Bust and Beyond
E34 Juliette Denny
What happens when a tenacious entrepreneur faces the brutal reality of unethical business practices during a global pandemic? Juliet Denny's rollercoaster career journey is not just inspiring, it's eye-opening. From her early days working in a pub to navigating a male-dominated sales floor, Juliet's relentless drive led her to establish an export department, move to Bolivia, and become part of the dot-com boom in Boston. Her story is a testament to adaptability and perseverance, capturing the essence of innovation as she founded a SaaS company and secured big-name clients like Apple and HP.
Juliet opens up about the nitty-gritty of starting and scaling a tech business focused on learning management systems and gamification. She reveals the initial steps of securing venture capital and the challenges of self-funding. The pressures of high-growth industries and managing cash flow come to life through her candid anecdotes. Juliet's journey didn't come without its share of dark moments, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when unethical lending practices nearly forced her out of business. Her harrowing experience with a UK venture debt company underscores the broader issues facing small businesses and the lack of government support.
Yet, despite the hardships, Juliet's resilience shines through. She talks about the struggles and rewards of entrepreneurship, the importance of loving what you do, and the need for innovative thinking in business. As she transitions to a new venture, Juliet’s story becomes a powerful narrative about overcoming adversity and the impact of ethical practices in the business world. Tune in to hear her insightful perspective on everything from managing people to embracing AI in language and management, and learn how you can apply these lessons to your own entrepreneurial journey.
What happens when a tenacious entrepreneur faces the brutal reality of unethical business practices during a global pandemic? Juliet Denny's rollercoaster career journey is not just inspiring, it's eye-opening. From her early days working in a pub to navigating a male-dominated sales floor, Juliet's relentless drive led her to establish an export department, move to Bolivia, and become part of the dot-com boom in Boston. Her story is a testament to adaptability and perseverance, capturing the essence of innovation as she founded a SaaS company and secured big-name clients like Apple and HP.
Juliet opens up about the nitty-gritty of starting and scaling a tech business focused on learning management systems and gamification. She reveals the initial steps of securing venture capital and the challenges of self-funding. The pressures of high-growth industries and managing cash flow come to life through her candid anecdotes. Juliet's journey didn't come without its share of dark moments, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when unethical lending practices nearly forced her out of business. Her harrowing experience with a UK venture debt company underscores the broader issues facing small businesses and the lack of government support.
Yet, despite the hardships, Juliet's resilience shines through. She talks about the struggles and rewards of entrepreneurship, the importance of loving what you do, and the need for innovative thinking in business. As she transitions to a new venture, Juliet’s story becomes a powerful narrative about overcoming adversity and the impact of ethical practices in the business world. Tune in to hear her insightful perspective on everything from managing people to embracing AI in language and management, and learn how you can apply these lessons to your own entrepreneurial journey.
Hello and welcome to Bustin' Beyond with your host, robin Hayhurst. In this podcast, robin will introduce guests that have known failure and want to share their story about how they got through it and what happened next. This will make you learn how to see things from a new perspective and avoid making the same mistakes. Please welcome Robin Hayhurst.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Bust and Beyond. So we're joined today by Juliet Denny, who is well, she's into AI, so she's on an AI platform, she's designing a platform and she's quite a rare beast, I suppose. So hello, juliet.
Speaker 3:Hello, hello Robin, thanks very much for having me on.
Speaker 2:It's nice to see you. So we've had a pre-chat and we've been talking about all kinds of things. So hopefully the conversation is going to go all over the place, as it already has. So tell us a little bit about how you kind of started your career, how you got into what you do or what you have been doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think I was quite lucky. I came out of university, you know, 30 years ago type thing, and I was working in a pub at the time during the university holidays and I met a guy there who ran a box software company and he was like, well, you know how to serve a pint, so how about coming to work for me in my box software company? So he did distribution and my undergraduate was in marketing and I said, yeah, but I really want to sell. You know, that was basically my thing. I just really wanted to sell because I wanted to get some money, because, you know, we weren't a rich family and it was, you know, I was just sick and tired of being poor and so I wanted to earn chunks as opposed to a steady kind of salary. And he was like, oh, do you really want to come on the sales floor? So this was like back in the day when people used to smoke and everyone was on the phones. So you know, I was like, no, paul, that's what I want to do. So first day, walked onto the sales floor. There's got to be 80 dudes there, everybody's smoking. They've got two phones on either side of the. You know, going like that and I was like this girl turned up you know all prim and proper. I was like, oh my God, but I loved it. Whoa, I loved it.
Speaker 3:So it was a time when kind of the market was just opening up and traditionally Gem had already always sold into the UK. But they started getting a lot of international you know inbound inquiries and also, you know just opportunities to sell, you know, internationally. And because I'd lived so I was born in the Far East, I was born in Tokyo and then lived in Singapore and Malaysia I was like, look, let me deal with all of this. And the guys didn't really want to do it. So we ended up starting export department for Gem and it was fantastic. I mean, I just loved every single second of it. Very successful, some good money, and that was really what established me in the software business. So I knew that I was not going to go anywhere.
Speaker 3:Anyway, I earned a bit of money and then decided I wanted to go to Bolivia because that's where Paddington Bear lives and he likes marmalade and I like marmalade. And so I was like, right, I don't know anyone who's gone to Bolivia, let's go to Bolivia. So I went to. You know, I gave up the job, went to Bolivia and while I was in Bolivia I ended up meeting my husband. So it all happened very quickly. We met and married within five months I think. We got engaged after. So he was actually English and he was living in Argentina. So we came back to the UK, got married and then we decided or he decided he was going to go to Harvard Business School. So he got into Harvard Business School and we went to Boston and during that time I was lucky enough, so I was working, I was involved in the dot-com boom and bust and this was literally I mean, for those listeners that are young and don't realize how new the internet was, this is when the internet first arrived.
Speaker 3:So we were getting the new kind of consumer internet products and we were getting the you know, the new kind of consumer internet products and we were getting you know, the business internet products out there. And I was just like this is the coolest thing, so, obviously, being in box software. You build, you know a software product, you know burn it to a CD-ROM or whatever you're going to have, and then you ship it right and then when it needs to be patched, you have to send out a patch and it's. You have to send out a patch and it's. You know it's laborious, it's slow, it's, but with the internet you could basically create these products, patch them in real time, and it was just like this living, breathing software product and I was just like this is the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 3:So I arrived and did the kind of boom and bust, I mean literally. So I was like employee number 300 of this company called Fair Market that was later bought by eBay. And then, you know, I was like employee number 300 of this company called Fair Market that was later bought by eBay. And then, you know, I was one of the last people to go and there were 15 people. So that's basically what happened in the short period of time. So it was just a ride, but I was just totally in love. Then I also got the opportunity to do my master's at Harvard, but then we ended up coming back to the UK and I was like, right, this is it, I'm going to start a SaaS, b2b business, and so so just to break in there, what is a SaaS?
Speaker 3:SaaS is software as a service. So if you think about Salesforce or you think about, that is software as a service. So basically it's taking a process. So in the idea of Salesforce, you're managing the sales process. That's what you do. That's taking a process. So in the idea of Salesforce, you're managing the sales process. That's what you do. Well, that's what Salesforce does and it basically codes up that process so that you know humans have to follow best practice, you know, to basically deliver sales. So it allows you to manage things like sales cadence, conversion rates. You know, you know metrics targeting all of those kind of things. So that's all. Sass is it's software as a service and what it means is just to pick you up on a couple of things.
Speaker 2:Number one marmalade.
Speaker 2:I love it I love marmalade as well the more bitter, the better yeah, I mean locally made marmalade, fantastic. The second one was you talk you described in the sales floor and uh, it always reminds me of one of my best mates who was I think he was working for barclays, but he was in the foreign exchange and I can't remember some big things happening. He was on the sales floor fag in hand two telephones, and the times took a photograph of him and it ended up on the front page. I think it was the Times, it might have been the Financial Times, I don't know which one, but yeah, so he's got this black and white shot of him because it was back in the day when you know a young trader and it just that vibrant look.
Speaker 2:I mean, whoever took the photograph must have been really good, because it was just a fantastic shot and it kind of showed the the pace yeah you know, and I can just envisage you've been on sales floor the same kind of thing all these people smoking and phones and yeah you know, and then they got to that it was fun, I mean it was crazy it was fun and it was intense, you know.
Speaker 3:And then when somebody used to get a sale or something happened, you know it was like people standing on tables. You know it's not Wolf of Wall Street, because obviously we were in Harlow, so it's Harley, like you know, new York. But and there was, you know, not that I can remember anywhere there was no kind of drugs and quaaludes and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:They mostly just missed you out. They mostly just missed you out on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly yeah, I miss that, I miss that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Same with the smoking. So we were at the point when you have started your SaaS, which you now know what it is and you're moving forward with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we came back to the UK and I was like, okay, well, what's a low risk way to basically start a SaaS company? I'll tell you what I'll do. I will reach out to venture capitalists and banks and the people that are making investment in SaaS companies and I will see if I can sell them consultancy services. So that's exactly what I did, and I ended up working for some really good VC and bank units that were making investments into technology companies, and my job was to basically use my experience in sales and sales management to go in, look at what the company was doing, where it was in terms of market validation versus commercial rollout, and make recommendations whether they should make their investment or not, because back in the day, at the early stages of SaaS, there was a lot of investment going into product building and not market validation and certainly not commercialization.
Speaker 3:So that was my role and then I got paid pretty well for that. So what I did was invest in my first developer and we started building this training needs assessment and process assessment tool for sales and my next door neighbor at the time we both had young kids. We were pushing our prams into Windsor to have tea together with our babies and she was like what do you do? She worked for HP at the time and I was like oh, I'm building. This thing does kind of training needs, assessment, content delivery, depending on you know where your needs with regards to sales process and also you know your own personal development.
Speaker 3:She said oh, you're building a learning management system Wheeled around the trolley, ran home learning management system and there it was in all its glory. That's what we were building. We were building a learning management system. It was hilarious when I look back. So, yes, so we carried on with that and slowly we started getting corporate clients and then we added on the gamification layer and that was really the thing that differentiated us, Because obviously I'm female, can't really take that away with pink hair and I had babies. I wasn't really in a situation where I could go out and get a lot of venture money, so we were all self-funded. So we basically just grew this company and the company's done really well. It's just passed its 20th year. We've got clients like Apple, HP, Cisco, Centrica, British Telecom, L'Oreal so you know some of the biggest companies in the world and we're really a niche player in what is dominated by huge companies and our focus is very much on gamification and making learning fun.
Speaker 2:Relevant to bust and beyond. You know you lost it all, didn't you?
Speaker 3:learning, fun, relevant to bust and beyond. You know, lost it all, didn't you? Yes, I did Indeed, I did Indeed. I'm not sure, you know, looking back on it. You know, I think you know, when you run a company and you're self financing, you know, through sales, you feel like every day you're kind of losing it. I mean, I've got to say like there weren't any many periods where it was like, oh, this is so relaxing. You know, cash flow is absolutely plentiful, goodness gracious. What am I going to do with all this? And I don't know whether that's just me in terms of, I always wanted to kind of build and bolt on and, you know, employ more people and kind of make the company bigger. So we didn't really, you know, have a situation where we're like, right, okay, well, let's just put a couple of million in a bank account and just be conservative there.
Speaker 2:It's that shiny thing syndrome really, where people kind of, if you do get a bit of money coming to the company, almost rather than give you that security, you reinvest it. So it's quite challenging and then kind of your cash flow suffers because of it. And I've done that over a few years. I've kind of stopped doing that. I've actually kind of said, right, okay, the only person that can sell my products is me and that's it. Forget everyone else coming in and trying to give me a silver bullet to sell my products. And you know, I've got to understand what people want. I've got to speak to them face to face or, you know, on the phone or whatever, and it kind of works that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting, isn't it? Because when you're in a kind of high growth field, you know, the KGAR of you know the learning tech industry was, you know, like 30% and then dropped down to, like you know, 24%. So there was this kind of understanding that you know, basically, if you weren't growing at that rate, I think we've just felt under enormous pressure. And also the size of clients that we had, that was another thing. You know, they expected us to be getting other, bigger clients to give them a certain amount of confidence. But, you know, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Would I have done, I mean, but the big when we, you know, when we were full well, I mean I put the company into liquidation to stop us being foresold by the company that had, you know, asked us to take out a C-bill loan. So I think you know, I think you know we never would have had to, basically, you know, restructure the way we did if it wasn't for, you know, boost just being incredibly aggressive. So you know, we've obviously spoken about this before, but just to help the viewers understand, you know the story, you know we were growing very successfully and then COVID came.
Speaker 3:We got approached by a UK company, a venture debt company, who said look, we want to give you lend. Why don't you take out a C-bill loan for 2 million quid? And we were like, well, we don't really need it. We've never had funding before. You know, we don't particularly want to take on that debt. And they were like, well, you know it's government backed, so there's no PGs or there's very limited PGs, why don't you take it? So we took it and came out of COVID. We were paying the loan down and then suddenly I got a email from one of the principals this is after we paid about a quarter of the loan down saying that unless I could pay them 1.5 million on Friday, which is literally four days after they'd emailed me it was Tuesday to a Friday Then they were going to force sell the company and it's very common in venture debt to do this Out of all the companies they offered this e-bill to.
Speaker 3:They did this to every single company and so, rather than being forced sold, I basically put the company into administration. Everybody left, I should say Everybody left first. Then I put the company into administration. Everybody left, I should say everybody left first. Then I put the company into administration and then we. You know, all of our competitors were all over us wanting to buy, but obviously I refused to talk to anybody. There was nobody there for anyone to talk to, so there was only one person they could sell the company back to, which was me. So you know, I just pulled the remaining money that I had in the world. I lost my house at the same time, but I did manage to buy gross engineering back and at that point I gave away 45% of the company to the management team because they'd been supportive through the journey.
Speaker 3:But for me the love just completely broke me. To be honest with you, I just couldn't believe that there were such immoral people in the world. We'd done everything in a really cautious way for the whole until COVID and then this government backseat bill came out and we were stupid enough to take the money and I regress it and I don't think I would have started iridescent. So, you know, I went back into the business, you know, as managing director. But I just couldn't. I was for me, it was just broken and so that's when I came out and started iridescent. So my former former cfo now runs the company. He's the managing director. I don't really have anything to do with the day-to-day business but it's interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2:because I think there is not enough protection out there for business to business relations and particularly with lending. So I mean, I get so many stories and I've heard so many stories of people either being given a loan in hours that's kind of 30% PG attached to it and they don't even know. They don't know what the percentage is. All they know is they need 50 grand or 100 grand. I know you're talking about a lot more money, but there's no protection, there's so little protection out there for them and they're not used to borrowing money. So they're smaller companies and then you've got kind of the what?
Speaker 2:One of the big banks I won't name them because I can't remember which one. It was one of the two to do with scotland who literally made companies go bust, asset strip them on purpose, but they said it was hands off because it had a separate asset stripping department and it was on purpose and we went through that in some ways and the fact that we were dealing with a frontline bank, you know, and they decided to put us in special lending because our lending was above our asset ratio. So I think we went over 50% of our assets, according to them. But they also, at the same time, had a charge over a £2 million office block we owned, so over and above that, which means we weren't anywhere near the 50, but they still put special lenders because they said they're ignoring that. And we said, well, okay, that's fine, what we'll do is you take that charge off and we'll refinance everything away from you.
Speaker 2:And they went no, not going to do that, and we couldn't do anything about it. I actually think when it comes to business to business, it's an uneven playing. There's lots of unfair clauses and unfair things happening out there and I don't think you're even protected by the I can't remember what it's called. I know that consumer has the kind of unfair clauses, so clause in the contract that is just biased towards one person. I don't think you can do that in business.
Speaker 3:I certainly think that in terms of the relationship that we got into. So basically what happened was Boost Lending got bought by Growth Lending, which was a South African company, and after that, basically, I think you know their business model for Growth Lending in South Africa was just to get the money that was. So, as soon as you pass the 25 percent, which was the the money that you know that affected was a PG they just got the money back from the UK government yeah, so the 75% and then on top of that they got the whatever it was half a million that I had to put in to buy back my own company. So for them, in a very short period of time in terms of the amount of money that they were able to make from their initial, the initial deal, they did did really well out the deal and that's their business. But it was sold to us as a C-bill loan and it wasn't. It was a venture debt instrument.
Speaker 2:I totally get that. There are so many ways that I think, like I said earlier, you know that companies disadvantage, even in a county court judgment. Yeah, you know, you can issue a county court judgment. Give the wrong address so you don't have to give the registered address. You can give the wrong address so if nothing comes, that person they'll end up with a call. You know that company they'll end up with cc j against them which unless they go to court they can't get lifted yeah so many things are wrong.
Speaker 2:You know it kind of goes against business actually succeeding. But what did you learn from that generally, apart from to read the contracts better?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I mean, what did I learn? I I suppose I was a bit of a shock that the world was such a terrible, bloody place. I didn't realise the world could be quite that bad. So I think you know that definitely shocked me. Maybe I was living in a bit of a bubble. I just didn't realise that there were those types of businesses that were so immoral. You know, what else did I learn? I don't know. I mean you know the whole COVID thing. I mean what an absolute mess. You know. I mean I was never really a COVID denier or a COVID, I just went, you know, along with the flow.
Speaker 3:But you look back on it and I'm part of you know a couple of different business networks with.
Speaker 3:You know different small businesses and I'm like you know the UK economy has got a real problem because you know there are lots of small, medium businesses that completely you know, broke a lot of their strengths and the infrastructure in those companies because of COVID.
Speaker 3:And the UK government really does need to really look after small and medium sized businesses because they're the people that employ 95% of all people that work in the UK and I think there are lots of business owners that I talk to, that are very much looking at automation and ways of like shedding jobs, and that's just the reality. I think the other thing that I found really interesting is the power of large corporates to withhold cash. So you know all of our customer base on the growth engineering side are all very large corporates and you know some of those corporates have, you know, 180 day payment terms, which means that you know you've got to find four months salary, you know, or more of you know, for your teams in order for you know to basically pay salaries, and I think that kind of thing is really immoral as well.
Speaker 2:I think it's totally immoral. I mean, in our industry, construction is huge, so 90 plus days payment. And why were you funding their debt? But you're actually funding their debt in some ways for free. Yeah, because everyone's so worried about them and I just say to my clients don't work for them. Yeah, oh yeah, but we can't find now, there's plenty of work out there.
Speaker 2:Just don't work for them yeah honestly, if you build up your pipeline the right way, you can circumnavigate these companies and make it difficult for them to. Honestly, if you build up your pipeline the right way, you can circumnavigate these companies and make it difficult for them to, because if they start paying a premium for giving nice days, then they are starting to pay for it. Well, we're talking, before we came on, about how, you know, the world is becoming very beholden to corporate entities who are, you know, taking over the world amazon, amazon's one of them, I think. So much is bought on Amazon and I'm so guilty of that myself because it's so easy, but we're also not supporting our local shops, and when we lose them all and we only have Amazon, we don't have a choice. We're all going to be moaning about it, but it's our fault.
Speaker 3:Well, I think what's even worse is, if you look at companies like Walmart and Amazon, they pay such low wages. So a lot of those people that are working for Amazon, you know not on zero hour contracts, and you know Walmart, they're all on food stamps and they're all on government subsidies and you're like hello, excuse me, how is that possible? Okay, so you are making billions of dollars of profit. Okay, the UK government, and ultimately the taxpayer, is supporting the paying of your workforce. I mean, it is just completely and utterly wrong.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's worse than that. I think and I'm not an expert on these things, but I believe that Amazon have a huge tax benefit and the theory is, if you're going to employ 100,000 people, they're all paying tax. So we're going to have a view on your corporation tax, your tax as a business, but hold on, they employ loads of people who are minimum wage and they're not paying a lot of tax.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I think that happens a lot. I am a great believer in corporation taxes. The taxes should be low. I think if you could encourage business to the country and get them to pay the tax because it's low, you make more tax. So coming out of COVID, everyone going well, we've got to pay for COVID, we've got to pay for that cost. And then suddenly whacking a few percent on corporation tax actually does the opposite. Companies go bust, less taxes paid overall.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I mean, I think you're right. I think also, the other thing that I find really odd is that you know the government is just allowed to keep printing money, and you know, keep creating money. But yeah, people in the economy can't really do that. You know, if you look at the bond market, large companies can just basically create bonds, you know, at a whim, and so they can almost create their own paper that you know whereby. You know small and medium sized businesses can't do that. I mean, we can hardly even get banks to lend us money. Do you know what I mean? So I think it's just completely different. You know, the bigger you are, the more you seem to just be able to kind of manipulate things for your own prosperity ultimately and I so agree with you.
Speaker 2:Talk about supporting smaller companies. I think it's so important and you know I'm very apolitical, I think they're all rubbish my take on it. I'm kind of sitting here looking at labor, thinking they're going to get extreme at some point and they'll be rubbish the other way, so they'll start taxing what this is, rich people, and I think that's a little bit unfair, because to make money not everybody, but to make money you have to put a lot of risk on the line. You have to, you know, get out there.
Speaker 2:You have to kind of work seven days a week after other things I'm not saying people who are employed don't do that, they don't do, the risk bit yeah and I think you've got to give people credit for that. And they kind of talk about these tax bans. You know, you earn over kind of a certain point, your tax goes up but you're paying more tax anyway because you're earning more. It all seems a little bit unfair and there's a great I can't remember it, but there's a great thing about kind of eight guys in the pub drinking and they split the round according to what they're earning.
Speaker 3:And then at some stage, because they're such good customers, they give them a discount. There's not really that many benefits of actually being an entrepreneur, particularly if you look at you know the responsibilities you have as a director, like in a limited company, unless your company makes a lot of money and most companies don't. That is the reality. You know most entrepreneurs you know stick at. You know between one and five people. I just think that there's an awful lot of kind of I don't know responsibility and risk that you have as an entrepreneur. That you know I think goes somewhat unnoticed, basically, and you're not compensated for.
Speaker 2:I totally agree with that. I totally agree, and I think I do think government has lost sight of that and there used to be a tax benefit and I think there should be a tax benefit because there should be some benefit. And there are a few grants, but they're really difficult to find. A company will find you a £100,000 grant or £50,000 or £30,000 grant. They'll charge you £10,000 for it. Yeah, it is challenging and it does worry me. One of the problems with my industry construction is business owners don't see themselves as entrepreneurs either.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And many of them are working for salary or less.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So they don't kind of quite get how to put it together and make a profit. Some aren't I'm not saying all of them, but some aren't and when you look at failure rate of businesses is kind of between 70% and 80% in the first five years. Yeah, it shows there's a problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a huge problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I don't really think we've kind of got any, I don't think we've got our current government, see, are going to provide a solution and I definitely don't think the last government did either. And it seems that us people in the middle, you know, we're not looked after by the conservatives because they seem to be into big business and big, and we're not looked after by labor. Who into you know? You know small business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I have to say I don't really know enough about you know either of their policies to sort of comment, but I mean I definitely do think we do have a problem. You know, the capitalist model I don't think is evenly, you know, or fairly. It's just not even or fair. The bigger you get, you know, the easier it is to access capital, to access the best resource, to access all of these things, and I think it's. It is definitely, you know, a struggle. But you know, I think, by the same token, for a lot of entrepreneurs, including myself, there is a bit of a thrill, thrill in basically just kind of trying to build something. Anyway, you know the risks. I wrote an article on on this this week from my LinkedIn, just talking about how risk is kind of an interesting thing.
Speaker 2:Risk profiles is something I'm so interested in because I think people don't understand it and I think a lot of companies again going back to my industry, they take such high risks for such low rewards. They kind of go well. I'm not sure about what's in that hole there, but I'll just, you know, allow this, allow that, allow the other, and then get it completely wrong and they don't have the cash to cover the risk.
Speaker 3:No, but I think that is a problem. You know, when you are small you do things because you just don't have the luxury of doing anything else. You know, like cash is king, you've got to bring the cash in, and so you end up doing things you wouldn't normally.
Speaker 3:You know, you wouldn't normally do, and I guess that's how innovation happens. You know you basically just try and kind of shortcut things or try and do things more efficiently or try, and then hopefully by doing that you know you earn some money that you can invest back into the company and keep it growing.
Speaker 3:You know, it always interests me as well the people that take the entrepreneurial journey, because I think those people very much prefer to back themselves than they would work for somebody else. So I know for me I would much prefer to start a new company, you know, from scratch, like I have with Iridescent, than I would be in a situation where you're working you know from scratch, like I have with iridescent. Then I would be in a situation where you're working, you know, for a company that you don't really believe in their vision or you don't really believe in what they're doing. You know.
Speaker 2:I totally get that. I just think I have my own company and I'm an entrepreneur because I'm unemployable that's my take on it. But I mean I'd like to start another development company. I kind of am kind of thinking that will land on my lap at some stage. Some you know possibility, but I love building stuff, I love building houses and I think we did such a better job than most of the people out there. So if someone came to me and said, look, you know, we've got some land, we've got some funding. You know, do you want to jump into this? I would. But I would carry on doing what I'm doing now as well, because I've fallen into this accidentally and I love it because you can have an impact on other people's lives. There's definitely a couple at least a couple of companies I've saved, so that's a nice feeling. So, yeah, it's a strange world out there and I think you know the world of entrepreneurship yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I mean, how many young people are doing these kind of side hustles? And you know, a lot of people think that being an entrepreneur is a I don't know, almost like it would lead to a better lifestyle, but I'm not 100% sure it does. I think it's the attitude that you have, whether you work for somebody else or whether you work for yourself, that allows you to, you know, kind of live the lifestyle you want, rather than, oh, I'm going to be an entrepreneur and then I can have the lifestyle that I want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've learned a few lessons around that. One is you've got to live the life you want now. You don't just go tomorrow so you know I will. When is a really bad way forward, because when might never happen. And I think the lifestyle or the kind of the love of life around being entrepreneur is to do with loving what you do. So my hobby is my job something like that's really unhealthy, but I like doing what I do now and I like tinkering away. So, and because it's so varied it's from building funnels used to build houses and now build funnels to, you know, coaching people and writing blogs and doing podcasts and stuff like that. It's all kind of stuff that five years ago would have fallen over laughing off my chair if someone told me I was doing it now. But it's just something I kind of wander into my office and tinker with. It's I enjoy doing and I think that's why entrepreneurial approach to life is seen as being more kind of carefree, because hopefully you're doing it, because you love it yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3:I mean I've certainly really enjoyed my career, like, if I compare myself to my dad, you know, retired at 55, absolutely hated every second of his job. You know there were parts of his job that he liked, but I mean that was the social side of it, it wasn't his actual job, but I have to say I love my job the bit of my job that he liked, but I mean that was the social side of it.
Speaker 3:It wasn't his actual job, but I have to say I love my job. The bit of my job that I don't enjoy is managing people. The older I've got, the more I just know. When I was younger I knew I didn't like managing people, but now I'm older I'm like no, I don't like managing people and I don't want to manage people. So I need to have people within my ecosystem that like managing people, because I like researching new ideas, writing blogs, basically writing product specifications, talking to customers. I just don't like managing people. I don't like mentoring people. I don't like. I just don't like it.
Speaker 2:I don't like you know, yeah, I'm very different. I do love managing people, but what I've, what I have become as I've got older, is much more direct right and I think it's kind of take it or leave it. You know you're going to get the truth off me. I'm not going to kind of go around in circles and it doesn't work with everyone I think it's one of those things as well.
Speaker 3:I think if you're a born people pleaser, which you know I am, it's a real weakness in my personality. Of course you don't like managing people because you can't have direct conversations, as you say. It's easy to manage people if you're very direct and you know what you're thinking, whereas you know my personality is. I just prefer to avoid conflict. So therefore, I'm a bad you know people manager and I know why I'm such a bad people manager. And I know why I'm such a bad people manager it's because I'm a people pleaser yeah, I've tried to get that.
Speaker 2:I've tried to get that. You want to tell them what they want to hear, not what they need.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I can't help myself, you know I can't help us I'm the worst.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh, you've done such a good job, even though in the back of my mind I'm going that is absolute crap. You know, that is just substandard and not the way. You know I want things to work in this company. I definitely learned that, you know, and I think people love to be reporting into somebody that's got a real big vision for things, and I think you know I'm good at that, like I'm good at saying this is basically where we want to go, this is what we want to do, but that does not make me a good manager.
Speaker 2:So people saying this is basically where we want to go, this is what we want to do, but that make does not make me a good manager. So people know. But it's important to bring people along with your vision and that's something which I try and get my clients to do because they kind of have a vision. But it's like a new system. You might disagree with this, considering what you do, but you know, to force someone into a system without them understanding why, and being part of the plan of the system kind of makes it a lot harder and most systems fail, most processes fail because they're not actually used so I would agree 100.
Speaker 3:that's a major problem in, you know, enterprise platforms, sas platforms. So people are basically told they need to use it and they're like, well, I don't want to use it, I don't want to work in that way.
Speaker 2:It doesn't reflect the way I work.
Speaker 3:Why can't it work like this? Why can't it work like that? And AI will be really interesting in that, because the way you code up an AI platform as opposed to a SaaS platform is much more kind of fluid. So I think we are moving towards more kind of fluid. So I think we are moving towards, you know, like conversational interfaces whereby, rather than being forced into a kind of linear process that you know happens within kind of SaaS, you know, you will be able to have a more fluid conversational type interaction with a platform that will ensure that you adhere to a process but, by the same token, will give you certain flexibility that you think you've got more control over.
Speaker 2:And I think this is all coming with it, with you, know I learned a lot around that when I was looking for a new software system for my construction company and it took me a few months to realize I couldn't find something that emulated my systems. I had to adapt my systems to software. It was a bit of a game changer, really simple. Once I did that I realized you know, actually this is really good and it covers everything, but it doesn't do the way I would do it. But I'm not going to find anything that does. So that was kind of quite an interesting thing.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think ai is going to have such an impact on everyone and I've shown a couple of people some ai just simple know basic kind of writing letters and stuff like that AI stuff. And they were kind of astounded in the speed. And you know, writing an advert for a role or you know anything like that, it takes seconds to do what would have taken, you know, an hour. And we were talking about blogs and I write a blog and you know what I do is I speak the blog first and that gets recorded and then I put that into AI and AI comes out with something and then I change it and adapt it and so I can do a blog in 10 minutes. If I sit down with my spelling and start from scratch, you're talking about an hour, so it's just changed everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I agree. I mean I think I really enjoy how creative I can be because I can get my ideas down. You know I'm like you, I'm dyslexic, and so you know getting my ideas down and shaping it is boring, but getting the ideas down is the creative bit. So you know the way I use it. I kind of get my ideas down and they're all messy and they're not structured well and they're bad grammar and the spelling's appalling and it's just literally just a conscious stream of.
Speaker 3:This is basically the idea. This is what I'm trying to communicate, this is what I'm trying to say. And then, you know, hit the write this article button and it just takes my you know ideas and you know the structure of what I'm trying to say and basically writes it in proper English. You know it's really good. And so, rather than me being completely terrified to write anything down, because I know there's going to be, it's going to be bad grammar, it's going to be terrible spelling, it's going to be errors everywhere, it's not properly proofread, and then I have to go to other people to basically get myself checked and approved before basically I can put it up in LinkedIn. Now I don't have to do that I can just be like. This is the idea that I want to communicate. This is it in the way juliet's brain works and then comes out the other end and it it doesn't need to?
Speaker 3:be, proofread, it doesn't need to. The ideas are there. It's exactly what I wanted to say, but just with no grammar spelling.
Speaker 2:You know issues we're going to lose those skills, aren't we? So you know that's the way it's going. But there we are. Let's bring this to a close now, but thank you ever so much for joining me.
Speaker 3:Pleasure.
Speaker 2:It's been really interesting. Hopefully the edited version is going to be a little bit less disjointed.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Bust and Beyond with Robin Hayhurst. Be sure to tune in next time and visit his website.