- Duration: 22 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01K1E94RNXDWWQ4HGA4M2MDCN4 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01K1E94RNXDWWQ4HGA4M2MDCN4)
Transcript
[UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Hey, how are you, man? Michael Houck: Hey, man. How’s it going? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Good. Michael Houck: How are you? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Good. Michael Houck: Yeah, I’m trying to get my 10th day sepsin, you know, when I ask. We’ll see if I make it. I’m at like 70, 400. Not too far away. Is that a treadmill or are you just walking outside? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: No, I got a little under desk treadmill there. Michael Houck: Nice. I’ve got a standing desk as well. [aman chandhok]: I actually thought about getting one of those treadmills as well, but just never got to it, so. Dude, you should, man. It’s a game changer, especially. Michael Houck: I’m sure you’re on as many meetings as I am. I am. So it’s like, you know, so let’s just say my, my belly appreciates it because we’re losing weight over here. [aman chandhok]: So I’m going to the gym after this. So there you go. There you go. All right, man. I’ll keep it short. I won’t take up too much of your time. So basically I had a chat with Blake. Um, and I’ll tell you a little bit about what we do. So we, London-based agency that works with a lot of tech startups, venture capital, a private agency, a bunch of businesses, probably similar to Athena. We’re probably a little bit more flexible with how we work with our clients in that we’ve got three models. So obviously the traditional kind of full-time model. We’ve got a fractional model where some clients share EAs and we kind of manage the logistics behind the scenes. So we’ve got lots of boutique which, you know, guys that went to Goldman or Blackstone left, set up their own firms, and they don’t really need a full-time EA. So we place them on a fractional basis, so they’re available all day, but they work between two clients. That’s probably the most popular option, which people love, and it’s also the highest margin. And then the third model is kind of more working with individuals who are maybe maybe partners or high net worths or like a family officer that just needs support on a fractional basis, but like maybe like 10 or 20 hours. That model, we’re probably going to shift out. It’s not profitable. It’s just too much of a headache. So the other two models work really well. In terms of clients, it’s all, I mean, we call them high achievers. It’s like and anyone has either been to Harvard, they’ve been to YC, they’ve been to Goldman, they’ve been to McKinsey, they’ve done Goldman, they’ve done those kinds of organizations. And the business was founded by three of us, we’re all ex-PE. My background is kind of special effects and corporate, private, and also some real estate. And the other two guys have worked at some European funds. And the business was started kind of 18 months ago, we changed models. Halfway through. So it’s kind of been pretty steady. And now we’re like, okay, like, what do we do to kind of like, really go from where we are at the moment, like 10x or 20x. And I think, you know, I look at Athena and look at some of the other places I’ve been in the market. And the way they’ve done it is through distribution, because people know them, they put them on every podcast, they put them on, like everywhere you go, you see them. Now I’m not saying that Athena and we also position ourselves in a slightly different manner. And I think the ambition is to go above and beyond just doing EAs. I mean, a lot of times they’re already asking us, like, do you do X, do you do Y, do you do Z? And we’re just like, we’d love to, but we just need to focus right now. Before we get to 200 people, there’s just no point, like, diversifying out too much. And I came across you guys, well, actually, I sent you guys an email, I think six to nine months ago, and you responded saying, be in front of this audience. Yeah. And I was, I was just, it’s been kind of going from a back of my mind where I’m just like, you guys have the audience and it’s the types of people that we want to be working with. Um, and the issue is that they’re not big enough to justify keep spending $3,000 every other week. Um, that said, I really like Blake. Um, you know, it's the kind of stuff I like, work with, just speaking to you, I think you're the kind of person I'd love to work with as well. So I mean, there's a lot of synergies, I think, in terms of ambition and kind of just seeing what you're doing on your website and what you've achieved and also want to set up other ventures and whatnot. And I'm the same, we've set up lots of businesses in the UK. And I was just thinking, maybe we can get creative around structuring. Anything from, you know, I don't want you to make $200, $300 a right? It’s like, if you’ve got 60,000 people, and even with 1% of those individuals or businesses converted, I mean, that’s, that should be in the billions, if anything. Yeah. And we’re also, again, I haven’t given enough thought to the structure, what direction it might go. But we’re also, or at least from my perspective, I’m also happy to give away some of the equity in the business. Um, so it’s, it’s a true partnership. It’s like, you know, it’s not just, this is a pure marketing angle. It’s like, you’ve got to buy into us. You’ve got to buy into the product. So from my perspective, you guys have distribution. I think some track record, you know, people know you, um, are some people that have been advertising on your site. So obviously you’re, you’re, you’re well connected and people want to be connected with you as well. Yeah. Um, yeah. Or have a conversation and see if that’s something you might be up for. And if you are, then we can make a proposal. Michael Houck: But yeah, just. It’s interesting. I mean, I want to know, like, what’s the vision for the business? Like, where do you guys want to take it from, from here long term, right? Is it like, we flip it at some point, we exit and it’s great for everybody? [aman chandhok]: Or is it we run this cash flowing for forever and like, go from there? What’s the vision? Good question. From my perspective, everything I do is always for the long term. And I wouldn’t want it to plateau at 10, 100 million. I just want to keep growing it and dive into as many different avenues of the business as possible, whether it’s EAs, whether it’s offshore, whether it’s offshoring software NDAs or over time, I’m sure there’s similar issues in the US. But in the UK there’s a huge debit shortage. Also bringing in offshore talent. So there’s lots of ways of growing the business. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah, I’ve heard that. [aman chandhok]: But there’s also three partners that are in the business as well. There’s two other guys. And I suspect that those two guys at some point would probably want to exit. Got it. So yeah, I mean, I want to be in it for the long term, but I’m really appreciative of the fact that not everyone’s in it for the and people just want to make 10, 20 million, whatever the number is. Michael Houck: Hey, sometimes it’s good to make 10, 20 million, that’s not the end of the world. [aman chandhok]: I don’t disagree at all. So if you were to do something, I’m happy to have a talk about liquidity and what that might look like and some sort of exit options. So I’m pretty relaxed from that side. But from my perspective, I’d love it to be IPOing at some point. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I’m not looking for like, what’s the, what’s the five to 10 year exit strategy here? Michael Houck: You know, just want to get a Read on sort of where your head was at and where your partner’s head was at. So that makes sense. Look, I get a good vibe from you too. You seem like you know what you’re doing. So look, I’m interested for sure. We partnered with Athena for, We no longer partner with them actively. They’re sort of still in our periphery. But if we were to do something with you guys, obviously we would make sure that that’s an exclusive type thing. We’re not putting you guys up one week and then them up the next week or something like that. So yeah, look, I’m interested in it. I’m not afraid to get creative for sure. We also have some other avenues besides just the newsletter. So I’m sure Blake talked about that, but we’re starting to do YouTube videos. On like the journeys of specific founders. Sort of like, you ever seen Starter Story? So they focus on like bootstrapped founders who like don’t necessarily have big ambitions like people like you or I do, right? It’s just like people are building indie hacker type businesses and that’s good. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: And what’s their journey there. Michael Houck: And so what we’re doing, I’m working with Patty Galloway, who’s Mr. Beast’s YouTube strategist. And we’re taking that format and applying it to sort of unicorn potential style businesses, which we think has a bigger TAM and is more exciting, better stories, things like that. So we’re going to the first couple of those coming out next month. Could be interesting to do one of those with you guys too. Maybe I fly over to the UK, we do it in person. I don’t know. Could be interesting to do something like that. We also do a lot of dinners that have worked really well, especially for like higher ticket sale type scenarios, relationship where we do it in New York or we do it in London or we do it in NSF or something. And it would be, I’d be present. We’d have like a group of like 15 founders or so. And then someone from your guys’ team ideally could be present as well. And we’d talk about it. You know, we’d give like a toast. We’d thank you guys. You guys would be sort of the partner on the dinner. And then you’d follow up individually with all the people afterwards and sort of make those connections. So we keep the bar for those really, really high. The last thing is, is we’re just, you know, my old company was Launch House, right? We did all these like founder retreats and like mansions around the world. We’re starting to bring those back under the founding journey brand. We’re doing one in Cape Town in January, partnering with Tyler Dank, who’s the founder of Beehive. And we’re keeping it intimate, like 12, 14 founders max. And basically we’ll live there for a week together. We’ll do all these events and just have like an amazing real time, people make lifelong friendships and things like that. We’re also looking for and interested in people who can sort of plug into that in different ways from the brand side too. So, you know, the caliber for that is going to be like super, super high, like exited folks, you know, backed by Andreessen, backed by Sequoia, like top tier type folks. So that could be interesting too. So maybe what I’ll do is I’ll go through a couple options. I’ll send over some ideas to you. You let me know sort of is and we can we can take it from there. [aman chandhok]: Yeah, sounds good. Okay, let’s do it. What are the exceptions? Should I wait to hear back from you first? Or should I also think about what the structure might look like, Or I’m pretty relaxed? Michael Houck: Yeah, I mean, look, if you have thoughts, and like you and your partners together, like a line on on some thoughts about that, feel free to send it over. And then yeah, maybe send that over first. And then I’ll come back with Okay, well, here’s what we could do if we actually, we packed in the retreat or dinner, or newsletter placements or YouTube, like here’s what that could look like, [aman chandhok]: So yeah, so that’s the metaverse. [aman chandhok]: We’ll go from there. Okay. Sounds good. I’m seeing them tomorrow evening, so I’ll catch up and then I’ll come back to you by Friday or Monday. Cool. I love it, man. Good stuff. All right. Good to meet you. Michael Houck: Good to meet you, brother. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Talk soon.