Event Matters

Embracing Intuitive Leadership with Taran O’Doherty

• Kershaw Partners • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Taran O’Doherty’s journey from teenage dreamer to thriving business owner proves success is built on adaptability, grit, and clear values. 

In this candid conversation, Taran shares how he and his partner Ben transformed a small furniture hire startup into a multi-million-pound operation without external funding or experience, relying instead on street smarts, relentless reinvestment, and a refusal to accept “no” as an answer. In this episode, we break down their bold strategies, including opening 7 days a week, negotiating everything from van rentals to contracts, and prioritising relationships over purely transactional dealings. 

Taran shares the importance of intuition, trust, and staying true to core values in a rapidly changing industry, plus how AI’s emerging role can streamline operations and unlock new opportunities. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or simply looking for motivation to keep going, this episode is a blueprint for resilient, meaningful success. 


Key Takeaways:

  • The power of unstructured intuition over formal experience
  • Building a business around relationships, not transactions
  • Embracing constant change as a strategic advantage
  • Prioritising company culture and core values in scaling
  • Operating with lean capital by reinvesting and avoiding external debt
  • Long-term thinking as a driver of sustained innovation and differentiation
  • The importance of personal well-being and authenticity in leadership


For more information about Club Altura, the new community for event business leaders, click here - https://kershawpartners.co.uk/club-altura/

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Kirch Your Partners podcast Event Matter. Conversations about the realities of running, growing and scaling event businesses today. This podcast is for established event business owners who want clarity, confidence, and a different perspective on the road ahead. Our aim is to keep these conversations open, informal, honest, practical, and even sometimes a little bit informative. So you can walk away with fresh insights and ideas you can put into action in your own business. I'm glad you're here, so let's get started. This week I'm joined by Taran Odotti, co-founder of Yaha. Taryn's story is a powerful reminder that entrepreneurship doesn't always begin with the perfect CV, a business degree, or a carefully mapped-out career plan. Together with his childhood friend Ben, he built Yaha from the ground up, starting with a handful of tables and chairs stored in the conservatory, a secondhand van strategy, and a belief that if they worked hard enough and cared enough about their customers, they could build something special. Based in London, Yaha has grown into one of the UK's leading furniture hard companies for the events industry, supporting everything from conferences and exhibitions to large-scale productions and brand activations. But this isn't simply a story about logistics and inventory. It's about mindset, resilience, and building a business around relationships, adaptability, and service in an industry where the details matter and trust is everything. Taryn shares what it's like starting a company with no formal business background, the early years of doing every single job themselves, and the lessons learned as the business scaled rapidly. We talk about partnership, intuition, reinvesting for growth, navigating the shock of COVID, and how Yaha rebuilt itself with renewed focus on culture, technology, and long-term thinking. We also explore the values that sit at the heart of the business, love and faith, and why Tarum believes belief in people, in relationships, and in yourself is often the real engine behind entrepreneurial success. Before we wrap up, if you're an event business owner or founder looking to connect with like-minded people, you might want to check out Club Altura, the new community platform hosted by Curtual Partners, designed to bring together leaders from across the events industry to share ideas, challenges and opportunities. You can find out more at the Curtual Partners website. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. You'll get new episodes before anyone else and keep up with the short storage shaping our industry. This is Event Matters, and this is Taran Odhotti. So, hi Taran. Thank you very much indeed for being a guest on the Event Matters podcast. Great to see you and great to have you here.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you very much for having me. Um as you know, this is uh something that fills me with dread, but you uh certainly twisted my arm, and uh it's good to be at the concert zone, I suppose. So uh Well, I I suppose it would say a pleasure to be here, but I'll I'll tell you what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01

I know you're lying.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I've had long conversations with Mike about this, and and I said, you know, do you want to join the the the termo one? He's oh I'm really sorry, I can't, I'm I'm I'm away that day. And I still he's quite nervous, it might help, you know, it might help him just to relax. And Mike said, No, no, no, uh, yeah, we'll be he'll be fine. He's really, really good, really good at this sort of stuff. And I thought, well, I've had a conversation and he's absolutely breaking it. But anyway, there you are. Now listen, um, obviously you run an extremely successful business in Yaha. Um, and we've worked with you guys in the past um with the two-day review and so on. Uh, so just what what was the story behind uh the business, why why you and Ben set it up, what was it, 15 years ago? Um, and why I mean I would imagine the furniture space has always been pretty competitive. What why did you think that was a it was a it was a good idea to jump into that space?

SPEAKER_02

I think for us, me and Ben had been uh best friends from primary school and secondary school.

SPEAKER_01

Um which is amazing, I have to say, you're still working together.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we're kind of like a married couple, I suppose. Um and um we're very different, we've always been very different, but we've always kind of enjoyed each other's company and help each other out, I suppose, in our own random ways. Um so we'd we'd always kind of schemed with different business ideas from being teenagers, and we would as you do much.

SPEAKER_01

So even even as a teenager, you were a budding entrepreneur?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think always and always kind of I never had anyone in my family that owned businesses or kind of was very career-driven, but um I'd always just loved the idea of owning the business. I was always fascinated with it. I used to love um like the first versions of Dragon's Den and Um The Apprentice and things like that, and always randomly feel for some unknown reason that I could do it or do it better than the people on the programme, even though I had no kind of validation to do that.

SPEAKER_01

Um that's that's a classic entrepreneur though, isn't it? I mean you always think like toppy teenager. Yeah, yeah. But so why furniture?

SPEAKER_02

So I worked um me and Ben was both working in a leisure center um for quite a while. It it was kind of years were going by. I think you do things for a while when you realise kind of years start just going by, and before you know it, five years has gone by, six years, and you're not ri not much is really happening. And uh I think it dawned on me realistically is kind of now's the time, I have to do something for I'm never gonna do it. And I keep on saying I'm gonna do it, but never really follow through. So um I worked for a furniture hire company for one month. I got introduced by uh one of my best friends, his uncle owned a furniture hire company, and he said he's looking for a sales manager, and we thought him and his dad thought I'd be great for the job. So I went, I'd never had no experience in hire, I'd never actually been a manager or anywhere else, or um just kind of been a sales advisor in the leisure centre.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and then I went.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, I I suppose sales was but never, yeah, never had to manage a team or really make any kind of top level decisions or anything like that. Um but yeah, the guy went for me and um I worked there for a month. The guy got rude to me a few times. I saw that I felt he had a good business, but I felt he didn't understand his customers, and he got rude to me uh a few times, and I said, I quit. Um you're an idiot. Um and uh what sort of age were you now, Taran? I was 25 when I said that.

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah, the uh you you'd waited quite a long time, hadn't you, before you'd gone for it?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think I'd done various other things, like I owned an ice cream van for a period of time thinking that'd be a good idea, even till I didn't realise they had to charge it through the night or the ice creams melt. Um I used to buy tickets and sell them until I realised it was frowned upon as being a ticket tout, so I kind of stopped that even after making quite a bit of money. Um I used to do stuff where I'd stand outside sh shops and count how many people would go inside them to work out how much money they were making a day. I wanted to set up my own milkshake shop. I then worked in the milkshake shop for a while to gain experience in that and then realised that they only make money on Friday and on weekends, and the shop I worked in, I felt it was going to go bust, and then six months later it did. Um, so I was always fascinated with the mechanics of the business, just kind of quite naturally.

SPEAKER_01

Um just just before we go to setting up Yaha, had you studied business and marketing or whatever at school or at college, or was I was I mean, I'm just as astounded by the fact that your brain aged 15 was that plugged into those things, those sort of things?

SPEAKER_02

So I I think for me, I think it I studied business studies for a little bit. Again, school wasn't the greatest for me. I struggled quite a lot at school, didn't really apply myself, and I struggled. I'm definitely dyslexic, and I don't think that was really recognised, and I didn't really know what you know the problem was barring feeling stupid, I would say all of this.

SPEAKER_00

I don't want to say to the thing, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and and also, you know, academically, if you're not getting a straight age, you're seen as you know, you're gonna be a failure. And that uh and even when I finished um school, I then kind of looked at my options. I knew some people that were studying to be like gas engineers or things like that, but you still needed a level of qualification even to get onto those courses, which I didn't actually pass. So you're optional, I noticed this narrowing of options, but um yeah, the fascination in business, I'm not really sure. I've I I still scratch my head with it a little bit now, but I do think that I I don't know, maybe it's just naturally inside me that just intriguing thing of how how it works, I suppose. But um, yeah, after working for the guy for a month, I quit. Um and I felt I could do it better to be honest. I felt that he didn't really under recognise his customer needs. Um he did, you know, he had he did some things well, which was like Google he did really well, which was quite uh a kind of a witchcraft back then, and um it fascinated me quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01

So what year were we talking 15 years ago, aren't we?

SPEAKER_02

2011.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So um, and then I went to Ben, my best friend, who we worked together in various different jobs, and obviously friends from primary school and secondary school. He was a postman at the time, he'd just had a daughter, and I said, Come around, we're gonna start a furniture hire company. We pull out a notepad. We read in the book of dummies how to name a business. It says, Keep it short and say what you do. So we said, What we do is hire. The shortest way of doing it would be going how was the shortest word you can make with the word hire in it. So it's bah, ca hire, da hire, la hire, you know, and and so on. And then we got to your hire and was like, that's it. Then we felt, what do we need? We need to make a website. So we the only person we knew who knew how to make websites was our friend from school. We decided to call him, who we hadn't spoken to in a few years, said would we pay you£10 an hour, or we can give you a share of the business. He says, I'll take the the£10 an hour, please. Um and um and he still works for us now, you know. I often say he's the cleverest person uh I know, and um he's in an integral part of the business now and been with us since the start, he's on more than£10 an hour now, um, and well deserved. Um but I think it was it's it's um we accepted early on that we wouldn't we don't know the answers to anything because we have no experience, but it meant that we didn't go into things with preconceived ideas of how things would work. So we went at everything with an open mind, whereas I think a lot of people are fixated on experience and things like that. But I think the experience thing gives you kind of guide rails on how things should be, whereas I think if you go, you know, more kind of pragmatically, then you can um really just kind of move and adapt all the time, and I think that's what we've done for 15 years, to be honest. But um, yeah, we we uh started working on the Google side of things and but you haven't gotten a kit, have you? So So we went and we decided our start, so me and Ben decided that we'd invest£6,000 each to begin with, which we didn't fully put in. Um and that was towards some kits, we bought 300 folding chairs and 30 trestle tables. We stored them in Ben's mum's conservatory to begin with. And then we got she was, yeah. When we told when we went to tell her that we started a business, and she said, What is it and what's it called? And we said, You're hiring, she thought that we was uh stoned again or something, and that we was it was something to do with weed or something, which we said, no, this is a real business, uh to which she rolled a rise at. Um and um yeah, everyone assumed we would foul and that they they were probably uh if if I was watching, I would have probably assumed the same as well. So um yeah, so we just went on our merry way, and I suppose we just um always tried to, you know, we said we'd be available all the time, so we opened our phone lines nine 9 a.m. to nine pm seven days of the week. We said, well, some companies are bigger, well, everyone's bigger than us, but they might won't be open as often as us. Um and we kind of look for small little kind of wins early on where we could kind of differentiate.

SPEAKER_01

Was there and I think that's yeah, that's clever because because clearly, you know, if you're only operating nine operating nine to five, and and we all know what those sort of businesses are like when when you're you're not customer service focused as much as you probably could be. And when you know, and particularly in the har business, it's quite transactional. I need 300 chairs, I need 200 tables, you know, it's that's it, right? It's you know, you you don't say what colour would you like them, it just happens to be that's what you need, or theater chairs or whatever it might be. So I guess you were a novelty in the market in that you you were offering that, okay, we actually we actually do care. We really do care about what you want.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think when we started, we kind of again we would do our little SWOT analysis, which was from our uh little book for dummies and things like that, and we knew that they had more power behind their punch and a lot more products and and kind of manpower as such, but we felt that um there was an arrogance about them. We felt that they they wasn't very adaptable and and flexible, and we felt events were flexible and and relationships are about being flexible. And we kind of our approach to being open and available was well Tesco's open all of the time, you know. They surely if they're getting it right, you know, we're gonna copy, you know. And I think we was because we didn't know we accepted we didn't know any of the answers, we kind of looked at people we kind of thought was good or businesses we thought were good and felt of how could we adapt that uh onto ourselves.

SPEAKER_01

That's very clever. And in and and for the first couple of years, presumably you begged, borrowed, and stole furniture and and so so you could you could fulfil contracts, but you know, and and how you know that must have been quite tough, particularly for two 25-year-olds with no business experience and not a whole heap of cash behind the business. Did did did you make money quite quickly or was it was it a real upwill uphill struggle?

SPEAKER_02

So our approach was to try we we didn't take no wages um for like the first year. Um uh we didn't take one pound. We we reinvested it all. I think the next year, I think maybe we took£7,000 each. Um our belief was to kind of really just try and spin the money and and just reinvest it to buy more stock because our belief was we we wanted we knew that our power behind our punch was the amount of asset that we owned, and therefore if it all goes out, you know, and we would do these crazy little drawings on the notepad, which is well, forget about if 200 folding chairs are out in a day. Imagine if we had 2,000, you know, and it would, you know, what would feel like quite big numbers. And I can remember doing the money dance when we would maybe have done 500 pounds of orders in a day and you know, celebrating it. And and again, we was we were willing to be the salespeople, the drivers, the warehouse people, and everything. And and it felt, you know, even though we were working 70 hour weeks, didn't feel tired, you know, it felt kind of empowering to to be proving everyone wrong that we uh we've got some orders and and uh I think in the first year we turned over a hundred thousand. Um the next year after that we did like four hundred, and next year after that we did like eight hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, so the business is really, really, really growing quickly. And you and presumably you reinvested a lot of that money.

SPEAKER_02

Um we reinvested all everything. Every everything was reinvested. In the first to begin with, we just went with a van rental, which was called Streetcar, Street Van. Um it renamed to Zip Car. It's actually was um they they've actually recently stopped operating in London, but it was it was really good for us because you could rent a vehicle for only like an hour. So when we only had one job, we would rent it for one hour, we'd plan the route really efficiently, we would learn all the tricks that you could actually gain access to the van ten minutes before you paid for it, and you had a grace period afterwards of five minutes without being charged an another half an hour, and therefore we would ensure that we got that 10 minutes extra so we didn't have to pay£4.50 extra for the additional half an hour or something. So, and if we it was a small order, we would do it in the car, which was a lot cheaper. Every any deal we did anywhere, we would hackle hard. Um, we would negotiate, we'd go into like a pound shop and negotiate for you know some bins, a few pounds off, and feel it as a victory in our crazy little world of uh trying to prove the world wrong. Um and it we just we just kind of enjoyed it really, to be honest. Um and then I just find it staggering.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I've spoken to a lot of people doing doing the podcast over the last three, four months or whatever it is, five months now. And I I'm just I'm never ceased to be amazed that that true entrepreneurs like yourself and Ben, you know, the fact that you've you know with no grounding really at all, you've you've streetwised yourself to being successful just by using logic and common sense and not splashing away cash and keeping everything super tight. I mean, it's pretty damn amazing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I th I think the I think the the sales I think sales is a great ground in. You know, we worked in the leisure centres and and it got when we was in the leisure centre, there was um the sales manager asked me to review some CVs for a part-timer because there was no manager at the time, and I kind of pretended I reviewed them all and threw them in the bin and uh got Ben the job and kind of we was uh you know, we we learned our our way of, you know, then I would sit down with the manager of the leisure centre and have to define the targets and negotiate, no, we can't do that and and work them down. And you know, like we we would just do it was a good ground in sales. I think the ability to to deal with people, you know, I think is the magic, isn't it? And I think it all of those are different interactions and I think when you've got no bank role, you you you have to be um really wise, you know. We we didn't actually borrow we I think we got a bank loan of a hundred thousand after like five years or something, you know. So we we we never had any external money at all.

SPEAKER_01

Um and that presumed was to buy kit too, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think um also to cover cash flow um shortages, obviously the seasonality of events. Yeah. We did we didn't actually know what seasonality was until um about four years in, five years in, because we'd always grown so much. And uh where it started to bite us a lot more was um as the staffing levels increased. So we we we what we were firm believers from the beginning, which was we didn't want to create a lifestyle business where we was gonna do everything. So we wanted to build where eventually we went, you know Ronald McDonald's not working in the shop, is he? You know, so um and we don't want to be the guy that's in the barber shop, and if he leaves, then everyone goes to another barber shop, you know, no one wants their hair cut by the rat two other random people. So we we didn't want a business like that, and we've knew that the amount of people and the amount of stock we have is our true strength, not what we profit right now. And we wasn't interested in small money. We want uh like we didn't want to, you know, even though in our book that we wrote down a note of what we wanted to earn from the business, I think one of my goals before we started then was is a lot more organized than me, and it we we thought it'd be a good idea to write a goal. And I think my goal was to earn£50,000 a year one day.

SPEAKER_01

Um and um Which seemed like a lot it seemed like a long way off in 2011, I should imagine.

SPEAKER_02

It did, yeah, it did. Um and yeah, I I don't know, I think uh youthful naivety is uh also a gift, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure. And so when did you when did you think to yourself? I mean, was it was it was it three years in when you were nudging or four years in when you were nudging a million quid worth of revenue? Did you think to yourself, okay, we've got a proper business now, and so should should what should we aim for? I mean, was was there a vision at that moment where you thought to yourself, okay, this is where we're headed, or or did that not come until later? I mean, obviously we you know I'm just thinking that that you bumped up against COVID in 2020 when presumably you the business was still growing and still getting better and better after uh eight, nine years, and that must have been quite frustrating in terms of any vision you had set up.

SPEAKER_02

We've never really had a vision, um our belief, and we've never we're not very kind of planny type of people. Um our plans to be as best as we possibly could be. Um and I think if you you're always willing to adapt and and look at that, you know, there's been times where as we've grown where we're maybe too fixated on change as well. So sometimes we get it's quite addictive change. So sometimes you change things and you don't know whether it's better or it's worse. But I think um where it started to become a little bit more serious was when we actually started to become, and I say this very loosely, more financially aware because we didn't actually run a Cash flow as a business until after about five years of operating. Um and all we would say is, you know, if someone asked us how much, it would just be how much do we have in the bank? So by that point, we were turning over nearly two million pounds. Um and we then what started to hurt us a lot more was when we moved from a small warehouse which was 2,000 square foot, and we were looking for another unit uh because we thought we'd never fill up the 2,000 one in a year later. We filled it up. And then we was looking for another unit, which was hopefully around about 7,000 square foot, but we came across one and it was 12,500 square foot. And even though it was double the size and we didn't need it, we felt it looked nice and we liked the idea of it, so we took it.

SPEAKER_01

But it's expensive, right?

SPEAKER_02

Um and we had a nice warehouses used to be a lot cheaper than they are now, you know, they're one of the things that is inflated the most and especially London market as well. It's the most expensive place for warehousing in the world. And we got a nice rent-free period, and and then as we bolstered up more of the team, uh, maybe to around about 40, 50 staff at this point. And then when you're realising that in in January you can lose£50,000 in a month, February you can equally lose the same amount, and you've got to pay the wages, and there's not really much coming in. This is where it started to the reality of running a business started to come to us, and we're like, oh God, we actually run a real business and wow, we've got to have the money to pay the bills, and and that was where it became a bit more scary and a bit more uh not so fun.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I think that's I think it's it's the as you say, the seasonality. You know, you can't change the seasonality of events. It is what it is. You're gonna be very busy around Christmas, you're gonna be but very busy all summer. January, February, maybe even March, not so much. And I guess you run it, and then October November, October time you run into the conference season, so that's all good. But you're right, if you've got massive overheads, and I know you've got a big team now, but if you've got and and clearly you've got warehouses and we're a massive warehouse, but you know, when you're not when no money's coming in, that must be that must be pretty terrifying, mustn't it?

SPEAKER_02

I think for a long time it was um I think we'd got to the point just before COVID where we we could have actually made ourselves go bust. Um returning over like three and a quarter million, and we're hardly profiting. Um we had a team of about 70 staff. And we we was doing a lot of events, but again, it was just that cash flow and the number of people we had, and where just our way of working, we had a high volume of events, but a lot of them's kind of like I always compare it to the Crystal Maze, where you grab a silver and a gold, you know, sheet of paper, and the and the silvers are a minus one and the gold are a plus one, and you know, it's just this mad scramble of everyone just grabbing them. You know, at that point we had something like 14 salespeople, and there was you just it it's just a massive, just a massive amount of volume, you know, then we're providing 250 events a week.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I guess that's when you have to think strategically and think about it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you want to be able to think you want to be able to think strategically, but the problem with it is is once the team's so big and the culture's in a certain way, stopping and changing is quite difficult, you know. It's it's quite ingrained in how you operate, and it's hard to know where to cut off the fat and what to do. Um so we we struggled with that, and and in some ways COVID gave us a fresh start in in a lot of ways, and I'm not saying that we would have chosen for it, obviously. Um but it it allowed for us to kind of me and Ben were still coming into the unit, even when it was like stay at home, we're like, nope, our ship's going down, if it's going down, we're going down in it, you know, and you'd walk around all the desks in the warehouse and you'd see it just feel like a ghost town. And it really allowed us to go back to basics a lot about what kind of our vision, you know, if we did have a vision. I think our vision was, you know, make it easy, you know, make events easy, say yes, you know, servers were smart. If we're wrong, hold our hands up. So there were more guiding principles than um um kind of a vision as such. But um and that allowed us to and then from a we'd always aspired to have a system which we felt could cut out a lot of the rubbish, and I suppose that's um what we focused on was how can we kind of get a grip on all of this madness and and be a better business if this thing ever disappears, and if it does disappear, we're we're gonna be in a good position. And thankfully it did.

SPEAKER_01

Thankfully it did. And and uh it I mean with all those staff, because uh because it sort of happened so flipping quickly, did you did you were you able to furlough most people?

SPEAKER_02

So we furlough pretty yeah, we furlough pretty much everyone. Um I think obviously furlough, I think where there's a lot of confusion, you know, there were some people in those times that were, you know, employees that have never been wealthier, you know, they they're getting their furlough money and they're they're doing a second job. They've also got more free time, you know, they're they're having a great um experience. And I think for us as business owners, it's very different because the rent is not being paid for, and the rent on our warehouse is very expensive and is owned by a pension fund who are not the most reasonable of people, you know. So it's um they want their money, rain or shine, and we have to borrow half a million pounds to stay alive. So um no one's really thinking about that, and we're just thinking, well, if it does ever return, we've got a massive debt over our head, yeah, which we're gonna have to service, and we don't even know how we're gonna service this.

SPEAKER_01

Um how long it's gonna go on for, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And it might the business might come back even if they allow us to operate again, but the debt could kill us.

SPEAKER_01

So I think it's so strong, you know, because you had a big workforce in 2019 or 2020, beginning of 2020, you know, that the the goodwill that you must have or they must have felt towards you guys was you know, I know I know we just we we've discussed this um uh last time we spoke about, you know, that that that they call themselves the tribe, as it were. Do you think that that was a really important part that when when you came back, which I'm I'm guessing back end of 2020, beginning of 2021, maybe even late 2021, did they feel did you feel quite a tightness in the group or not?

SPEAKER_02

So I think in the sense of round about the tribe and stuff like that, I think that's stuff we've more landed on more recently. I think what it did coming back out of COVID was it allowed for us to build back brick by brick. So we started with one person in each department, and obviously you could operate outdoor events, and I can remember being really happy. You know, there were some months where we might have done 50,000 revenue for the month, and that felt like a success. But previously we were doing 600,000 in this month. But the 50, when you've got when you're eating nothing, it feels like a something, I suppose. But um, yeah, the people we built back one seat by seat was we was just forever thankful, you know. They they could have made it difficult or they could have refused, like some people in some positions did, make it hard to come back or make excuses why they couldn't. And it allowed for us to build back, you know, with the best and really be open with them as well about the the challenge ahead and uh what we're thinking, and you know, making a promise to them that, you know, if you know, longer term that we we are forever thankful as well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um but I suppose you could you couldn't it's not really a point where you can make massive promises because you're you know, you're it's out of your hand so much. And I think that was kind of quite a moment for me where it allowed me, as a business owner, I've always felt if we failed then, you know, um so be it, I failed because we wasn't good enough. And I think that's uh it's a bit appeal, but at least you played the game and the game's fair. And it's your you have to look at yourself of why you lost. Whereas where it felt that we could have we could lose everything we work for through no fault of our own, it felt very unfair. But what that kind of taught me was that there's a lot of things that you can't control, and it it actually allowed me in that moment to separate my feelings from the business quite a lot because um it allowed me to think that um you know controlling everything and that there's more to it than that, you know, and I think it uh you don't being so obsessive and things like that, you can only do what's in your power and and kind of just focus on that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean we we we've talked about this this culture within the business, and and and when I asked you about you know the the the the values that that you and Ben live by, and and it's and it's one of the most difficult things when you have a partnership like you have is to get is to have uh aligned values and aligned vision. And and and I I think probably you definitely have an aligned vision, but in terms of aligned values, you said that you know that the the two sort of watchwords you you go by are love and faith, which uh as I would say it's hardly what they call the most typical corporate language. But in in in terms of that and in describing yourselves and the team, why why are love and faith so important and how do you get that message across without sounding a bit I mean I'm not saying they are what you wish you because I love that. You know, I think you know I I live by um um kindness and um and integrity. So you know I think it's it's very important, but but equally it's very important to from to make people around you understand.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think for us we'd done a few of these little, you know, people would say you've got to have these things, and we'd always felt, well, we don't have to have anything if we don't want, we're doing all right without them. And then we'd kind of knocked up a few things over the years and they would just disappear a bit. Back end of last year, me and Ben decided to go on a retreat with um uh a business called Humanness, and these two guys, Ben knows one of them personally, he's a dad at the school, and um I think what they uh work on is you know the people inside the business, and and what makes a great business is the people, and that's something we do believe in is the relationships that we have, you know, it's the relationships we have with each other, it's the relationships we have with our clients, and I think especially in a kind of AI period where people are gonna lose sense of what you know what makes sense and their values and things like that, it's probably never been more important than ever. So um we went on a retreat to the woods, you know, for a weekend with these guys, and we spoke about a lot of things around, you know, what we stand for as people, you know, our kind of um, you know, speak about things like our inner child and you know, what is important to us, talk about our vulnerabilities, things that we're scared of, um, talk about things that we you know make us excited as well, you know, which are important, you know, for someone like me. Um, if we're not doing new things, I get bored and I don't feel, you know, engaged, whereas Ben likes things to be right, and uh I so it's kind of a good Batman and Robin combination there, I suppose. Um, whereas I'm quite gung-ho and just go, go, go. He's kind of more calm and uh think things through and uh make sure they operate right, which is obviously very important. Um so um, but no, I think with the love and faith, I think where we've been so different as friends from school, you know, I used to just go around his house and sometimes we would sit there and we wouldn't talk for hours. And but you just like being in each other's company, and I think there's something about you know feeling that reliance to each other, you know, and and being there for each other. And I think as business partners it that bond is like brothers, you know, and and really close brothers, and um and the faith part something. And I think faith the f the faith side of it, I suppose, is we had faith from day one that we would succeed. You know, we we had you know, I had zero doubt that we would succeed, everyone else doubted us, and um we had faith that we could do it, and I think the more that you lean into having faith in yourself that you can do stuff, you can feel more enriched, you know, that can imply, you know, our customers are putting their faith in us. You know, it's important that our team and staff know that they're put our customers putting their faith in us, and equally with individual development as well, you know, have trust in yourself, you know, that you can develop. And we want our people to to grow and be better. And I think they have to see the faith from us that they can be their true self, and they have to have faith in their self as well. So there's some other kind of other values that come off of that, which we decided upon, like um intuition, which you know I do everything on my intuition, you know, I go to meetings with no plan, um, I do this with no plan. Um because I think that that's all you have, you know. Every you know, your intuition is everything, and what other people think is, you know, is is it's about being empathetic and listening, but you should make your own choices and and using your intuition to not go into things with predefined outcomes and and also to to look to innovate. So innovate as a business is something we've continually done, and we should, you know, one of our values. And we realized the other day when I said, Is there anyone got any ideas on innovating? We noticed people working from home. There were some people working from, you know, really bad setups and you know, things like that, even though we've provided lots, said we could provide things and stuff like that, and then you know, we fix that now, you know. So is there anything we do that we could do better and why do we do what we do? And um, and also togetherness, you know, because running a big business, if you're not together and you don't realise the effect cause and effect of what you do on other departments in the business, and also the togetherness for with our customers, you know, what are they trying to do and what are they about?

SPEAKER_01

So maybe I'll late with the point now, but it's that you're not a supplier, you're a partner to your to your clients, which I think is uh you know, yeah, everyone can claim that, right? But but I I think you guys have have done that so cleverly. And I think that what has come over to me, and and you know, obviously we we you know from from a KP per standard, we know a bit about the business now and understand about a bit of the business, that the relationships that you've built with the clients are hugely important and amazingly important to the business. And on the back of that, obviously, you've built this entire operating system, which is just you know, and Mike said when he saw it, it's just like wow, it's just the most amazing thing you ever saw. So, you know, those two things you know must must make it feel like the future is really, really exciting for you guys.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think the future's um I'm really excited, you know. We've we're really leaning into trying to have fun again, you know, and and we are having fun. I'm sitting here now in our news house. Well, I'm in the pod, but I'm in the business design centre in Islington where we decided to take an office, not because we really needed the space, but because we felt it was a better environment for people to have a little bit. Um we work with the venue quite a lot, um, but it's about enjoying it and people to feel, you know, new challenges and new environments as well. So no, you know, we've we're we're doing really well at the minute, you know. We've we've um with February was our record growth month since the early days. Um we grew uh 35% in February, so it seems like we must be doing, you know, leaning into being our best version of ourselves is what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01

Do you think in terms of um in terms of the market, and again, we discussed this in the past, you know, there are it's very competitive marketing, there's lots and lots of furniture hire companies out there. Do you do you see that market not the amount of money it's worth, but the number of people in it contracting? Do you see people being uh merged together or or going out of business? You know, I mean it feels like you guys are in a really, really positive, good place, but equally, I mean you're always as uh you're only ever as good as your last job, but can you see the market contracting in terms of uh in terms of number of players in it?

SPEAKER_02

I think it um obviously uh within the AI emergence, um I do think that the future it will change the future. I think um I do uh think a little bit out there, but um I do think in the future there'll be a lot less suppliers in a lot of industries. I think the the ones that really lean into you know the human side of understanding their customers, but also leverage the the possibilities um are gonna be the ones that make a difference. I think it's um yeah, I I I think uh the you know, ten years' time in this world can feel like quite a long time. You just have to turn on the news to do that. And um it it I think people are quite conditioned now of operating in what feels like war times uh that they just crack on. And you know, last year was tariffs and things like that, but I think events still take place and you you people adapt quite quick. I think that's the thing about events. I think the events industry is very adaptable. Yeah, and um I think people will continue to do that. I do think I think there's um some people have different motives in furniture, I think. I think some people have they own their own units, so their goal as they get older might be to just keep on paying off the unit and they see the value in the unit, opposed to being the best business they could be, with replenishing their stock. You know, there's a lot of things that are not seen in what we do, which is how often do you replace your product because some people run it to it's you know it can't stand anymore. Whereas for us we try to replenish things much more frequently and then get you know, sell or give away the older stock, but it's quite a painful thing to do, you know. It costs hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in doing that, which is quite it's not directly seen. Now the cost is directly seen, but you the hope is that your clients appreciate that the quality that they receive is um of a higher standard, and that will stand you in good stead for the longer term.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I guess I guess that goes back to the relationships, the trust, the belief in you guys that when you turn up with a van full of kit or a lorry full of kit, it looks smart, it's not chipped, it's not crap, it's you know, uh it it again, it's just it's just the it's evidence that you are you can do what you say you can do, and you do it every single time. And I guess that's that's the most important thing in business is you have to have the trust of your customers.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, definitely. I think for us, we we like to know our customers a lot more, just touching on the point you said about the partnerships is I think for years we I classified that we were the supplier, and I think the supplier is someone that people use but they don't really know why they use them, they've used them for years, but it's just that they have the product and they they're just familiar with it. Whereas I think a partnership is someone that actually goes in there and wants to know what someone's trying to do with it, how they do it, why they do it, um, and kind of see how we can be a solution to that. And if we can't be a solution to be um helping them be better, then say, you know, let them keep doing. You know, we don't want to sell it, we don't want to sell a bad solution. We don't need to. We're busy, you know, we're busy in our own right. So we we we want to make sure that we've understood what we have to be, and and and if we can be better, then do it and then kind of keep on, don't take that relationship for granted and and keep on understanding and adapting and trying to help, you know, create win-wins all the time as well. So um, and and do it not because you want more sales, but do it because it's the right thing to do, and do it because you care.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And you you you touched very briefly on AI, uh and in terms of well, I know you you you guys use it for for analysis, um, you know, and and um you know, finding out what what's likely to happen and how many trucks you need for this many chairs and all that sort of stuff. Where do you see it adding value in your world going forward? I mean, I don't I still don't think we've touched the surface of it, and and and I think it uh it you know it still has questions to answer, as it were, but is it very useful in your world?

SPEAKER_02

I wish it didn't exist, um but it does. Um mainly as a person, I wish it didn't exist, even as a bit well, you know, I don't think I I yeah, I just don't really like it.

SPEAKER_01

I don't think it's a force for entire good, put it that way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I can't really see it. I think uh massive businesses will benefit out of it, and also um control will be far greater with it, um, which I don't think that's what life's about. But um I think with the AI, you know, we we was already doing a lot of stuff with the the our techie stuff ourselves without this stuff and you can do a lot with code which you before AI was even around we we was we'd created a lot of solutions to problems people previously hadn't fixed. So now the AI allows things to be done a lot quicker.

SPEAKER_00

Yep.

SPEAKER_02

But it opens up the possibilities to to a lot of people. Obviously if you don't know what you've got you know you could give some the spaceship but if they don't know how to drive it then they could either one going to crush it or two they're not going to get off the ground. So I think um what the AI can do is like for example last week um we made our own brochure creator within uh not me personally I I'm uh not very good at that stuff but um we made a brochure creator within like three hours which can generate uh you know bespoke brochures and stuff like that within just three hours of using AI from scratch. That traditionally might have been three weeks worth of work maybe and was done in three hours and so there there's a lot of things like that but I think um what people are going to struggle with is the rate of change and and how they adapt to that and how they fit into that. And we use it for certain other things like you touched on of predictability around vehicles how many vehicles we might need and we do certain other things. I think it will help with a lot of non-value adding activities and that's something we've focused on for many years as anyway but I think people turn up to work to make a difference in the week not to sit there and do something that's very menial because menial for one it's not great value even 10 years ago um it it's definitely not going to be of use in the future or even now.

SPEAKER_01

No I think that's very true. And so just in terms of of of you um I mean I know that that a lot of change in your life recently I'm I'm am I allowed to say you've turned 40 now and um you've moved out to the sticks and you know you're scared of the dark not anymore probably but you know but you know I I think it's difficult um you know who I don't matter who you are you know and and you know you could be Richard Branson there must be moments in your life and particularly 15 years in and as you said you know your the your email signature says you know celebrating 10 years and that was you know that's clearly five years ago and yet you haven't got around to changing yet because life moves so flipping quickly right so you you know you probably haven't even looked at your email signature for five years but you know I think people come to a point where they go okay what's the point here what what am I doing?

SPEAKER_02

We're making money I'm comfortable you know I've got a you know nice house etc etc do you do you define yourself as successful or or you think you still there's still a way to go before you can say yeah the Yaha's a success Taranady's a success um I would say that um we're a successful story that can give hope to people um and I I I I like I I like I like that I like to say that if we did it then other people can I like to hopefully that other people could take that and treat it as some motivation for themselves. I like that. I think being rounded the rounded approach you know I I I think stereotypically you know when I get on the train to London you know it stops at some nice stops and it's a there's a lot of people getting on there that probably think that they're top of the world and they're going into the office at seven in the morning they're coming home at eight at night and they don't even know to see their kids, you know and they might earn you know bucket loads of money but I wouldn't see that success. I would you know you're very wealthy but I would you know for me sometimes going and watching my daughter pluck into another school at you know a lunchtime with a Furs they play hockey is the biggest success and I'm the only dad there. Bringing her to work with me and teaching her that she can do it as well and she can answer the questions and she can earn the money that someone else would earn you know even though she's only eight you know why not?

SPEAKER_01

I like to you know there's a lot of things I want to improve on and you know I need to find some hobbies in my later life instead of uh drinking and dancing uh otherwise uh um I won't have the best uh sixties or well I won't live uh till my later life um but no I I think um yeah success is just also just enjoying what you do enjoying what you do and and trying to be present and and and just yeah have fun yeah well I think I I think the the the story but you your story as in Ben and and you I think it's really inspiring and I I I I I love it the fact that the fact that you it's it's it's ultimately it's about enjoying what you're doing because if you're not enjoying what you're doing kind of what's the point you know you can have all the money in the world but if you're not enjoying it and as you say going to watch your daughter play hockey I I I I absolutely know that feeling a hundred percent you know I watch all my kids play various sports at various times and just I never I never regretted it for one second and you know yeah because that that period of your life as you will discover is remarkably short uh in terms of being able to do that and before you know it she'll be grown up and bringing boyfriends home and you know that that brings a whole that brings a whole different level of problem um and so you know I I it's difficult to look into the future but if you were going to look 10 years ahead um age 50 are you still doing what you're doing I mean the business could be I mean you who knows you who knows how big the business could be by then I again I don't really think too far into the future I think as I said the world's gonna change a lot um yeah I want to yeah I I I don't really think too far ahead I I think it's about being able to you know help my kids have the tools to be able to survive in a in an era that will be unknown give them the the self-belief in themselves to be their truest self and be adaptable and and and yeah I suppose try and build a legacy for them and and just who knows they might go into it they might might might well go into it Taran you never know nothing lovelier than to build a business for your kids to take over although you know well yeah my daughter says my my daughter says that my daughter says that she wants to be the boss one day and my little five year old son says he wants to be a lorry driver so um well they could be perfectly suited. Maybe we can fulfil their needs I'm not sure how he'd feel about his big sister bossing him around telling him that he's uh late late for a job or something and uh how he would take that but um yeah it's uh big sister's very boss he would probably wouldn't like to be the the the lorry driver for his big his big sister I suspect yeah I very much doubt that um but yeah well it's great you know enjoy it it's it's a it's the most amazing period uh of of your children's life this because it's just it's it's the bit in the middle before they become revolting teenagers uh and yet they're not you know um difficult to deal with babies either but it's uh so it's a great period of time enjoy every second of it now listen just before we finish um we always do our our rapid follow around which is just uh just a bit of fun to to to dig underneath of uh exactly who you are so who would you say was the most informal influential person in your business or indeed private life doesn't doesn't matter could be one and the same person uh my mum your mum great I love that number of people we say their mum or dad is just great I love that um do you are you a business book reader have you have you read lots of business books in which sense do you have a good a a favourite um I like I listen to a lot of stuff um opposed to read um I I I suppose not so much business but I do like uh the law of attraction um okay I do I do like um books around uh kind of feeling better around yourself and and making anything possible yep I love that um favourite movie or or yeah yeah favorite movie or something you've seen recently which you loved I'm not really uh I don't really watch many movies but I always uh I always loved Goodfellas a good uh gangster classic yeah I love I love all that sort of have you would done have you done Godfather one and two yeah yeah I've there's there's not many I've I've uh I've gone through the whole uh catalogue of gangster stuff and uh no I don't maybe uh maybe that's my Isleton roots from uh North London boy uh just um favourite drink favourite tipple well those that know me I'm not the most fussiist um so I have probably quite a few but um I've recently got in I like small brewed beer I suppose and IPAs and stuff like that I like the independent feel my partner my business partner Richard loves an IPA um small mountain you would die and little things that drive you absolutely bunkers um just people coming up with excuses and actually believe in their own excuses or feeling the need to tell others and to validate in some way everyone knows what they're not good at they don't need someone else to tell them just no one believes it and stop lying to yourself because you know the truth.

SPEAKER_02

Passion outside work outside the events industry I lack a lot of passions I need to find some hobbies as I said earlier so um I like uh I suppose just a bit cliche but I like just spending time with the kids in the family I think yeah that's actually fine.

SPEAKER_01

Do you have a hidden talent?

SPEAKER_02

I mean I I've asked someone I would say I'd say after a few beers or uh few wines at hospitality rocks I would like to think my dancing but uh I'm I think that's maybe just myself but I'm I'm happy anyway.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah um I was speaking to someone the other day I mean literally the most surprising she said uh I said you know hidden talent outside the industry she said yeah um rock climbing and I went wow I didn't see that coming um extraordinary extraordinary and also uh this was the lovely Holly Faulkner at Purple Patch and it was just like wow that's incredible anyway uh I I love people's hidden talents um dogs or cats I was always a cat person but we've had a dog for two years we've also got three guinea pigs as well and just to throw it out there I think the guinea pigs are my favourite yeah well no that's fine the only thing I would say is don't suddenly get a cat now because we used to have guinea pigs as children and the cat found the way to open the guinea pig cage and continue to eat them really for quite a long time. Yeah so don't don't get a cat at this at this juncture um which three people would you have to dinner and why I would say Ian Wright being an Arsenal fan um I love his energy as well um a very grounded person. And funny too um yeah I think Djorkovich I like that he stands for what he believes in and I love champions people that dedicate you know people don't really uh understand the that motivation to be a champion and the the way they frame things so I choose him um business would have to be someone Warren Buffett you know wow that's aiming high um but why not I didn't I did I I I didn't want to say uh I'm not saying I want to be him but I th uh uh no I think he would have an interesting take on things and how yeah I think that's that that's it would certainly be very interesting how do you think righty would get on with Warren Buffett yeah I think right would get on with anyone did you see that a documentary on him a few years ago where he um he met up with or was his his teacher from his yeah the inspiration I honestly I defy anyone to watch that and not absolutely dissolve into tears yeah amazing yeah I think it I think it was all you know these people against the odds that win um and yeah I like his he's very kind of caring and open and fun he seems did you see uh is there a bit of Ian right in you did you feel that you were a bit against the odds maybe I think definitely against the odds I think we're definitely um we was the outsider but um yeah no I I still feel an outsider I still feel when I go to business events and I still feel that I I stick out a bit but I'm I I'm okay with that and I like that because I like that there's someone else maybe slightly different in the room to show that you don't have to categorically I can categorically tell you Taryn you are not an outsider um I mean uh the amount of respect that you've got within the industry is extraordinary. And finally if you weren't running the business what would you be doing?

SPEAKER_02

I mean I I can't imagine situation where you wouldn't be running the business but if I wasn't running the business and I don't know I suppose if it was well if the question was if I didn't I don't know I'm not that sure um I'd like the idea to travel I'd like the idea to be don't ask me why but maybe like a a random job like a PE teacher or something. I like the idea of coaching the kids and and helping them out but I don't know I haven't really thought too much about that.

SPEAKER_01

I I don't really worry about what things will be like later or or things take it as it comes and I think that's you're I mean you're so you're so much living in the now which is which is great and and and and I think it's it it's it's very easy to to be um it you know a a person who keeps on saying oh it'll be alright then it'll be all alright when this happens or whatever. Do you know what I mean? I think it's you just I either that or looking back saying it was much better two years ago you know living in the now it's it's got it's got to be the right thing to do. Yeah 100% agree. Yeah. Listen Teren thank you so much for being a guest on the Invent Matters podcast um it's been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you for having me on uh what I've got for it