Frankie James - Co-Founder of Ideas Fest joins Lucy Black on BrightIAM

Frankie James is one fabulous female founder. Her roots are in Cardiff, Wales but she visited us in Brighton and found her people.

Ideas Fest is basically Glastonbury for business and I will be taking to the stage alongside Frankie and some huge names this September.

Settle in for a chat with this incredible woman and perhaps we'll all meet in the field this September?

This is BrightIAM

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello, I'm Lucy Black, and this is Bright I Am, and I am delighted because I have got a powerhouse woman here with me on the couch. This is Frankie James, creator founder of Ideas Fest.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And we've already had like a little chat, and we've just said, haven't we, like, oh, we've been talking about all the good bits already. Yeah. But you've come to Brighton today because this evening there's an event with Simon Squibb and Ignite.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Can you tell us about that? Uh yeah, so um Alex Hughes uh contacted me. He runs uh Inspire to Ignite and he said, I'm doing an event with Simon Squibb in Brighton. Would you be up for it? And my answer to A to Alex is always yes, uh, because he's been such a supporter. Um, you know, getting to see Simon because he's the busiest man that I know is amazing. And I'd never ever been to Brighton before. And it was like top of my list. I nearly came last year because there was an artist that I really like who was playing in Brighton, uh, but I couldn't convince my friend who lives another hour and a half into Wales to make the journey. It's quite a long one from Cardiff. So it was four and a half hours on the train in a heat wave. Yeah. But I'm so happy to be here because it's everything I wanted it to be already. Do you know what?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Brighton is for you. Yeah. And I know I've been trying to pull you down. If there's ever another gig, I'm already here, Frankie. Just hit me up, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Um, but this um this town, this city rather, is full of people who absolutely love ideas, have got entrepreneurial spirit, would absolutely love to attend Ideas Fest. I know this for a fact. So, first off, I suppose for people listening who haven't heard of Ideas Fest, what is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

So other people describe it as uh Glastonbury for business, right? So, you know the old sort of Ron Seal ads where it said it does what it says on the tin. Yes. That's the easiest way. So if you've never heard of us before, that's imagine that. Smaller, less overwhelming, because Glastonbury, the size of it terrifies me, even as a festival girly. Um, but yeah, it's uh it's a business event in a festival setting, um, and trying to strip out all of the awkwardness and the formalities of a normal business event. Okay. So I think that one, so the root the idea came in COVID when we had to go outdoors, um, or we thought that we were going to have to go outdoors in this new normal. But actually, when we started thinking about what the other benefits were, um, aside from it potentially being the only legal solution to running a large-scale event, it was less awkward, um, more easy to make connections on a real human level, um, opportunity to have fun, um, opportunity to have a relaxed chat with somebody that doesn't feel stiff or forced and just is over a beer on a beanbag, on a hammock, you know, speaking to someone that's one step behind you, 10 steps ahead, you know, or what have you. And it just being about connecting great people and giving the learning and inspiration opportunities that like a normal conference would deliver as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, and what a lovely environment to be in. I'm at my best when I'm out in nature and I'm just relaxed and I've got my flats on, yeah, not all suited and booted in a car. I mean, like, who is usually in a conference room? Like it's not a normal environment, is it?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

It's not, and I think it gets made even more awkward. So, like when I've been to conferences and I've gone on my own, and I've got to admit, I don't go to many now, it's it's a little bit of time, but it's also I uh there's certain things that just I don't know, make me feel really uncomfortable. So if you go to a conference on your own, you know, you're either sort of standing on your own in the in in the corner or you go and network. And networking is kind of you sort of trying to like infiltrate another small group, really awkward. You're all looking at each other's lanyards, working out who's important for me to talk to. So it doesn't really feel authentic and sincere. And you're hovering around a poser table with an awful beige buffet and like a little cup and saucer that you're having to hold like that. Yeah, it was everything that I just did, it didn't feel me. I'm like you, I like being outside, I love music, I love creativity, I like wearing my trainers and not dressing business, you know, as I grew up thinking business was. Um and yeah, so we just thought we'll have a go. And and it and it's grown a bit. And so, how many years then, Frankie, has ideas first been taking place? So this will be our fourth festival. Okay. So in 2020, I had my head in my hands at the kitchen table thinking, how on earth are we gonna survive this pandemic as an events business? Yeah. Um, luckily we got through it, but we started thinking, how do we innovate, you know, as we're as we're coming out of the pandemic. No one knew at that time, is it gonna be two years we're on lockdowns for? Is it is it forever that we're gonna have this sort of back and forth and this social distancing and all of these measures? So um you asked a really simple question. You said how long? So, yeah, four years. So we came up with the idea in 2021. Um, 2022 was when we did the first one. 2023, we took a fallow year, uh, which I always joke about and say, like, you know, Glastonbury does it, why can't we? If I'm completely honest, um it was to protect my health and the health of the business. Good. I think it would have killed me. We did something really great, and it's not that it a year is not, it seems like a long time, but it's not that long to kind of work out, oh, we've got something, but we need to do so many different things, and we're coming out of a pandemic and we're recovering, and it's and marketing it and selling it and writing a large check before you even know. You know, so I um made the decision which was really scary, and I thought everyone would absolutely hate me to say we're not because we had gone on sale, so we went on sale immediately after the festival, because naturally that's when you get the hype, you know, you're gonna come back. And you had to do refunds or offer for tickets the next year. We we offered people uh the option. So we said you can either have a refund because we get that it's really annoying, um, and you know, we get that you were looking forward to it and you're upset. Um, or if you want to trust us and go with us, we'll honour you a number of tickets for a number of years. Good. And uh I think we had like two refund requests, so it wasn't yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

That's great, Frank. That's amazing actually.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

I think we were just honest, and and I think what I've learned over the last like, we've been doing this in terms of like stuff in the entrepreneurial ecosystem for uh well over a decade. Nearly three if you compare, um if you combine what my my co-founder has done. People are just human. Yes. And once you get the opportunity to have a conversation with someone and chip away beneath the the personal brand or the brand or the shiny things that happen, people are just dealing with, you know, their parents being ill, their kids having homework, their dog being naughty, the house move, you know, they're just dealing with life. So people are used to things, changing and going on. Yeah, and I think that we didn't try and dress it up as something that it wasn't. Oh good. Um, I I I might actually try and dig out the email that I sent because um I I was I I I was terrified at the time. Hitting send on that, I thought I had blown everything.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, everything you've built, and you were worried, I suppose, of what that meant, what the narrative of cancelling an event means. But I've worked with a lot of founders, I've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurial women and and others here. And actually, sometimes the no is the best yes you can make to yourself, and everyone is so worried to do a no.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

You've seen my diary today, right? Oh, I showed you terrifying. Yeah, I I'm not very good at saying no. Yes. Um, but also there's so many enormous opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Oh, there's opportunities everywhere, but it drives you mad, you don't want to say no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

I'm trying to get better at passing things on to team members to do. Yes, which I am better at, but we're in uh the you know, first two weeks of July. My team are rightly taking holidays, you know. So I'm I'm lacking the infrastructure around me at the moment. Yeah. So I have said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, which then means that I'm probably finishing off the stuff that I actually need to finish off at 2 a.m. Yes. But I do love most of it. There's a lot of work that I do that I don't love, you know, the detail.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yes, I agree. I know. And we can't do what we love all the time. Although that's I wish we could.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

I always maybe I think we can. I think that it does take some really clever um design of like your life and like being intentional about what you say yes and no to.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

And having that kind of system, that architecture where you've got the people who can who you can trust that can do the bits that you really don't like doing.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

I'm not gonna pretend I'm good at that though.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, I would like to build a bigger team around me. I would love to, because there's, like you say, there's opportunity everywhere. And a lot of the work I do, probably much like you, you're not actually earning, you're not selling tickets today, are you? You're here. Unless you all want to buy one. Yeah, we've all got them, don't worry about that. Somebody take the the boy you assume.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

I tell you what, one of the things, the biggest things I've learned in the last three months, we've taken on someone to do our Facebook ads, our email marketing, and our retargeting emails. And doing that has been an enormous weight because embarrassingly, um I was still writing and signing off every single email three months ago. Wow. And so when a guy approached me and said, What's the cadence of your emails? I was like, Oh, it's when I've got, it's when I've got the time. Not the goat, is it? Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love the goat. And I found it so hard to let go. Yeah. I found it so hard seeing an email land in my inbox because obviously I'm on the mailing list. That's from me that I didn't write. Now, obviously, I I have input into it, I sign it all off. Oh, honey, of course. Yes, yeah. But there comes a point where you've got to say, I cannot do it all. I'm doing a disservice to what we could be, I'm stalling our growth. Um, so I'm trying to let go of everything having to be perfect in my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah, and everything having to be done, crossed and ticked by you as well, quite honestly. It is that control because it's like your baby, a project like this, and it's a project that you've created. It's like a berth and you've brought it to life. And year on year, it's got more momentum. You're getting a lot of attention this year, particularly. Um, and the people in Brighton um are gonna want to come to Ideas, it's right up there, should I?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I've totally realised that. Like, literally, as soon as I stepped in Brighton, literally, as soon as I got off the train, I was like, oh, I think I found my people. Yes. I mean, the only thing is I am Welsh, and you know I'm Welsh and proud, and I've always had this dream of living by the sea. And in my head, it was always West Wales because West Wales, if you've not been, it's stunning. But what I do love about Brighton is the proximity to London, um, where most of our business, most of our clients are. It just feels vibe like life. Like it feels vibey and anything goes here.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Everyone is accepted, anything goes. You can sit on the beach, you can have a beer on the beach, you can go and walk in the downs, you can go shopping, there's a great night scene, there's everything, and a lot of um creatives and startups. And actually, that brings me back around to Ideas Fest as the event that it is. It's a great space to meet people who you can do business with. Yeah, yeah. How does that look in the field then? How does that work? I know we've got speakers. I'm doing, I'll be on a panel as well this year doing a talk, but you've got different tents with speakers. What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

So we've got about 300 speakers at the moment. Amazing. So a lot. Um everything from like large format inspirational talks to smaller, like hands-on workshops to panels in like mid-sized stages, everything, absolutely everything. Not to do any disservice to the speaking sessions because they are amazing. But I think what makes Ideas Fest unique is the special bits in between those speaking sessions. And um, what's really interesting, I don't know if anyone else does this, but sometimes I posted it on LinkedIn the other day. Sometimes I will ask my AI, Claude, to think like Rory Sutherland, right? Because I love, and he spoke Ideas Fest last year. And I just love the fact that he'll argue something that you'd never have thought of, but then it just becomes so painstakingly obvious, and you're like, yeah, why aren't we all thinking in that way? And I asked it about, you know, some messaging around Ideas Fest, and it was talking about like cues, right? So we're British, so we we we cue, but we also, you know, we we we grumble about things. The great thing about Ideas Fest is if you are in a queue, it is very likely the person in front of you and behind you is someone who can be interesting, interested, of value to you, or is is valuable in your in your world, right? So it's like harness the potential of those in-between moments. And that could be the in the toilet queue, it could be at the silent disco, it could be uh when listening to a DJ, it could be on a beanbag, you know, all those bits, that's where the magic happens. And because it's ideas fest, the only people that are there are ambitious folk or people that want to support ambitious people. Yes, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And this is it. And I found this when I went traveling years ago to Thailand. When I got there, the people I was surrounded with, particularly when I was on the islands like Kotao, it takes it's hard work to get to an island like that. It's not like a direct flight, you know, it is hard work. But when I was there, I was surrounded by other people who will go through that and are the right people to be around. Yeah. And that's so interesting to me, Frankie, that in Ideas Fest, they're your people, they're your types of people. Yeah. You can get business connections, um, meet different people with followers. I mean, I suppose your little black book is very full of some interesting names, but who do you know for sure that people would recognise the names that were going to be there this year in September? So uh Simon Squibb.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Go on, Squibbby. Yeah, Simon supported us since event one. Um, when and I I don't think he'll mind me saying this. Yeah, he he he wasn't um famous at that point. So uh he was building a following, he was gathering pace, but I mean he he's exploded uh since then. But I dropped Simon a message as a complete stranger on LinkedIn and said, I've noticed what you're doing. I really like what you're doing. Would you come along? So we got Simon. Uh we have got Daniel Priestley, uh, we have got Ruby Wax. Um when's this podcast going out? It can go out whenever, a couple of weeks' time. So it'd be out in July. Cool. Uh we therefore we have got uh DJ Fat Tony, uh, who I've just locked in. I interviewed him at a festival talking about his sobriety and his well-being. Okay. So he's speaking and then doing a DJ slot. Oh, I love that. I'm gonna be dumped. And you just got an exclusive, like I haven't said that anywhere. Yes. And I'm really hoping that it's all it's all signed, it's all paid for. It's just like waiting for the uh, you know, the the announcements, but they should be out by then. Uh we have got um Emma Sale running the unapologetic space again. Uh, we've got Ruby Wax coming back, we've got uh the founders of Calm, Michael Acton Smith, uh we got uh Richard Harpin, founder of HomeServe, uh we've got Thea Green, founder of Nails Inc., Maxine Lacey, Absolute Collagen, uh Laura Tennyson, who's the founder of Jojo Mam and Bebe. Uh like it goes on. It goes on, it goes on.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

A mad collection of incredible people who actually have created and built something from the ground up. And I know we're, you know, both friends with Maxine Laceby, and she was here on the Champagne Series podcast.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

That sounds at Maxine Street. Oh, yeah, it's brilliant. We had the best time. Why am I not here for the champagne series? Missed it, it's gone. For the giveaway, it's built all over me before we went live.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Next time, don't worry, next time it's on. But she shared her story here about how she started from, you know, nothing, an idea at a dining room table at 49, and she's built an empire. And I think if we can get ourselves in the space with people like you, like Maxine, like Simon, like whoever it is there, and be around these people and be inspired. We have enough problems in business and in this startup space. I say it for myself, it's hard graft. Yeah. But when you can see people and they can just give that one tip, that one line, that one suggestion, or that one connection, that's when the magic works.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Just make you feel like you're not wrong, you know, or tell you when you are wrong. Yeah? So it's like, I I guess I'm I'm fortunate and unfortunate in the sense that I'm in I'm in business with my partner, right? Yes. So it's amazing. The only thing that we would both say is that we never switch off. Right. We would surely talk about it together all the time. Yeah. So we we have to do some work on on the lines between like business and personal because we used to talk about fun stuff and now we don't really. We talk about festival bars and like toilet cues and all that sort of stuff, right? Um, it literally that is our life. 100%. Yeah, that's what we talk about over like a glass of wine in the garden. Um, but um not everybody is in business with somebody, right? And if you're not, I'm a huge believer in that there's a loneliness tax that entrepreneurs pay. So when your spouse doesn't understand what you do, when your parents don't understand what you do, when your friends don't understand what you do, um, like who do you go to? And I think that yes, there's lots of like local networking that happens in all regions, and I'm sure there's amazing stuff that happens in Brighton. Yes, there's like industry-specific stuff that people can travel to and go to. But regardless of what industry you're in or where you're based in the UK, you're going to find commonalities with different entrepreneurs. Yeah. Just because you've got a very similar mindset. You know, we all we all have to hire, we all have to fire, we all have to raise cash, we all have to make sure we're making money, we all have to look after ourselves. You know, all those things doesn't matter what size, who who you are, who you're selling to, you know, any of that sort of stuff. And so Ideas Fest just really opens that up because I don't know when you when you would meet uh a girl from Cardiff that runs events, yeah, other than that, Ideas Fest. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

And this is it. And what you've said, it's really rung true to me, actually. There is I have um in my family nobody entrepreneurial, nobody's got the mind, my mind, which is a bit potty, quite honestly, it's a bit mad, it does my own. We're all a bit crazy. Um, but nobody understands my decision-making process and the fact that I will work all week and I've not got paid because I can see the pathways and how that's gonna open up and what I'm gonna do, and I'm strategizing whatever else is happening. So if you are in a space with like-minded people, you're bringing something to market, you are around people that understand. Yes, absolute gold dust. I'm just keeping my eye on the time. She says that she doesn't actually know what it is. Yes. So I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions because I think that there's people who who would like to know a very short-form answer to. Because we just we just talked, we met. We chat away. We'd be we could have the whole champagne on the show.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Sure, sure, sure. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

So who is Ideas Fest for, Frankie?

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Uh, if you think it's for you, it probably is. So if you are building something, thinking about building something, or you support those that are building something, it's for you.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Okay, so you don't have to have an established business. You can be somebody who's maybe in the creative space, somebody who's thinking of launching a product, or somebody who's supporting someone who it already is.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Oh, she's good at doing the quick quick ones. Can't even speak now. Um, what would you say is the hardest part of pulling off an event like Ideas Fest?

SPEAKER_00 19:33

The unknowns. So when you book a hotel room, you know, you know, I'm working with these four walls and this is my um, this is the space I've got, the weather isn't going to impact, you know, you still have variables, um, like we've had tube strikes, all this sort of stuff thrown at us. When you're in a field, obviously you throw in the the weather on top of that. Uh, you know, things that I didn't even know that I'd have to think about, you know, like the uh the the weather four weeks out from the event and what impact does that have on the ground, you know? All stuff like that. Uh so I'm it's unpredictability.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

And costs, it affects the cost, surely. So much.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yes, it's my good friend uh runs Bournemouth Sevens Festival. Right, okay. And uh Dodge said to me, Frankie, are you mad launching a festival? The average festival takes seven years to break even. Wow. Um, which is really scary because as the years go on, we're writing bigger and bigger and bigger checks. Yes. Um and yeah, uh in our tickets are going well. Uh but and I don't know why I'm I'm touching wood because we still need them to carry on going well. Of course. But the somebody spoke to me, an event organizer the other day, a really big event organiser, and they told me something that still gives me nightmares. They said 75% of their tickets go in the last two weeks. Wow. Now, oh my god, if we got that uptick, uh we'd be sold out, right? But we're we're tracking far better than that because I would not sleep if we were waiting for those last two weeks. I know. Uh I I don't know what I do. So I feel very, very fortunate.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

But we are definitely noticing that people are booking later and later and later. Um, but I'm just glad that we're not waiting for 75% because it would be the last time. It gives me the heebie jeebies, even thinking about it now. Yeah, it's how would you stress? How would you do like, yeah, how would you sleep? How would you function?

SPEAKER_01 21:25

And I don't know how you like, I mean, that's a lot of pressure. And you know, I've mentioned to you I've working on a few events, mainly in the social impact space. And I know the amount of tabs, Frankie, that are open in my head and the amount of movement. I mean, I've got an event to um the premiere from the Kilimanjaro climb, it still owes me £4,000. If I don't bring in any more sponsors, it's gonna cost me, not only have I not got paid, it's gonna have cost me £4,000. Like honestly, the stress of that and carrying that, I cannot imagine it on the scale that you've got.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I don't think events is I mean Events isn't for the faint-hearted. No. Also, it's not, it's certainly not any sort of get rich quick business. It's not glamorous either because you're not glamorous.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

From pillar to post constantly.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

It's not glamorous. My mates all used to think I had a glamorous job, and then I said, look, you know, the award ceremony, you might see the picture of me with some red lipstick on and my hair curled nice. But the reality is I ended up getting changed in a in a cupboard, you know, three minutes before and uh having to write a last, you know, pay a last minute bill that for something that's sidelined me.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

You know, it's it's uh Yeah, just get the grease from the day off your face, put your trainers off, put your heels.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

No, no heels, trainers.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Do you are you always trainers? Even at the okay, well, good for you.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah, we'd wear a I mean my friends would again laugh and say, Fran, it wasn't a heel because it was like that big and it was chunky. Uh but yeah, I I'm a trainer girl. Uh I think in the pandemic I I stopped putting on heels because why would you put on heels when you're at home, right? Not that I wore them much before, but then it just became my thing, and I was like, I'm so happy if this is my thing. Yeah, good, good. So you should. Like, I'm comfortable, I'm happy. I'm miserable if my feet hurt.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Oh, I know. And that's all we need when you've been running around and you're busy and that is to then have your frobbing feet. Yeah, no, good for the thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

There we go.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

That's a good sound clip. There you go. You are I'm I might be leaving mine at home as well. That's an exclusive. Um, my son, who's just off of camera here, he's on work experience this week. Um, we've been talking about connections and networks. Within your black book, not just people who are coming, say, to um ideas first. Have you found that your work in this world has opened up um connections and access to people you would never have believed?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, enormously. I I cannot believe some of the phone numbers and conversations that I have. Um I I can't believe it. I I I pinch myself. I think that um, yeah, it does it when I actually sit back and think, yeah, did that person really just call me? Or did they actually reply? Or did they message me? Like, I'm like, what? Yeah. Um but you know, I think that we've just tried to be real and authentic and do things right, not always about chasing a pound.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah, not always about getting a deal. You don't want to just speak to people when you're asking.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

100%.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah. That's where a lot of people go wrong. Yeah. And that actually, Frankie, is something that I fill with ideas first and I feel with you and your team, because I've met a few of you now, is that you all are authentically human and you are actually building this the way you say you're building it.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

That's great. That's so good.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

We try and bet on people early, and it, you know, in the sense that a lot of the names that I'm talking about or talking to now, we met them when they were uh an early stage startup founder, right? And you know, the stats are stacked against startups, you know, the majority of them will fail. Yeah. Um, so but but we're not connecting with them because we're thinking, oh, one day they're gonna write a big check or they're gonna be famous and they're gonna do this, that, and the other. We're like, we rate you. Yeah. You're doing something cool. And also, people self-select because the people that really lean into it, you know, they turn up to the events, they mention us on social, they they say, How can we help? Can we share it with our community? Like, we, you know, they they're in our they become in our orbit. So it sort of goes both ways, really.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, I think it's brilliant. And it is that you see them where they're at, you believe in what they're doing, and you've probably actually, before they've come to your event, you've offered them a chance or a connection to shine. That is how the world goes around. Yeah. I'm gonna go to just two more questions. What is your why, Frankie? I'm always so interested. Why do you do what you do?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I still don't think I'm 100% clear, if I'm honest. Um, I fell into this industry and I shaped it into you know, the industry being events and entrepreneurs, right? But you can go a number of different ways with that. So I've sort of tried to shape the business and what we're doing into what really excites me and gets me, you know, wakes me up in the morning and makes me keep going at 2 a.m. at night in the morning. Um, but in terms of my why, um I'm not right now, we've had opportunities thrown at us left, right, and centre. I love what I'm doing, and so I'm still figuring out, you know, what that looks like. I'm not chasing a big exit or, you know, what or something like that. For for me, um, and I know every founder finds it, but uh in in terms of like the attachment to what you've built, but everything that we've built is community, right? So the thought of ever stepping away from that terrifies me. Now I'm not saying that I want to go to my grave, you know, running ideas fest. Like I still I think I've got another chapter in me, and I'd like that to be purpose-led, and I'd like that to maybe give me a bit more breathing space to do life better because I'm not very good at doing life. And the life balance to quote the great self-esteem, prioritise pleasure, you know. Like I'm not very good at that. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

And then that's um that's a little bit of a shame. And I'm glad you've said that, and you're obviously aware of it, and I hope that in time you find a way to act on it, because we need to be self-aware, and life just goes and it's busy, and it tickety-bombs, and it goes along. So to be that and to feel that and to actually start putting emotions in place to enable that.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

But the lines are blurred with me, right? So if I go to the theatre with five founders from the network, is that work or play? It's both, really. You know, it's like uh it it's it's definitely play. It doesn't feel like work, yeah, but it's it's something that work has has sort of led me to. Does that does that make any sense?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

No, it does, it absolutely does. And I think that that finding your why, so why you do what you do, what it is that sets your soul on absolute fire. Um, it's an ongoing mission. You don't have to have an answer to that. I haven't got my exact why yet. I do talk about it being a little house with big windows on a plot of land. And I know you've got a dog as well. I just want my dogs to run free. I want to get some chickens, a couple of goats, maybe an owl.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yeah, that. I I'd like 10 dogs and a small holding on the coast.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah, but with no neighbours. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

But also a pub that you can walk to. Like I think that's important.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Well, I'll tell you what we'll have, Frankie. I'll tell you what we'll have. We'll have my plot here. Yeah. The pub can be in the middle. Sounds good. You can be over here.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

That sounds perfect. And then, like, some, yeah, just good music, good food, uh, loads of dogs. Um, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Oh, honey, that's that's it. That is absolutely it.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

That's all I want. I don't want a Ferrari.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

No, I know, we don't need to. We want an extra dog. We actually need less. And this is so interesting, especially when you're working with all these people that are, you know, exiting for multi-million deals and everything. It's about retaining that and feeling what's important. And that is a dream to me. That's my why. But I have to do all the fancy flouncy stuff in between.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So in trainers. In trainers, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Well, bless you. Um, I think that'll do us for today. Um, you're busy, we've got to crack on. So thank you, Frankie, for coming down. You're so welcome. Um, Brighton will love you. We're gonna be sharing this out um different clips and bits and pieces. I suppose just before we sign off, if somebody did want to get in touch with Ideasfest, is it a matter of googling it? You're on Instagram, LinkedIn, all over.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Google us, and hopefully we'll come up. But it's ideasfest.uk. Uh, we're on Instagram, we're on LinkedIn. Uh, we're a small and mighty team. Like, I see every notification that comes in. So message. If you do message me, all I would say is um nudge me, and that's not rude. Like, I'm um I am in the process of finding somebody who can help me manage a chaotic life in inbox. Yeah. Um, but I am absolutely 100% guilty of missing some things. So you'll either get a reply from me in 30 seconds, which I think you did when you asked me to be on the podcast, or it might be three months. But if you nudge me, I'm like, yeah, I always she's there, she's connected, but she's as busy as you like.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

But she will be in the field in September, and that's Ideas Fest in Tring in Hertfordshire. It's about an hour and a half away from us here in Brighton. Tickets can be found at ideasfest.uk. There we go, that's it. Woo! I should be a presenter. You're hired. Um, and uh, if you want any more information, Google it. But this is Frankie James, she's absolutely amazing. And Brighton, get yourself to Ideasfest and I'll see you there. Thank you for listening.