris is massively into his cycling and, indoor cycling. I don't know if you come across Zwift. But it's sort of like a virtual metaverse, probably one of the only metaverses I know that actually is any good. And, in effect, you can sort of cycle online but against other people with a real bike.

And, Chris told you, now, this this thing's great. You should do this. And why don't we have a one to 1 on the bike? And we're working from home. This was sort of just post COVID.

So, yeah. Thanks to Chris, sort of suddenly sort of realized, oh, cycling is quite good because, it doesn't hurt so much in terms of all the aches and pains that come with age. And then I sort of started, you know, going from cycling indoors to which I wish I discovered earlier. Because then it was just a sense of freedom, just going out in the fresh air and covering so much more ground than I could be running as well. And again, realizing that cycling is relatively social sport as well.

You can go out with a a friend, another sort of, school dad or, a group or even have a business meeting and you're getting exercise and having a chat. And I think, like, all these things as the advice goes, sometimes when you want to speak honestly or you've tried to underpack a problem or something, being side by side with someone, it's similar. You're walking, I suppose. My wife and I love doing this where we sort of often will walk. Just that process of talking without always sort of being face to face with each other, but walking somewhere you can perhaps sometimes sort of have a more deeper meaningful conversation.

And and I think that's been quite helpful as well, being on a bike. That's fantastic advice. I heard I've heard that definitely from the walking. I've never thought of it on cycling. Yeah.

But I've also heard about it just driving. Yeah. I find that sometimes I have better conversations. I really get to know people when we go on a long journey together because as you say, it's not that complete face to face. You're sitting side by side and you really can get cover some real ground in the conversation that you have.

I think so. I think some of my team sometimes think a bit crazy because sometimes I suggest that if it's a nice day or why don't we go for a walk. We're based in sort of Kings Cross near that sort of beautiful Granary Square. And sometimes, yeah, even with sort of your team, a walk and talk, rather than sort of sitting around a kind of meeting room table or on a zoom call. Yeah.

I'm a big believer in that and just that, you know, getting out of your usual space. And again, if we're thinking back to business and how we cope with the challenges around business and mental health and business, I think just recognizing how the role that sort of going outdoors or change of scene, you know, is is a really important thing to do as well. Yeah. 100%. Definitely.

And, we talked a bit about I realized I'm I've jumped over because I wanted to really delve into, a number of things that you spoke about earlier. You talked that you had 2 side hustles. Yep. And then you still had your real job, let's call it. Yep.

Exactly. When did things change? It was quite difficult. And, again, I think one of the challenges with entrepreneurship is you have to recognize that life goes on as well. So, you know, when I was a university student, the risk was very low.

You know, I could start a business, fail a business, the world probably wouldn't collapse. I think, you again get older stereotypical things but, you know, you get a mortgage or, you know, a family and you've got other obligations you need to think about and your risk appetite changes. So for me, I suppose the side hustle concept was always a balance between risk and reward. I think also just on a more academic or stimulation point, it just I I enjoy doing lots of things and learning lots of things. So I was quite comfortable in in juggling kind of 2 things at once.

I think the challenge with the side hustle though is from an ethical and moral point of view. If I'm paid by an employer to do a job, 100% committed to that. It's not fair to short change kind of the employer in some way. So for me, therefore, I had to find another 10, 20, 30 percent to do the side hustle. So you're always running kind of over almost your maximum utilization to try and paint a picture, I suppose.

And that's the challenge with the side hustle is that, yeah, you're kind of, you know, the phrase goes burning the candle at both ends. You're overstretching. You're always at full gas. And so I think then that puts more kind of risk around kind of health. So it's just knowing for me and I still, you know, hindsight, I don't think I got it right either time of when to make the jump, in terms of risk and reward, but also yeah.

That that balance really. So for me, with my expert edge business, I ended up sort of staying in the role of majority shareholder, being on the sidelines, I suppose, to sort of advise or to help generate leads, but actually put in a kind of professional kind of management to run that agency. So when Havas acquired it, I was very much in the background. And it was only really this year that decided, do you know what? I've left this too long.

And I've been on the sidelines and having it as a side hustle for too long. And, actually, for want of a better word, there was a bit of FOMO. You know, it's like a business I knew so deeply. I knew some of the team so well. I just met them at their birthdays or Christmas parties and so on.

And yet, I'd never actually worked in the business. So, yeah, that was a bit of a transition. But I don't think there's a hard and fast rule in terms of when you should cut over from making a side hustle your day job. It's just it's gotta feel right and you gotta be comfortable with the risk and reward. That's really interesting that you spent a lot of time working.

You how you sort of said a few things that are really interesting. 1 is that you started off as an entrepreneur then went into a more corporate role. And then you had the sort of side hustle and then working on the business. Yeah.

And then now you've gone more in the business, whereas often you find it the other way around. Like, you somebody works for a corporate business, then they've had enough. Yep. They wanna then go and have their own business. They do the side hustle.

They then become an entrepreneur, Or they're in the business and go on the business. So it's really interesting hearing your story. No. Thank you. I said, I think that the thing is my career has just not been deliberate.

And, yeah. I appreciate I think some people Again, it goes back to identity things. So define themselves, I'm an entrepreneur. Or they say that I'm a fresh now and I've got this corporate job or whatever the shades of grey in between those two things are. But for me, I suppose I've just For me, business has been a relatively fluid concept.

I see, you know, the pros and cons of all different constructs whether you're a sole trader, an SME, you know, a mid sized company through to a large global enterprise. I think, you again, it goes back to the point of learning. You learn something from all of those setups. And there are pros and cons of all of those setups. And for me, I never wanted my identity to be what my job is.

I suppose, it's just the work I'm doing. Am I enjoying it? Is it growing? I think growth is really important for me. And if those things, those criteria are met, then, yeah.

I don't really mind what context I'm working in. As long as, you know, I get out of bed on a Monday morning at 9 o'clock and don't dread it. That's almost the litmus test, really. And that's something that's really important. Right?

Is being able to get out of bed and still be excited by what you're doing. And as you say, not have that dread because when you run a business, there are the challenges where it gets quite dark, but still being able to get out of bed and be ready to take on those challenges in a positive way Yeah. Is so key. Yeah. That's the key word as well as positivity.

I think if you sort of lined up a 100 entrepreneurs and tried to pick out what was common about them, you know, probably would be around the optimism and positivity point. You've got to be a natural optimist, I think. Because if you knew what was involved, you wouldn't freaking do it. It's just it's just that's the reality, isn't it? If you are kind of just a harsh realist, it's tough.

And why would you put yourself through the highs and lows of running a business? But if you're, let's say, you're approaching the spirit of like, I can overcome this. You know, that phrase grit, I think, is so relevant. Right? If you've got that in you, then you just overcome and you've remembered the positives and you sort of quit to forget the negatives.

And then that's how you keep building something. 100%. Yeah. So if you were to give your younger self, I'm not saying you're old, but your younger self Yeah. Advice.

If we go if we go back to sort of your when you were at university. For example, what would that piece of advice be? I think just be quite deliberate about what you want to build and why. As I have no regrets, loved indigo clothing, still do and gives me great joy every time I see someone walking down the street wearing a piece of merchandise we produce because this almost wanna stop that person go, I did that. But again, if I rerun the clock and you're gonna dedicate, in this case, 22 years.

But, you know, I worked in that business for about 8 years. You know, if I'm going to invest that amount of time, it goes back to like, what do you want to do? What am I trying to get out of it? Is it just actually a passive income and I want to make £5,000 a month? Then maybe I should have thought about being a property investor or something.

Or if it was actually about, you know, I wanted to, you know, build a unicorn kind of business, then that would have been about building a business that perhaps required venture capital or something else. So I think it's just that being quite deliberate because your time is a valuable commodity, the most valuable thing you've got. And if we can go back to something you're saying earlier about how Amazon's got leadership principles. I think for me is perhaps I didn't necessarily early in my entrepreneurial journey think big. I just fell in something I enjoyed and started building.

But if I've been perhaps a bit more deliberate and use that same energy and same skill set, maybe could have built something bigger. But he cry. I don't mind and nor do I regret that. It's just, that I think is key. Because I see a lot of people say, I'm gonna start a business.

I'm gonna raise venture capital. So And it goes back to the point about be deliberate. Like, why do you want to do that? Do you want to raise venture capital? Or is it actually because you want, you know, fame and recognition?

We perhaps get that in a different way without going through the grind of fundraising. It's just, yeah, being understanding the why of being an entrepreneur rather than just doing for the sake of doing. Yeah. Definitely. That's some fantastic piece of advice, not only for your younger self, but also for our listeners today.

And I must say we've touched ground that I didn't know about from previous conversations. So, you know, I think you're a true inspiration. Your story is incredible and the fact that you have 2 businesses, And I love how humble you are as well and how the fact is that you and that you've come on today and shared that with, our audience. So thank you so much. You've been an awesome guest today.

No. No. Thank you. And likewise, because I think you're addressing something that needs to be spoken about. Again, it's all this glossy veneer as you say and these people behaving quite a toxic way.

So, you know, yourself, you've been an incredible entrepreneur, built agencies. You've I know you've got other projects as well. So you're spinning so many plates. And I think to sort of, yeah, be talking to sort of fellow entrepreneurs and for all of us to share our journey. So, you know, thank you for building this forum to do it.

Thank you so much, Alex. And thank you everybody for listening today. Love this episode? Don't miss out. Hit subscribe on our YouTube channel and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Instagram as we continue to keep it real.