SPEAKER_00 0:00

And so as an agency owner, you put quite a lot of heart and soul into the business and no one knows you don't really reward yourself if you're starting out on your own at 19 and 20 and you're coming into it cold. You've got to learn the hard way. You exited your agency to FinPartners. How did that come about? So we we were getting to that point.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

That's a completely different part.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

At the end of the day, everyone's a human, so having a sensible conversation, you can always find an answer.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

What was that transition like going from a 35 to a like a 1,300 employees?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

You're gonna fail and you're gonna feel like an idiot because you missed a boat on it, but we've all done it.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

That is most young men's dream.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

You've got to be prepared to do things terribly, make bad decisions, you know, all you do is just have time. Anything that's massively reliant on you as an owner is a problem.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

If you were starting again from scratch, how would you stand out right now? Alexis, it's great to have you on Agency Giants. Lovely to be here. Cool. So you exited your agency in 2021 with Mint Twist to FinPartners. Yep. How did that come about?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

So we we were getting to that point with our own agency where um you know you the million pound a year revenue mark is a big one. Um it takes a few years to to sort of pass that mark. Um, you restructure your agency a little bit, and then you go on the next journey. Um so we we were on our way towards sort of uh the mid-seven figures in revenue, but then again, it started to feel quite hard, and we were like, right, what's what's the next step here? And you know, you've got a few options, uh, one of them is to acquire. Um one of them would be to be acquired, uh, or you just keep going as you are and hope that organic kind of kicks in and takes you forwards. Um so we we sat down and spoke about it and thought um what what's the best option for us? Um and we felt that aligning with a business that had similar values didn't really do what we did, so there was a kind of complementary service aspect where we could we could partner with them with their clients and and likewise and it felt like a natural fit that that was um that was the option we thought would was best for us.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

And so when making the decision, okay, we'd quite like to get acquired and obviously get a bit of capital out of the business. Were you approached by that or did you actively seek someone to buy the business?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

It was a little bit of both, if I'm honest. Um, we were at the level where I think you get on people's radars, um, people who are acquisitive, you know, scouring um the various lists, public lists to see what's out there. Um we used to receive a few emails, we had a few meetings. Um, but we thought that we wanted to be a little bit more intentional about it, so we we actively started looking for the types of businesses that we wanted to talk to, to that we would feel that we would fit nicely with. Um and in the end, once we'd sort of started that journey, we found a company that helped us put the pack together and make us look interesting and tell the story. Really, it's all about the story, the narrative. What what's your journey been? Where are you going? Why would anybody be interested in you?

SPEAKER_03 3:38

And how long does that look as a time span from making the active decision that you want to do this to actually getting that deal wrapped up?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

It's a good question. I think it's probably a good couple of years. Um, you know, as you all know, like the inside your business there are quirks, you know, in the books. You know, you've got to get uh the revenue nice and tidy, the client base nice and tidy. Um you've got to start thinking about how you know how long's my lease, you know. So there's lots of back office stuff that you've got to get into a nice spot um before you then put this pack together that you're gonna send out to people because you know in there is everything. Um, and you don't want any reasons why people wouldn't want to talk to you. Um so it's probably a couple of years.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Does that create a lot of anxiety in the business that you're already running, in knowing that that could maybe fall through or um I think the the housekeeping bit is just good practice, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

I think it you know we were at the point where we needed to be better, we needed to have the finance infrastructure in a slightly better place, the processes, so all of that stuff was making us better anyway. Um and then the decision to sort of speak to somebody to help us tell the story, and they actually helped make some calls to people to do some introductions. Um you know that process felt fairly natural. Um, but once those meetings started going in the diary, it started taking up quite a lot of time. Um so you end up doing your day job, and then you've got this other side activity which is as much time. It's a bit like dating.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Yeah, I can imagine it's a it's a stressful process. Were you motivated by releasing capital from the business or just unlocking another level of scale in the company?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Uh for us it was the scale was the big thing. Um the the capital piece is sort of it felt like reward for the hard work you've done, the effort you put in over the last you know, for us ten years. Um so that was definitely nice. Um there was a there was an element of de-risking. Um if all your eggs are in one basket and something goes wrong, you know, you the bigger you get, the bigger your uh cash flow, the bigger your expenses, the quicker things can go south if you lose a couple of big clients. Um and so there was an element of how far do we take the risk ourselves? You know, and and we we have an appetite for risk and growth, and um you know we could have kept going on the journey, you know, and I'm sure we would have carried on doing some really good stuff, but it felt like the stars were kind of aligning behind you know, taking a bit off the table, um, but being somewhere where you can then thrive and grow and be bigger and much uh at a much larger scale.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Yeah, I can see that. I think it's like the North Star for many people that start a business, they get involved and then figure out how difficult it actually is to especially in the agency business model and just us any service-based business is just dog eat dog, and things are changing all the time, we have to be constantly on our toes. And so that exit is like the light at the end of the tunnel for I think a lot of agency owners. Did it live up to expectation? Did it really feel like the the payoff that you deserved? Like, how did you feel about it when all was said and done?

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Um I I think if I'm honest, it did. I think um you know, like anything, you feel you're you're worth loads more than people are willing to pay for it, and and that's just um that's just how personally attached you are to it. But I think you know, we we took a we met a lot of people, right? So we probably had 25 meetings, first days meetings, to to try and get the chemistry and stuff, and so we were really particular about where we were gonna go. You know, WPP came in and had a chat with them, and you know, they sat in a room, and the first thing these three guys did is got their laptops out with spreadsheets, and we were like, probably not gonna work for us. Um, and so when you end up in a place that you feel like you fit, that bit feels good because it's not like you've turned up in a in a completely alien planet that you know I've had friends of mine that have sold and have have left the new business in nine months because they're like it just is horrible. Uh and so we were conscious we didn't want that, and we were very um core to everything that we did is our staff, and so we were really, really conscious that wherever we went they would feel good because they've been really good to us and we did want we wanted to do right by them.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean it's the lifeline of every exactly the service-based business.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

I mean you you know all you do is you sell time, so you know, having amazing people is the only way you can be successful.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

And it's an exciting path for them to take then being brought on. Well, how was that perceived actually by the staff making that announcement?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah, I think um so because we because we were doing this kind of dating piece, we were just meeting businesses and seeing how we fit. Um we ended up doing it, and if I the timeline is is really weird because um it was sort of Christmas nineteen when we sort of decided that this is what we wanted to do and we met the right people and we were figuring out how to do it, um, and then COVID hit, right? So we we'd given up the lease on our office that Christmas prior to any deal being done. We'd made a decision that this is something we want to pursue, and the worst comes to the worst, we can always find another office. Um and so as we got into the the nuts and bolts of the conversation, um it became very, very clear that their their bank wasn't keen on um you know risk you know during the time. So we actually partnered with them for a year, so it it was kind of an even softer landing, if you like, because uh they said to us, um, you know, we got some office space free, you know, you're welcome to use it, you know. Um so we we did, and we had a year of getting to know each other, um which was really, really powerful. Again, not typical, but that's the way it landed in in that particular time.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

So the the the reason I say that is because the staff it it felt organic at that point.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

It was a natural progression.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, and you know, they could see where we were heading and why we were doing it and the benefits of being with um with a company like Finn.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

You mentioned thinking or always believing that you're worth more than than than you are, and I think that's something that a lot of agency owners don't actually realise is that the multiples aren't as as sensational as say a software business, correct, which I'm aware you've got history in as well, um, or being a software developer. Um could you speculate on what kind of multiple you managed to get for the business?

SPEAKER_00 11:20

We ended up talking about revenue. Um we were on a we were on a growth trajectory, and we always have been. So we grew every year, come what may, sometimes 10%, sometimes 40%. So our trajectory was always good. So we we were very clear that the conversations were around, you know, we're buying what we are today and the people that we are and the clients that we have and our processes of doing things, um, but we're on a really good journey, and so we we had to figure out a way to have that conversation. But I think um, you know, the typical typical multiples of eBit were were kind of five-ish. Um, you know, on a good day you might get a bit more six. Um it a few years prior to that, you might have even gone as high as eight if you had a really good niche model.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Um so yeah, that that's the kind of typical numbers. And and I suppose I can only imagine it being a really valuable exercise when you are making that decision to to be acquired. It makes you and it forces you to look at the business in many ways that maybe you haven't done before, and you have to rebuild a lot of the existing infrastructure that you've got. What would you say were some of the biggest lessons that you took from that process and like looking at the company objectively and being like, okay, we need to maximize on our potential return here. What were the biggest lessons?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

So anything that's massively reliant on you as an owner is a problem, right? Because you know, then they're buying you, and you know, we found that as you get over the million pound a year mark, you know, so you're talking 100 grand a month revenue, you're sort of at the size where you need leadership, you need uh you need the next level down to help you with things. Um, you know, we we worked quite hard to put like a board in place, um, and so we had a few senior people in the team on the board, and finance was there, and we had a non-exec chairman who came in and chaired the board, and and so we started to run the governance of the business as if we were slightly bigger, and it was quite painful as you're going along because it you know, you just you know, as a as a young entrepreneur, you just want to roll your sleeves up and get on with stuff. Um but I think it was a good process to go through, and it kept us in check, kept us accountable to each other. You know, we all had to agree on whatever the plan is for the next quarter, and then we we would each go off and do our bit to contribute towards that. Um so you know, no, as all agency owners will know you don't really know what you don't know until it until you have to know it, right? So you're kind of doing an MBA on the job the whole time, and in some respects it's way better than doing an MBA because it's all real life stuff. Um, and so as we built that structure out and we had this senior team, it became much easier to talk to people about look, you know, it I am important to the business, but if I get hit by a bus, the business doesn't stop, it keeps going. Um, one of the objectives, one of the things we always kept track of was succession planning, who's going to take over from who if someone gets hit by a bus. And and so we always had our eye on who could step up and take my place and who could step up and take Elliot's place. Um, you know, and on paper, they might not look as good as you initially, but we had confidence that they would learn what they needed to learn and and get stuck in. Um so that that was quite good. The structural piece was was important to us.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Um that's very interesting. Um how do you ensure that the senior directors in the business understand the complexities of all areas of the business enough to be a because it's one thing being the founder and building from scratch, you've built that baby from the ground up so you have a deep understanding of everything. And maybe this is a selfish question because it's something I think about in my business. It would be very hard if if if Joe, my business partner, got hit by a bus for somebody else other than me in the company to actually step up and run that. So, how do you ensure that the senior management and directors have a deep enough understanding of everything?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

So you've got to make the decision to be open and honest and transparent about the warts and all stuff that you probably don't talk about, right? You know, there are times we've all had where you're like, How am I gonna make payroll this month? I've got all this business that's out there and I've got all these invoices out there, but no one's paying me. Like, what do I do? You know, and then then last week of the month the money comes in, you kind of take a sigh of relief. But you it's that level of anxiety that that people don't really know about, and so you need to bring the next level, how many people that is, a couple of people, you need to bring them into the inner circle and you need to have them understand the pain of running a business. It's not easy. People look at it and you know, you you know, it's easy, right? Oh, you've got 30 people, it's easy, and it's not easy, like you know, there are times where you know you've got to have conversations with the HMRC about something, or you've got to, you know, the accountants are telling you you can't do anything like you used to, and um you have to manage all of these things, not even to mention 30 conversations about individual people. I think we got up to about 36 or 38 people, and just managing people is a full-time job, um, and so that's the stuff that people don't really know about. So bringing in the next level and having them understand the nuances and the difficulties, I think it's a really good starting point. And to be fair, that a lot of that is what we spoke about in the board meetings. Um, we were very strict about having them on the monthly basis, three hours, they're in the diary, once a quarter, we'd go off site and and do it over a lunch, or would you know do it over a day, um, and you'd talk about the tough stuff.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

It's probably the most brutal brutal point to run an agency is that 20 to 50 employees where you don't really have enough finance to really get the great senior people in managed properly, and as a founder, the pressure is is pretty immense at that point. Um so building that business and having all of that board involved and getting a deep understanding of it and the complexities of it, were they all bought in on a um did they own percentages in the businesses as well? Was there like a shared percentage in the board? And and and if no, what does that look like when you're planning to exit? Is it hard to maintain motivation in the business? If you're planning on exit and you're gonna see a decent payout, but you're so you're working towards this North Star that on paper doesn't give the big benefit to everybody else who's working so hard alongside that. I suppose that's always something that I'm considering when looking at potential exits in the future.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, so we we spent quite a long time figuring out how to bring in this employee shared ownership model, and um it was complicated. Um I think we always did our very best to pay well um as good as we could with the small business that we were. Let's face it, you know, when you're 30, 40, 50 people, you're still a small business. Um, and I think that the thing for us is that we never it this was never an exit, right? We were never gonna, you know, take anything off the table and walk away. This was always about you know, rewarding ourselves for the fact that you know, Elliot and I there was one year where we didn't really take a salary, like no salary. We paid the business, we put all the money back into the business, we invested in new people. You know, back when we first started, we were a web design outfit, like you said, you know, as a software engineer, software engineer. Elliot was a software engineer, we built websites, right? Um, people came back to us quite quickly, you know, late 2000s, and they were like, Thank this is an amazing website. Um, you know, what can we do with it now? And so you start to teach yourself about SEO, built an SEO team. SEO became very difficult with all the regulations and updates and panda and penguin, and and suddenly paid became a thing, so we had to build this paid team. And so, as an agency owner, we put quite a lot of heart and soul into the business, and no one knows that you don't really reward yourself, you don't take big, big salaries, you don't buy expensive things, you you your heart and soul is building this business that one day, like you say, is gonna have a bit of a payoff. Um, and so part of this whole process, you know, it was just the next step on our journey, it was an evolution, and the transaction that we did was just about us rewarding ourselves for all the hard work over the last you know 10 or 15 years, and so that we didn't really there was no real, there wasn't a justification, we didn't have to say to people this is what we're doing, it was just it it was an organic process. Um we were getting to the point where we were the right size, um, and finding a home for us like we did with Finn Partners meant that the next 10 years are baked in, like everybody, anyone who wants to stay and grow can do it here. And people in our team are now leading global teams. Um it's great, you know. We're the global centre for SEO in London. Um the paid media team, you know, but we've got some really great people who are in there leading that department globally. Um so yeah, that that kind of was the motivation for us. And did you retain part ownership of Mint Twist in the No, so it's a that's one of the the the um the key elements to the to most transactions is that is that the the new business owns all the shares. So we're senior in the new business, but you don't retain ownership.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

So it's kind of like getting paid to take a high paid job.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

You yeah, I think you you end up with a with a real Really good job in a really good business doing your thing. Um, again, it it comes back to this finding a good a good fit for the business because they were very clear with us like what you have done and what you have built is amazing, and we don't want to change a thing, we don't want to tell you what to do, we don't want to change anything, just keep doing what you're doing, but you've now got the backing of this big framework, and they take accounting away from you, they take HR away from you, they take the office away from you. So all the things that you had to do as a founder that took up so much of your time on a weekly basis to manage is suddenly not there anymore. And so you have the freedom to now go and do what you do, right? Go out there, meet people, sell, you know, win amazing projects, collaborate with the teams around the world and sell more to all of our existing clients. And that's the biggest breath of fresh air when when you come through the other side here.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

What is that? I can only imagine that release of stress and pressure to be just immense. I would sleep for days.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Although there are look, ultimately, we we don't take lightly how well we've landed, okay? Um, the team, the Finn family, Peter owns the business, um, runs the business. Um his son Noah, who I work directly with, heads up the marketing team, and they said to us, Go and take three weeks off, go away. Nice, like relax, don't worry about this, come back, reinvigorated, and then we'll figure out where we go next. And so we did that, you know. We took the kids, we went uh we went to the Mediterranean, we did three weeks in a hotel. Who does that? Um we came back and we were like, this is rubbish, let's go away again. So I think two days later we went to Cyprus for a week, and so I basically had a month off. Um, although the the last bit I ended up sort of diving into work a bit because we needed to get going. But um, yeah, they were great, and and so that bit you know, there's a lot to learn. You've been doing your own thing in your own way for a long time, and then you end up inside this bigger business, and you're trying to understand how it all how it works, and how who do I talk to about this, who do I talk to about that, and everyone wants to meet you. Um, and so you suddenly realize that there is way, way more out there than what we've been in this little bubble for the last 10 years. I can imagine. And um, and then it becomes quite exciting because you start to see the opportunities and the brands, the you know, the global brands that they work with, it's just phenomenal. So we can just tap into all of that.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

What was that transition like going from a company with 35-ish employees to a business with over 1,300 employees to over 30 officers, almost as many officers as as you had employees? That's a completely different world, right? It's completely different, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

It's completely different, but it is the same, right? Same challenges, maybe the numbers are all a bit bigger, but you know, the same challenges. Um the global piece is interesting, you know. The the nuances of the UK versus the US versus Asia, very, very interesting. Um it takes a bit of getting used to. There's a lot of names, you know. I think you know, lots of people want to meet you, lots of people want your time, lots of people want to pick your brains. Can you help me with this? And I've got this client, and and they've been talking about that, and um, so that you you end up running quite quickly, you land and then you just get going. Um but you've got to have the appetite for that because you know there's a lot of people that would get to the end of the journey and then they're like, you know what, that's my agency bit done, you know, I'm out, I'll I'll transition it for a year, and um and then I'm done. I'm gonna go and do some product stuff, or I'm gonna do something else that's not service-based. Um but we always felt like there was a next chapter for us, uh, and the next chapter was was a big kind of global chapter, and um early on, actually, probably around 2010 to 12, we we worked with the British government on their passport to export scheme because we knew we wanted to have another office somewhere else to do some bigger scale stuff. And um that scheme is really cool because they they pay for a lot of things for you and they take you on trade missions to other countries, and we ended up in the Middle East, so we took an office in Dubai and we ran that for probably six years, and over that time we were backwards and forwards from there. Um we k worked in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait, like we worked all over the region, and that was fun, that was cool, hard work, but it it sort of opened our eyes to you know, the work we do in London in the UK is very insular, um, and there's way more to you know, bigger projects, um multi-region, uh, and and that sort of it kept our appetite alive for that sort of stuff. So, again, part of our conversations when we were talking to people was about this global presence and and how can we tap into the kind of bigger scale projects, bigger budgets. You know, we work with clients now that have budgets that are way bigger than our entire revenue previously, and that's just nuts when you think about it.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Yeah, it's amazing. And I mean the company's doing hundreds of millions in revenue, and you've come from this position which is so polarizing to that presumably your role changes so much as well. Are you still heading up what is essentially Mint Twist inside of a larger corporation? Is it like an agency within an agency, or does it how does it operate?

SPEAKER_00 28:19

So originally that is how it worked. Uh, we we were attractive because we could come in and run digital in Europe. They had teams in the US that were doing digital work and nothing in Europe. Um and so in the PR world, everything is organized by sector. So you have a PR tech team, health team, travel team, consumer, uh, etc. etc. Um, and then we we came in to be this digital layer across all of it. Um, so if an existing client needs an SEO project, we can help. If they need a website, we can help. Um, and so that was the model across uh all of the businesses actually. The US team primarily took care of US clients, we took care of the European clients. Um and then we realized that you know, as we got to work with the senior leadership team and the other founders, we we got to realise that there was a huge amount of inefficiency in that. Um and so over the last year we've kind of worked to integrate all of the digital teams into just one big team. Uh so now we're just Finn marketing, and so we've transitioned away from the legacy business units into just one large marketing team, 250 people. Um, and I'm on the executive team that runs that business unit now.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

So presumably before the acquisition, Finn weren't offering SEO and web services, or were they just not to the standard that they wanted to offer?

SPEAKER_00 29:52

They were doing it all in the in the US, so they had nothing in Europe, which meant that the European team struggled to get a foothold in the queue with the US teams. Um time zone issues, you know, we're five hours behind uh New York five hours behind us. Um and so coming here to help them with that was was the key. They did media, but not a huge amount of performance, they do a lot of traditional media buying, uh zero SEO anywhere. They tried to get a few pilot things going, um, but that was slow progress. So we were we were like the rocket fuel to to bring that all up to speed.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

Fine. And presumably, and I can only imagine that not only just from the perspective of Finn, you're acquiring team and clients, which of course is great, but newer agencies are always the ones that are forced to innovate and and and really stay on top, at least from my perspective, the hardest because we have to compete with all the big dogs, and we have to do and so are there any significant standout lessons or things that you think you've brought to the table since the acquisition to Finn that has made a significant on impact on the larger business, on the way things are done?

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Um I think so. I one of the things we are good at in the UK is the structure and the process, and you know, the roll your sleeves up and just get stuff done. Um, don't let too much process get in the way. So I think the way that we were operating at Mint Twist was very, very successful, right? We were profitable, um and what we saw in the US is it was it was a little bit fragmented, um and lots of the offices were all doing their own things in their own ways, and so because we had the largest digital team in one place, it became quite clear that actually one of the easiest things we could do is take all of those processes and sort of push them out into the wider business and help structure everybody else. Now that's not saying everything we did was perfect or everything we did was the best way to do it, there were certainly other other people in other places that had some great um processes um of their own. But we what we did is we combined all of that and and unified it. Um initially it was in the different business units, but then what now we've combined everybody in under one marketing umbrella, um, it's one process for search, you know, one process for media, um, the workflow is standardized, uh, and it's it works quite well.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

It always amazes me how many because you know I mean Finn Finn Partners are a huge agency, and there are there are many very large agencies that exist in the world, and it always amazes me how in light of that we can still stand out from everybody else. I know Finn were awarded best mid-sized agency of the year like three years in a row. What do you think it it is about Finn specifically that make them stand out from some of the other large agencies in the world?

SPEAKER_00 33:10

I think there's a really good ethical stance. Um, you know, we we won't work with certain types of businesses, um you know, tobacco, oil, that kind of uh area. Um the way we treat the people, um, you know, the tenures are long. Um I think you know, at that level, it's still it what we're seeing is it the stuff that always used to help us or worry us about competing, you know, when you're 10 people or 30 people, we have the same problem when you're competing, uh a thousand people or two thousand people, and standing out is hard. So um, you know, becoming a true partner to the clients is something that we were always passionate about. You know, they they are exactly the same, so there's this kind of trusted partnership that we have in our client agency relationships that I think is is genuine. Um, and you know, they are independent, they're owned by the Finn family, they still own it, you know. Um, lots of the family are involved in the business, and we see them all the time, we talk to them on email all the time. And Peter's come into London uh in about a month, and you know, he's doing a round table with the London office, and we're going for dinner, and so it's it's a weird one because it's sort of a boutique agency in a large agency, and I know that's quite hard to comp comprehend because you know when you're talking about you know 13, 14, 1500 people, it it is it is a weird one, but that I think it does feel different compared to you know some of the direct competitors you know start going into you know the creative agencies and the ogil vs and the Leah Burnett's and these kind of WPP agencies. I think it is a different feel inside, and everything they talk about and all the awards they go through for, you know, they put the videos together that showcase that side of the business.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

So it's the it's the it's the image of the agency ultimately, it's the that boutique energy. Uh it's it's it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

I it's very hard to picture how that would be in such a large company and you don't lose that essence of Yeah, I mean it's it's a it's a hot topic really because you know when you've got so many offices in so many time zones, how do you keep the DNA the same? Like how do you maintain you know the reason that they've been acquisitive and bought agencies is for the specific schools skill sets in the specific regions, and those offices all had their own way of doing things, they had their own little culture. But because they're very specific about who they bring in, where the cultures fit, um, you know, we we um we worked quite closely with the London team in the initial conversations, and we were talking about um you know the things that we do on you know people's birthday and we have cake and um you know the way that we treat our staff and it ended up being exactly the same as the way that they do it, but not just in the UK globally. Um and yeah, that that it was apparent and it became clear that um that that sort of synergy was was was across all the offices, despite the offices being completely different culturally, you know. Singapore do things in a very different way to New York, but if you went, and I have been to both the offices, they are the same, you know, the people the everybody's friendly, everybody's nice.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

What do you think the secret is to that?

SPEAKER_00 36:58

I think it comes back to good people, like good, honest, talented people. You know, we've been through the pain over the years of you know, you think you want to start a little new thing, and so you go and hire this superhero person who's just amazing at it, and they come in, and they are amazing at that thing, but they're not a cultural fit, and before you know it, the whole thing's blowing up because they're causing chaos, and so you have to part ways and you know remind yourself that culture first, fit first, talent is great, but if you don't fit, it's a massive problem, and so they they're very good at doing that at a business level, you know, making sure that the founders are gonna fit, like that there's a lot of managing partners around the world, and you know, they all get on, um, they all pull in the same direction. Um, and so I think you just gotta work hard at it. I think don't take shortcuts, don't kid yourself, you know, it's all the usual stuff, but at a much higher level.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

You obviously founded Mintwist with a with your business partner Elliot. Um were they two were your two was your relationship like a polarizing complementary relationship in the sense that one person was more on the business development side, one person on the server side, which is what we quite often see in in agencies originally? Were you both or were you both service focused? And how does that now look when you're in Fin Twist presum uh in Fin Partners, presumably together still? I presume Elliot has taken a role in Finn as well. So what did that how what did that relationship look like initially and how has that now changed through the acquisition?

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Um so originally it was just me and a laptop, so I ran it by myself for a few years, saw the opportunity to grow it. Elliot, who we've been best friends since we were 10. So we've been we've been at school together, you know. So that's awesome. Best man's at each other's weddings, all that kind of stuff. He he went down the consulting route, so he was taking contracts, he was in the Silicon Valley in the dot-com boom. He went to a Google party when there was like 23 people. Um he did a stint a couple of years in Zurich, he did some time in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, contracting all over the world. I kept saying to him, There's this thing, it's definitely gonna work. Um, get involved. Um, and it's only when he took a contract in London that he then sat next to his now wife and he said, I'm gonna stay in London, and I was like, right, now's the time. Um, so I had a client that was doing some stuff in Hong Kong, and we went to Hong Kong and spent a week figuring out how we were gonna do it, and then I think a few weeks later, um we kind of clubbed together, got the limited company sorted out with both of us in there, put a bit of money in, got got a server, first employee, and we were off and running. But like you say, very, very quickly we realised we can't both do the same thing. Um, and he said, you know, he'll take one for the team and go down the sales route, the business route. Um now, look, both of us got involved in a lot, but he took more oversight of that area and responsibility for that area, and I was looking after the delivery side, and that's how it's played out in in the new world in Finn. Um I'm heading up like the operational side of the marketing team, and he's in the global growth team, so he's he's out there talking to big brands. We just won some nice work with Box, um, and he's bringing all that to the table.

SPEAKER_03 40:51

That's amazing. I I that is most young men's dream to go through the journey that you've gone through with a great friend. Um, so I can only imagine how great that was.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Yeah, it was amazing, and you know, you can probably like honestly on one hand count the times that we blew up and disagreed vehemently, and in those instances, it was like you know, who disagrees the least, if that makes sense. You sort of knew when to back down and let the other person win, and there weren't many disagreements. Um and it is it is fun. Like we speak to a lot of agency owners, and when there's one of you, it's really hard, you know. There's no one really to bounce stuff off, you know. And we had the benefit of doing that. You know, we used to have these weekly lunches, you know, in the local calf, and we're going to have a full English and chat over whatever we needed to talk about, and we'd figure stuff out together and then go and get it done. Um, you know, but the downside is when you're a young business, you have this kind of mama papa thing, so people try and get something from you and it doesn't really work, and then they just go round to the other one and say um, you know, exactly the same thing and get a different answer. Um, so as we were growing, we had to make even more clear divisions between what we were responsible for so that people didn't do that. Um, and so that you know, and these things go and talk to Elliot, these things come talk to me, uh, and that certainly helped. Um and we still speak most days, um, but we're doing very different things now.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

Fine. It's an interesting observation because it is very lonely. I think we're starting any business, but obviously we can only speak for owning agencies, but I think to all of the most successful agency owners I know, and 90% of them are in a business partnership and have been since the start. With a very close friend. And um and most of those friendships are long-term friendships. It's quite interesting, and maybe it's just simply from the perspective of you need to be all in in that business in the early stages, and it's not a it's certainly not something you can clock off with at five o'clock. You are 12 hour days, 15 hour days, some days for a very long time whilst you're trying to make it work. And when times are tough, it's hard for an employee to be at that standard when you are pre-50k a month revenue and probably not paying an awful lot. How old are you when you both started the company?

SPEAKER_00 43:30

So we officially started, I think it was 2008. Um which would make 18. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was pre GCSE. Um no, so I I was uh 1975. So yeah, I think I I'd started working by myself like 2003. Um I was made redundant. From a job and decided to give it a go on my own as a freelancer and did that for a few years, and that's where you sort of like most agencies kind of start that way, right? You get to a point, and before you know it, you've got your own raft of freelancers that you're managing, and then suddenly you think, Well, I need to do something a bit more kind of strategic here. Um, so yeah, I I reckon um, you know, we we were probably it was it was 30s, it was a good, it was a good decade that that kind of time, you know. We didn't have that much commitment, the risk was low, you know. It's it's quite hard to do it later on in life when you know you've got kids and mortgages and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

But you were you you would say you were in your 30s when you started the agency.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yeah, so I I started working by myself in sort of mid to late 20s, um, and then we partnered up, yeah, just the other side of 30.

SPEAKER_03 44:53

The reason why that's interesting to me is just I spend a lot of time working with aspiring agency owners, and and most of those people are 19, 20, 21, mid-20s in some cases, and um as I get older, our core audience gets older as well. Um, and uh always with the even just 30, 31, 32, people think they've missed the boat, and it's it's just no.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

I mean, we went out and trod the path straight from university, right? So, um, like I say, Elliot was contracting around the world for 10 years, living the life, right? Day rates, good corporate day rates in various countries. Um, and that's a lot you get a lot of experience from being out in the industry before you then say, right, I'm gonna do this on my own. Um, in that respect, you kind of know what good looks like. You know, you know, you've been in and around people who go and win business, and what does a project look like, and how do you deliver it? And you know, how do you deal with a client that goes absolutely ballistic at you for some reason or another? Um, you know, if you're if you're starting out on your own at 19 and 20 and you're coming into it cold, you know, you've got to learn the hard way, right? And and that's okay, like there's nothing wrong with that. And you know, one thing that this does teach you anybody who does anything on their own, you've got to respect them 100% because it's not easy. Um, but coming into it having got a bit of sort of uh a few stripes on your shoulder, it helps, it does help. Why when Elliot came in uh and we joined together um finally um he brought one of his big corporate clients with him, he was doing some contracting with them and he said to them, Look, I'm now doing this thing, want to keep doing with the you would you be happy to just switch it over and come and change the contract to be under Mint Twist? And they were like, Yeah, absolutely fine. They're the largest property company in the world, nice, and so what a great first client to have um in the new business. Um and so you know that's the benefit of coming out of you know some connection to the agency world.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

What would your advice be to someone who was starting today, maybe on the younger side, who wants to get into the space or is actively pursuing this industry now?

SPEAKER_00 47:16

I think you've got to make mistakes, you've got to be prepared to do things terribly, make bad decisions, sell something at the wrong price, you know, always see through what you've committed to, uh deliver it, learn, do it slightly better next time. Um you're gonna fail in loads of areas, you're gonna forget to file your VAT, you're gonna forget to whatever it is, fill in some questionnaire that HMRC sends you, and they're gonna chase you, and you're gonna feel like an idiot because you missed a boat on it, but we've all done it. Um, you know, you've got to phone up that person when you first started, you owe you know whoever it is some rent or some money or whatever it is, and you haven't had that money turn up in your bank, you've got to have those awkward conversations, and it's all part of the process. And the thing I always sort of remembered is that at the end of the day, everyone is everyone is human, even the people behind you know the bank facade or whatever it is, the clients, finance teams that find everyone's a human, so that having a sensible conversation with another human, you can always find an answer, even if it doesn't feel like you can, and then when things click into place, you know, it feels good.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

Yeah. In an industry which we can only presume is a lot more, I mean, it is more saturated today than it was when you started. If you were starting again from scratch, how would you stand out right now?

SPEAKER_00 48:51

It's a really good question. I mean, I saw something the other day, there's something like three or four thousand agencies in London alone, and quite quickly you have to like trying to be unique is impossible, everyone's doing the same as everyone else. Um so I think you've got to have a proposition that you know, we we always try to be everything to everyone. I might revisit that if I were doing it again now, because trying to be full service from the get-go is actually quite hard. Um, I've seen people be very successful at being, you know, like yourself, a Shopify agency, right? Or we went to this Wix event um recently, and and they there was loads of smaller agencies that were Wix specialist agencies, and that's a platform that's up and coming, and you know, it's just not necessarily all about plumbers and electricians now doing it themselves, though you can do some good stuff on there, um, whether it's an education sector or whether it's um you know biotech or finding a sector that you might have creds in is always a good thing. Um you've got to figure out a way to get AI on the table, make people know that you're on it and in it, and it's part of parcel of who you are and what you do. Um but ultimately, like one of the things that stood out for us over all these years is just the brand name, Mint Twist. It was just a bit different. Um, you know, we used to when we first started, we talked about refreshingly different. Um, we weren't at that time there was lots of IT agencies, IT like websites sat with IT teams at the beginning, and now obviously it's all with marketing, and so we we were kind of on that transition phase. So we were not an IT consultancy or an IT agency, we were you know a digital agency, and so finding some compelling brand piece, I think, is is good, a name that stands out, you know, some way of interesting being visible and memorable. You know, I think it was at the time when like Orange, the mobile phone network, and you had Blue Dog that was a recruitment platform, and so there was all these things where it was colour-based, and that's where we went down the road of um you know, we wanted a colour but not a basic one, and we wanted an appendix that was gonna be um just something a bit quirky, and so when when we were getting going, a lot of people said, you know, that's an interesting name. You know, I I remember seeing that somewhere, and you know, it stuck with me. Um, so I think even more so that is powerful, but you know, you kind of got to make stuff up these days because all the domain names are taken like nothing exists, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

Um I'm hoarding them. I think I have about 120 domain names, it's outrageous. My GoDaddy bill is outrageous.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

There you go, and um some of them will come good, hopefully.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

Yeah. I'm always always there's always one a business idea for every single one when you buy them, like oh that'll be good for this, and then it just sits there.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

But I I I do think there is something in just being memorable, right? Purplecamel.com, right? I don't know if it exists, but if you are something that you know you've got to always remember the scenario, there's three or four proposals. Okay, people don't print them out anymore, but it's sitting in my inbox, and I got one from so and so digital and so and so this, and then I got one from purplecamel.com. You're like, well, that's just a bit random, and I want to know more about these guys, it's just you're inquisitive. Um, so yeah, that would be my advice and get the brand done well, find a really good someone, freelancer, who can just do you something that is cool, have a brand book that makes you look bigger than you are. We always tried to play two rungs up the ladder from where we were, um, have them think you're 20 people when you're four people, like get have that kind of thing, and actually set yourself up so that it looks a bit like you're 20 people, even though you're four people. Um and so that's how we we navigated the early days, and then they come to your office and they're like, Where's everyone else? Perception is everything. We won this one client, we it must have been in the early days. We won, we set ourselves up with the website to be SEO optimized from day one. So when SEO was getting going, we were all over it, and so for a long time we ranked number one or two in London in the UK for Web Design London, and we had this inquiry from a Swiss company in Zurich, um, and when we researched them, they were like a multi-billion uh lock company, they did you know airport gateways and they did all the warships and White House, and they were massive. And they wanted us to pitch for their new website, and they flew to London to see us, so we obviously were not bringing them to our little pokey office. So we took um we had an IOD membership on Pow Mau, and so we took a room there and met them, and we ended up winning it, and we flew to Zurich a few times and and you know, we worked on this huge 28 I think it was 28 countries, 15 languages, like site, it was insane like the size of the project for the size of us, and yeah, so we that was it. It was all smokes and mirrors at that point. It was like, you know, you don't know how big we are.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

What's the value of a project like that?

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Oh, back in those days, I mean we're talking 2010 probably. Um it was a lot for us, it was a lot, it was a hundred more than a hundred, hundred and fifty grand. Yeah, it was huge. Wow. Um, and back then it was a lot of money. We had to sit, you know, we flew to Zurich and sat in a room with all their board of directors, and there was like 20 of them, and there was me and Elliot, and it was trying to impart our global strategy on their entire business.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

Where do you begin with pricing something like that? It's um I remember the first time I had a corporate client approach me. I created a training program for um say at Cooper on digital and for their sales team, and they approached me and I remember that first time I was like, I don't even know where to begin on pricing this because I don't want to price myself too low because they're gonna say no, I don't want to price myself too high, and there's no way you go to learn this. So, how did you even establish that you needed to charge 150 odd K for a website?

SPEAKER_00 55:33

I mean, look, you there's no denying that bits of it are finger in the air, right? You've got you know, you you've got to go down that like you say, we we sell time as an agency, right? If you're gonna build a website and it takes four weeks, then four weeks times your day rate, that's the price of the project. Um you can discount your day rate if you really want to win it. Um you know, when that was at the that was when working out our costs were easy because it was just a few people, the office, um, and that's kind of it, right? Um so working out your break-even point was easy. Um working out how many times over that you wanted to um charge was was difficult. And you know, I think I I still believe that you know when it comes to these sorts of things, you don't want to say the first number. Um, so even now we work really, really hard to get the number out the client. Um, you know, if the client says to you, I have no idea what it's gonna cost, you know, you tell me, you're like, okay, well, um, you know, typically our projects are start at whatever, 10 to 50 grand. Um, you know, the mid-tier stuff is fifty to a hundred, and you know, the really expensive stuff is probably a hundred to five hundred, depending on what you want to spend. And the client will immediately go, Well, I'm never gonna spend that, and I'm probably not gonna spend the middle one, so you know, ten to fifty sounds good, and then suddenly you've got a ballpark, um, and then you work with that. And so I remember speaking to their, you know, they're very Swiss, very organized, and very structured, and we ended up pulling a number out of them that was you know way bigger than we would have probably gone in at, and you know, obviously we found a way to do it for that. Um, we actually pulled in a couple of freelancers that we know to help beef up the project because it was a bigger scale than we perhaps thought. Um, yeah, so we we always try to to bring the number out of them.

SPEAKER_03 57:44

That's a very valuable piece of advice. If in doubt, squeeze the figure out of them.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Yeah, and and I I learned that I went to a seminar years ago where somebody uh said exactly the same thing. You know, if they no one will ever they will always have a number in their head because they have to, and they just don't want to tell you. So, you know, give them the three options and let them stick their pin in whichever one works for them. It will never be the top one, hopefully it's the middle one, and if it's not you know where you're at.

SPEAKER_03 58:11

That's great, and obviously you're having the three options, then you're controlling the perception of the quality of those options as well.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

Yeah, and if you say, look, we start here, we typically work here, and often we do stuff here, then you're not saying you're not saying to them by picking any one of them, you're cheap. You're not you know, they're not opting into that, but they are you know very clearly telling you where you need to be.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

I can imagine you walking out of that room after securing the the project.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

Oh my god, uh like when we won that, we got the phone call from them, and well, I think we went straight to the pub for the whole afternoon. Um yeah, it was insane. Um, and you know you kind of go through the process never really thinking they're gonna pick you. Uh, and then we asked them afterwards, we were like, why did you choose us? And because they went, they had a they had us, I think they had a French agency, a German agency, a Swiss agency, and maybe another one in the UK. But the because of the background of Elliot's corporate, and I'd won some work with BP a few years before, we had quite a good kind of structure of a document to kind of propose something in a corporate way, um, and I think that just that just resonated with with them.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

Love it. So polarising those humble beginnings to now where you are, what do your goals look like now you have had an acquisition and you're now in this larger company? What does the future look like for you? What motivates you?

SPEAKER_00 59:41

So for us, it was we always wanted, like I say, we always wanted the next phase of work and to keep going and to keep being better, and and I think from day one, Elliot and I have put the fin hat on. So, yes, we have our brand and we're attached to it, and um you know, very personal reasons, but from day one we were always we were we were in this for the next bit, um and so by wearing the fin hat and thinking thinking about fin as we thought about ourselves and mint twist, um the opportunity now becomes where can we take the fin brand and what can we do? Um the challenge we have is that in America they are very, very well known. Um, the origin origins of fin partners is a company called Ruderfin, so it's the fin PR connection has been in existence for a long time. Um, in the UK and in Europe, it's not as well known. Um, and I think part of our job is to help them change that. Um we want to compete with the slightly bigger businesses now, with the bigger brands doing what we do, um, be it branding agencies, um creative agencies, digital agencies, you know, we want to compete with all of them. So the journey for us is how do we take our team of 250 people, grow that to 500 people, and compete with the really big stuff, winning really big projects for really big brands. Um and we're winning great work all the time, but you know, we want to get up there playing with you know global household names, and that's that's the challenge now, and that's the driver. You know, when you wake up in the morning, that's on the agenda. Um and so you know, you've got to ask yourself the question, is it is it enough to get me out of bed every day with a with a bounce and not be sad about going to work? And I think um at the moment that is really exciting, it's probably a three to five year journey and we're on the way now.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:54

Do you see yourself as someone that's going to work until you drop? Yeah, 100%. What is it you love about work and about business?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

Um it's a great question. I think it's um it's the sense of the purpose that is obviously very different to your family life. Obviously, everything you do in your personal life is you know the most important thing. Um kids and my wife and family come first. Of course it does, but um you know having that energy in in your work life, um and it can be whatever it is for everybody, everybody's different, right? But I I do like the business world, I love the digital space, you know. I when I couldn't afford a computer as a kid, I remember painting a Kleenex box and cutting out the keys, made my own keys, and I had a had made my own fake computer, and I was I don't know how old I was, five or whatever it was, and then I got a Commodore 64 for Christmas. Um so that kind of digital world, the the pace of it, the never-ending cycle of improvement, I think that is what I love. Um, and trying to translate that into the business world, and the more I've been involved in running the agency and running a bigger agency, the more I love about business, just in general, how business works, how it works globally, how it works inside these big brands, what you can do to move the needle, um you know, on a huge scale. It's it's compelling, I think. And so um I'm one of these people where my mind is always going 100 miles an hour all the time. You know, what next? What's the next thing? And I think that's that keeps you young. You know, I'm I'm 50 in February, which is a big turning point. Um and so yeah, I definitely think I've got another chunk of years in me. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:21

That would be a lovely place to finish, and uh my team will kill me for this, but I'm gonna open another can of worms because I'm desperate to hear your opinion with your software background. You mentioned AI earlier, and something that's just important to embrace when you're starting out, and I haven't really had uh spoken to anyone who's in a kind of corporate world now and how how AI has been received in those kind of companies. I'm very interested to know how Finn are receiving AI, but also what your perception is of what our future looks like in digital marketing when it relates to AI, because presumably you have a much deeper understanding than a lot of other people would coming from your background.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

Um so we are embracing it and adopting it everywhere that we can, um it's kind of like on a service line by service line basis, so like the search team obviously are using it in a very different way to the media team, um, but we are finding ways to bake it into everything that we do, um, and whether it's shortcutting things, so if AI is making your life easier by doing things a little bit quicker, um, for example, you know, I'm sure that search teams all over all over the place are using it to help spin up ideas and you know get flesh out outlines for articles and to get things going quicker. Um I think we're looking at what we can build internally for ourselves to help speed up lots of internal processes, new businesses. A good example, so we're busy loading and creating a model around all the case studies that we have and all the RFPs that we've responded to in one, so that we can then talk to our own isolated model and ask questions like what would the best case studies be for this particular piece, and it just tells us rather than having to go and speak to 50 people and um you know take five days to get an answer, you'd get in the answer in seconds. Um so I I think my my kind of take on the whole AI piece is that it's we should use it as much as we can everywhere that we can, but it's all about the the intelligent prompting. I'm sure you've had these conversations before. Knowing what to ask the AI is half the battle, um and so you know if there are finance improvements on you know pulling data and reports and things that we can get that to do for us, um, then we should be doing that. It's never going to replace people, and everyone's scared to death of it's gonna make my job redundant. Um there probably will be some that you know it makes bits of the job redundant. Um copywriting is a good example, right? People aren't starting with a blank sheet of paper anymore, you're starting with something that's half done for you. Um, creative is challenging, you know, you've got um the speed at which you can get stuff made now, um, bits of the art production world now where you'd spend ages you know changing images, you know, you can do in seconds, but it's how you change your process to use the tools to then use the time that you've saved to do other things that the AI can't do. So it's definitely moving in a direction where you know it it's how do we implement it in each team so that we create space and time for the team to do other things, and every pitch now we've got to put in how we're using it because the clients are asking, and if you don't talk about it, someone else will have talking about spoken about it, and you might lose out because you know you didn't mention it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:19

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

So, like media, you know, a testing ads, testing copy, you know, there are some wonderful platforms now that will help spin that out for you automatically, um, to then pick the best one. You don't have to do it all manually anymore. Um so yeah, I think you know, I'm not so sure about this whole building websites, you know, no code, like you know, yeah, it's got a long way to go before that uh that takes over. But programmers are using it all the time now, right? You're you know, write me a function to do this, that, and the other, and it does 90% of the work for you. You still need to put the thought into what you need and deciding how we slot it all together, but you might not need to do as much of the grunt work yourself now. Um, and I think that that's a good thing because you can spend more time doing other things.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:10

Um I think the the real power is coming from if you've got business experience and business acumen and understanding of, like you say, to prompt properly in the first place. Those who are starting today, I think will will face a harsh reality that are fully leaning on AI to do everything for them because there's gonna be a I mean, and this is a real tangent, but I I can only see, especially in the marketing space and and in in business in general, AI bridges the gap from needing to learn things, and so you can rely on it to do certain things for you, or at least give you the information that you need without you having to actually do the work to learn the thing yourself, and so you haven't had to put in the time to learn the thing by doing the thing, you're not absorbing it, and I think that'll create holes in processes and things that have built.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

I think that that's that's a really good point, and I think that you know having AI do a lot of it and you'd never really understanding what's going on means that what you're getting out the other side probably isn't that great anyway. Um so I think that and I really like what Apple have done with their um Apple intelligence take on AI, which is that making the day-to-day easier so you can concentrate on doing other things, you know, summaries of your messages and um you know it quickly integrating between apps so you don't have to spend one and a half minutes doing it yourself, it's done in like one second. If you can implement that in the business world, how can I look at the process of doing you know a media campaign end-to-end and what bits could AI help me with so I don't lose quality, I just save time. That is gonna make you more compelling as a business. If you can then reduce your cost slightly because you can pass the cost saving on to the client, amazing. Um, but at the very least, you're able to do more if clients are still willing to pay the same value for your service and you're doing it quicker, yeah. It's better for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:12

I want to repeat something you said because I think it's a great value add. You said about uploading case studies into an AI model so you can refer to that model when you need to pull out on case studies. Uh, we I promote something called a leverage library, which is a library of all the leverage you have, including awards and so on and so forth. Documenting something like that and uploading that into a model or something that I hadn't considered and something that would be very valuable to people to add. I'm conscious that you have a meeting coming up, and so it's been um an absolute pleasure having you on. I've truly enjoyed this conversation. And uh yeah, any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

No, look, I I it's been a pleasure to be here. Um, really enjoyed the conversation. Um very happy if anyone wants to reach out to me on LinkedIn and have a chat. Um, always looking to help anybody who's starting. I've been there, I understand it all, um, and I'm I want to help. Um I would say if you're thinking about doing something in the agency world, a hundred percent it's it's completely rewarding, and you definitely can make it work. If you're thinking twice about stopping it, give it another go. Um, it's hard, but I think there's not a lot out there that beats it, short of being a Hollywood actor. Thanks so much, Alexis. You're very welcome.