base turns 21- the memories, the adventures and what's next with An Deckers

In this special anniversary edition of The Viking Chats, Kristjan is joined by his "work wife" and Base Property (and The Depositary) co-founder An Deckers to celebrate a huge milestone—21 years of running one of London’s most distinctive and award-winning independent lettings agencies.

Expect laughter, honesty, a little nostalgia, and a masterclass in how to build a values-led business that puts people first—from tenants and landlords to the team that makes it all possible.

🏗️ From Back Bedrooms to Best in Class

This episode isn’t just a trip down memory lane—it’s a candid blueprint for how Base built a boutique agency from two laptops and matching Clios into a multi-award-winning business. Kristjan and An reflect on the early years of bootstrapping, long before PropTech made things slick, when Word documents and spreadsheets ran the show.

They share what it's really like to build an agency from scratch, how the lack of funding became their biggest asset, and why staying small (and smart) has always been their secret weapon.

🔧 Tech, Tenants & Trust

In 2008, everything changed. Base adopted their first CRM—long before cloud software became the norm. This was the start of their PropTech journey, partnering with Jupix and co-conceiving what became Alto’s PropertyFile landlord and tenant portals. But while tech played a big part in Base’s growth, people have always come first.

From a focus on tenant experience (long before it was fashionable) to nurturing 20+ year landlord relationships, Kristjan and An explain why tech should empower service—not replace it.

They also recount the radical moves they made during COVID—pivoting operations overnight, and sending heartfelt letters to all tenants urging openness and support. It’s one of their proudest moments—and a reflection of the care that defines Base.

🏆 Awards, Accolades & Authenticity

What started as a quirky agency in East London became a UK leader in customer service. From their first ESTA award in 2012 to winning five consecutive Grand Prix titles (and Zoopla’s coveted 10-Year Excellence Award in 2020), Base has proven that small doesn’t mean second-best.

But these awards aren’t just silverware—they’re validation of an ethos: honesty, humanity, humour, and hustle. Kristjan and An have never aimed to be the biggest, only the best—for their clients, their team, and their community.

🎉 Celebrating the Base Family

From their 10th anniversary bash at White Rabbit to their 20th at Shoreditch Arts Club, Base has always celebrated in style. But these events aren’t corporate puff—they’re about people. The guests are landlords, suppliers, residents, and friends. Many have been with Base since 2004.

They even share the full-circle stories: tenants who became landlords, landlords who became friends, and long-term clients like Philomena and Tom—each representing over a decade of trust, transparency and terrific service.

🔮 Looking Ahead: What’s Next for Base?

While this episode is rooted in the past, it’s all about the future. An and Kristjan reflect on:

• The evolving lettings landscape post-Renters Reform
• The role of AI and marketing in tomorrow’s agency
• Why true service—real conversations, coffee meetings, and trusted advice—will matter more than ever

And yes, they’re already plotting the 25-year anniversary party in 2029.

👥 For Agents & Landlords Alike

This episode is a gift to the industry. Whether you’re an agent building your brand, a landlord looking for a better way, or just love hearing how real businesses grow with integrity and impact, this episode offers inspiration, insight—and plenty of laughs.

📢 Tune in now to hear how Base Property Specialists became the agency that London landlords trust, tenants stay loyal t

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Viking Chats. Now a little bit different this one because I'm joined with my work wife and partner in crime, Miss An Deckers. Say hi. Hello. You can see who's used to be on camera and who's not. So Anne and I are going to be jumping on these every few weeks to have a little chat about things but today's a bit of a major one because today we are celebrating looking back. One of the reminiscing on 21 years of base property specialists. So are our babies growing up? Our child is a fully-fledged adult now. I mean you know as much as a fully-fledged adult. We're a far more like a 21 year old as a fully-fledged adult. I wasn't a fully-fledged adult at 21. Let's put it that way. So yeah I mean we've come a long way right? I mean interestingly we're still in the same building so that's probably apart from you and me and the building those are probably the three things the three consistencies and our accountant and our accountant. They are the ones that fly it. That is it yeah they've been with us from day dark. We've been in this office since day dark and you and I have been on this journey since day dark. Absolutely and we have gone through quite a lot of changes as well. I mean just a few things. I mean just a few things. On how we started with two little laptops. So yeah I mean I think something we've talked about right? I've talked quite a bit about bootstrapping and taking the approach to business. We did with base where it's self-funded. You really figure out almost the least amount you need to get the business off the ground which is what we did. We started base. We had three months. We had three months. That's right. We had enough money. To keep the doors open for three months. Oh naive we were. I mean naive. A brutally optimistic. A nuanced blend of the two. But it has worked and you and I both know we've seen agent suppliers the lot too much money too early. It's a dangerous thing. It's too easy to go yeah we'll hire those extra two roles. We'll spend that extra money in the office. We'll take out that marketing contract. We'll get that flashy bit of tech but we're not quite sure what we'll do. Looking in those days marketing if you think about marketing specifically it was very expensive. Yeah. Long before really properties were advertised on the internet too much. Well we were kind of in the printed. We were kind of in the ending days of print when we were coming. Which is very expensive. Leaflet dropping. Letters. Sorry to agents if you still do a lot of this stuff. I appreciate it is still part of your blend and it depends where you are in the market. I think flyers it's fair to say are on their death now no matter where you are. Print media still has a role to play for sure depending on what market you're pitching to. I can still definitely see the value of if you're a prime or ultra high net worth agent that you want to be in tap lower or home and garden or you know something kind of high end like that. I mean there is still brand alignment in that but you know brochures to give to clients compared to what we do now with it all being online but it's a very different market. But it's not your primary source of media right. So you know we looked back always and like you said so we started we had enough money to run for three months it was us two two Ikea desks two laptops and a whole lot of hope. Matching Clios. Two matching men Oakley guys. Which was a style of a fleet that never came. Hey and look we we they left our business quite a few years ago now but interestingly my family basically inherited them. My sister bought one and I bought the other one for my mum. Yeah and interestingly just the other day they are still they still own them both they still own them both and so just the other day still have the so my sister's one had all the livery removed she's actually about to sell hers but she's taking mums and mum much to my pleens. She lives down in Gloucestershire which is like none under my family. She lives down in Gloucestershire mum's being mum she's like oh but it's so nice to keep it. Like 25 years that 21 years later rather that livery is not looking pretty. I've been baking her to remove that from the car for several years a blesser. It was far too emotional for her to keep it so my sister is about to inherit that car. I'm hoping she'll do the children's stuff. She'll do the kids to remove that stuff. So but yeah no those cars are still running still doing. And again we were very fortunate that when we opened we had a wonderful loyal set of customers already. Well I think you did right. I think you know let's not forget how we came how we came to this you and I had worked together for a year but our history before that I had six months in the industry prior to our year together whereas you were six years five years. By that time so 2004 five years. It's slightly different. I don't think you were quite fully aware of quite how wet behind the years I was. Aye we've definitely made it up for bravado. Which I've just changed completely. I'm searching me getting my old character now. But I mean we started we had our laptops but something really interesting you and I talked about the other day was how long it took us to get a CRM. So our first CRM was was due fix which a lot of people out there will know. We were one of their first like five clients I think. But it's funny how you remember things these these things right. Looking back I knew that we'd gone for a little bit without but like in my mind that was like a year 18 months but it was like three years. Four years. Four years. Four years. So four years you were coming to business. Yeah it was 2009. Wow so four years. 2008 we started it. No central CRM. I remember. I had to do everything through spreadsheets and Word documents. And code spreadsheets. Word documents remember our monthly invoices and account statements. We're all in a Word document. You did the 90% of the time. Nothing but just changed. I would do them 10% of the time and you would then correct what I done. Because it did not matter how many times I checked those flipping documents I would do something wrong. You would make me laugh going. No still something wrong and I'd be the key to it coming. Do that now. Instead of correcting send it back. Say there's something wrong. Find it. Lesso with me. I'm glad to say that's all with the team but that's probably because I get away from doing those slightly more menial admin tasks. But yeah so I mean that was I think us joining dupix was that the start of that shift of us kind of really looking at because because we started the business right because we were generally unhappy with how we felt the industry as letting agents the service that they gave to landlords and to tenants and especially to tenants. But I think you and I started and we we didn't really think about the what or the how the businesses run. And largely because I think tech in those days was really for the big boys right back in those days you wanted to go with Repit for example. I mean I think I remember I spoke to Repit and it was tens of thousands of pounds because you bought an upfront license. You got software licenses you downloaded onto your system. And yeah I mean that's why we were such a great fit for dupix because those guys were early on in their journey. So were we we were as well and they were again also strongly formed on customer service. That customer service was absolutely phenomenal. I'm wanting to listen and learn. And they listened and whatever we asked for we were pretty much given. They would put it on their dev roll and it would happen. But also for us it made us very quickly realize that prop tech was that next step for us and that tech stack. By remembering as well it wasn't it wasn't that instant like oh dupix on board great our office is transformed. I mean I remember quite vividly now looking at it and going oh my god it can do this and it can do that. Oh it didn't like document templates. It didn't have accounts. It started off without accounts. Document templates it had but we didn't set those up for at least a year after we signed up with dupix. Yeah and then you still had to export it out and use an odd bulb then it was still printed and send out via post. Yeah and then we had to wait for those contracts to come back. Or print as PDF and send it off. Oh PDFs that was years later. I mean the amount of post we send out and you would get back coffee stained, torn, pages or you had to beg them like please send it back to us because you can't move in unless we have it. Which no wonder when we went to them and went right we want you to build as a landlord portal. They thought that we were mentalists. So for those of you who use really any of the Zebra or now Alto software products. So Alto, dupix, I think CFP we're man plugged into it as well. If you use property file the letting side of it. So the landlord portal and the tenant app. I mean that was very much our concept, our idea and dupix's collaboration in it. Because that was way before we had any aspirations of becoming tech entrepreneurs. You did nearly bamboozle me into it that time already. We were not very early in our journey. We were so I remember the time so we had come up with so the landlord portal we did first and that they kind of got. And that we had to push back on a bit that they did get on board and they built that. And then we went back to them and went great. Now we won a tenant. Now we were a tenant app and portal and they were like oh really. And again I think you know again talking about why we started base and the fact that we wanted to put that emphasis on tenants. That would have been a very unusual voice at that time. Now I think now it's still not with we're getting there as an industry but we still don't default to looking after tenants. I think the renters rights bill will will not change. It's going to have to. But yeah I mean you know we got that push back at the time. I remember you and I looking at what it looked like and we were in the process of tendering that when and this actually wasn't property file. Regeve. Regeve a fix flow. Walked in the door and went hey guys look at what we've built. And you and I looked at each other and went oh don't need to build that then. Someone else has done it. We've had a couple of those lucky escapes when it came to developing the business. I mean 2008 we were about ready to drop some serious money onto the sale side of the business because we had really letting in property management. We'd always set out to be a letter of operation but yeah by then four years in. Time to cash in on the London sales market. 2008. We got lucky there because obviously then we got a lot of accidental end laws. You and I we had gone about we were going to go big on the sales we'd in principle negotiated marketing contracts with a lot of the print media. We were talking about upgrading our accounts with right movement, Zootblum and all that going all singing all dancing. And yeah I don't this might be absolutely nonsense but I seem to have in my head a figure of like 20 grand a month that we were going to be somewhere committing somewhere in the region of that. I don't remember that. That would give me shit. I know. I'm quite impressed that I convinced you that that was remotely a sensible business idea at the time but you know we literally were days away from signing contracts and the global financial crisis took bite. And whilst many people you know suffered the loss of that that saved our skin. Well again because I think that was the first time we realized a tough market is amazing for a great agent. And obviously a lot of property owners became accidental end laws and they came to an agent who you know helped them, assisted them, showed them the way we picked up something. Well there were the ones who couldn't sell right so you had those ones come into the market but you also had the ones who'd ridden an easy market with agents who were highly reactive. There was suddenly an oversupplied so it affected the rents. I mean the rents started coming down so we had to have those tough charges. The inquiries dropped. The ability to just list the property, get some inquiries, do some viewings, do an off-road and move on. And so we suddenly had so much more competition because every sales agent who'd always kind of looked down at that desk in the corner if they had even a letting desk. Now suddenly that was bringing in their money. That was their monthly cash flow and so they started focusing on it. So suddenly we had so many more letings agents that we were competing with. And that's never gone back since right? It's been been a challenging market. But so, you know, we learn a lot in that. We learn that good markets aren't necessarily that great because good markets can be easy. Well, you become complacent. People can become a bit lazy. They become reactive rather than proactive. And also you're kind of putting less effort in right? So you can justify charging less for that work and then it becomes this kind of free for all of whoever I give it to. It's going to get let. So I might as well go with whoever gives me the lowest fee. And then when that market changes, that property sitting empty for a month or that nightmare tenant being put in your property for the sake of doing a deal, suddenly that ain't worth saving yourself two, three, four percent on fees for. And again, over the years, that is always how we've seen ourselves as well in that market that we've always said, we are the first second choice of land rules out there in the sense that something terribly bad has to happen. They've had to have a bad experience and then they find us. And then once they're in, they're loyal. And that's it. That's it. And I think, you know, it's a bit like, I think it's a bit like switching banks, right? I think, you know, most of you listening to this, I think the vast majority of you, particularly older people not using digital banks, using with the more traditional kind of big five banks, I'll be surprised if many of any of you are truly happy with what you get from your bank, particularly with kind of the total scaling back of the human side of banking anymore. But how many of us move? Very few. And I think with agents, it's such a similar story. I've got a tenant. Well, we saw that in this company where we met, you know, how terribly bad lenders were treated, yet they still stuck to that agent. So we realized then, look, once you have a client and you treat them well, you're going to have that client for the duration of their property venture there. And I think that's where we are now 21 years in, we have gone through that journey. Look at all the clients that started with us in 2004, how many we still have of those. And obviously they're now at that time of their stage where 21 years, a lot of them are starting to make other plans. Their venture part, it's retirement, right? Or it's, yeah, or yeah, it's the nest egg for their kids, so who mostly aren't kids anymore? Their kids are now probably not much younger than me. Look, today we got an absolutely wonderful hamper from one of our legs. From Filamina. Filamina. When she eventually decided it was time that she wanted to come back to her own property and live in it, I looked at all the stuff that I had all done. Not a head-off. I looked at the file and the first ever letter I wrote to her was dated in July 2004. So three months, two months. It was like two months after we opened. In six weeks since we started this first letter and she had been a client with us all this time. She said that's a wonderful hamper. Thank you, Filamina. I'm going to go ahead some scones and some granny bits. That's a 21-year journey with her. She gave us such a beautiful compliment, right? Yeah, we shared. It was a really lovely email. She sent us some review comments that she gave. Saying that you do business with people you trust and you like. It's sad to see her go as well. It's pretty emotional about it when I thought, "Oh god, that's 21 years." Well, we've run this business. I'm going to fight. We're starting to have those emotional things. We're having people retire out of the market for pursuing their personal dreams, personal health, tax, whatever. We've lost a couple of clients in recent years, particularly. We've lost a couple of clients, sadly, some of them a little bit before their time. But again, being in this business as long as we've been in it, they become friends. They're part of the base family, as we call it. They're people that you deal with. You might not talk to them every month or even every couple of months, but there is always those touch points. They want to bother them in there. No, whether it's their birth, or... They're hiring us to be left alone to say. It's a special occasion. The amount of birds and weddings and god knows, all of those personal contacts. I think that, to me, has always been the biggest enjoyment out of this business, is building those personal relationships with our clients. I've always loved that. We launched in 2004. We took on two picks in 2008, around the same time at the global recession here. Then we fought away at that. I think 2010 was the first time we entered the estas. We got a short list recognition that year. Then our first... 2012. The first estas award was 2012. That's when we got all dressed up. Back in the days when I attempted some remote glamour. But I remember, very cool. We had... We managed a property on Hackney Road as a little shop unit on it, which right now is a coffee shop. Back then, it was a very cool shop called Junkie Styling, which was this recycled, upcycling fashion house where they took old pyjamas, shirts, old suits. I still have a suit of it with my grandad's pyjamas on the lapel. You still got that? I've still got my waistcoat, so my hooded waistcoat. I've very optimistically been waiting for the day. I get skinny enough to get back in it. I don't think it's got... It's never happening. It's never happening. I might just hold on to it and give it to Artlow. Give it to Artlow. Give it to Artlow. 12 years time. Absolutely invented. But yeah, but also the tailor facing your face, he lives around the corner for me, so I still see him regularly. So that's quite sweet. But no, so we decided that year to do a bit of fun. We dressed the whole team up. You and I actually bought our outfits and much to our surprise and delight. That was the first year we won an Esther's Gold. And back then, it was landlord-only. They didn't have a tenant category. The next big thing after that, 2014... Was our 10th anniversary. Was our first big base anniversary. And that was our big event. That was our first big base anniversary. Which was landlord, suppliers, and obviously the base team. And the base team. And I mean, we did that at What's For White Rabbit. Which is this amazing sort of event and photography studio space in Shirdich, railway arches. And a good friend of ours at the time ran a cafe called Preen. And they did all the catering for it. And your friends did that. I made that amazing like three-tier base blue cake. And we got the base balloons done. And yeah, that was our first big celebration. You and I were looking at some photos of that the other day. We looked very, very young. Very, very young. And it was a good, it was a good party. Because there is a photo of me holding a bottle of champagne with a giant spark to a slash firework in my mouth like a cigar. So, you know, another demure and delicate evening. And so that was 2014. And then probably the next big thing was 2016. So 2016 was... What happened before 2016? Was when we won our first Grand Prix award at the Estes. Oh, wow. So that one, I will never ever forget that day. Because you and I never ever ever, ever, aspired to win a UK award. It was always a bow. Well, it's a single brand shop in East London. A one-bruncher, a small team, a small portfolio, which we've always been happily uncomfortable with. It's the business we want to run. But yeah, I think you and I always have taken the viewpoint of, look, we're a London agent and we never aspire to be anything other than that. Anyway, so we only ever focused on London. But I will never remember Andy, Andy Tuckknot. For those of you who've been with us for a while, might remember Andy when our property manager is back in the day, who's still a dear friend of ours. And I remember it the S as we picked up gold for Landlord and Tenants. I think it was the first year they did Tenants. So we picked up gold for Landlord and Tenants, which happens really early in the awards as well. So they do the Letting's Awards almost right at the start before everyone gets tucked into lunch with too many drinks. On a few occasions, we nearly missed them. In fact, I think that one, we might have literally entered the venue. Yeah, there was one year, it might be that year. You and I didn't get to sit down. We were literally arrived at our table, sat down, and literally as we went to put our bums on seats, they went and they went and they went a bice! So yeah. Going in mind, we probably are the ones that come from the course to the venue. We somehow always knew we should make a deception. It's the psychology, isn't it? I think that's nothing new. It's like the kids at school. It's always the one who live on the street around the corner that are dashing through the gate at five minutes to nine. And the ones that have to schlep halfway across town that are there. Bang on and early. But no, I'll never forget that year because we picked up the gold and Andy kept on going, "Oh, Grand Prix's later, Grand Prix's." And I remember going to Andy, Andy, shut up. We've done what we're so happy. This is it, mate. We are happy, we are done. This is as good as it gets. And lo and behold, we picked up gold and silver Grand Prix's. We won, I think, I can't remember if it was gold, gold for land, Lloyd. Gold for land or silver for tenant. And that started a run, I think, for four years in a row or five years in a row, we picked up a Grand Prix at the Estes. Wow. So 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, it was five years because we won at least one Grand Prix for four consecutive years. And then in 2020, the year of Covid, where Estes... Got it. Got it. Got it. We won a very special award, which we never really got to shout about. So the 2020 Estes was the 10th year that Zoopla had sponsored the Estes. And they had decided, look, 10 years, let's do something special. So they had decided in advance they wanted to create a new award that year, which was the Zoopla Excellence Award for 10 years. And it was going to award the top three agents in the country based on the last 10 years of results. And it was the top three for lettings and the top three for sales. And we won, we took gold for the Zoopla Excellence Award. Yeah. And the business we didn't think was... And it was real. This was Covid, we were off the stairs. We were sat on our sofa watching it on computer screens. It didn't quite have the glamour or the... No. And certainly that was actually Zoopla and Estes parted ways after that. So we had these desperate hopes that, oh, maybe next year they'll they'll hark back to it and they'll give a shout out because we missed out. No, no. So, but, you know, that was a five year stint where... I mean, even one of those, but all five of those, we realized what we had set out to do was, you know, we had that kind of independent verification that the business that we had built to primarily deliver on customer service and customer experience was delivering on that and better than anyone else in the country. You know, and we're still in the mix. And whilst we haven't won a Grand Prix since 2020, we've picked up several London Gold Awards since. And, you know, who knows this year? We've had some... We've had our best ever results this year. So... Fingers crossed. Back in the mix, when Finity Property Solutions was at our own year, you guys have taken our Grand Prix award. The last, like, at least three years in a trial. Really, I think. We're kind of taking it back, boys. So be ready. Well, in this year, I'm again there because I have missed a couple of the yester. You've missed a couple of bigies. And you've learnt your lesson now. Oh, I've learnt my lesson. Now, what's that? Before you plan your holidays in advance, it's like, where are the yesters? It's the only thing that goes in the direction. Yes, this goes into the first social calendar before holidays get booked. So in amongst that, we had another base anniversary. So 2019, we did our 15 year base first three. And that was the one we did in Foxton Square. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Colours, I think. And that was a beautiful bar and venue with the terrace outside, with a barbecue and DJ booth and all that. And again, again, landlords, clients, friends, family. Some of our residents. And yeah, some of our old and new base fam as we have grown and expanded and people have come and gone. So yeah, that was 2019. That was fabulous. And then, yeah, obviously COVID. Well, again, COVID was such a pivotal moment for us. And for everybody in the industry, of course, we suddenly had to learn how we could switch the business within 24 hours from being in the office to working from home. Which again, our attitude to tech, our attitude and approach and our adoption of tech over the prior stood us in good stead. It worked 12 years. Yeah, it worked instantly. Yeah. But it was tough. It was tough not being together. Oh, it was weird. I mean, you and I spent more time apart than we've spent, you know, well, I mean, you and I often joke about the fact that you and I spend far more time together than we do with our partners. Well, you don't have kids, my kids, friends, family, you know, which is why we call each other our work wife and husband and everything that goes with that. So yeah, you know, that was weird and wonderful. But again, I look back at that with a lot of pride of how we handled that because we pivoted very well as a business in terms of delivering operations. We moved faster than I think any agent out there to very quickly reassure not just our landlords, but importantly our tenants. And again, I think that underpinned everything that we've always focused on that. You know, I remember we sent that email out two or three days after the lockdown was announced, where we just sent an email out to everyone. You and I read the email. Oh, we had already, we had already sent our staff home long before lockdown because you and I go to greed, you know, it isn't really fair on them commuting in on public transport. We were fine in our cars. And also whilst we're unrestricted as well, let's before this gets pushed on us, let's get everyone home, let's start figuring out how this business runs out of the office. And so yeah, we reached out to all of our tenants and said, please contact us, you know, if at any time, you know, you hit trouble with work, with income, whatever it is, don't hide. Don't panic. Just come and talk to us. We'll find solutions. That to this day is still one of the proudest things I'm most proud of that we did, because I think there were so many agents, so many people, but there were so many agents panicking about what this mean for the landlords, what did this mean for their business, how was rent going to get paid? And I think it was so easy to overlook the fact that this was just such a terrifying and unimaginable position for everyone. Because we already had that kind of relationship with our landlords, where the hard truths could be told, and we, you know, they, we were quite comfortable going to them and saying, look, no, it's a bit of a shit show, but in order for you to have the bulk of your mortgage paid, if we need to find a solution whereby you give, give, reduce rent, you know, let's find a solution, but keep your tenant, because if that tenant leaves, and don't forget, we're based at the city fringes, we lost, you know, not only because of COVID part of Brexit, that was a close COVID market with Brexit. We lost about 700,000 people out of the city, and that obviously affected the rental market around here. Yeah, and then you were, and we've done a lot of city fringe, so even coming out of lockdown, that market that we had catered to, that high-flying kind of, well, not that's our only demographic, but we, you know, we looked after a lot of people with good city jobs, who didn't, who wanted to live on the city fringe, get a little bit more bang for their buck, but close to everything, but had no outside space. But wanted to be close to the office. Had no outside space, suddenly that became so important, and look at that time, and a lot of the amenities they might have had, like, gyms and cinemas, those were shut, couldn't use. We lost probably about, I'd say, 30% of rental income at that time, is in the dip picture. In terms of what the market did, for sure. For sure. And then it slowly needed to work itself back up. Well, I mean, we say slowly, it kind of took a year to kind of find its feet, and then it, and then it... Well, it was 2022, 2020, really, I think, then it suddenly... Yeah, then it went very much. Yeah. And then last year, a lot up in last year, we did our big 20th, so we were big. The anniversaries, we built on them, so we did an incredible party at the Shordich Arts Club. That's amazing. Amazing venue, amazing space. I think what was nice, I think, I think that's the first one where we openly invited some of our agency friends. Yeah. Because we've built over the years a really nice community of other agents that we love and admire, and we knowledge share with, and we bounce ideas off of, and everything else. And I think we've always been quite inclusive about that, but it was really nice to be able to invite a bunch of them to share that moment with us, and to see, you know, in many ways it felt like almost as much as other than it did to us, and that was really, really sweet. But, you know, we went big, we didn't just do that, we have kind of reinvented our marketing, so... Well, we did that before, because all of that marketing that was shot, that video content, to build that first website that we had. So we did a two-day shoot. Was used in the venue, on the way to the university. To build on your website. It's stunning, by the way. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Good to see you and Tris, and obviously the guys of PBS. But we had an amazing two days with Chris and the team from PBS Media. Matt couldn't make it down, but we had Chris, Rob, and... Oh no. Obviously. Toby, thank you. I'm going to say I've stitched myself up there, if I go again to more names. Thank you. Toby, love you. How can I forget Big Guns Toby? Jesus Christ. But, yeah, so did two days, three locations, which might be the most exhausting thing I've ever done, because... I... You worked hard, I just swarmed off. I'm going to be like, "Here I am." But I was so stressed, because again, it was one of my pet projects. It was like, "Come on baby, come on me. This is what we're going to do now." And you were like, "As usual, uh-huh." "I'll go you back. You lead the way." So it was, yeah, that... Two days, three locations, trying to get everyone prepped and briefed, because obviously you and a lot of the other guys, I mean, you're getting a lot more comfortable with this now, because we've done a lot more of it. But 12, 15 months ago, talking to the guys about sitting in front of a camera, everyone was terrified. But again, it was lovely, because we invited our owners, our landlords, you know, and it were people that we've been working with for many, many years, and, you know, I was sat behind a camera interviewing them. But it was great, because it was just having a chat with them. Just having a chat. And to hear how happy they were, obviously, with us as a company, and how, actually, how we had impacted their life, that was... No, some beautiful stories out there, and it was really nice to do something... It was the first event as well, filming and our base first three, where we invited a decent volume of residents as well. Current and previous. And again, I don't know that there are many letting agents out there that would want to, that would either want to invite, or would want their residents turning up at a party like that, and also that would have residents who lived with you five, 10 years pre- Well, but again, we've proven that in our journey that we've had residents who started their talent journey with us, ended up buying the property, sometimes even through us, that we facilitated that purchase, then ended up becoming a landlord with us again, and then ended up helping themselves the property at the end of their journey. Well, Tom was a great one, right? So we recently came again, the end for now, of our journey with a long-term landlord. So Tom originally rented the flat with us, beautiful one, bed in Leinhals Basin. It was super early. Yeah, yeah, it would have been, yeah, 2005. And that was even a split come with another agent. Yes. So we did that as a split commission deal with another agent. So what that means for those who don't know, there was a property on another agent's books that we only got half the fee, because we've brought the tenant. We moved Tom in there about a year or so later, the owner that property decided to sell, we approached Tom, and his met, he just, I think, landed a nice city bonus, and he was looking to buy, so brilliant. He bought the flat, and then I think about three months after he bought it, very soon after he completed on the purchase, he basically came back to us and went, "I've been off of my dream job, which means I'm not going to be living here anymore. Can I give it back to you guys to let him manage?" And that's exactly what we did for the next, 15 years. 15 years, yeah, probably more than 15 years. Roughly, 15, 16 years. Yeah. And then Tom came back to us end of last year, beginning of this year. Well, it was end of last year. End of last year, we had the conversation. So we had to do with the plan duty change, so we had to make sure that completion was brought out. The stamp duty threshold, we had a tenancy in place, and all that sort of stuff. We had to negotiate that with them. And whilst we did sales when Tom bought, we don't do sales anymore. So it was about finding the right agent, which we did. We partnered with a brilliant agent in Lymhouse called Herfence Albie Carr, which is headed up by actually, again, weird relationships. A lovely guy called Sebastian Succamony, who Anne and I worked with at the company where we met. So a lot of synergy there. But no, we brought Sebastian and HSC on board, who've done some brilliant results for our client selling before. And yeah, he did the goods after a slightly bumpy start. They found the right buyer, and they got the deal over the line before the stamp duty threshold. So the buyer didn't bump on that. Ended up working really well, because the tenants ended up agreeing to move out early from their contract, which worked out well for them, because they got to move to their dream home closer to work. And yeah, it all worked out. But yeah, again, sad, a bit like Filomena. I think Filomena kind of felt a bit like your client. Tom kind of felt a bit like my client, because I'd done that with him at the first, and I sold it to him originally. And then obviously all of our clients are our clients, but you and both know, you have those clients that you kind of, because you're the first person they talk to, or you just align over interests or whatever it is. But yeah, I think that was definitely close to one of, if not the first kind of client that I went on that journey with. So it's nice to go on that one. So before we wrap this one up, I think really we joked a bit about, like, if the business was our 21-year-old son or daughter, 21-year-old kid, we've done the reminiscing bit, and what would we hope for the future? So I think we're looking at a few things, right? So we're still on this amazing marketing journey at the moment, that we started last year, and that's really exciting to see us doing more and more stuff like this, talking more videos, more chats, more guides. I think again, because we are following the trends that you have in the market, in that you want to make sure that people find you, they don't go looking necessarily on the portal to find an agent. You know, they're going to come across something that catches their attention way. You're giving some educational information out, or you're talking about the problem that we have solved, and suddenly you have that connection with them. And obviously, that's why you put me in front of this camera, which is extremely uncomfortable. But you just chatter away. I mean, doing things that make your cards one-scare you, I... It's good. Take to my brain, it's a healthy healthy thing to do. As long as the thing that scares you isn't literally possibly fatal, like free climbing the shard, you know, if it's like business risky, do it. Well, I'm glad we stood on the inside of the shard to see it, right? We went and had, we did go and have dinner at the... No, sorry, we didn't do dinner at the shard. We went and looked at the view of the shard, as a little anniversary present to us, which we bid a lot of stuff. And it was every good property process. All we did was like, "Oh, look there! Do you remember that property?" That's that, that's the other thing we had. Oh, do you remember the last one for that one? Oh, I remember when that was the day. Yeah, literally, we spent the whole hour in the shard, just trying to identify... Don't be about properties. Either properties that are on our books now, or properties that were on our books, or properties that we would have been able to see, but we now can't, because that's been built. That's been built. Forget about looking at what every other tourist goes. But we've just heard this, when you and I watched movies based in London, like particularly like if it's a car chase, or something like that, and it's like, "Hold on." You did not get from it. They were in Bethel Green, and they just turned the corner into marble art. No, that's not happening. But bringing it back to what we want for the future of the business. So we're going to keep on evolving our marketing. We're going to stay true to what kind of been the underpinning of our business, A from the offset, but really from 2008, that initial adoption of G-Pix, that leveraging of tech to deliver a very technical, very effective service, like technical offering, but giving us the time and the ability to have the relationships we've talked about. I think that is especially with everything that you see changing through AI, and every solution that's out there, I still think it's so important that we keep picking up those funds, and giving those chats, and going out for that coffee, and meeting at a property, and just having those connections. Look, I genuinely think that is going to become a bigger and bigger part of the business, as tech gets cleverer, as it gets more seamless, more products talk to one another more, and yeah, AI got, I'm not even going to get started on that, because we've been talking long enough, that there's a few podcasts dropping around this, if you want to hear more about our thoughts and AI, and we're talking some really interesting people within our sector, and within tech, about where we feel the agency is going with that stuff. But yeah, I think you and I, we don't like standing still. So we're always going to be looking for those marginal gains. I mean, look, this is also one of the first years, where there are so many changes coming our way. This is, you know, the biggest change since 1988, the Housing Act, you know, we're completely changing a pivoting the business model. That's going to be very interesting for us, but also having to learn, you know, old and new legislation, the reset process, time flows, educating the staff, educating, you know, the clients, the landlords, tenants, making sure that everybody is aware what can and cannot be done, but also assuring them, assuring them that we don't need to be necessarily worried about. And nothing fundamentally changes, right? We're still the base we've always been, we're still a little bit cheeky. Oh yeah. Definitely a bit different, leaning towards the creative side, but fundamentally about doing a very effective, efficient, proactive job that feels like you're being looked after by a friend or family. Yeah. And as long as those properties are well maintained and tenants feel that they are looked after, they're not going to move, right? Which we've proven over the years. Yeah. And there we go, go over it. There's the chat about 21 years. And so I'm not going to say here's the next 21 years, because I'm definitely not sure at 66, and I'm not going to say what age you'll be in 21 years. I am going to be a lot taller. Yeah. I don't think I'm going to still want to be necessarily looking after people's broken washing machines. But here's to the future, here's to the next base anniversary party, 25 years. 20, right? We've got that to look forward to in, what, will that be, 20, 29? Yeah. So we've got to have to start planning that soon. And thank you for 21 years of fun, maybe. 70, 70, 70. That's it folks. That's it for today's Viking chats. Be getting Anne back on for another chat sometime soon about... Of course. Something else. But otherwise, you'll hear from my Waffley voice soon. Thanks for listening. Bye. Thanks guys.