Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Oliver Bruce and welcome to the Unlock. Previously known as Success is in the Mind. I'm a UK entrepreneur, angel investor, a neurodivergent founder, and I recently exited my first business, which I scaled from my university halls into a multimillion dollar agency with no backing, no funding, just grit, mistakes and determination. I want to pass on some of the lessons that I've learned, the barriers that I had to overcome and the challenges that I'm still coming up against today. This podcast doesn't grow by itself, it grows with you. If you could possibly share this with friends, family, colleagues, anybody you're in business with, somebody that you think might find this useful, I would be greatly appreciative. Anyway, let's get into it. Callum fy, my man. How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm very well, thank you. Mr. Bruce. This has been a long time coming.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
It has been a long time coming and it's been rearranged at six times in the last two weeks, and

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Only five of them are my fault to bad.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
That's somewhat compounded the issue, but you've built amazing things and before you built amazing things, you worked for banks essentially.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
So

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Talk to me about your journey, how you started, where you came from, and how you ended up essentially investing in fine wine.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, sure. So I guess like many people, I was at university, I knew I wanted to be a founder, but I didn't really have one. Any idea of how one could become a founder straight out of university. I know that sounds very naive and it seemed that around me, my peers, the people I respected, admired, whatever, were all going the grad scheme route. So I started applying for grad schemes. I was broadly interested in asset management, so I ended up joining the Fidelity grad scheme and then moving on to JP Morgan where I worked in their UK sales team based out of their Blackfriars offices in London. And a story, I'm sure you've heard many times on this podcast, but I found corporate life, I think very unfulfilling. It's a great name on a cv, but I really had this itch to do something. And at the same time I was very interested in asset management.

(02:07):
So I thought I'd end up doing something related, something FinTech related or wealth management related. And at the same time, my now wife's parents were very deep in the wine trade. So her dad ran an import export business back in the day and is now the deputy chair at a major English sparkling wine company. And so because of the asset management world I was working in and these relationships, it didn't really take me too long to start discovering fine wine as an asset class. And when I say as an asset class, he would tell stories about how back in the day it was possible to buy a couple of cases of wine on release, hold one of them for a few years in order to sell it. And then effectively you were drinking for free because the price of one case would pay for the other case that you'd bought. And I thought that was really interesting. It spoke to the price potential and the price performance of wine as an asset class. And then I discovered in many circumstances in the UK, it's capital gains tax exempt. And so I got very excited about the idea that you could create a cost effective way to invest in fine wine. And by that point I was commercial director at a tech startup. So I just thought, okay, I've earned my stripes in startup land, now let's go out, raise some money and see if we can make this reality.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
So just talk to me, I mean I've known you for a while now,

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Sadly,

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Maybe it's bad that I didn't know this, but I didn't realise that you were a commercial director at a startup. So let's just double click into that a little bit and go into, once you left the city and the GLE wearing kind of brigade, if you will,

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I still wear those,

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Usually still wear those. Thankfully you've forgotten about the red trousers, but we move. So you've gone into this sort of startup world and you're this commercial director. What was that business and how did that differ from the life of corporate England, I guess?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, sure. So I joined that business, so it's a company called Noo, which is a legal tech startup. So nothing to do with asset management or wine. So helpful, a helpful stepping stone, but it was an amazing experience. So I joined as employee number three. I was the first non-technical hire, and I think they were a classic example. And Josh t and the CEO would probably say this himself of Why Combinator call a hammer looking for a nail. So they built this incredible product that was essentially able to read and understand very complex contracts. And this is in the very early AI era, and we went to market with that particular product. It took six months to figure out product market fit, but we grew that business a hundred x from seven KARR to a million dollars a RR. And it was a really fantastic journey because obviously it shows you what it's like to build a company from the ground up.

(05:02):
And it's funny coming from a JP Morgan because everyone always asks about the work-life balance at that company. And I can assure you I worked harder and longer hours at that particular startup than I'd ever worked in big Corps, but it felt so much more fulfilling. You could see something coming to life. And I think that really gave me the startup bug. And I think it just, again, it was all the way through. I'd wanted to become an entrepreneur, but it felt like I needed a stepping stone I think prior to setting something up myself and NAMI is a fantastic business, continues to do very well, and it was a great place to, I guess kind of cut my teeth in startup land, so to speak.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
So you were obviously in EO for a number of years. Why did you bother leaving that if you got such fulfilment from growing and scaling a startup in that world? What happened within that journey if you were employee number three, you left at what point why?

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, so I think first and foremost, we had achieved what we'd set out to achieve. So we had got the company off the ground, it was profitable, they could have raised a series A had they so chosen to. And I think that there was a sense that it was still someone else's business and I really wanted to do something for myself. And by that point I become very obsessed with the idea that would become Wi-Fi. And it's one of those things, the more you look at a market and an opportunity, the more you see the gaps and the more you see things that you could come in and disrupt and fix. And it got to the point where I had a conversation with the CEO where I said, look, I want to go and raise for this business. And he was very flexible. I continued to work there as I was raising, which is very unusual. And then when the round was complete, we had a very amicable farewell, so to speak. Really? Yeah. And I went full-time onto wifi there literally the next day.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
That's Rogan many ways because not least that your boss at the time was like, that's cool, Callum, you go and you go and play with your idea and raise some money. And if you can do that, then go and do the idea. And if you can't then stay here. But equally, the investors that were investing in you, which obviously was wine five for them to go, here's some money I get. You've got a full-time job, I'll give you the money anyway, but when I give it to you, can you possibly leave? The full-time job? Doesn't really happen. Normally investors are kind of like, you need to be 110% in this business before I'll write you the check. So how did that narrative work when you were doing that initial raise?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, so it's a really interesting point because it's one that I've heard a lot, but my experience was quite far removed. So we raised 470 K in our pre-seed, SFC capital were the anchor. And then it was a number of different angels. But honestly I think that we were lucky in part the people that we raised from, it never really came up as a concern. And I think it was very clear from talking to me, I was issuing monthly updates as to the progress that we were making towards going. And I think everyone really understood. And actually there's a lot to be said for starting something while still in full-time employment because for us, the data models and the platform had a lead time and I was raising from ASAs and ultimately allowed us to get some cash in, get that work underway, and then once it was built and we actually had something to sell, I went full time in October, 2023.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
And with that in mind then, how did you know how much you should have raised? Because I'd appreciate that you've been on raises with the previous business, but it wasn't your own business, so you

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Didn't

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Necessarily make the call on what that should have been. How did you know that 400 and whatever it was was the right amount of cash and how did you value the business when it wasn't anything?

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, so with difficulty is the answer to those questions. So I think on the valuation piece, we were basically raising at the worst possible time. So we were raising in 2023, which as you'll remember, it was the burst of the VC bubble during the summer when Angels and VCs were on holiday anyway, so it wasn't fantastic timing from me. I started by looking at the tech, so what would it cost to build a platform? What would it cost to build the data models and the range of quotes that we initially had because we wanted to outsource it basically for an MVP was extraordinary. I think the highest we were quoted was something like 150 grand,

Speaker 1 (09:41):
But that makes sense. It is expensive, but it doesn't seem expensive for what you were trying to or is now being built, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, for sure. I mean it seemed I think very expensive to me at the time. So we ended up going a bit cheaper, but similarly, we just modelled out what we thought we would need in year one. A former colleague Ollie came to join me very early doors and we wanted to hire a couple of full-time data scientists. And so we had a data team before we had a salesperson in the early days. But then in terms of valuation, it really was what is acceptable in the market, what's realistic in current market conditions? We ended up raising 1.5 million pre-money, but I remember a friend of mine who works in private equity and is very unfamiliar with the ways a VC was just completely baffled. He was like, hang on, but you haven't got anything yet. What justifies that valuation? And then you see friends raising it a 10 million pre-money at a pre-seed off a pitch deck and he went, okay, this doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
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(11:43):
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen to this. Let's get back to the episode. And I think to that point about your mate with Oxford University, I think it's a really interesting point because people invest in not necessarily brands but people's history and in turn the brand of maybe the university they've been to, you did a master's at Cambridge, you raised money off the back of essentially a deck. This chap raised a couple of million or a million let's say at the back of Oxford University on a 10 million valuation, right? Two great universities, two universities that people like to be affiliated to and think great entrepreneurs come from and they do. Do you think where you study helps you raise money quicker and at a higher valuation or do you genuinely think it's all about the person?

Speaker 2 (12:29):
So I do think it allows you to raise money at a better valuation in many cases. I don't think it makes you a better entrepreneur or allows you to build a better business. That's a completely different thing. But I do think that angel investors in particular are ultimately making a judgement based on one or two conversations with you. Maybe they've been referred, maybe they haven't and they've got limited data points to go on. And I think, I'm not saying it's right, but I think when people see Russell Group universities from a first time founder, obviously if you've built and sold something previously, it's completely different. That's worth far, far more. But I think if you've got very little to go on, seeing the right names on a CV plus the right university probably does influence. And I actually had a, so I sort of cheated by the way. Well, not literally, but I did my undergrad at Bristol, I only did Cambridge for a master's, so it doesn't quite count as much.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
It's still a pretty heavy thing to do

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Master. Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, it's top of my LinkedIn. I'm very glad to up in this conversation. I know otherwise, otherwise I'd have to have mentioned it. So no, but actually I did speak to one Angel who said he only invests in Oxbridge founders, which I thought there fairly rogue. So I felt like a bit of an imposter during that conversation.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
But nevertheless, he still invests in because of the background and only the background.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
And I'm not saying that that's in any way or that there's any link between those founders and building a successful business. I just think that with very limited data, people use it as a heuristic, it as a proxy at the earlier stages in particular,

Speaker 1 (14:16):
It can be said the same. I guess for second time founders, if you say that you're a second time founder, you're more likely to raise money very quickly for know you've been there and then you forget about the university, right? And it's weird. It becomes a point in time where your history just becomes irrelevant, but it's so

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Important

Speaker 1 (14:31):
When you're starting out, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, exactly. I mean Chris Donnelley's a great example of this. So I saw a poster of him recently for his new company and it was an announcement that he had raised 4 million pre-seed at a 40 million valuation. And that's jaw dropping until you see his background and you realise he's built Lotti, he's built verb, he's built all of these incredible businesses. So he's a well-known name in startup land. And as you say, ultimately I think it's the success, the prior success, that's the ultimate yards stick,

Speaker 1 (15:02):
A hundred percent. And looking at I guess your journey success is ultimately a way of raising money, but you've got to be successful in turn to do that. Failing is also another way in a weird kind of roundabout way to raise money because you've bucketed up, you know what not to do, people will probably trust you. So I was listening to a podcast the other day and someone literally said, I will invest in people if they have failed, not if it's the first time that they're trying to succeed because they want to understand they've got those battle scars and you'll know full well that optically, it sounds like everything that you've touched has turned to gold, optically, it looks like that everything that we've done has turned to gold. The reality when you get underneath the hood of whatever car you're driving so to speak, is that isn't the case. And there are a lot of issues along the way. So moving into YFI, raising the money that you did, hiring the team that you did, what happened along that journey that isn't necessarily as good as you are making out?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, for sure. So I think I went into the fundraising process quite naive. So I didn't have a black book of contact really. The whole round started from me reaching out to someone that I used to work with and saying, what do you think of this? Do you know anyone that might be interested? And now I found once you get a few angels on board, it starts to, the flywheel starts to turn and then suddenly you get to 75, 80% raised and you no longer need as much capital. And suddenly that's when everyone suddenly asks if they could invest, which I thought was very interesting. But I think I dragged out that process longer than I needed to. And I think when the first thing that went wrong, and this is kind of a good thing in a way, but the first thing that went wrong really was day one.

(16:49):
So I built a landing page myself on Wix. I'm no designer with a signup form. And I just made the announcement on LinkedIn that we were starting this. I put up a video which would turn out to be the first of many, sorry, to my LinkedIn followers kind of explaining what wine was, the problems that we were trying to solve and what we thought was the uniqueness of the proposition. And we had a sign up every four minutes for 48 hours. So we had this huge influx of interest. The problem was we didn't have anything to actually sell them. So we ended up with this really big list that we basically couldn't nurture until three to four months later. Well, we could nurture them, but we couldn't monetize it for three to four months, by which point, the initial excitement from some of those people that obviously petered out. But I mean there's been endless mishaps along the way I think.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
I haven't watched you from the outside. The way that you operate though, when you say there's been lots of mishaps along the way, you are very methodical and very measured and very clear on your execution at every single point, almost treating it like a Fsy 100 business that's a publicly traded company. And again, I guess you've probably got that level of experience from having gone through the JP Morgan roundabout, right? But you run it in a very different way to a lot of startups that I've seen and a lot of founders whereby there is the banks or the bank and check every single day. It would seem from having both worked with you and just observed on the outside.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yes. So I think in phases, and this, it is partly a fair thing, I'm constantly thinking what is the minimum milestone? Because as a CEO, your number one job is to ensure that your business doesn't run out of capital. And I think especially in a market like ours where ultimately we're an investment business, the wine markets go up and down. You know that when the markets are falling, you are going to attract fewer sales effectively. It's about ensuring that you've reached certain milestones to enable you to raise more capital if you choose to. So just to give you an example, now we are, the broader vision for wine fire is to become the investment platform for fine wine and spirits. We have yet to launch a syndicate relating to anything but wine. So for the first time, we're bringing a whiskey syndicate to the platform.

(19:34):
And this is a decision that we laboured long and hard over because it's all about finding the right supplier and ensuring that we've got sufficient data to be able to make decisions and actually articulate the opportunity to our clients. And one of the reasons that we're doing that is it proves that there is demand from our audience outside of the asset class that we went to market with, which is wine, which allows you then to tell more of a story should you need to raise further capital. I think when you raise vc, the initial pre-seed round is for initial traction building the tech, proving that there's something there. Seed round is all about product market fit and unit economics. And as a result, unit economics is really what we're focused on at the moment, plus bringing in additional things that we can use as a stepping stone, I suppose, to a higher valuation raising more capital if we decide to go that route. And I think that I always see it as a backstop, that methodical approach.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
It's a good approach. I mean it is just very unlike a lot of founders who are let's just get things done, get things done quickly and throw stuff at the wall kind of thing. You are very, very measured even down to the fact that a couple of years ago I was talking to you and you were treating it like it was an FC, a regulated organisation when the reality is you don't have to, but you do. And how important is that when starting a business to go? Look, we don't have to, but the big boys are, so we should because there is an inflexion point where, or a tipping point where you go, it just doesn't make sense so small we don't have to bother. So that's not waste our time. But you did bother.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
It is a really good point because so our business isn't FCA regulated so wine, it doesn't require FCA authorization and our syndicate structure, it's not a fund, it's not investing in a controlled investment. But we knew that the types of clients that would be coming to us are high net worth sophisticated investors in some cases professional investors, we work with family offices, multifamily offices who expect certain things. And so if you look at most wine investment platforms that are out there, very few if any will have even a capital at risk disclaimer. But if you are used to investing in an environment where they are littered everywhere, it almost rings alarm bells to see a business that is behaving in a different way. And there have been plenty of examples of bad actors in our space and I was very aware of that coming in. So I almost wanted us to behave and appear whiter than white from the outset and significant cost to us, we've put in checks and balances that we didn't necessarily need to. So even something as simple as the segregation of client funds for a wine investment business, believe it or not, that's not actually a requirement.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
So you can trade off client funds if you wanted to. Technically not saying just to be clear, the wine I do, but you could technically, if someone invested a hundred K in some wine, you could just use that as your own capital.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Certain businesses could, we have structured our finances so we cannot. So we've gone out of the way, we've paid additional cash in order to segregate those funds. Rightly so. It's the same with the wines where they're stored. Well, exactly. You say that as if it's obvious, but it's not something that is necessarily commonplace in our world. There's been an interesting, a number of stories that have come out recently, especially in the whiskey space where a company has gone bankrupt and they found that only in one case that happened just before Christmas. I won't name names, but people can Google it. It was a wine investment business that it turned out only 20% of the wine was actually held in client names. And obviously if a business goes bankrupt or ceases trading and the wine isn't under the name of the client, then the administrators, et cetera go after it. And that blew our minds. So we provide all of our investors with a letter of attestation from our bonded warehouse confirming this engaged of assets. They can even go and speak to the warehouse directly if they so choose. And so it's putting in these extra steps that yeah, you're right, it is a little bit of extra work from our side. It's now been overhead when you are

(23:46):
At the earlier stages of a startup. But I think the difference between our business and any investment business that has raised VC is that you've got two layers of fiduciary duty. You have your clients, the actual people that own and hold the underlying wines, and of course you have your shareholders. And I think there's a prevailing culture in startup land quite rightly so, that you go hard and fast after the opportunity and investors take that risk. But it's all about winning the market. And don't get me wrong, I completely understand why that exists, but for us, I think we have to be a bit more methodical, perhaps even a bit slower than some of these businesses to ensure that we're building in a way that ensures the long-term integrity of the business. And that has at times been at odds with the wider narrative, but ultimately we need to make sure that we grow at a sustainable pace because there's plenty of examples of businesses that just essentially invested in a sales team in very little else selling whatever wines to their clients and then their clients in five, 10 years time find that the wines are unsellable or whatever.

(24:56):
So we've spent a huge amount of time building the infrastructure, building our ability to select and source wines at scale. So if there is a degree of, what do you call it, methodical, the methodical approach

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Methodology,

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yes. And that's probably why.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Well, that makes sense. And you can see it I guess because it's compounded over time in terms of just the quality of a investors and individuals that are putting money into wine, but also those that are sitting on the board and indeed your staffing as well because it seems to be run so smoothly, you seem to be attracting the best of the best. So when you did your one and a half million pounds seed round, you had Cory Holdings who are big boys in the industry come in, who sit on your board and looking at that, that is a dream scenario for a very small business at that time for the biggest of the big to come in and go, we back you. Do you think in part that is because of the checks and balances that you had put in place the way that you had run it and the language that you were able to talk to?

Speaker 2 (25:57):
I do think so. I think that they were very cautious about the types of business that they invest in because obviously there's a reputational risk for them. So I'm sure that that was a factor. I think the narrative around lowering the barriers of entry to wine and wine investing and bringing a new audience to wine almost via the back door, people who might first approach it as an asset class inevitably become interested in it as a consumable. You can talk about your wine portfolio at a dinner party in a way you couldn't talk about your s and p 500 index fund. And so I think that was a factor, but it really has worked both ways because interestingly, that association I think has lent us a lot of secondhand credibility because it shows that someone has done due diligence on us and the wine trade can be a bit of a suspicious place, especially when it comes to investment because in theory, because it's unregulated, anyone could set themselves up as a wine investment business. And I think having Cory as our largest minority shareholder, having their CEO, Michael Saunders on the board, it is a bit of a stamp of approval and I think it's helped our credibility in turn

Speaker 1 (27:09):
For sure. And looking at, obviously you've done further raises down the line and you've had other individuals come in when you are choosing to lead the round or invest who to ask for money from, are you picking at that stage? A lot of entrepreneurs would just go, I need the cash, I want to raise some money, I really don't care who comes into my business. How do you as an individual based on the fact that you have done so well over the last number of years, measure and manage who comes in as an investor?

Speaker 2 (27:38):
So I think we look at it in a very strategic way. Again, this isn't necessarily the norm in startup landing quite the same way. And when I say strategic investors, I'm not just talking about big name VCs. I think with Cory in particular, it was a no-brainer, not just for the reasons I've just articulated, but ultimately we're looking at relationships that can enhance our core business beyond simply capital. And with Cory, one of the core appeals was ultimately we are managing millions of pounds worth of wine. And unlike a painting or traditional asset class equities, ultimately someone has to want to drink that wine at some point. It will reach its peak valuation in line with its drinking window, and then you have to find someone that wants to buy it from you for a higher price than you purchased it for yourself to actually drink it. And that infrastructure can take years to build. And with Cory leading the round, we had that really ready made for us both the supply side and the exit side. And that's huge. And I think that's why we ended up going that particular route rather than who's the best fit VC for this particular business. But again, that's not always the same, it's just for our business, it was clearly the right decision because it enhanced the core proposition.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
That makes sense. And I guess you were just alluding to the fact that obviously wine will reach its peak value in line with the sort of drinking age. So when looking at other investments that individuals might make, there isn't necessarily a lifespan on that investment, right? Property typically will over a hundred years probably go up, right? It will go up, right? The s and p 500, whatever you invest in typically will go up over that period of time. But wine, are you saying that there is a limit and therefore actually it's far harder after say 50 years, whatever to shift it, right? So is that a mentality? Is that a different type of investor? Does that mean that you're marketing it to a different audience set? Is that audience actually a growing market or not because of those risks and because of the generation that's coming through the ranks they don't drink?

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, I mean it's an interesting one. So on the they don't drink comment, I would challenge it slightly and say they don't drink wine, which isn't necessarily that helpful for our purposes. But obviously we are reading all of the reports around alcohol consumption. And you're right, a few years ago it was reported Gen Z were drinking far less than their millennial counterparts. But actually when you dig into the data one, that study was published when half of Gen Z was under the age of 18. So it wasn't necessarily a fair representation, but if you look at spend by generations, gen Z actually spends the highest percentage of their income on alcohol out of any generation. And that's of course they earn less, but it shows they're still drinking. There was a study published in the Financial Times recently about alcohol consumption in the US where effectively it had an enormous spike during COVID because probably like us, people were sitting at home drinking more, there's less to do.

(30:55):
And then there was a really steep decline which made everyone very nervous in the alcohol market, but it's now nearly where it was at the peak of COVID. So the trajectory has resumed and that's real terms per capita spend. But the challenge with the young generation, as you say, is millennials now drink more wine than Gen X, which is a new phenomenon, but they are drinking differently. And we've been very aware of that when we've been structuring our portfolios because our parents' generation, let's say Bordeaux was a huge thing that appears to be declining in popularity amongst younger generations. Different styles of wine are coming to the forefront and our portfolios need to reflect that with the caveat that we model them for five years. So any portfolio that we create, we're looking at the next five years rather than the next 20. So we take a medium term view rather than a view.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
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Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah, yeah. I think first and foremost it was free marketing. So for the first two to three months, I absolutely hated posting on LinkedIn. I knew immediately all my WhatsApp groups would blow up and my friends would be screenshotting the posts and basically just taking the piss out of me, which is very, very fair. But we've really found there's two major benefits. The first is obviously organic reach and the trust that instils, especially for a business like ours, a large part of our target market, we call them Henry's high earners, not rich yet live on LinkedIn. They use it in their day-to-day lives and they are often in more of a buying mood than you might be if you were just scrolling Instagram. So it's is more of a professional social media channel obviously, but that is where our audience lives and a related point, but I think it's really helped with fundraising.

(34:03):
Angel investors are often heard animals and if they are aware of a business and they know their friends have invested by keeping up that kind of running commentaries as to what's happening in the business and sharing the highs and lows and various developments, I do think you build that trust over time. And what's amazing is our pre-seed, and it sounds obvious, but was much harder to raise than our seed round, often our seed round. It was a 10 minute phone call, a real just kind of like a once over see the whites of your eyes type phone call and someone would invest. And I think a large part of that is they had been following the journey on LinkedIn and they felt like they knew us. And I really don't think that that could be overstated in a world where, I mean I'm sure you've noticed the same thing, but even the last month and a half, my inbox is full of so much more AI generated spam than even 3, 4, 6 months ago. And I think that manufacturing that connection is really important very as you are. I'm certain that we're in the era of personal branding. I think it's actually a must have now to succeed rather than a nice to have. And if you can build a business without being the front man or woman, then all power to you. But I think you make it harder for yourself

Speaker 1 (35:29):
A hundred percent. And what's really interesting with the authenticity side of things is actually it just takes a little bit longer, but the results are 10 x, if that makes sense. So newsletters are something that people are starting to do because AI can do it for them, but you can just see that it is done through AI periods, but arguably you can't knock 'em for trying. And in the world that we're currently in content used to content is king granted, but shit content, if that makes sense. So in terms of how you hack the content wheel, how do you find the time to do what you do on the social channels that you do so authentically? I hate that word.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, so I was like, we sound like a podcast. We sound like a podcast. So it's an interesting one because it's actually something that I think is evolving. So it takes me no time now to write a LinkedIn post because I built that muscle. It takes me a little bit longer to do a video, especially if it's a well edited one. But I think we are moving into a world where I know you subscribed to Alex or MO'S newsletter. I dunno if

Speaker 1 (36:40):
I have no idea who he is.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, sure. But anyway, there was Alex or Mosey sent out a newsletter today that was talking about view, so quality, volume, and essentially how marketing now is turning into many, many, many more touch points. And because of ai, we are now able to chop up clips more easily. We're able to distribute them further. And it's really about striking that balance between, okay, how can you keep increasing the volume of content and having it pushed in more and more channels while still keeping the quality. I think everyone notices when that drops, especially in a high trust, high consideration business like ours. If we are doing what a lot of these kind of scammy investment brokers do, which is basically put up the best performing investments and suggest that the market always behaves like this one particular wine, we're going to lose credibility very, very quickly. But even if you work with third parties, social media managers, because it's such a specialist subject, they gravitate towards that because the easiest sales angle. So we at the moment are trying to figure out how we can do what we do well, which is the informative, authentic piece at scale. And I don't think it's enough that we've cracked yet to be perfectly honest. I think it is a learning curve

Speaker 1 (38:09):
A hundred percent. Now to that point, I guess one thing you are very, very good at doing is asking for help when you need it, but you've cited yourself that it used to in your mind, be a sign of weakness. Now just talk me through that process because, and I can completely understand what you mean by that to be clear, and I think a lot of people out there will, but you are very, very good. I have seen you firsthand go, actually I don't get this. Can you help me? Where and how and what sort of triggered the learning there?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Honestly, the honest answer would probably be just ongoing pain. Thank you for laughing at my pain.

(38:50):
I spent the first seven years of my career, literally from the day I left university to the day I started Wi-Fi thinking of nothing else apart from starting a business and wanting to do nothing apart from start a business. And I completely tortured myself with that objective and I had this sort of hero entrepreneur stereotype in my mind. And I think we've fed that a little bit growing up. The first time founder that comes from nothing, pulls himself up with their bootstraps, goes on to build this fantastic business, the kind of Elon Musk type character. I know he's probably been cancelled by now. But

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, I think we'll get well if we talk about 'em too much,

Speaker 2 (39:34):
And I know you are an outlier because you started a business very, very young, but I was trying to escape this corporate cycle whilst having a mortgage and thinking, oh, well how am I going to pay myself and all this stuff. And I very naively, I think I thought that knowledge was the key. And so I've read hundred, 200 probably books on sales entrepreneurship. I've read all of the titles that you'd put in a founding a business lineup because I think I thought if I could accumulate enough knowledge, I would have the confidence and the awareness and everything that goes with it to start a company. And I only realise now looking back, that that was basically a way of procrastinating. And I thought that I'd be able to find what I needed to start something in one of those books. And I went through the same process over and over and over again, which was come up with an idea, get excited about that idea, tell all my friends about that idea, buy the domain name, have a logo design on Fiverr.

(40:39):
And then you start working at it and then you realise, oh, actually this is more difficult than I thought for whatever reason for Wi-Fi initially it was the regulatory piece because we wanted to syndicate investments and it was difficult to find a way of doing that which wouldn't fall under, wouldn't be classified as unauthorised bets of investment key. And it was only when I finally pushed through that dip by asking for help, they're basically going, right, I need to find someone that's done something very similar before. I reached out to someone that run syndicates for another real asset and basically said, how did you do this? And he showed me the path forwards literally over a 30 minute phone call. And by that point, and this was wine F, this had already taken me seven years to get to this point. I'd been wrestling with it for about three months and it was like a light bulb went on. I just thought, I'm an idiot. The key to building a successful business is finding people that have done something similar to what you want to do and asking them how they got there. And I think people are

Speaker 1 (41:39):
Even happy to chat. They're only to,

Speaker 2 (41:41):
People are very happy to chat. Exactly. And if they know that you are earnest about it, it's amazing what people are willing to do for free just because they want to save you. The kind of heartbreak that they went through. And it took me far too long to find that out.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
It was exactly what you mean, what you need. I mean, when I started, there was no way, shape, or form that I would've ever done what I had done if I'd known how difficult it would've been. So naively is that is one of those massive unlocks. But then again, the older you get, the more you realise that actually you can't just go into a new market and be totally naive and win, if you know what I mean. There is an element of over the course of the first 10 years or whatever it is in business, you must compound all of your learnings. And the chances are the second time you start a business, if you're so lucky to do that, it will be 10 x, 10 x faster. That that's just the reality. What's super interesting I guess, about your journey is that you are at that point where you are stable, you're scaling, you're growing, you're not quite sure which way to go left or right at the moment. What is the strategy for Wi-Fi? Where is it going? Are you going to take it to a hundred million? Are you going to sell it? Are you going to just carry on going the way that you, what is the game plan?

Speaker 2 (42:49):
So I think first and foremost today, all of our focus has really been on the investment side. So we've built the quantitative models, which were first in our field. We have portfolios that are dramatically outperforming the wider wine markets that part of the business is working. The downside with that, looking at it from purely a business perspective is we are in a very cyclical market. So the wine markets, as with any market move up and down. And we found that during the market decline, unsurprisingly people invest less than they do when the market's recovering. So I think a key priority at the moment is really to decouple the business as much as possible from that cyclicality. So how can we introduce recurring revenue streams to the business? And one part is monetizing our data tools. So we've built many data tools that can be very valuable to the wine trade as a whole.

(43:46):
And we've only really stumbled on that by accident. To give you an example, one thing we built because you need it from an investment perspective is at what price should you buy and sell wine, a certain wine, and how long should you hold it? Which wines are most likely to appreciate in value? And obviously we were looking at it from an investment perspective, but what we've realised now is if you are a stockholder, if you're a wine merchant, where your biggest expense ultimately is the wines that you're buying in order to sell on, it's very valuable to know which wines you should sell today because likely to decrease in value and which ones you should hold for two years because they're going to be worth 40% more. So I think monetizing it in a, it's a dirty word, SaaS at the moment, but creating a kind of SAS on there is a focus.

(44:32):
And then the second thing is, I'm particularly excited about this, it's really around experiences. So we've had a lot of people ask for vineyard trips, produce visits and dinners, events, tastings, whatever it might be. And historically we haven't really been set up to do that. So we've always worked with partners to put those events on. And we're working at the moment, I can't say too much, but on effectively a member's club, which will provide members with not just discounted fees for wine, fine investments, but heavily subsidised wines, producer visits essentially access that otherwise would be extraordinarily expensive. Or in the case of some producers unattainable. And I'm particularly excited for that because it's almost like building, I built wine because it was almost like a company that I would want to use and this also feels like a continuation of that. It feels like something I would be very excited to be a part of. So I think those are the two key foci at the moment because ultimately our view is if we build a good enough business, we may get acquired, but the focus is on building something great. I think first and foremost,

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Are you successful?

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Not yet is what I would say.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
What is success?

Speaker 2 (45:47):
So I do have a definition for success. I think there's a quote that I love, which is the secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage. And for me, success is the freedom to do what you want, where you want with who you want. And I am not yet at that point, however, I do think it's going to be a moving bar. I remember being a very lost 24-year-old and thinking if by the time I'm 30, I'm full-time on my own business, that's success. And I'm doing that and I'm going up. I'm not even close.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
It's very, very true. And I do think, and it's super depressing in that sense that for those listening five years time, you will probably achieve the goal that you want to achieve right now. And actually that won't be good enough. And it is something that I've had to battle with, something you've had to battle with. But I've now taken to writing myself a letter at the beginning of the year as to what I want to achieve at the end of the year and at Christmas opening it and going, did I achieve what I wanted to? Did I save what I wanted to? Did I go where I wanted to? Taking that step back and looking at where you were once and where others are is very, very important I think at times.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
But you've surely your weddings top of the success list.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
I didn't put that on there. That was a given. That was a given that it was going to happen this year. So I've put things on there that aren't yet a given. I think that's the way that I play it. But that's a little hack. But look, Callum, I love wine fi. You are doing an amazing job. You are a success. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If there are people that are listening to this podcast, I damn hope there are, where can they invest in fine wine? What's the website? How do they do it?

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Sure. So our website is www.winefi.cooryoucanemailmedirectlyatcallumatwinefi.co. That's Callum with two Ls. It would be great to hear from you,

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Callum with two Ls. I love it. Cheers mate. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Cheers, bye.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Appreciate you listening to the podcast. Hopefully you found it useful. For those that want to read up or learn more, head over to my LinkedIn page, Oliver Bruce online where you'll find a weekly newsletter called the Brucey Bonus where we double click into more detail and give you more tips and tricks around how to scale your business. If you want to share this with friends, family, colleagues, business owners, people that are in your circle, they might find it useful. I would be super appreciative if I said at the beginning of the podcast, this does not grow on its own. This grows with you and we do it for you. So thank you so much for listening and catch you next time. I mentioned earlier, but I do think something that you guys might find super useful if you are running a business and managing multiple transactions across multiple platforms is in card. It's a new financial platform for modern online businesses, giving you guys multicurrency, accounts, connected banking and smart spend management all in one place. You can open up an account in minutes, attach cards for expenses, and earn up to 2% cash back on everyday spend like ads, SaaS, and travel. Check out incar using the link in the description.