Sooper Books: The £5 Dragons’ Den Deal that made history

Meet the power couple who quit their jobs and made Dragons' Den history, by giving away 5% of their business for £5. 

Introducing Charlene Mitchell-Hood and Simon Hood, the founders of Sooper Books. Hear their incredible journey, which started as a simple idea to aid their daughter’s bedtime routine, which quickly turned into the world's number one bedtime story streaming service and saw all five Dragons invest. 

Their journey will inspire you and arm you with valuable insights for your own startup. Don't miss this masterclass on how you can turn your passion into a category-defining leader.

Sooper Books is a storybook streaming service offering hundreds of world-class stories and audiobooks to millions of families around the world, completely free of charge.

Key Takeaways

- Value of relationships over money. Learn why and how they prioritised connections over cash, which has opened doors and fostered significant growth for Sooper Books. This illustrates that sometimes, who you know is as important as what you know.

- Authenticity in pitching and brand building. Learn how their genuine approach in the Dragon's Den and beyond has not only differentiated them from competitors but also helped build a brand that's beloved by families worldwide.

- Balancing business and personal life. Discover the delicate art of managing a business with your spouse, the importance of delegation, having clear boundaries in place and the pivotal role of learning from failures to ensure both business and personal growth.

Have questions about this episode? Ask our hosts, chat now via our website

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

We've

Simon Hood: 0:09

gone from just us using the site to being the number one BEDTIME STORY website in the world, and 50 countries in the world.

Dr Becky Sage: 0:24

You're listening to founded and grounded with Ollie collard and Dr. Becky sage. The podcast brings you the honest realities of startup life. If you're a founder or aspiring entrepreneur, this is for you. We know running a business can be lonely and tough at times. And we want to help you get ahead with simple tips and sound advice. Every fortnight we hear inspiring stories from an early stage business owner, who's only a couple of steps ahead of you, talking about what they've learned. And as your hosts, we share our insights and experiences as founders. So you can apply this to your own business. Hello, and welcome to the founded and grounded Podcast. I'm Dr. Becky sage, and I'm here today with Ali as always, Hi, Holly. I'm good. How are you? Yeah,

Ollie Collard: 1:19

very well. Thank you. We're flying through this season. They are really excited for today's guests. They bring so much energy and passion into what they're doing. And

Dr Becky Sage: 1:29

you didn't announce to us who they were last week. So you gave us a clue that they had a first on Dragon's Den, but didn't tell us who they were. So is it time to reveal it?

Ollie Collard: 1:41

I think it is. Yeah. So I caught up with the lovely married couple that is Charlene and Simon. They are founders have a business called Super books. So if you have watched Dragon's Den they actually made then history, giving away 5% of their company for only five British pounds. And startup is basically offering a book streaming service for children.

Dr Becky Sage: 2:06

And I don't know if this is the right place to admit that surrounded by so many entrepreneurs, but I don't watch it because it's, well, it's both too close to the bone. And also not close to the bone at all because it's really dramatised so I never used to watch it because I would just get too stressed because if I wasn't doing business, I wanted to be switching off from business. But Dragon's Den history. I'm very excited to hear more about this. Let's have a listen to how and why Simon And Charlene decided to give away 5% of their company for just five pounds.

Ollie Collard: 2:47

Good morning, Charlene and Simon, how you both day. Yeah. Well,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 2:51

thank you for having us, Ali.

Ollie Collard: 2:52

Well, it's great to have you here. And I know there was a bit of an issue this morning with your car. So you quickly managed to go down to the rental store and actually rent a car to get here. So I appreciate your dedication to the cause.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 3:03

So right from behind and energy.

Ollie Collard: 3:08

Excellent. So can you guys take me back to when super books was a seed of an idea in your heads? And tell me about how your daughter was the inspiration behind the business? Okay,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 3:20

well, I was expecting Goldie at the time. And so I come from a background in illustration, and sighs actually in the banking world, but has always had a passion for writing. And I think we knew somewhere along the lines, we knew we'd end up working together but we didn't realise it was going to become a business, our business. And so I started writing some little rhymes, retellings of stories and I'd illustrate them in the background. And we thought you know what, maybe we've got something here for Goldie or daughter. And so we put them online as superbugs.com And that's when we put that's been locked down actually here and we thought okay, maybe we should start sharing them with family friends schools. So literally, I think Silas so how many schools did you must have got? Yeah, it

Simon Hood: 4:15

was I mean, so it really organic. I mean, it started with Charlene sister didn't she wanted she wanted because the homeschooling and the schools are all locked down and parents were doing homeschooling. So Charlie sisters got five kids and started they started using it. And I think then she some of her friends started using it as well. And then it sort of went up more other schools and then those schools told other schools and then we thought oh, well actually, we may as well just contact a school so we got a list of head teachers and we just blast

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 4:53

out a massive blast out.

Simon Hood: 4:55

Here's, here's super books if you want it and uh There's literally hundreds and hundreds of schools within. Within weeks, we're using it. And then what happened was, Google then was like, Oh, hang on a minute, what's, what's this website that all these schools are linking to. And within probably eight weeks, we had gone from just us using the site to being the number one BEDTIME STORY website in the world. In 50 countries in the world, it was just absolutely crazy. We just looked. And you look at our analytics, it literally is flatline along the bottom, and then it just goes straight up. It's just crazy.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 5:39

And that's when we thought maybe it maybe it's not just gold.

Simon Hood: 5:44

We just yeah, we just were kind of like logging on each day kind of going, hang on a minute that what's going up and up and up and up. And it was, and we you know, we we pushed sites off the top that had been there for 15 years. You know, it was just crazy. Yeah, we didn't expect anything close to that. Well, we didn't expect anything. Nevermind, anything close to that. So yeah, well, that's

Ollie Collard: 6:08

crazy. And I'm going to ask you a bit later on about the strategies behind that of getting onto Google's number one page. But before we do that, I'm interested in both of you personally, and I know, as you said, Before, you came from the world of illustration Charleen. And so I came from investment banking, which are quite two kind of different worlds. So how did you guys meet,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 6:31

get out into that is a funny story, actually, I don't know if you want me to go into the. So it was eHarmony. And I was I just moved to London. And I was like, raring to go meet people, everything else. So I thought, You know what, I'm going to try this internet data. You know, it was still a bit, it was still a bit dodgy at that time, I guess. And people were like, Oh, you try that. Whereas now it's just it's not in place. So I signed up and I thought, You know what, I'm gonna go for a paying one. Because, you know, I might meet, you know, not saying anything about the non paying was, but let's see where we go. And, yeah, so I signed up and I think you are my second day, so very early on. And so

Simon Hood: 7:23

it's coming to the end of my subscription last month.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 7:31

So I was like, I can't you know, I can't put everything you know, I've got to go to leave options open. So we had a great day though. We just kind of clicked and I think we arranged to meet for a coffee and it ended up being a coffee a walk and then we went out for dinner. And but then we never saw each other again for a year.

Ollie Collard: 7:53

Well,

Simon Hood: 7:54

I went back to Edinburgh.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 7:56

I was or I was at the start of my subscription. So I needed to see more people. So I was very much like sighs like, you know, I wasn't like I would start seeing you. And I was just like, you know, no, I need to I need to play the field. So yeah, we just kind of drifted apart. Didn't we?

Ollie Collard: 8:15

put you back together then.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 8:17

So I messaged you just out of the blue. Something reminded me about you. I was working. I was freelancing at the time. And you'd seen him and the weird thing was I messaged you and I got this reply back. I thought oh, he's probably like, it's probably with someone else find out but I thought you know what, I'll just message so I messaged and within seconds I had this reply. And I was like, obviously it's not weird.

Ollie Collard: 8:45

So I playing it cool.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 8:50

I just had a new range of greeting cards. They just gone out into retail. And you message me back saying I've seen some of your work out in the I think I was out.

Simon Hood: 9:01

I think when you gave when you messaged me. It was either that day or it was even in the shelf. It was bizarre. Yeah, it was like I was in a bookshop and I was looking at something or cards or something. Yeah. And then your message. I'm sure the message came through.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 9:16

And you said something like, um, with your work or something. I was like, Oh, that's not freaky. Yeah, and then you go back to London. I think you were thinking about moving back to London. And then yeah, the rest is history and effects London. I was already in London. And there's

Simon Hood: 9:33

a strange, really strange family connection as well. The first time I went around to Charlene says Mr. Mom and dad, her dad's a golfer and I play golf. And it turned it turned out that Charlie's great grandfather founded the golf club that my family we're all members of and our grand fathers were ended up being in the same, same same school in the same year. are a short period before Charlene so the family then obviously moved down to kind of Birmingham way. And it was meant to be them but Edinburgh. Yeah. So yeah, so

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 10:08

we like to think that you know.

Ollie Collard: 10:11

So fast forwarding back to the time when you know you're getting a bit of traction schools are taking on Super books, word of mouth was going crazy. Take me back to the moment, the exact moment when you both decided we're going to quit our jobs and take this leap of faith and go into the business full time.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 10:30

I think that's when we realised people wanted to invest in us and our business.

Simon Hood: 10:36

I think he's when we hit the top of Google, we thought this isn't a hobby.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 10:41

Yeah, that's what we thought, okay, maybe we've got something here. But we weren't necessarily ready to just hand everything in what we were doing. And we put,

Simon Hood: 10:52

because we were both freelancing. Yeah, so I was doing some business consulting, Charlene was still doing her illustration at the time, but it'd been locked down, you know, our kind of clients have pretty much dried up, it was quite difficult time for us. So it wasn't like we were going from burning loads of money to, you know, let's quit. And do this, like, we've been through a kind of stage of, yeah, not earning that much not really knowing what we want to do next. And we had this thing, and we were like, well, we've got this thing, but we also don't have enough money to fund it. So the next stage of that was, we need to find an investor. And I worked in banking. So you would think, Oh, maybe he's got connections and stuff. It wasn't really like that. It didn't I didn't have you know, any sort of Angel kind of connections or anything. We literally went onto LinkedIn, and saw a post from Henri de Zoet, who was on Dragon's Den, and I remember seeing him on Dragon standard. This is look after my bills. And he had just exited that and had posted saying, any anyone that you know what it wants to meet for coffee, doing a startup, just let me know. And I thought, Well, why don't we just send so he's telling the story about the, you know, the hits and all this. And I wasn't expecting anything at all. Like within 15 minutes, it sent a message saying, yeah, yeah, great. Let's meet up. So he, he came to steal. And so it was always it was towards the end of all, that wasn't allowed to come out me. But you had to meet in an open space to meet us in the park.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 12:47

We still like go do it. No one took off to go the obviously because childcare then was couldn't have it. And yeah, so we all three of us went for the meeting.

Simon Hood: 12:59

Before the meeting, Tony

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 13:01

gardens about 20 times having our meeting and it was just great. He was just he just got us got what we want and got our business model what we wanted to achieve and could see, I guess, a future for Super books. And he kind of said there and then you know, leave it with me. But yeah, I'm definitely interested. And he even mentioned then about going on, he was like, You need to take some drugs. And we kind of scoffed at it. Yeah, well, yeah. We'll leave that, you know. And yeah, we had a call back from him. And he was like, Yeah, I want to invest in you guys want to help you be your advisor. And then he was just, he just literally plugged us into the world of investment. Because

Simon Hood: 13:41

he's, this was the point where we realised how powerful a network can be. Because what we didn't realise at the time, because obviously, he you know, very great, very successful founder, he sold his business and gocompare. But he was part of Y Combinator, and has a very, very powerful network. So the angels and kind of VC network that he was in in London, is the kind of what we read what, what we found out was, it's the best you can get. So he kind of made a few introductions to a few people. And before we knew it, we were we were thinking, so we went in we thought, or raise it, you know, raise a few 100,000 to kind of keep the to get this thing going. And then, you know, we're just more and more people were saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll invest we'll invest and we ended up we ended up having to basically cut the allocation in half and to 800,000. Like it was ridiculous. It was oversubscribed from all these amazing people. Um, and I remember doing them. Remember with the calls that we were doing, we were doing all these investor calls. Again, I think the experience of banking helped, because you know, a lot of that a lot of my job there was pitching. So kind of positioning the vision and making sure that all the numbers were right, and things like that. But he just kept on, it was just crazy. We kept on kind of coming out of these meetings going, hang on a minute. So you mean that like this Lord has now invested or what No, Princess Beatrice has invested? Now, you know, we've got VCs we've got, I've just like, this is bananas? Because a few months ago, we didn't have any, you know, we had we were it was just us.

Ollie Collard: 15:45

Well, you know, it was just incredible. I mean, so you actually got, as you said, 800k there from 29 Angels and Toto to VC funds. What advice would you give to any founders listening right now, who are potentially embarking on their fundraising journey?

Simon Hood: 16:04

I would, I would say just be very clear, with what the vision for the businesses and, and get, and just get people excited about it. So it's the clarity, I would say as a clarity of the vision, and then how you build, build the pathway to that? What's the plan to get there?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 16:31

And I think also its connections as well, that's, I think that was the key for us. And it's talking to anyone and everyone you can because you don't know what's around the corner, and you don't know who they're connected to either. And I think that's what we found. Anything that comes through to us. Now we're like, or if someone says to, you must say, Do you want to speak to this person? We're like, yes, just take the meeting, because you just don't know who they're connected to what they might know. So yeah, I think very much go in wide eyes and willing to speak to anyone and everyone. Yeah.

Ollie Collard: 17:03

And the lesson for me here is that is that momentum, isn't it? So you had that first meeting? Yeah, he started Plugging you into networks. And then you like kind of navigating your way through all of this world of fundraising and building lots more connections and obviously ended up being oversubscribed. So what a fantastic story.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 17:20

Yeah, I think that was the platform for us where we were like, Okay, we need to show these people what we can do now they've believed in us. So we've got to believe in our business. And that's when we stopped everything else and put everything into books.

Simon Hood: 17:33

Also try and be memorable. In some way. You know, you obviously saw the kind of Dragon's Den stuff that we did when we went in there. But the same thing applies when you're doing, you know, a meeting on Zoom. It's trying to find some ways to be memorable

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 17:54

for his meetings in his in his out there shirts that he wears.

Simon Hood: 18:01

I got comments, you know, read like, you know, did you get dressed in the dark? stuff? It just lightens the spirit? It does. I mean, it works for us, because obviously, we're a children's brand. And it's been that consider your environment and how, how that works. But kind of think, Yeah, think of it as a whole brand piece together. Yeah, and then just try and do something that's a little bit different from that. There we go. Hang on a minute. Because I think that sets the scene for that person is putting their trust in you. You know, it's, it's actually in you. It's not real. It's it's the idea. That's great. But it's the execution that they're really investing into. So yeah, try and be memorable. Some

Ollie Collard: 18:54

great advice there. And going back to when you achieved over 1 million monthly users in just six weeks. Talk to me a bit about the strategy behind that and ranking on Google.

Simon Hood: 19:07

I'm, I mean, I knew a little bit about it. But not a huge amount. I mean, it was literally at the time, we had a WordPress website, we were just doing everything ourselves. So it was a case of going on YouTube, doing the tutorials, taking the advice, making all the changes, and then just, you know, being quite analytical as well. So we positioned our whole website around bedtime stories. And you get mixed very, very mixed advice on Google about different things and what worked for us and I'm not sure if not sure if this would work for everybody But what we noticed was there was a, there was a lot of volume for the keyword term bedtime stories. And it was a very difficult keyword to rank for. But it didn't seem impossible. And when we looked at it, we thought the number one way with the first page, basically, this content isn't great. There's a lot of it, but it's not brilliant. So I think fundamentally, we felt like the quality of our content could win. Over time, we were thinking might take 10 years to get there. But we thought that so that's fundamental, like, Can you can you beat the quality that's already that already exists there. I mean, in some industries, you just can't win, because it might just be loaded with massive brands paying huge budgets into this, but in our case, it was it wasn't. So we built the say around that one keyword, not more than one, just one. And every single time, we got a link, we sent it out one page. And it's as simple as that. Incredible,

Ollie Collard: 21:06

incredible. We've got to talk about Dragon's Den now. Firstly, congratulations. And second, I had to say your presentation was Pitch Perfect. It was memorable, it was engaging, it was all of those things that you've been talking about. You obviously managed to get all five dragons on board as well. And you gave away 5% of the company for a den first five pounds. You also another first in the den, where you actually made the dragons or they decided themselves to go over the wall to themselves and have a conversation about how they were going to take this forward. So can you just tell? Yeah, a lot of so I just want to know a bit about the entire experience. What happens after the camera stops rolling? And why our relationships worth so much more than money?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 21:58

Okay, good questions. Okay, well, it all started. It's been quite a long process. So from the moment we found out, we'd

Simon Hood: 22:09

started before. Well,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 22:14

I, yeah. So I filled out the application form without me knowing, and then didn't say anything until you had the callback from the BBC. And I walked into the office that morning, and I just signed a swivel around his chair. Anyway, I've got something here. I've got something to tell you. And usually, I can just get already, and you're not very good at keeping it, you know, you could do everything on your face. But he just got me on that day. And I was like, what, what what? I've just had a call out from the BBC. And as soon as he said the BBC, I was like, I know exactly what you're going to say. Because I had been spoken about, but we just Well, I thought didn't take action. I think we were just putting off. I was putting

Simon Hood: 22:55

every excuse under the sun. But I was very, you know, justified in my excuses. Well, you know, it's the time.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 23:01

Yeah, yeah. Cool. But I think deep down, I mean, we're both fans. So I was a massive fan. I think deep down. We always wanted to see ourselves on there. But I just think the nerves just took over. Anyway. Yeah, we got the callback. And from then, I think it was we had to go through various stages of interviews. But we got through them all. And then when we got that final callback that said, Yeah, you're going to be come and film with us. We're a bit like, Oh, my God, this is real now. And that's when we literally, we, we spoke to our team. And we're like, you've just got to take control for the next two weeks. Because we need to, like we need to like literally go into revision mode now. And we did we literally combined a folder together. This is like organisational skills. Now we can find a folder together, we had no lights everywhere. And we just went hell for leather for two weeks and didn't do anything else other than, like, just get our gear into control. Going in watching

Simon Hood: 24:06

watching the pictures as well, you know, reruns of things, clips, and I was looking at like patterns of like, how much people were asking for the types of equity what happens when companies, you know, that are backed go in there. And typically this get ripped apart? Because they go in and they offer, you know, they ask for some like, well, it's not a thing that that's the thing in this. The VC and Angel world is just so different to what they portray. And it is actually really normal to go in, you know, to have a business that's not actually generating revenue that has a valuation of two, you know, one and a half 2 million pounds because that's just how the math works to get the investment. But they they just really don't make it. So yeah, there was a lot of kind of research on what? How, you know, how can we do this a bit differently? Yeah.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 25:06

And that's when we decided to we thought, okay, we're a creative company, how can we make ourselves look creative in front of the dragons? And we thought, okay, well, we've got to bring what what our product is. So that's when we decided to think of almost like a little teaser story. So that because we were like, how can we we can show them pictures and like, put a digital screamer screen up and show them, like all our other stories, but we need them to actually be immersed in what it is. So that's when we came up with the dragons story idea. That was the take on weird life, which is one of our series. It's like David Attenborough, mockumentary and we thought, yeah, let's go for that. And and then we were like, Okay, let's do the pitch in writing like that Simon's floors day. I was like, yeah, that's your first day. We've got our pitch together. Come on, you can just turn it on. And so you worked on that. And then we were just like, Yeah, this is the way forward. But then it added, I think it added a lot of pressure on to us, because we were like, well, we can't go wrong, like any line we go wrong. It's just gonna make up the whole, the whole

Simon Hood: 26:13

way that the rams are done is that their eight syllable rhyming couplet, right? So there's like literally down to the syllable, and even sometimes down to like the, the way that the metre happens within the syllables. And if you miss one beat, it doesn't make sense, or it doesn't work. And you the whole thing kind of unravels.

Ollie Collard: 26:38

How many times did you practice it? Oh, my

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 26:40

gosh, it was well, let's put it this way. Goldie knew it. Knew it word for word. And I used to be taking her for a walk sometimes. And we just stop and she carry on for us without and we're like, oh my gosh, go. But by the end of it, she was sick. Yeah, it was really fun. I mean, she didn't have a clue what was going on. But she knew we were practising for something. She knew we were going to see some dragon. She actually thought we were going to the real dragon. She couldn't quite, quite understand. But I think she was very she knew something was going on. But yeah, we practice in front of family as well, just anyone. I mean, obviously, let's keep it under kind of, you know, low key, but anyone that literally walked into our house, anyone that we went to see we're like, can we just do this once around on you? But yeah, it was, it was when we got we had to go we had to travel the night for to Manchester. But I was actually only 48 hours before that we decided to change. So we were going in there to ask for money. And it was 48 hours before that we practised again. And we felt there's something not quite right here. And that so we thought about Okay, let's go in and ask for no money at all. We just thought, I mean, we had investment, we have a team. We were like basically, the money we are asking for losses from the Dragons wouldn't really take us that further in the business. But really what we're going in there for is the connections. So we would like to why are we asking for money at all? And that's when you rang the BBC? And you're like, we've got this idea. What do you think about us coming in and asking for no money at all? And they were like, well, we're a money programme, you have to ask for something. But there's nothing stopping you from asking for a pound.

Simon Hood: 28:30

She's the lady that we were dealing with. did say straightaway said, oh, yeah, don't do that. And then he took it. But I said, you know, please, you know, just like take it. Online producers. So she took it to the producers, and then it came back. Yeah, so we had this 24 hour. So it was four years before we made that call, then 24 hours, we had to wait for the reply. And

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 28:57

we were a bit even in that we were like, Should we show aren't we? I mean, this is a massive risk. If they come back and say yes. Are we still doing the right? Anyway, they came back and they said you can't ask for no money, but there's nothing stopping you ask for a pound, but they very much specified it's at your own risk. You know, we don't know how this could go. But it's up to you. So we thought about it. And we were like, You know what, when have we ever taken an easy option in our life, we love a challenge. We're like it's something different as well, even if they laugh at us, you know, it will make television somehow. If it's in the good ways or the five ways. We were like let's just go for it. And I think it made it a bit more exciting for us as well. We did have to change part of the rhymes that was your bid. Thank God. You were like, I gotta remember this

Simon Hood: 29:45

is the offer. He said the wrong thing.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 29:50

But yeah, we went off and we were went to Manchester the night before work in the morning. Got told you're only told as well. I think it's a day or so before whether you're on in the morning or the afternoon slot, so we were told who the afternoons are, I'm not sure if that's just to add more anticipation or to get it over and done. But we wanted to get over and over. So when we were told that afternoon, we were like, Oh, no. So we woke up, and we got told to go, probably at 11 to arrive at a studio, but we just couldn't pace around anymore. So we were like, let's just get there for 10. We got there. And we were told good news and bad news. Good news. You're the only one this afternoon. You're the only pitch in the afternoon. Bad news. The first pitch has only just come out. So you're going to be waiting, I think there was three other pitches in front of us. We were like, great. We're here for like the long haul. So we had a five hour wait when we actually arrived at the studio until we actually went in. But you know what it was? It actually was pleasantly relaxing, being there. And I think because you're in that environment, we had amazing people looking afterwards, we had an amazing runner. And that poor runner, though. He, Michael, his name was but he must have known our pitchers. Well, by the time we went in that yeah, we we can we could see. We could meet the other pitchers beforehand. But you didn't see them when they came out of the dam. So you were never sure if the outcome for them. But everybody was I think everyone had the same nerves. So they very much get themselves themselves. And

Simon Hood: 31:24

you can see them just wandering around kind of. Yeah,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 31:28

but no, it was much better going in early. And I'm pleased we did them by the time we went in, you know, we were all guns blazing. I mean, there's not there was not a lot more we could do really. And we decided that the day before we kind of said let's just stop now because there's a limit. And yeah, we just went for it. And luckily, our pitch was okay.

Ollie Collard: 31:50

It was pretty him.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 31:52

We got through it. And yeah, from then on, I think from this is the other thing, it's so heavily edited, like it was edited to 10 minutes, we were in there for just over an hour. So, you know, we were worried we were going to be absolutely grilled. But

Simon Hood: 32:09

actually so much more you talk

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 32:11

about it was just, it was just a conversation with them all. And they all got our model. And, again, what you didn't see on the television is they all have their own ideas about where it could go. And I think especially for me, that was when it was having that validation from amazing people sitting in front of you and you think wow, okay, maybe we do really have you know, that was it was that validation, I think that bought the emotion as well that started the erosion. But yeah, it

Simon Hood: 32:43

was funny thing about that was when we were in the park the day before. I hadn't even considered getting like that emotional about it. Because I said to us,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 32:54

you don't want to cry and cry.

Simon Hood: 32:59

Definitely won't cry.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 33:01

I thought I'd get emotional. Maybe because we were getting grilled. I didn't think it would be the complete polar opposite. I thought maybe I suddenly get like, you rabbit in headlights and think, oh my gosh, you know, you see these people on television. And I've got so much admiration now for anyone that goes off that programme. But you see people really, again, it's edited, but really getting grilled on I wasn't sure how I'd handle that. And yeah, I didn't realise the emotion would come from Zack office, the end of kind of where I thought they

Simon Hood: 33:31

said just amazing stuff stuff. It was cut out, you know, just it was? Yeah, I mean, it was it was brilliant. And they there's a bit actually, if you watch it closely, you'll see this bit worse that Sarah comes in. And she says, Finally, I've had a chance to speak this, because for about half, probably 2025 minutes before that. They were just, you know, drag and drop pinging stuff over each other. No, you don't do it like that. You do it like this. He didn't like that. And she was trying to get a word. Yeah, so it was, yeah, there was loads of loads of stuff. And there was I mean, there was so much stuff we prepared that they didn't ask as well. I mean, we I prepared the numbers down to every single line on, you know, the p&l. But the

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 34:20

need is to do that, like you need to be prepared for something like that. I'd much prefer to come out of a situation like that, I think, okay, we didn't speak about half of what we prepared, but at least we had it prepared in case.

Simon Hood: 34:32

But the other thing about doing that the offer that we gave was that we wanted to we didn't want and this has to do with the research that we did beforehand. What happens with these funded startups, this is quite like this pattern that's happened over the last couple of seasons, where it's gone much but it's it's not, you know, some person that's coming in with an invention now it's people that have coming in with properly funded business. They're saying, you know, it's jarring because they just get stuck at the valuation. And they just focus, the whole thing gets focused on the valuation. And they've got nowhere to go. And we thought, we just need the conversation to be about the mission and what we're trying to achieve, and try and take that off the table to make it. Yeah, just just just to take the conversation in different place, really. And I think that that took the heat off and numbers.

Ollie Collard: 35:34

And did you communicate with your prior investors going on to the den and talking about that valuation? Yeah, yeah.

Simon Hood: 35:42

So we yeah, we did. But the other thing that we did was, we, you know, for us, this is our decision. And it wasn't, we felt it wasn't fair on the other investors to dilute them because of a decision that we'd made. So the, the equity has come from our side. And then it's kind of fine. It's just a straight share, transfer. And everyone's, Everyone's a winner. So excellent.

Ollie Collard: 36:14

And tell me then about the relationships being more important than money, then what's the, what's the thinking behind that thing

Simon Hood: 36:23

when you start to communicate with them, so we had this whole period of legals stuff. And that lasted five months. So there's five months of due diligence, backwards and forwards legal bits and pieces, and probably a standard little bit where the fact we're dealing with five, instead of one. And then after that, you get plugged into their teams. So it happens, then, then you start to realise, straightaway, you're going, you know, you go eco meet them. So for example, we met Steven. And he's, you know, talking to us about all different kinds of things that we can sort with the social side of things, but also the conversion and all the types of things that he's really, really good at. And then tukar, he was, he's, I mean, he's just been absolutely brilliant isn't a really, it's. So we've got some things that we can't really talk about, that are in, you know, in motion in the background, and they're hugely exciting for us. But to try and answer the question, which I have. He's able to plug us in to his team, right. And this are the products that we will be bringing out, there is just no way we would have been able to do that. Without him, we would have literally had to fly to China, create the relationships, try to get them to somehow trust us. Whereas he makes one phone call to a guy that he's like, literally put 10s of millions of pounds worth of orders through who's completely connected to anything that you want to manufacture. And, you know, within moments, you've got stuff coming back at you. And that's it. That's the kind of difference.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 38:27

And I think as why it's trust, I think we found this from go, we've been very lucky to build our team through recommendations of people. And I think, when that happens, you already know the trust is there with that person, because they know that person that you're very trusted to. Whereas money can't do that somehow, you know, you could you could have all the money in the world and hire someone amazing that looks on paper, but you don't know really how they are. Whereas a connection or recommendation, it makes it so much more. Just say for you to feel like we're a small team. We're a very small team. And I think, you know, we're quite close as well. I think it's when it is your baby like that you want to be a little bit more safe in that respects. And I think yeah, connections have have been fantastic, like you said, and it's all about that trust in there as well. I

Simon Hood: 39:26

think having five dragons as well. They'll, they'll each bring something at different stage of the business, as well. So that's what we're really excited about the future like it, they're the perfect way to use a dragon is if you want something specific, call them and they will try and make it happen. You know, the thing which becomes a little bit more tricky when you've got we've got 50 investors now, when you try and get 50 people to agree on a direction is not going to happen. So we've got to be the ones that create the vision, create the direction, here's the plan.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 40:08

And if you ask advice, say, What do you think it is when you go in and ask 50 people? Where Where should we go? Agreement on? Yeah. That's

Simon Hood: 40:19

so that's Yeah. So that's where, you know, having that clear vision really helps.

Ollie Collard: 40:24

us great. And obviously, you you were successful in obviously getting all five on board. But going into the den, was there a specific dragon that you really wanted to get on board?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 40:32

We get asked this a lot, Oliver, actually, we never really discussed it between us. And I think I don't know if that was failure, we were worried about, like, what would happen or if it would happen, we didn't want to think that far ahead. But you know, what we, we just kind of thought what will be will be if we get one that will be amazing, whoever it is, there's going to be connections there somewhere. And yeah, the outcome was more than we could have asked for.

Simon Hood: 40:59

The other thing is, for us, it's really important that how much the person cares about the business. So when we go into these meetings, it's as important to us that the investor really gets it and gets gets us. Otherwise. It just probably something won't click in the future, you know, so we've kind of left it open to go in and see, you know, what is the response we're gonna get back and if it is a one isn't going to be someone that responds better than someone else.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 41:36

And that's the only things

Simon Hood: 41:37

that don't me like that kind of we might have

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 41:39

gone in and someone might said, Yeah, I'll say, you know, Teresa is a bit of a joke. I don't think we probably would have said, Okay, then we'll accept your offer. Because I think at the end of the day, we want someone should be passionate about what we're passionate about, otherwise, there's gonna be nothing there for the future to work with that person. So yeah, I think we were very much set 100 thing going in, we need to, we need to get them excited, basically, and whoever shows their excitement towards us, and that's who we kind of go towards the end a word about

Dr Becky Sage: 42:12

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Ollie Collard: 43:48

I mean, they had this pivotal moment where they had to change the ask of what they were going for and actually seek the permission of the producers for oversee their their five pound ask and this was done sort of late on in the day. And they had to reposition their pitch as we heard. But I think they were just looking for something different. They wanted to go against the grain. We talked about this in the last episode about zigging versus zagging and doing something different and that it was very bold in terms of what they asked for, but ultimately, they got what they wanted, which was the dragons on board and partners, to them to help them grow their business. And I think that's absolutely fantastic. I just have to say they are the most genuine warming, amazing couple that I've met in person I got so much from them and it was just such a pleasure to be able to sit down with them.

Dr Becky Sage: 44:40

And I'm so happy you said that because I feel like that means that this this piece they were talking about which is relationships being worth so much more than money in the context of the Dragons but more widely in that is something that's clearly very kind of inherent and built into them. It's not just a kind of saying or something that made them make Dragons Den history. He is very real that like, they are people who are warm and kind and want to build relationships

Ollie Collard: 45:06

100% And people are ultimately investing in you, as individuals. And as I said before, like the warmth that was coming out of them both was just contagious, it was radiating. And I feel like I would want to be in business with those guys. Like, it's, it's infectious. And I think if you are motivated by the people that you're surrounding yourself by, then ultimately, you're gonna get to where you want to get to, because you're working with people who are very driven, very creative, and just ultimately, nice people.

Dr Becky Sage: 45:39

And we hear it all the time, don't worry that investors want to invest in you, this is what they're looking for at the early stages. So it's not just the traction that they have, because of course, they bring other things to the party. They're not, they're not only bringing themselves as people, but they show up in a very genuine way. And I think when we talk about they're investing in you, this is a big part of it, they need to know that they can trust you, they need to know that this energy you're bringing right now is a genuine energy, and they need to know that they want to work with you. It's like, like you said, if you are an investor, then you would want to invest in them right now, because you would trust them, but you'd also enjoy working alongside them. I

Ollie Collard: 46:21

think enjoyment is probably an underrated factor. Like if you're really getting on with the people that you're working with, ultimately, that's gonna add something to your life. And, you know, if you're meeting with them regularly communicating regularly, then it's ultimately going to add to everyone's well being,

Dr Becky Sage: 46:36

yeah, I'm doing some work with different investors that that's looking at this whole piece of what does it mean to invest in the founding team? What does it mean to invest in the individuals? And so often the decision gets made? Actually, based on that? Would we enjoy working with this with these people? Or does it feel like we're walking through treacle every time we engage with these people related to this, I really liked the way they chose to do their pitch, and give the dragons the investors the taste of their experience. And I think this is just takes even further this premise of showing who you are, like, if you can be that bold to be like, This is how we write the stories. So this is how we're going to show up and pitch to you. That's going to stand out it was giving me loads of ideas as to what I should be doing in my pitches with the businesses that I'm working with. Because I was like, Yeah, isn't that the best way for them to actually see who you are and what your skills are? And what sits behind that initial energy and, and personality? It's like, no, these are the actual talents in the business. And you're showcasing that in your pitch. I think that that's very powerful.

Ollie Collard: 47:50

It was epic. The pitch. I think it's so clever. It sums them up. It sums the brand up and their vision and the way that they do things differently. Talking about another show of BBC productions that you probably haven't watched, Steve Mbeki is the apprentice. There was a famous chap on it, who kind of went viral. Unfortunately, he sadly died in 2015. But he was called Stu bags. And he branded himself. He said, You are the brand Stuart Baxter brand. And I think there's something in this concept that the founders are the brand, everything they do, the way they interact, the talks about wearing colourful clothing, being creative, like everything they do adds up to this picture of how they want to portray themselves.

Dr Becky Sage: 48:34

Absolutely. And I think it's not just about the external perception of yourself as well. It's I think it really comes from internal doesn't it, it's like when you're creating that brand that is you. Sure if it's I think that can feel a little dirty sometimes if all you're doing is kind of putting on a mask or putting on something to please other people. But if actually what you're doing is letting like all of those things that are you bubble up and allowing that to be seen by everybody else. That's actually the goal. That's what we're aiming for. And then not only helps other people to understand who you are, I think it makes you feel better every day. It makes you feel excited and motivated and actually aligned every single day. And so therefore, you're going to have more energy and all the work you do. And in the relationships. If

Ollie Collard: 49:25

you're showing up as your true self every single day. The feeling of that is quite immeasurable. Like it just means that everything you're doing you just feel confident you feel comfortable. You don't feel like you're saying anything stupid doing anything wrong. Like actually the weaknesses that you do have. Like you can be very vocal about those as well. Like if you're being your true, true self then it just opened so many doors.

Dr Becky Sage: 49:52

Yeah. And I don't know about you but you feel it, don't you when you're in that place and it's I call it being in my vortex Got it. But when you get to that place, you know it and you feel it and knew that you were trying to replicate that. And it's, it's not always easy. And it's not always possible. And I definitely have days or weeks or even months, when I feel very just like I'm lethargic, I'm tired, I feel so busy. And actually is sometimes this is as simple as, like, are you doing the exercise you need to do are you I don't know, even what clothes you're wearing. And you know, and having some of those moments that allow you to sort of remind yourself who you are, I think can be really helpful. And then that spreads. And that, again, plays into the authenticity, not that you need those external things, to be your authentic self. But I think sometimes they help you to get there.

Ollie Collard: 50:44

And that's why I bloody love entrepreneurship, because it is this vehicle for this self expression and enabling you to become who you want to become right. And these who are doing this in abundance,

Dr Becky Sage: 50:55

look how much they've done it for us even today, I feel like even just having listened. I mean, I didn't even meet them. But that energy has come through I feel like even the conversation we're having right now it's like, we both feel energised. And and so that's kind of rubbed off. And I guess that's the other beauty of showing up of being yourself of having that energy because it really is infectious. One of the other important things when it comes to relationships being more important than money, and kind of how you build those relationships is the trust that gets built through trusted connections. And this is something that they really utilise. So they built kind of certain connections, those people trusted them. So they introduced them to the next people. And so by showing up as yourself, you also really build that trust. Now, of course, we see some issues with that as well across the investor ecosystem, which is that sometimes trust means people who look like me, or who have the same background as me or who know, the same people that I know, which is also why some of this ecosystem can be a bit Clicky. But then I think that's why it's even more important for you if you're not in those circles, and you don't have that access, to continue to really show up as yourself to have that energy to work on building those trusted connections. Because we need more people to build those connections and build their businesses from it.

Ollie Collard: 52:21

We need bro founders to really penetrate these existing networks, because innovation really isn't going to happen if people aren't bringing their ideas to life. And it requires courage, it requires really going outside of your comfort zone and putting yourself on the line. And it's not easy, and you can get so many rejections along that way. But it will come if you keep persisting at it, people are going to believe in you. If you keep showing up every day, then it is going to happen. I love this notion of only being six degrees of separation from anyone that you want to know. I think this is incredibly powerful. I remember back in the day, LinkedIn used to have this visual tool where you could look at all of your connections, it would draw this kind of like mind map all of your, your network. And I just love that image is stuck with me about this network effect and how you can get into networks and connect with the right people. And ultimately, like the sky's the limit, like ultimately, if you want to meet the right person, you can do

Dr Becky Sage: 53:26

it. LinkedIn is actually an amazing tool for this as well, isn't it I sometimes have a bit of fun if I'm like, I see somebody who I might want to meet and I'm like, I wonder how many connections I am away from this person. And you go in and you're like, Oh, I'm literally a second connection. Like quite often the people who are interested in similar things to us are not that far away at all, especially if you spent time already building your networks.

Ollie Collard: 53:49

And a good reminder, it's not about what you know, it's who you know, right? Yeah, absolutely. But

Dr Becky Sage: 53:54

perhaps what you know, helps to build that trust when you do meet those people. I want to change course now to something else that came up in the in this part of the episode, which is viral growth. Now, I've worked a lot with edtech startups and I would say super books kind of is similar to some of the businesses that we've worked with. Certainly businesses, you're looking at things like literacy. And I know that probably if they heard this story, they would feel somewhat jealous, right now as to the growth now i I'm interested in understanding how much we can actually engineer viral growth and how much this story kind of illustrates perhaps certain good practice that others can put into practice. Not necessarily to reach viral growth, but perhaps to at least have growth in the business.

Ollie Collard: 54:49

We see a lot of virality these days on social media and I think often people think that, Oh, they got really bloody lucky or they've, you know, just it was the right time. Whatever happened there are picking up on a trend. But you do have to be quite strategic about these campaigns. If you do want to go viral on the internet, you have to be doing something different and not thinking like the masses, just lower the tone slightly just to share an example of a business that went viral. A business called do Dwight, they basically went viral after sponsoring the back of a UFC fighters shorts, their previous fight, they actually managed to soil themselves in a fight. And then they went on to sponsor them in the next, next fight with their product. So sometimes it's about Yeah, just thinking a bit creatively, not being afraid to sort of go with a decision that probably didn't really make sense. But actually, that variety of being able to become an internet sensation is something that you can engineer. Yeah,

Dr Becky Sage: 55:57

I love that like seeing an opportunity and going for it and hats off to both of them. But the fighter and the brand, leaning into that situation, which of course, so many of us would probably not be able to lean into in quite the same way. This is one of the reasons I love talking about entrepreneurship. We go like so highbrow or lowbrow. Very, very quick.

Ollie Collard: 56:21

I did say it was me lowering the tone there, Becky, hashtag shits happen?

Dr Becky Sage: 56:27

It's one of your skills. Why you're so likeable. And you can build so many good relationships to founded and grounded, right. So I think that there's, like you said, you certainly being in the right place at the right time seeing opportunities and going for them, I guess there's so many brands, so many people who would never have dreamt of reaching out to that fighter to be like, hey, sponsor, we want to sponsor you, because this just happened. So certainly, I think that that's important. And what happened in this particular situation with super books, is of course, they were responding to a need that they had. Then with lockdown happening, of course, schools and parents were looking for this. And, again, that the way they describe it is not heavily strategic in the beginning. But they did, they did respond to a need of their, their small community of themselves, so as to all their small community, and they did put this online, so other people could find it as well. So like you said, it's kind of it wouldn't have happened if they hadn't have taken those steps to then get picked up. And, and of course, they were then in the right place at the right time. One thing that I think is incredibly important, when you are looking for viral growth, is to have the right to be focused. So it has to be very, very clear what you're delivering and to whom. And I think, again, in this particular case, because they were responding to a very clear need for themselves, they were able to create something, they also created something of quality. And quality doesn't have to mean for example, like every social media post is super, super shiny, and etc. But it does have to be delivering the kind of quality that the people who are looking for it want and need and then get something that they kind of weren't even expecting. And I think we'd super books, that's part of it, isn't it that both the illustration and the way the writing is done, there's a quality there that people really want, and they're not going to question that quality. So I think the that again, there's all these things that that need to be in the right place if you want things to, to go viral, or at least like I said, to grow. And then the other thing that they said was about not competing with the massive brands. So I thought that that's interesting as well. It's like, where's your niche? Where are you going to fit in? And you've talked about this a lot, like thinking differently? What's the uniqueness? And how are you positioning yourself in a way that is unique? Because then when people are looking, and in their case, initially, they had this one key word that people were looking for. And so they were the people who were found when they were looking for that one key word. So I think there's kind of several things, several factors at play there, which we can all learn from. And like you said, perhaps we're not going to go, you know, not suddenly going to have millions of downloads of whatever it is we're creating are millions of customers. But at least these things put you in the right place at the hopefully the right time. Yeah,

Ollie Collard: 59:40

I love what they've done because they're obviously first and foremost solving a problem. They face themselves and lots of great entrepreneurs build businesses like this. They also understood the market. So where it was going, how they were different and what they were really, really going to focus in on obviously then the Shouldn't that one key word that they really drove that user growth in the early stages. And just being a great product, like the illustrations are fabulous, the audio sides great, like just building a really good experience, at a very low cost for 1000s, and 1000s of people, parents run around the world. Amazing.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:00:23

We know that co founder relationships can be challenging. But what happens when your co founder is your spouse, which actually is much more common than I realise? Should we find out?

Ollie Collard: 1:00:39

So, co founding a business is often compared to marriage. What pressure does being already married to each other place on the relationship?

Simon Hood: 1:00:53

Well, it just amplifies that, doesn't it? It's

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:00:55

I think it's when to turn off as well from your business. Because we're together in the day, we go home together, we then have a child together. And, yeah, it's beautiful. It all blurs

Simon Hood: 1:01:10

together into just what Nick

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:01:12

can become very work orientated everything about your life. So we have tried to lay rules down, when it comes to stuff aside, when we're like, we shouldn't be talking about work. But it's really hard, we find that sometimes we're half an hour through eating, and we're like this.

Simon Hood: 1:01:35

thing that becomes really difficult is that sometimes you need to talk about something to get it out, to kind of then move move on. And if you think there might be a couple of things that have happened, and you just need to get them done and sorted. But otherwise, you'd be thinking about those and you can't really move on to the next bit of the conversation. That's where this happens, where you kind of it just maybe goes on maybe a bit too much.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:02:03

But but we have, we have got so much better. So much better, haven't we over the years, and especially with gold? Do we have to remember her? Because at the end of the day, she knows what we do. She's very much aware of it. And she can pick up on it when you know when our time is meant to be with her. And we're still like in the background and over this idea. Sometimes, yeah. She says to us, can you stop talking? And that's when she says that to us? That's when I we've said in the background, you know, we've got to be more like her time is our to like our time with her. And yeah, we've massively made that a conscious effort to, you know, because otherwise, it's just, it becomes too much for us. All you need to do now as well. We need to have that break. Yeah. So

Ollie Collard: 1:02:51

how do you put those boundaries in place?

Simon Hood: 1:02:54

Well, we had a rule didn't really stick to it. Because the nine o'clock rule, wasn't it? Yeah. I mean, it's.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:03:06

Yeah, sometimes you have to physically let your brain refresh. And gold is great. For me, that's my way out. Because as soon as I'm with her, this, there's so much that she wants from me and that you have to get in that headspace. And I think she really helps us. Because our full attention is on her. And that's what we should be. And then when she goes to bed, we have to just remember to stay in that hour time as opposed to work time.

Simon Hood: 1:03:42

So we have a Friday night date night. Every Friday night. We have a look for it. Yeah, we have date night. Or just just us.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:03:58

Like,

Simon Hood: 1:03:58

call it something

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:04:01

different. We have different food. Well, I have different food. You have pizza every every Friday. Yeah, and we actually I look really look forward to that Friday night, because I feel like it's a little bit of what it used to be like as well. And you we I do feel like we can completely turn off. And then I think we're pretty good at the weekend as well. Again, for goodness sake.

Simon Hood: 1:04:25

Yeah, much better than we Yeah. And it's just, I don't think we can sit here and say, Oh, we've cracked it. The ABS 100% Have not cracked it. You know, it's just it's maybe maybe it's harder for us, you know, because of the the actual product as well. You know, we're we're actually using the product every single day as part of our life. We have it so mixed together. You can't be like, Oh, today we're not going to use superbugs because of course.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:04:57

Yeah, so it's part of our routine using Sefa It's at home, it's part of her bedtime routine. So that becomes very aware. And it's all it's always quite laughable as well, when you take it to bed and something's down on you can experience it as because you'll be tired. Why isn't this working? Good? He's asking for this specific, the Porsche rat, and I can't load the Porsche, right? It's not just me, it's gonna be really as other people as well, like, so. Are you are you like on the face of the device or whatever. But yeah, it's, it's good in that respect, because you understand what other parents or carers, carers are going through. But, yeah, it's, um, we haven't cracked it, but we're getting much better at it.

Ollie Collard: 1:05:48

If you had cracked it, that would be another million dollar business as well. Yeah, I mean, being a parent myself as well, I think the thing that I didn't expect when you become a parent, obviously, everything changes. But actually, when you're with them, how that actually makes you enable enables you to live in the present.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:06:08

Yeah, absolutely.

Simon Hood: 1:06:09

I couldn't agree more. It's the it's the one thing that makes your brain just quiet. You know, if they're not screaming in your face, like scrambled eggs. But yeah, that is. I've never experienced that before, actually, with anything. Yeah, I agree.

Ollie Collard: 1:06:30

And you've embedded Goldie into the business, as you said, with user testing there. But also She's the Chief story officer as well, I believe indeed, yeah. Excellent. And how do you manage life then in terms of obviously, being founders but also being apparent to her? Is there anything else in terms of your support network that enable you to actually do what you do? Yeah,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:06:53

we're very lucky. So we've recently just moved out outside London. And that's just changed the game completely, because we didn't have family in London. So it was always a little bit tricky in that respect. But since we've moved closer to family, it's been an absolute game changer for us, like our family know, our business inside out and what we're trying to achieve, but the end of the day, we've got this beautiful little girl, and you've got to remember her. So we are so lucky. We've got my sister around the corner. And we've got my parents the other side of us as well. So yeah, we have a lot of family support. From cousins, Granny and grandpa's everything. Yeah. So yeah, we're very lucky in that respect.

Simon Hood: 1:07:39

She's also a nursery three days, no, for two and a half days. Yeah. Which has, yes, just made things, you know, just that much, much easier for us just from having a

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:07:56

routine for her routine. Because that's one thing we wanted from having Goldie. We wanted to be there for her. We didn't want to check her internationally, straight, straight away. It works for some people, but I knew that wouldn't work for our Envision of what we saw as family life. So we were very lucky that at the start, well, obviously COVID came so we have no choice. So we were all in a little bubble for quite a while. But yeah, very lucky now to have family support. We couldn't ask for any more. Really. It's incredible that we've got a family around us. Yeah.

Ollie Collard: 1:08:33

What's one of your favourite failures so far was super books and what was the lesson that you took from it?

Simon Hood: 1:08:39

The site was completely free, open. We built around. It essentially just being a free service, because that's what we wanted for us. Then we decided there was a phase. Was it before investment? I can't remember?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:09:02

Um, yes. Yes. Just it might have been just on the borderline. Yeah, yeah. We

Simon Hood: 1:09:08

tried to monetize. It was more a test. It was it? Yeah. So yeah. So we tested this idea. And it was it was mainly driven by the fact that we just didn't have enough income to keep us to support ourselves. So we were like, well, we'll try this subscription service. But I didn't understand enough about Google at that point. Right. So you've gone from like getting these crazy massive, like loads of hits. And then we put the paywall on the site. And Google like within weeks was like, no, not we're not having that and what it was a very, very fast learning curve for that. Where we were like, right, we just don't understand what's happening here. So we started working with started trying to find out much more about the SEO There was a lot of things. But that tanked our traffic. And I think it was a combination of kind of like the COVID bubble bursting a little bit and putting this thing on, where the traffic really kind of like, did this. And then we realised, actually, it had to what we actually what we thought was, it had to be free in order to monetize. But that's not true. What we realised was that we just didn't know enough about SEO. So the first one of the first hires that we made when we got the money was we hired Carl, who is literally one of the best SEO experts in the UK. And he totally transformed how we, how we looked at Google and how we kind of how we built it out, because and that actually goes back to that thing I was saying earlier, it was it was great. When we we decided to go for that one keyword, which was great to start with. But we had no diversification. So we immediately saw like, if something happens to that keyword, your traffic is gone. And he came in, it was like, right, we're gonna diversify you into a category leader across the whole thing, which is essentially what we've managed to do. No. So we I think, I think we can say that we're the category leader in children's stories now in Google. And that's what that means for us is something like we had, we had one keyword that we were ranking number one for or a couple. And we're now at 19,000 different keywords ranking number one. That's

Ollie Collard: 1:11:43

that's good diversification. So

Simon Hood: 1:11:45

he's managed to basically take us into a position where we can no run these tests again, properly. But again, you're learning just just don't you don't have? Yeah. And that's, that's, it

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:12:00

leads to the delegation as well. I think Sinai we're perfectionists which can work in our favour at some point. We do try to Dibble dabble in a bit too much. And think that we can do everything as well between us. And we very quickly learned that that's not the case. And that's not the case. If you want to grow your business, you have to bring other amazing people in, shared the dream with them, hope they're on board, and also people that are better than you as well. And you have to stand back. And I think we both found that pretty hard at the start. Yeah.

Ollie Collard: 1:12:37

Yeah, that's always an issue for founders, I think because we start as obviously a generalist wearing lots of different hats. But to enable growth, obviously, you've got to let specialists come in to grow the business. But you've got to let go of things. Yeah. But also, I think the great thing is that you do get a grounding and an understanding of how to do an each and every job, maybe not in the best way. But so when you are delegating that, you know firsthand, what you're looking for,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:13:01

yeah, absolutely. I think it was a hard lesson for us. Because we were a bit like, you know, you think this this person, the right person, or can they do it, but actually, when you see the growth, and where it can go, you think yes. Okay. And I think that's helped us to ease a bit. And also be a bit like, you know, we can't be wearing 10 hats on the same day, or every day, it's exhausting. And we can't do it as well as

Simon Hood: 1:13:29

delegating yours. Yeah. You know, you know, so yeah,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:13:33

we very quickly learned that, and we've kept that up, which is good.

Simon Hood: 1:13:37

But this is, this is where it comes back to the vision again, you know, it's like, everything comes back to the vision because selling the dream, to not invent not just investors, it's the team, it's everyone that comes on this journey with you. And that is, it's just, it's just so important to get that right. You know, so

Ollie Collard: 1:13:56

building a business can be all consuming at times. What's a sacrifice that you've made, either consciously or subconsciously?

Simon Hood: 1:14:05

Well, I know, mine is. I mean, it's friends from social social time, you know, that's the bit, then the pie chart, which is lacking. And it's, you know, you call friends and things like that, but it's not the same as actually, you know, seeing them real life and friends are spread around the world now, you know, so that part of it is, I think it was maybe subconscious to start with, but then it became conscious, and then you're like, Well, I'm not actually sure how to solve that, to be honest. And I think it maybe is just one of those things that for now. You know, like every busy family, that side of things just kind of gets gets kind of paused a little bit or

Ollie Collard: 1:14:54

Yeah, and I guess yeah, just accepting that and, you know, ultimately good friends will stay friends and The long term right? Yeah, yeah.

Simon Hood: 1:15:02

I think finding, trying to find some time for yourself to do something, even if it's just a hobby or, you know, hitting some balls in the range or whatever, just some time, some time away. I think you need you do you need it?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:15:18

Do I need it? I struggled. I struggled quite early on. And with everything, with the business coming about, and Goldie coming into the world, it was a lot. And it was a lot for me. And it was locked down

Simon Hood: 1:15:35

as well.

Ollie Collard: 1:15:36

Three big things, right. Yeah,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:15:39

and I, I've really did struggle. And I think we struggled a little bit through it. I'm not sure how we got on the other end. But we did. Through communication. That's one thing we've always been so amazing at, in our relationship is communication. And I think without that, I think we probably wouldn't be here today. Together business everything, you know, but yeah, I know, I went through it. And I think when I sat back and thought about what is it that is making me feel like this is not, you know, because I'm quite a positive person. But I went through a really, yeah, I dipped quite quickly. And I realised it was because I was getting, I wasn't getting that a little bit of me time that I needed to refresh. And I felt almost guilty feeling like that, because I was like, I've just had a little baby, I've got an amazing family, the three of us are great together, or we've got a business that we're growing. And I felt really guilty for thinking that and I kind of put it to the back for a while. And it was only when my mom actually came to me and said, You look awful.

Ollie Collard: 1:16:57

I love the way

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:17:01

you need to change something like we can tell it my mom and dad, my family know me inside out. They can tell anything when there's anything wrong. And yeah, it took my mom, mom and dad who was who speak about them, they came to me and they said you need to sort something out now whether that's you need to take a step back from you know, we're here for you. We're here to support Goldie. But you need to take a step back from something or something needs to change. And that's when I realised, yeah, I just need that little bit of time for me. And I've put that into place now. And every morning, I get up whether it's six o'clock in the morning, I just get off and I go for that run. And that clears my head that I brought that back in now. And yeah, it's amazing.

Ollie Collard: 1:17:42

I do the same and it makes a world of difference. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:17:49

It's clear from listening to you the Superbook story, how important evolution is in business, your business is never going to start the same way that it's going to end up. And you have to really figure out when's the right time to stay the course. And when's the right time to pivot. And this is something that we can explore a little bit more, and that Simon And Charlene had to explore in their favourite failure that they described to us. So they wanted it to be completely free. And of course, that allowed them to get this very, very fast growth. But then they added the paywall, and their traffic completely tanked. So this was the time they then had to learn about SEO. So it wasn't necessarily the pivot. That was wrong, but they had to know how to then respond to the pivot that they've chosen to do, and try and catch up actually, with that decision that they've made so that they can get their traffic back. So what do you think is important when you're navigating a pivot? Firstly,

Ollie Collard: 1:18:49

you definitely got to look at the data like what is the story that's being told and why. So I will be reaching out to customers understanding why they potentially weren't converting from a freemium model into a paid customer, what their objections were, obviously, they were ranking on this one key word originally. So they built the success in the early days on the back of this SEO. But they couldn't obviously rest on their laurels here, they they grew, they got bigger, they were ranking this one keyword and then obviously everything changed. So it's about being open to learning. I think much the lesson here is that what got them success in the early days isn't what's going to make them successful in the long run without iteration and growth. So they they employed SEO specialists and now ranking for hundreds of keywords in their sector. And that's enabled them to attract more customers. But coming back to your question, Becky, knowing when to pivot or not like you've got to look at the data. You've got to make informed decisions. You've got to not go away from your your core focus as well. Like your, your North Star is still going to be there. So it's about maybe making mini experiments to see whether this new course, is the right direction to go in or not. Yeah, it's

Dr Becky Sage: 1:20:10

almost like you're starting up again, actually. And you kind of need to think in that lean way. We talk about grinders growth model in some of the training that I do. And in the growth model, it's essentially you have these different crises. Now, the crises don't necessarily have to mean that there's something terrible going on. But you have to be able to recognise as a founder, you starting to stagnate, because if you are, then there's a strong chance that you're actually going to start dropping off, you're actually going to maybe there's other people who are coming into the market that you need to compete with, maybe your operations could be more efficient. And there's something to do with that. But this is the point at which you need to be able to sense that it's time to pivot, we often talk about sort of living on the edge or at the edge when you're an entrepreneur, and you need to keep doing that you can't just rest on your laurels. Because otherwise, you're you potentially will, will lose the whole business businesses don't just keep running if we don't do anything. So I think certainly being able to know when is the right time to make those shifts. So this was also about for them recognising where is the issue here, because perhaps the issue wasn't that customers aren't going to pay the issue was the whole Google keywords thing. And I actually, I think it was more than hundreds, I think they said in the interview is 19,000 keywords. So they went from one to 19,000 Looking for an expansion there. But it would never have been right for them to do 19,000 keywords in the beginning like that one keyword is what allowed them to get to where they'd got to. And of course, once you've got that kind of traction, you only need a certain percentage to convert, you just need to make sure people can still find you at that point in time.

Ollie Collard: 1:21:58

And that's the point isn't it? At the time, they wouldn't have had the resources to rank or the know how to be able to rank on all those 19,000 keywords. So it's about using your resources at the time in the best possible way and allocation to have the biggest impact you can on the business. And

Dr Becky Sage: 1:22:16

Simon And Charlene have done that as a family unit alongside their daughter, Goldie, I loved the way they talked about how that they essentially are all part of this feels business building together. And actually, it's a for me listening in, it felt like this was part of the unique strength that they have as a business as they've got this family's support. So that when we're talking about kind of all those challenges that you have, as a business, the things that you need to sacrifice, they've actually built a really nice unit whereby they don't feel like they are actually sacrificing things, you know, everything in their life. They've actually got what they need right there. And the business is part of that.

Ollie Collard: 1:22:57

And it's all the same, isn't it? There isn't this distinction between the two. And obviously Goldie being their chief story officer and being able to test the stories and illustrations on her is amazing. Like, that just makes complete sense, right? If you can constantly do that, each and every night, then how much growth potential is as your product got? I think it's incredible.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:23:19

Absolutely. And I loved when they said like she demands it every night like they couldn't not use their own product at home. And, again, that it sort of sounds obvious, but I think in many cases, this doesn't happen in a business, it's sort of like, if you do leave it at the door, then well, you can't actually integrate it into your life. And then do you really have that energy and love for all of it. Of course, it's different in different situations. But in this particular one, it makes so much sense. And really, this is where the business was born from. And this is where the business is going to continue to grow. So I really loved hearing about that. And it just again brought it to life. And the other thing being Charlene mentioned her wider family kind of stepping in and saying to her, like, you look off and that something needs to change and and she listened to them. And she I guess because she knew that it needed to change. And now she she goes for her run and she clears her head. And so having those people around you is so vitally important. Entrepreneurship

Ollie Collard: 1:24:28

is ultimately a team sport. I'd say even if you're a solo founder in a business like it's your support network that is going to pick you up when you're down. They're going to you know, not let your ego get to your head when things are going really well. They're just going to be honest with you because they know you inside out and you need this, this this feedback and this support system because you can't do it all on your own even if you're a married couple in their case. It's impossible. It's about How can everyone make you be the best version of yourself in order to fulfil your own goals. And

Dr Becky Sage: 1:25:03

in this case, we've already reflected on it, how important them showing up as themselves, them showing up with a certain energy with that, that warmth, that kindness, if they're burnt out, that doesn't happen anymore. And that doesn't come out in the creativity of the product either.

Ollie Collard: 1:25:22

And you're going to notice that very quickly, if something's not right, if somebody's burnt out, it's it's going to come across in terms of the way that you're thinking the way that you're communicating the nonverbal communication, like everything is going to be off kilter. And that's going to have bad repercussions on your business on your customers on your bottom line, all round, rarely, so if you're close to burnout, is about acknowledging that, taking that advice on board and doing the things that re energise you, and give you a fresh perspective.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:25:56

And thankfully, Charlene and super books team have got that support system around them, which is why they've been able to create something that is so loved by so many people. Now, they've come a long way already, but there is still further to go. And they've got some really big goals to improve literacy world wide. Let's hear about the steps they plan to take next.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:26:23

We know what we want it to be, we're not sure how much we can tell you.

Simon Hood: 1:26:28

This is a really complicated topic. Right? There's, there's so many strands at play here. And it's not, it's not easy to decipher, there's not one thing that's going to solve literacy problems in the UK, it's a, it's happened over a long period of time. And, essentially, there's a couple of issues. The first is that the children's publishing industry hasn't really changed, they haven't done anything different, they're still printing books, you still buy the books, you know, it's still a very sort of retail distribution model. The other thing that's happened in those years is that Entertainment has just become, you know, it's exploded, it's instant, you get games, you get TV, you get all the other stuff, which is just easy, it's the touch of a button. So you've got this convenience, which is happening through entertainment. And you and then you couple that with living is more expensive, both parents are working time is limited. And you get into this situation where reading is just not done. It's just not done as much as it was is no longer really seen as an entertainment device is more seen as a kind of thing that I have to do. Because there's teachers tell me at school that I've got to read. And we've moved into a position where, you know, there's just not that much time in the day to do it. So our service, and the provision that we have is that reading becomes entertainment again. And we can, we can do that using the same model, examples, tricks, things, and that they put in they used in gaming and entertainment, but move it back into words. And we say, right, this is how it works access. So it's instantly accessible. It's it's seen by the child as being entertainment, and equivalent entertainment, and it provides a supportive role to the parents, so that the parent can enjoy stories together when it's convenient. And obviously, we know that that is the best way to read with your child. So everyone, please do that. But it's not always possible to do that. But we see a world where there's a choice, you can make a choice to have a better form of entertainment for your child. And it doesn't have to cost much. And that we see as being accessible to literally hundreds of millions of families across the world. So yeah, that's the vision in a kind of long winded way.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:29:25

I think it's all about revolutionising publishing at the end of the day, like we are becoming more digital as a society. So why can't reading go that way too. And I think that's what we're trying to bridge there. And hopefully it will help with the literacy as well because kids will want to read and find it exciting as well.

Ollie Collard: 1:29:46

Although assume you guys are both still advocates of physical books as well.

Simon Hood: 1:29:51

Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:29:54

I love reading from a book. You know, I love the feel it's so it's not saying that we're slamming books or anything like that, or physical books, we, we have plenty we have a library at home, it's just that we want it to be a convenience, we want it to be convenient for the family, we want it to be fun for the child and hopefully something that they can enjoy together.

Simon Hood: 1:30:16

But it has to be there. Otherwise, we're not going to actually solve the problem, it's gonna get worse. And then reading is gonna just disappear.

Ollie Collard: 1:30:26

If you had to both distilled down just one bit of advice to pass on to an early stage founder, what would that be?

Simon Hood: 1:30:36

I would say, aim high. And believe in yourself, you are only a few conversations away from someone that has the key to what you're looking for. If that's investment, if that's a relationship that you need to have, it's a, you know, partnership. So yeah, that would be

Ollie Collard: 1:31:00

Thank you. So surely,

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:31:03

I think you've got to remember that starting a business and being a founder, you're gonna have ups and downs. And it's certainly something I've realised that on a day to day basis, you can have good days, you can have bad days, you can have a mix. And I think it's that, that bouncing back and that resilience. And take a break as well refresh yourself and come back into it with you know, a new head, you'll see things with a completely different eyes open and a new outlook on life. So definitely resilience, have resilience and realise that there's going to be a lot of hard times as well as good times.

Ollie Collard: 1:31:40

If you offered 5 million pounds today, right now, for your business, would you sell it?

Simon Hood: 1:31:46

Absolutely not?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:31:48

Good. We have had that conversation. Sometimes, when things are going tough. We're like, shall we just would we just sell out? The No, I don't think

Simon Hood: 1:32:02

maybe are in a slightly different position to most businesses, we hold this invisible trump card, right? This is our life. We love it. You know, we could probably do this forever. Do we want to do we know whether that's gonna happen or not? I don't know. Doesn't matter, but we love what we do. So that's, that is the trump card that you hold against any conversation, investment, conversation, pitch VC, you know, you name it. You can walk away and say no, sorry. I think it's fine. I don't, you know, we don't want to take the offer.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:32:41

I think as well, we've got visions of where super books can go. And I think until we kind of get in that bracket, then maybe ask us the question again. A higher, higher, higher money.

Ollie Collard: 1:32:58

Love it. And what is that ultimate vision then? Well, this

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:33:02

is the thing, I'm not sure how much we can say that what we

Simon Hood: 1:33:07

what we we see to propose as being a billion pound kids entertainment brand. That's that's what we see. There's different ways and routes and things of getting getting there. And we don't know what exactly the path is going to look like to get there. But that is what we believe is possible.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:33:27

And we have got things in play. It's just they're quite under wraps at the moment.

Ollie Collard: 1:33:33

But yeah, so where can people find out a bit more about both of you personally, and more about Super books?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:33:41

Well go to super books.com. And that's s o o p e RC double O goes

Ollie Collard: 1:33:47

on there. You had a question for our listeners. So what is that question?

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:33:52

Well, actually, we thought about this quite hard, didn't we? We were thinking what's the best question? We thought we'd like to use this question, almost for us to learn from as well. So we'd love to know if your parents or if you've got children in your family, whether it be nieces, nephews, how long you spend currently, at the moment, reading? Well, that child reads, so it doesn't have to be with them. But how long does that child read at home?

Ollie Collard: 1:34:24

And did you have some options for people to vote on that? Yeah, so

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:34:27

we've got four options. The first one is none. The second one is, I don't know, under 20 minutes, and the last one is over 20 minutes per day, per day.

Ollie Collard: 1:34:40

Excellent. Charlene say it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for your time and all of your insights along the way.

Charlene Mitchell-Hood: 1:34:48

Thank you so much for having us.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:34:52

I really hope that super books and everyone else working to maintain and improve literacy succeed in them In a world without reading sounds really bleak. I definitely think that reading is one of the most joyful and calming and actually important things that I do in my life. How about you? Are you a big reader?

Ollie Collard: 1:35:13

I read two to three books a day, Becky,

Dr Becky Sage: 1:35:16

just three books a day.

Ollie Collard: 1:35:17

I'm cheating here. That's my bedtime routine with the kids. So yeah, don't believe everything you hear. But ya know, I think readings readings, vitally important, obviously, building that bond with your, with your children's incredible and watching them, you know, get reading for themselves, like doing their phonetics and then actually spelling out the words and then stringing the words together, it happens very quickly. My son only started school in September. And he's already reading now, which is, which is scary. But ya know, I think reading is, is something that you need to make time for. Regardless of what you're doing, whether you're working in a job or building a business, I think it just gives you that downtime to be able to refocus and also learn, it doesn't really matter what you reading fiction and nonfiction, I think it all helps and helps you connect the dots is what I tend to find, but I always go away on holiday and like really get into really lonely come back. And I need to make this a habit and haven't quite mastered that one yet.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:36:20

Ya know, I got back into that habit earlier this year. And I have been reading a little bit most days. And the same thing it to some extent, it doesn't matter what it is. It's more about the process of reading and and I've been reading more fiction, because for me, that's, that's an escape. That's easy. That's fun. I mean, I do read lots of nonfiction, I guess anyway, in the context of work, we're probably reading a lot, just reports and that kind of thing. But yeah, definitely tried to read more. Because for me, that's a nice peaceful place, a place that is not so peaceful for me and I have spoken before about my autism diagnosis. And I'm certainly I've always been quite introverted, is talking to people and forming relationships. And so it's often has been something where I've been quite afraid. But something that the Charlene and Simon were talking about, and we refer to this earlier as well, is like how important these relationships are. And this piece about, you're only a few conversations away from what you need. I loved hearing that, because it made it feel a lot less overwhelming to go out and have conversations and form relationships. And, you know, like I said, I put for me, it's not the easiest of things, it can take a lot of energy away from me, it's not that it's a difficult thing, necessarily, but it just takes so much energy. So when I kind of have that idea of No, actually you can, you don't have to have a million conversations. You as you were saying earlier, you you're very connected to several people, and it's not going to actually take you long to get to that conversation that you need to have.

Ollie Collard: 1:38:05

I like to think that I'm fairly well networked. But I actually, most of the time, don't enjoy networking, per se. What I really struggle with is those initial, really surface level conversations, the wherever the food, the drink it, I need to go a bit deeper, I just struggled with those initial icebreaker bits of introductions, I've got better with it, obviously, over time, and it's something that you learn to do as a founder, but I want to have a sort of a more meaningful conversation. So I find if there's a really inspiring talk, or there's a presentation from someone, and you can actually get into the meat of the conversation, without going down the whole surface level thing first. For me, that works a lot better. Absolutely.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:38:54

Yeah, that's what I need to do. And in my my way of doing that is to be the person doing the talk on stage. And then like people come to you it's, it's a lot easier. But I think that there's other things that we can learn as well from Simon And Charlene about kind of how you you do this and how you can do it effectively. I think something that that came across in everything that they were doing is it's this idea of kind of aiming high and having your Northstar, but also getting clear what you want from people on or even what it is you're trying to say what it is that you're trying to represent. I think that that makes it easier if you just go in very kind of wishy washy and all over the place, then the conversations never get to that deeper point.

Ollie Collard: 1:39:40

That I hate to see this. I think if people are being like quite scattergun in terms of their approach and not being specific, then what are they hoping to actually get from that conversation like? Like they said, with their investors, if they've got a specific problem, they will go to them and reach out and ask for help. But if they're not being told If they're saying, Oh, how do you overcome challenges or being quite vague? Then if you ask a crap question, you're gonna get a crap answer, right. And also, what you got to remember is that most people are very busy. Lots of people sometimes in our human nature are quite self absorbed. So sometimes we just don't have the bandwidth. Like if you get a question from somebody in your DNS on social, and it's a bit vague, and you don't know where to start with it, where how do you process it? Like, how are you going to give a meaningful response if the, if the actual approach wasn't very good in the first place. So it's a skill that you definitely need to refine?

Dr Becky Sage: 1:40:38

I love that idea of, it's how you frame your questions, that's really important. And of course, something else, I always like to talk about when we're talking about building relationships is listening as well. And so like, take the onus off yourself, craft some really great questions, and then listen to the answers. And everyone loves kind of being able to tell their story. So you're sort of giving them a platform to be able to tell their story. And in that, you're going to begin to build some of those relationships. Something else that gave me a lot of hope, as well was this idea that if you don't know, the right people now, doesn't mean that you won't in the future. And I guess we touched on this, and we've touched on it a lot that if you're an entrepreneur, that that doesn't come from a kind of very well connected business background, you haven't been to the right schools or the right universities, or then sometimes it can feel a little bit hopeless, you just feel like everybody else is operating in a world that you don't even have access to. But in fact, it always happens one person at a time, so you can go and have that conversation. And then that's going to open up something else. And it for me in my career, this has happened time and time and time again, where you kind of just have one starting point. And that has ultimately led to some incredible opportunities, incredible friendships, relationships. And so that's something I think, to really hold in your mind as well, that idea of it doesn't, just because it's not here now doesn't mean it's not something that you can achieve these your network or, or the relationships you want to build with people. I

Ollie Collard: 1:42:13

think your starting point doesn't matter. In that sense. Like you've got to take responsibility for where you are, and where you want to go. Like, you know, people don't all have networks and money in this privilege start in life, like I was the first person in my family test university like it doesn't, it doesn't matter, you can build up networks, but it does take time, you've got to be patient, you've got to approach it in the right way. You've got to add value, got to reciprocate, you got to listen, all of these fundamental things you gotta learn over time, in order to build lasting and meaningful relationships. But I think you've just got to start that's, that's the key.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:42:53

I always think it's important to make sure you build space, again, coming from a point of view where I can become very drained by this kind of, you know, by conversations or by, by that relationship building, give it enough space, like give this the reverence I guess it deserves and give yourself a break afterwards as well. If you know it's going to be something draining to you then figure out how you can carve out time. So it might not be a break from work. But it might be like, Okay, if you've got something really people heavy, perhaps the next day, you're going to shut yourself away, if possible, and focus on things that you can do by yourself and allow yourself to kind of reset by doing that, which is really the other part of the the advice that Simon And Charlene were giving, which is this kind of bouncing from highs to lows or B and being resilient and figuring out what you need to do to build your resilience. So similar, that is something that some people might need to do, you might need to build in. Okay, I have to have a quieter day if I've had a very people centric day, for example. And I think I just wanted to flag again, like how important it is to recognise that highs and lows are inevitable. We talk about it all the time on this podcast. But I think it kind of needs to needs to be said we need to keep reminding people that there's going to be good times there's going to be bad times the highs are as inevitable as the lows, I'm going to put that out there. And if we if you think that there's always going to be something bad that's going to happen, I think you need to again, shift your mindset, which is something we were talking about last week into this idea that the highs are gonna be there too. So you kind of got to ride that way. If

Ollie Collard: 1:44:31

you do and you only learn by experience ultimately, by sometimes pushing yourself too much not understanding what your limitations are making those mistakes and then readjusting how you manage your diary and your activities and wherever you're working on admin strategy or managing a team whatever it is like working out what elements you can do and when and what is going to enable you to work to the best of your ability and

Dr Becky Sage: 1:44:57

doing entrepreneurship. Part of that is about Doing what you love. And this is what Simon said, in terms of like, that's your trump card. So if you find yourself in a position where you're not doing what you love, and you haven't got that to energise you, you kind of aren't want to ask yourself, why if you're in an entrepreneurial position, because if you're not loving it, then then it can be really tough. If

Ollie Collard: 1:45:19

you aren't feeling it, obviously, something is out of kilter, you're not you're not fully aligned. So there's only four basic things that you need to look for. So are you playing to your strengths? Are you being paid well, for what you're doing? does the world need this solution is a big problem that you're solving, and you're doing ultimately, what you love. And if you get that sweet spot in between all of those things, then you're definitely going to feel very driven. And that like Simon says, it's going to be your trump card. And it's, you're going to play that to your competitive advantage.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:45:55

Yeah. And I know, I can hear people out there going, but what if I love it, but nobody's paying for it? Like, that really comes back to the crux of business, right? Like, this is your job as a founder to figure out, you know, is there a market for it? Does the world want to pay for it? If there's not maybe there's another way in order to fulfil your passions and do the things that you that you love, and perhaps entrepreneurship isn't the vehicle although I would probably argue that I think that if you aren't really entrepreneurial minded, you'll find a way to make this work, you will,

Ollie Collard: 1:46:27

you'll find the right. But ultimately, you're just trying to find the right business models, there's no harm in building a customer base and a reputation on a on a free model of doing that for low, low value. Because ultimately, if you aren't providing value, then you're going to find the right model to monetize that and bring that to life. Yeah.

Dr Becky Sage: 1:46:49

So anyone who's listening who's feeling frustrated, you still got this. Keep going. And again, learning from Simon And Charlene, it might be time to pivot. It might be time to, to think about a new way of doing this, but you love it. Keep at it. So if you're interested in knowing more about Simon Charlene and super books, make sure that you check out their links. And don't forget to head over to our socials to answer the question from Simon And Charlene. We want to know, how much the children in your life are reading. So talking about the socials Ali, what are people saying about the last episode from Kim Clementine?

Ollie Collard: 1:47:37

We have a great question from Kim Palmer, founder of Clementine, she wants to know, do you make your decisions based on more of a intuition, or B data, the results in and they are very split between the two 60% of you make your decisions based on intuition. And the remaining 40% went for making decisions based off cold hard data. Now I really think it comes down to two things. Firstly, a your personality type, but be also how much data you actually record within the running of your own startup. So thanks for that. Great question, Kim. And we got some interesting results for

Dr Becky Sage: 1:48:18

you. And Ali, can you tell us about our next guest Sure. Kenny

Ollie Collard: 1:48:22

so larger than life kind of guy, and exited founder called Roy Samuel, who is already making waves in the startup ecosystem with his business connected, as I say really great guy. And also what I love about him is that he's really talking about his battle and struggle with ADHD and how he uses that as a superpower. Excellent

Dr Becky Sage: 1:48:45

love to hear neuro divergence being used as a Super. Thank you everyone for listening. And if you like what you've heard, please leave us a review on Apple podcasts. And don't forget there's a big selection of previous episodes just search bounded and granted on your favourite podcast player. Thank you for listening to find it and grounded with Ollie collard and Dr. Becky sage. Don't forget to press that follow button to help us to grow the show.