JAMES WATT: THE TYPO THAT COST ME £50-MILLION

Summary

Great Company with Jamie Laing: Episode Summary

Episode Title: JAMES WATT: THE TYPO THAT COST ME £50-MILLION
Release Date: November 27, 2024
Host: Jamie Laing
Guest: James Watt

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Introduction

The episode begins with Jamie Laing welcoming listeners to "Great Company," introducing the esteemed guest, James Watt, an entrepreneur renowned for founding the beer company Brewdog. Jamie expresses his eagerness to delve deep into James's personal and professional life beyond his public persona.

Jamie Laing [07:04]: "Today, today we have James Watt. Now, James Watt is an entrepreneur to the sort of truest sense of an entrepreneur."

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Early Life and Background

James Watt provides an intimate look into his upbringing in a small fishing village in northeast Scotland. He recounts his experiences growing up with a fisherman father, the impact of his father's passing, and overcoming personal challenges such as a speech impediment.

James Watt [10:19]: "James Watt is. It's odd. I still think of myself as a fisherman. So, like, fisherman, business person. But, like, that fisherman is just like, so deeply ingrained in my identity, into my DNA."

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Entrepreneurial Journey with Brewdog

James details the inception of Brewdog, highlighting the risks he and his business partner, Martin, undertook to establish the company. From selling beers out of a beat-up Volkswagen to securing a pivotal deal with Tesco despite financial constraints, James emphasizes the unconventional strategies that propelled Brewdog to success.

James Watt [24:56]: "The history of Brewdog is a history of us taking massive gamble after massive gamble after massive gamble."

He also shares a dramatic incident where a typo almost cost him £50 million, underscoring the importance of meticulousness in business operations.

James Watt [32:11]: "We gave the partner the wrong bank account details... it was like, you worked 10 years and like, the bank were like, oh, we sent it to the bank account that you gave us."

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Facing Controversies and Media Scrutiny

The conversation shifts to the controversies Brewdog faced, including accusations of toxic workplace culture. James offers his perspective on the criticisms, attributing them to a small, disgruntled subset of former employees and emphasizing the company's positive attributes and recognitions.

James Watt [38:18]: "At that time, given the size of business we are, we had 8,000 former colleagues. The ones that signed up to the open letter was like less than 0.3% of them."

He elaborates on the challenges of maintaining company culture amidst rapid growth and high-profile media attention.

James Watt [43:32]: "We sell to them on our own terms. We keep the margin, we keep the pricing structure good."

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Personal Challenges and Grief

James opens up about his personal life, discussing the profound grief he experienced following the sudden loss of his father and a close friend to pancreatic cancer. He reflects on how these losses have reshaped his outlook on life, emphasizing the finite nature of time and the importance of cherishing moments with loved ones.

James Watt [47:48]: "I just want to share this with my dad. I wish my dad was part of this."

James Watt [53:18]: "Life isn't an infinite game. There's only a finite amount of times that we get to spend time with those most important to us."

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Future Ventures and Business Philosophy

Transitioning to future endeavors, James introduces his new venture, Social Tip, aimed at democratizing influence by enabling everyday customers to become brand influencers. He discusses the innovative approach of rewarding customers for social media posts, distinguishing it from traditional influencer marketing.

James Watt [56:47]: "Social Tip takes advantage of everything I've done and learned about marketing, community engagement, brand building over the last two decades."

James reiterates his belief in radical honesty and the importance of differentiating oneself in saturated markets.

James Watt [64:38]: "If I could give somebody one piece of business advice is you've got to find a way to do things differently."

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Reflections and Final Thoughts

In the concluding segment, Jamie and Jemima reflect on the depth and candor of the conversation with James. James shares his personal mottos and the qualities he admires, emphasizing resilience, creativity, and integrity.

James Watt [63:56]: "I think with most things, I've got a kind of radical honesty, which I like. So people can agree with me, they can disagree with me, they can like me, they can not like me."

James offers heartfelt advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, advocating for innovation and authenticity in business practices.

James Watt [64:38]: "You've got to find a way to do things differently. Just spend so much time, like, honing, defining, distilling, like, what makes you so different to the competition."

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Notable Quotes

• James Watt [24:56]: "The history of Brewdog is a history of us taking massive gamble after massive gamble after massive gamble."
• James Watt [32:16]: "I took £50 million from a private equity company for a small part of my share. Apparently, you lost it."
• James Watt [53:18]: "Life isn't an infinite game. There's only a finite amount of times that we get to spend time with those most important to us."

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Conclusion

Jamie and Jemima commend James for his transparency and the multifaceted nature of his personality, blending ruthless business acumen with profound personal empathy. The episode wraps up with final reflections on the importance of authentic storytelling in understanding the true essence of business leaders.

Jamie Laing [66:13]: "What was so interesting about that is that we got behind the businessman James Watt and we actually found out what he truly is like."

Listeners are encouraged to subscribe for more insightful conversations in future episodes of "Great Company."

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Key Takeaways

• Risk and Ambition: James emphasizes that ambitious ventures require a high appetite for risk, advocating for unconventional strategies to achieve remarkable success.
• Resilience in Adversity: Personal and professional setbacks are framed as opportunities for growth and development.
• Authenticity in Business: Radical honesty and differentiation are pivotal in standing out in saturated markets.
• Balancing Success and Personal Life: The finite nature of time compels a balance between business pursuits and cherishing personal relationships.

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essence of the episode, providing a clear and engaging overview for those who haven't listened, while preserving the integrity and depth of the original conversation.

Transcript

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[Jamie Laing]

Hello, everyone. My name is Jamie Laing and this is great company. Well, hello listeners.

[Jemima]

Hello, listeners. Hello.

[Kristen]

Owls. Owlets.

[Jamie Laing]

Honestly.

[Jemima]

Straight in.

[Jamie Laing]

Yeah, he's straight in there with that.

[Jemima]

Yes, our wonderful listeners. Hi, this is Jamie.

[Jamie Laing]

I'm Jamie. I'm the host of the show. I say that every single week. And this is my wonderful producer, Jemima. There you are, Jemima. You know, no one knows. No one realizes what you look like. What do you mean? So no one ever sees you. Or maybe they do if they go on social.

[Jemima]

What a shame. What a real shame that is.

[Jamie Laing]

What a real.

[Jemima]

I'm a real feast for the eyes.

[Jamie Laing]

You are.

[Jemima]

You are not today. I am tired today.

[Jamie Laing]

Oh, I'm tired today as well because I. Not for the episode, actually. I'm just a little bit jet lagged, but that's okay.

[Jemima]

Oh, fine, fine. I'm a bit hungover.

[Jamie Laing]

You're a little bit hungover. Get out of here.

[Jemima]

Shoot me.

[Jamie Laing]

So you're gonna be honest today about things.

[Jemima]

That means.

[Jamie Laing]

Cause normally when people have had too many drinks. They probably feel like they can be honest a bit more.

[Jemima]

No, you know, I'm just young, free.

[Kristen]

Stop.

[Jamie Laing]

Young and free. Okay?

[Jemima]

I'm young and free and I'll do what I want.

[Jamie Laing]

Okay?

[Kristen]

You do whatever you want.

[Jemima]

I whipped my scarf off there.

[Jamie Laing]

Jemima was wearing a scarf.

[Jemima]

And now I'm no more wearing a scarf.

[Jamie Laing]

Today, today we have James Watt.

[Jemima]

James Watt. Now, James Watt. Who's James Watt? For people who don't know.

[Jamie Laing]

So James Watt is a entrepreneur to the sort of truest sense of an entrepreneur. He built a company called Brewdog. Now, if you don't know what Brewdog is, Brewdog is a beer company. It is stocked in all retailers up and down the country around the world. It is a business, what you call a unicorn.

[Jemima]

What's that?

[Jamie Laing]

A unicorn is where a typical business, a startup business, gets a valuation of over a billion really quickly.

[Jemima]

Is that. I'm assuming that's also really, really rare.

[Jamie Laing]

It's incredibly rare. Hence the saying a unicorn.

[Jemima]

Can you name another unicorn? Any other famous ones?

[Jamie Laing]

A famous unicorn would be something like Apple was probably a unicorn. Uber was probably. Was probably a unicorn. You're looking in that kind of realm. You're looking at these companies which, to get a company to be valued over a billion is having run businesses and still run candy cannons and we run Jampon and things like that. To run a business of that size and get it up there in the space of 15 years is hugely impressive. The highest valuation was 2 billion in BrewDog. He also has had. And he'll be listening to this. And James, I hope you don't mind. He's also had some controversy, some in the press. There were some complaints made about his business style and, you know, he's spoken a lot about it. But what I'm really interested to know today, I know James, he's a impressive person and so interesting, but I really want to know the person behind the business, who he really is, what makes him tick, his emotions. That's what I want to find out.

[Jemima]

Yeah, being totally honest, when you pitched to have James Watt on the show, I was a bit kind of apprehensive because I, for me, I know James Watt more from the controversy in the papers than who he is. But I am really excited to have him in the studio and find out a little bit more about him and also ask the questions about. About those controversies as well. But I'm also, I think it's going to pose a new challenge in terms of our interviewing in having a guest Who. There are some maybe more uncomfortable questions to ask.

[Jamie Laing]

And also what I think is interesting, right. Is that I know this. The press can write loads of different things. And actually when you meet someone and understand them and see the way they tick, then you can make your own sort of judgment of them, which I think. Which is gonna be amazing today. Look, I value that opinion. I think James would also value that opinion. I think today is about. Yeah. Asking those hard questions. And I think we're gonna go. I'm gonna go in quite deep. I think hopefully James will open up and be honest about stuff. He has just got engaged to Georgia.

[Jemima]

Tofflo from Maiden Chelsea.

[Jamie Laing]

From maiden Chelsea, who is a close friend of mine. And I'll tell you this, Toph, as I know her, she was in the jungle. She won the jungle. Is a very special, wonderful person. And she is engaged to James and it must mean that they are a pretty special couple together, which I'm excited to find out about as well.

[Jemima]

Yeah, I think it's gonna be a really interesting episode. And I am engaged to find out. I'm really intrigued, regardless. Like you were saying at the beginning, to do what he's done is like, that's not a normal human. So I'm really intrigued by this person and I have my preconceived ideas, but I am ready for them to be changed because I think that's an important thing to be open to.

[Jamie Laing]

I like this. Also, lots of people may not know when the episode finishes. They may not know that we come back and chat at the end as well.

[Jemima]

No, they might not.

[Jamie Laing]

We have a little ramble, a little conversation about how the episode went right at the end of.

[Jemima]

Yeah, post nap match analysis.

[Jamie Laing]

That's it. So if you're interested in that, please stick around for that as well. And also don't forget to please click that follow or subscribe button because it does wonders for this show. It does. Okay, you ready?

[Jemima]

I'm ready.

[Jamie Laing]

Please enjoy this episode of Great Company with James Watt.

[Kristen]

Hi, I'm James Watt and I'm actually terrible company. So I have no idea what the hell I'm doing here.

[Jamie Laing]

James, welcome to Great Company. I'm going to kick this off in a strange way.

[Kristen]

Good.

[Jamie Laing]

Okay, good. I'm glad you like that. I. I think. I think so many people. Because I. We know each other sort of ish. Right? We met a few times and lots of people probably think they know who you are, but someone who knows you impeccably well is your new fiance, Giorgio Tofflo. Toff who I know her as. And I asked her to send a voice note describing who you are. I haven't listened to it.

[Kristen]

Okay.

[Jamie Laing]

But with your permission, she said it was okay. Are you happy if I play it?

[Kristen]

I'm delighted if you play it.

[Jamie Laing]

Okay, here we go.

[Georgia Toffolo]

Hi, Jay. I miss you so much. I love that you've asked me for this. So most people know James for being the crazy high octane, tough businessman. Whilst that all might be true, his success and his drive really does know no bounds. Take it from me. But getting to know the real James, my James, has been the greatest revelation of my life so far. He is the kindest, most gentle soul I've ever met. And quite frankly, I can't believe that I get to spend the rest of my life with him. Anyway, my darling, I will leave you with that. Send my love to him. Tell him I miss him already because. Bye.

[Kristen]

That was an unexpected start. First time I've ever started a podcast like that.

[Jamie Laing]

How does it make you feel?

[Kristen]

It's much better than the last podcast I started when the first question was, so are you a bad boss to work for? Much, much better. No, it's amazing. Like, Georgia just kind of came into my life just over a year ago. It's this amazing kind of day of sunshine. We just met each other at the perfect time and yeah, just to kind of be with someone that kind of understands like a lot of my world and a lot of what I do and is like, super passionate about the same things that I'm into and I just love them spending time with and kind of building a life together. It's been amaz. So, yeah, she's fantastic.

[Jamie Laing]

Isn't it amazing when you find someone that just. You get each other and you get each other what you want to do? When you're both on the same path in life, it really enhances your life, doesn't it?

[Kristen]

Yeah, exactly. It's like that kind of old business adage to take it back to business. But, like, one plus one, if you get it right, doesn't equal two. It can equal 10. And I think that's definitely the case, which I joined myself.

[Jamie Laing]

Do you find it tricky? Because most people, when they bring you onto a podcast, want to talk to you about things. It's about business, it's about brewdog, it's about how you started. Where I find it far more interesting to go behind the curtain and find out who James Watt is. That's what I want to understand. And does that make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable?

[Kristen]

No, I Think it makes me feel comfortable. And I mean, I've told the story of Drew Dog so many times. There are so many places where people can hear that story. And for me, so much of, like, business is about the people behind the businesses. And that's what listeners to podcasts or kind of viewers don't usually get to see. So, yeah, really happy to have any type of conversation you want.

[Jamie Laing]

So who is James Watt?

[Kristen]

Who is James Watt? James Watt is. It's odd. I still think of myself as a fisherman. So, like, fisherman, business person. But, like, that fisherman is just like, so deeply ingrained in my identity, into my DNA. My grandfather caught lobsters until he was into his 90s. My dad, who I sadly lost this year, caught lobsters up until six months, six weeks before he passed away. I studied a lot at university, got a job in a legal office. Hated it. Didn't want to spend my life sitting in a cheap suit doing admin. So I quit after two weeks and became a North Atlantic fisherman. I studied at nautical college. I became a captain. And I still feel like so much of who I am is, like, linked to the amount of time I spent on the ocean and that side of me.

[Jamie Laing]

What is it like on the ocean?

[Kristen]

It's an odd mix of really difficult, really challenging, kind of really rewarding as well. So we would f. In January, February is our main season. The North Atlantic in January is a very, very tough place to make a living. It is. It is hard, it's difficult, it is dangerous. One of my absolute best friends lost his arm in an accident another night just north of Shetland. Somebody kind of got washed into the. Into the sea. It's like standing next to him on the deck when it happened. Like, thankfully we managed to get him back, but I think, like, doing difficult things is good for people. I think it gives you a sense of kind of resilience, a bit of tenacity, a kind of steely determination. So I love the time I was on the. On the boat. So I was out in the lobster boat just a few weeks ago. I took Georgia out and she helped catch lobsters on a nice sunny day. That was. That was fun. But, yeah, it's just something always I've loved doing and it's something I miss a lot at the moment as well.

[Jamie Laing]

I was speaking to someone the other day who was talking about she studied monkeys. And I found this fascinating. She said that a good mother in this sort of, you know, monkey family. If that is not the scientific term, the monkey family, what is the scientific term? The Primate. I the primate. But mothers, when they look after their young, they will almost bully them, they will nip at them, they will push them, they will hit them, they won't be very warm or cuddly to help them survive. And when they were too kind to their young, it showed that the monkeys wouldn't have sort of survival instincts in the wild. And so this idea of having to put yourself through some kind of resilience and suffering in order to understand what life is really about is important. And there are arguments today suggest that people don't have that.

[Kristen]

I would 100% agree with that. And I think a lot of people that's gone on to be insanely successful and built fantastic things. I think Elon Musk's an amazing example of it. I think a lot of the things that drives him is like coping mechanisms that he had to put in place. Going through an incredibly tough childhood where he was bullied and had a really kind of tough upbringing in South Africa. And if you can keep that mentality that you've kind of instilled through a difficult time and apply it to the rest of your life, you can sometimes achieve amazing things.

[Jamie Laing]

How was growing up for you?

[Kristen]

Growing up was. Was interesting. So tiny, tiny fishing village northeast of Scotland. About a thousand people lived in the. In the village. My dad was kind of constantly away in the fishing boats. I lived with my mum and we didn't have the best of relationships. Spent a lot of time with my grandparents, a lot of time in the fishing boats. But like, small village in northeast Scotland, just an amazing place to grow up. Like complete freedom just to kind of run about. And everyone knew, everyone kind of grew up. A bunch of friends who I'm still close with. So love the kind of first 10 years of my life just doing what I wanted in a little fishing village.

[Jamie Laing]

You may had a bit of a. Was it a stutter, a speech impediment?

[Kristen]

Yeah, I had a speech impediment and like, yeah, took a lot of kind of flack and it's kind of part of growing up and part of childhood, but, yeah, took a bit of flack for speech impediment for about a decade and a half.

[Jamie Laing]

But why do you laugh at that? Because I think all kids, we have those moments where, you know, it's tough and things are shit and I'm probably the same as you, but I've tried to unpack my insecurities in whatever way it has. And before I would just laugh them off or push them to one side, but actually to embrace them and say, yeah, I was pretty shit is probably better. I would say, I don't know.

[Kristen]

Yeah, potentially. I think everything's got kind of elements of kind of good and bad. And like, one of the things that I think, and I think about it in the course of like a business, but also in the course of like a life, I would say most businesses throughout the course of a business journey get the same amount of good stakes. They get the same amount of bad breaks, they get the same amount of good luck, they get the same amount of bad luck. And what determines the fantastic companies is how they take advantage of the good luck, but then how they use the setbacks, the kicks in the teeth, the difficult things as not this challenge to get down about, but how can they use this constraint as an opportunity to unlock a different way of thinking, to unlock a level of kind of personal development, to push them forward? Because if you think that every company is going to get the same amount of bad rakes and bad luck, all of a sudden, if your mindset is okay, how can I use this as a development opportunity to push me forward? And then for me, that's what differentiates the fantastic companies from lots of fantastic companies. If you look at somebody's life, I would say the same thing can hold true. So you might get the same amount of bad luck, the same amount of things going against you, the same amount of heartbreakingly tragic things, and you might get the same amount of positive things and opportunities. And I think what determines where you get to and what determines your destiny is taking advantage of those good things, but using the challenging things as a catalyst to get better, to push yourself forward, to embrace life with all its heartbreak and tragedy and happiness and imperfections and joy and sorrow and all those things kind of wrapped in. Because over the course of a lifetime of a human or a business, you're going to have these kind of peaks and troughs in almost any journey.

[Jamie Laing]

So what did you learn from that when you were younger then?

[Kristen]

What did I learn from that when I was younger? That people are illogical, irrational, people don't care too much about the feelings of other people. Everyone looks for an opportunity to kind of make themselves feel better in the moment. And if that's through, putting someone else down. So I think it gives you an understanding of kind of psychology. I also think it kind of builds up an element of resilience. It's like, okay, okay, well, that was tough. I hated it. I got through that. That's going to stand me in better stead for Other challenges I'm going to have in the, in the future and hopefully make me a better person because of it.

[Jamie Laing]

Your mom, you said you have a tricky relationship, you haven't spoken to each other for over 20 years and she was incredibly tough on you.

[Kristen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Laing]

And that must have been tricky growing up because you want to, you know, you expect love from your parents and if you see your other friends and people getting love and your mum is just being a bit harsh on you, you're a bit like, what are you doing wrong?

[Kristen]

Is that the way to frame it or is that way to frame it?

[Jamie Laing]

How do you frame it?

[Kristen]

I am who I am today and I've been able to build and achieve what I am today because of certain kind of personality traits. So, like massive childhood inadequacy complex. Like, enjoyed my childhood. It was a great childhood. It's not like some kind of sob story stuff like I felt like an outsider. I felt like I didn't belong. Small, tight group of friends, but apart from that kind of didn't really belong, didn't really fit in, had the speech impediments. I was always kind of really shy, didn't like to speak to anyone because speaking to anyone was an opportunity for them to mock the speech impediment, which almost inevitably happened. So become quite introverted. Can I keep myself to myself? I had a mom who I think was struggling with her own issues and challenges at the time and therefore nothing was ever even close to good enough. Like 98% in the test. Why the fuck did you get 100? It's like. And like I was like top of every single class I was in, like in secondary school, I was like the kind of rise for the smartest kid in school. All that and like Scottish school, swimming track. But like any kind of achievement, like no achievement was like ever even close to good enough. Like no school report anything even close to good enough. So if you've got that kind of outsider kind of inadequacy complex, then how do you kind of fix that feeling inside? You fix that feeling inside through achieving things. And if you've got that drive coming from inside of you, it's a hell of a drive to kind of unleash and kind of focus in the business versus other people who are maybe motivated by other different things. So would I change it? No. In if I was a psychologist, I would say probably a large part of what I've done and kind of how driven I am and how hard working I am. A, because I love it, but B, because I'm trying to compensate for these things that happen to my childhood self.

[Jamie Laing]

So you haven't spoken to your mum for 20 years, does that upset you? Sorry, I'm now going really deep. I'm just so interested James.

[Kristen]

It's just kind of how I've kind of lived and it's just kind of one of these things and like we didn't get on that well and I thought it'd be kind of healthier and happier if that kind of. If I didn't have my mom in my life, which is kind of the decision I've made up until, up until now. Does it upset me? No, no, not really. And I think I'm like so pragmatic with kind of how I look at things and I think like people's heads are kind of wired, knocking in different ways and like it's like, it's like something I can laugh about with George and her relationship as well. It's like the amount of times like, like the analogy that I give her is a business analogy. The analysis that I put on it is a business like so like if I'm thinking about a relationship with someone, it's like just probably head fed up of me using the phrase opportunity cost when we're having a discussion about a relationship, which is quite a narrative thing to do. But my head is kind of wired in that way. So we've all got a certain amount of hours in the day, we've all got a certain amount of focus. Young, old, rich, poor, successful, not successful. What determines your destiny is how intelligently you use the hours you've got in a day. And some of those can be taken up with emotional things and business things and health things and wellness things. I'm just like quite unusual in terms of kind of how I look at my time and my focus. And I would say I'm definitely guilty of like stripping emotion out of way too many things. And it was a kind of journey I was on recently so. And it was not a surprise to anyone who knows me at all but on the, on the spectrum. So kind of high functioning Asperger's and part of your head being wired that way is the kind of emotional pathways in your brain isn't as developed as they are in other people. So a lot of my analysis and can how I look at situations and how I look at things as I. On logic on a kind of business analysis and probably kind of light on that emotional side of the spectrum which is fantastic in some areas of my life but kind of challenge in Others. And one of the areas where it's probably fantastic is with Drew Dog. Throughout the entire journey, we did things that were so radically different, that were so unconventional, that were such big risks. But my head is not wired up that emotionally, so I don't emotionally care what people think. So if your head's wired up that way, you're much more willing to take a risk, to take a gamble, to put push things because you don't need that kind of sense of belonging or kind of validation or any of those things. I think it was a massive advantage in business, but then more challenging kind of business and other parts of your life if you don't recognize enough the kind of emotions and stuff of other people around about you. So kind of like everything, there's kind of good sides and bad sides and it's kind of understanding it and how you, how you use it.

[Jamie Laing]

When you got the diagnosis, was that a light bulb moment or was it just like, okay, maybe the way that your brain works, you're just like, okay, there we go. We now.

[Kristen]

Yeah, okay, like, what do we do to optimize this? Do we harness this? How can we use this as an advantage? Like, what can I kind of structure in my day to like, because there's a gift that come along with it as well, to kind of maximize on those. It is what it is. Like, and again, like, so pragmatic. If I can change something, like, I will die in a ditch, like until my hands are bleeding, try to change it. If I can't change it, I am going to waste not a single ounce of energy or emotion or focus on it and I'm going to try and do something else to kind of try and work around it. So can I change that? Absolutely not. Can I look to kind of try and find ways to optimize it? Can I use that. Can I kind of use that understanding to find ways to make myself a better leader, a better partner, a better dad, a better person? I think I can. Can I use that understanding to find ways to make myself more productive? I think I can as well. So therefore, let's kind of use this constraint as an opportunity and see where we get to with it.

[Jamie Laing]

Give us some of the risks that you've taken that other people probably wouldn't have taken. Yeah.

[Kristen]

Oh, my goodness. So when we set up. So for the first four years, I was still working full time as captain of an Earth Atlantic fishing boat to supplement the income. Martin was sleeping in the couch in his mum's house. I moved into the spare room. In my dad's house.

[Jamie Laing]

And Martin is your business partner?

[Kristen]

Yeah, up until the age of 31, I was living in a tiny box spare room in my dad's house. And like, that's a side of entrepreneurship that people don't see. And okay, we've become relatively successful now, which is amazing. But then like the push and the sacrifice and the effort to do that is like the side of the coin that people just don't, don't see. And always said to Martin and we kind of laugh and joke about and I've said it to the team so many times throughout the journey with Trudog. This business is going to be one of two things and it's only going to be one of two things. We are going to crash and burn completely or we're going to be a big global success. But that is totally fine because the space in between is absolutely boring and I'm callously indifferent towards this business ending up in that space. So let's take massive risks. That's where our heart and our sleeve. Let's put everything on the line for what we believe in time and time and time again. Let's give us a chance of being a massive global success. If not, I was delighted in the fishing boat. I'll be back there in a heartbeat and we'll just go on about with our, with our lives and with our days. So like the history of Dawog is a history of us taking massive gamble after massive gamble after massive gamble.

[Jamie Laing]

Do you think, because you, and I hope you don't take this as a criticism because I don't think you would. The fact that you were happy to go back to the fishing boat and be a captain there, that was your plan B. And so you had that plan B in the back of your mind. So you are able to take those risks. So some people don't have a plan B, whatever that may be, then maybe the element of risk is far more intimidating.

[Kristen]

It could be and I think it depends what you're setting out to do with a business. So there's so many fantastic businesses that are create lifestyle businesses that are kind of really good, kind of small to medium sized businesses that provide amazing jobs and amazing incomes for the founders. Like I'm not for a second saying every business should follow the playbook that we followed. But for us, we wanted to do something remarkable in a global scale. We wanted to make our mark in the world of beer. We wanted to put a dent in the universe. We wanted to create something that was really big globally and we knew setting out with two humans and one dog and no money whatsoever in 2007, the only way to do that was risk. And I always think that risk is directly proportional to ambition. So the more ambitious you are, the higher levels of risk you need to be prepared to take to give yourself the opportunity to unlock that ambition. So having a huge ambition without a huge appetite for risk, forget it. It's never, never going to work. So depending on where your ambition is, is, is kind of, yeah, linked to risk. And for me, if you're trying to do something remarkable, unless you take substantial risk, unless you open yourself up to the real possibility of failure, unless you almost kind of stare failure in the eye on a daily basis, like you're not going to open yourself up for the kind of possibility to have real success.

[Jamie Laing]

So like any huge successful business, there's been moments when failure was right in the corner.

[Kristen]

Yeah, yeah. So, so, so many for us. I mean, the first few years, like nobody, like nobody wanted to know. I was selling the beers out the back of my beat up Volkswagen Golf. I was selling the beers at local farmers markets. We were barely making enough money to keep the lights on. We were sleeping of sacks of malt on the floor. We were filling bottles by hand. And this was kind of back in 2008, we entered some beers in a Tesco beer competition. I kind of forgot about it. Six weeks later, get a phone call from Tesco and they told us we'd finished first, second, third and fourth in this Tesco beer competition. I was like, okay, really good. So went down. This was when Tesco headquarters was in Cheshun, just outside London. Went to Tesco headquarters, sat there. Ian Target, who was the head beer buyer at that time, was like, James, these beers are fantastic. Love them, Breath of fresh air in the category. We want to put these four beers in 200 stores nationwide and we can sell 2,000 cases a week. I sat there with my best poker face on and didn't mention anything at all about the fact this was two guys and one dog filling bottles by hand. We signed a contract and we were due to start shipping beer to Tesco in four months time. So got back and sat down with Martin. I was like, what the hell are we going to do? There's no way we can fill this much beer. So Martin spoke to a few equipment suppliers and we put a plan in place and we needed £100,000 for a bottling line and we did £50,000 for some fermentation tanks. Went to the bank, bank of Scotland so 2008, for those of us old enough to remember, the global economy is in an absolute tailspin. Banking crisis, like the banks are in pieces, they're being nationalized. Like the worst time in the last 50 years to go and ask the banks for more. And bank of Scotland just laughed at us. It was like, James, you're not paying your bank loan back. There's no way we can give you the loan here. Undeterred, we went to the bank across the street, which was hsbc, and said to the team at hsbc, our bank, bank of Scotland have just offered us an amazing finance package on a bottling line in fermentation tanks. It's worth £150,000 in total. Here's the terms, here's the interest rates. But we love hsbc. We want to go international. And at that time we had no idea of what international even meant. We were like, we love hsbc, we love the international element. We're a young up and coming company, we've got this contract with Tesco, you want to work with us. And for some reason HSBC gave us the money. So business plan in the first couple of years is make hoppy American style beers and tell lies to banks. We got the equipment in two weeks before the beer was due to go into Tesco. We got the beer on the shelf in Tesco and we never looked back.

[Jamie Laing]

How important is to not follow logic when setting up a business, especially something like a beer business, that there are a huge amount of those in the world.

[Kristen]

So for me, the fact that we set the business up as two 24 year olds who'd never set up a business before, who didn't know anything about the beer industry, who were completely naive about running a business, was perhaps the strongest asset we had because if we'd known how to do it, we would have been more inclined to follow the conventional playbook. And if you follow the conventional playbook, you can only ever get conventional results. If you do the same as your competition, you're only ever going to get an outcome that's the same or less good as them because they've got scale and you don't have scale. So the fact that we didn't know what the hell we were doing was absolutely amazing. So when I'm speaking to founders and I do a lot of investment, I love the ones that don't have experience of their industry because then they take such a completely fresh perspective of it and find ways to unlock fantastic alternative ways of doing things, which you have to.

[Jamie Laing]

As a startup, I couldn't agree more. And just to give my little 10 cents, I say again to the team the whole time, we should never follow logic. And actually I find it especially in sort of early stage businesses when people try and try to bring in experience into a certain situation who have done it before. I'm like, no, I don't think that's a good idea. You know, have mentors, have people that you can speak to potentially, but don't the business, the one that you feel and the one that you can touch and the one that you're part of growing that with the mistakes that you're going to do is going to lead you towards that success. And people don't realize that naivety is your biggest weapon.

[Kristen]

Absolutely. So we actually had a few kind of early stage drinks. Industry experts who wanted to advise us as a company, I think they saw what we're doing, it looked quite cool. So they offered their services for free. So I thought, okay, this is just going to cost me a few hours of my time. I'll kind of entertain it. They told us, don't sell at supermarkets. Supermarkets have been absolutely amazing for us. They've been massively impactful for our business. But they told us, don't sell the supermarkets. They're just going to screw you over. They're the best thing ever for a business. And for me, the important thing is we sell to them on our own terms. We keep the margin, we keep the pricing structure good. But that was terrible advice. But that was a conventional wisdom. If you're small, don't sell supermarkets. And then they also told us, just pick one international market, put loads of resources there, put full focus there, and just do one international market with deep focus. And I was like, to hell with that, that sounds stupid. So actually, in 2010, with no experience of doing business internationally at all, we opened 20 international markets for our beer. We had beer from Sweden to Norway to Brazil, Brazil to Colombia to America, to Mexico to New Zealand to Australia to Japan to China. And my philosophy was, some of these markets are going to work, some of these markets are not going to work. But I want to find the lightest touch possible way to test them. So as opposed to just picking one market based on a hypothesis, say France or Italy, I want to test 20 with a minimal amount of resource behind them and see where we've naturally got some momentum, see where we've naturally got some traction. So that if I am getting to back a market hard, I'm doing it not based on a hypothesis, but I'm doing it Based on actual customer behavior in actual dynamics in that market and our beer working well in that market. And we've just pushed International so hard from that. And we've been. I think our beer is now in 65 countries. The other thing that I did with international in the early days was like, for the first 10 years, I didn't take any time off at all, but I wanted to travel. So I just opened locations and places that I wanted to go because it kind of counted in a holiday. Hence we've got buyers in amazing cities like Tokyo and Berlin.

[Jamie Laing]

You still own 21% of the business in 2017. You sold some of the business. Can you. How much did you sell of the business?

[Kristen]

I took £50 million from a private equity company for a small part of my share.

[Jamie Laing]

Apparently you lost it.

[Kristen]

Oh, my goodness. It was the worst few days of my life. So we did the deal and the money was going to be transferred to my bank accounts between my 50 million. Right, £50 million, yeah. And up until then, I had no money of any consequence to speak of. So, like, this is like life changing, kind of game changing amount of money. It was only a few years before that that had moved out of my dad's tiny spare room that was about half the size of this. Between myself and my assistant, we gave the partner the wrong bank account details for my bank account. We were one digit out. To make it worse, my lovely assistant then verbally confirmed the wrong bank account details on the phone. And like, the next day I was like, bethany is the money. And I can't wait to see the bank statement. You've got this kind of, I want to see the bank statement. She puts it up, it's like, why is there just £20,000 in this bank account? Bethany, she said, oh, well, it must be coming the next day. The next day I get to the office, I'm like, okay, let's load up the bank. What's happening? She's like, oh, it'll definitely be in tomorrow. I'm like, okay, okay, get to the office. Next, 20,000. There's 20,000 in the bank. Like, what's happening? Oh, maybe it's. No, like, what is happening? What do we need to do here? It's like we phoned up the bank, we got the bank details and we saw the digits and we were one out. And like, just that, just that moment of like, you worked 10 years and like, the bank were like, oh, we sent it to the bank account that you gave us. Like, there's not much we can do here. To help you. And like, you're sitting there, what the fuck am I gonna. What the fuck am I gonna do? So. And like, and like, we keep phone and we keep phone and I kind of try a different contact at the bank. And like, there's like, James, this was confirmed twice. We're going to try and help you here, but if it's gone somewhere and the money's moved on, we're going to try and help you here, but you need to, like, just to manage expectations. Like, if it has been moved on from that bank account, there could be very little we can do here. And sorry to let you know, but the bank account that it got sent to by mistake was a bank account in the north of Russia. And you think, is there a worse possible place that this money could have gone to than a bank account in the north Russia? And it's like, like, it's such an odd feeling because you go from accelerating the kind of biggest success. I mean, that was like my equivalent of like winning the 100 meters at the Olympics. I always wanted to build a unicorn, so that was like a chip in my shoulder. Bang. Okay. Always wanted to be well enough that I didn't need to kind of worry about things, but it's beside that chip off my shoulder, whoa. It's like 10 years of work gone. So the banks were speaking to the banks and that later that day said, okay, we're in contact with the bank, we're going to speak to them again in the morning, we're going to see where they get to. And the next morning get a phone call, okay, the money's there, we're speaking about them, we're getting them back. Hopefully we'll manage to get it back for you. And then two days later, the money came back. But, oh, my God. To go from the elation of building a billion pound company, getting a decent payday, to the money being lost and being told by the bank manager, hey, just to manage expectations, there's a chance that you don't see this money again, James. So now every time I make a bank transfer, I feel like I check the digits about 50 million times just to make sure they're right. Yeah, fuck, yeah, fuck.

[Jamie Laing]

And then Jemima's just written and say, I feel sick.

[Kristen]

But my philosophy was like, again with my.

[Jamie Laing]

It's so funny. You're so particular, so meticulous and sort of things. And then the most important thing, you give the wrong details and it goes to an accountant.

[Kristen]

But the way my head works was like, after the third day Poor assistant. She's lovely. And it was as much my mistake as it was. It was her mistake. But the way my head works was at the end of the third day was like, okay, just build something again. Fine, do it again. Okay. Wow. And use this as a catalyst to make it even better next time.

[Jamie Laing]

Dragons end quickly.

[Kristen]

Yeah. We pitched our little hearts out to the producers and the producers felt that our business wasn't investment worthy, told us we weren't getting to see the Dragons that day and sent us back on the road up to Scotland.

[Jamie Laing]

What's the valuation of Brewdog now?

[Kristen]

I mean, the highest valuation that we raised funds at was 1.8 billion. So we were prepared to offer 20% of the business for £100,000. So it would have been a pretty good deal.

[Jamie Laing]

Quick maths. Now, if 20% of the business, 1.8.

[Kristen]

Billion, what is that at 1.8 billion? And like, that valuation is probably at peak. I mean, consumer goods valuation's gone, so is it that today? I don't know. At 1.8, that would have probably been about 450 million worth of value for their £100,000 invested. But we weren't TV investment worthy. I still laugh about it.

[Jamie Laing]

It's impossible to talk to you without bringing up sort of the controversy that has happened over the time. And I know from running a business, you know, ours is far smaller than you, but you have issues with staff. That's just what happens. And you have to sort of learn your way through it. You being so driven towards success, what does that potentially, what are the negatives of that for culture, for workplace?

[Kristen]

It's been a. It's been a massive, massive challenge. So it was back In, I think, 2020, we received an open letter from a bunch of former colleagues who worked for a business saying that we were a toxic place to work for, saying, I was a terribly intense boss and I was responsible for this kind of toxic culture within the. Within the business. And it blew up into this absolute media storm. And, like, we've always been, like, so high profile as a company. People love speaking about us. I think there's all kind of Tall Poppy syndrome kind of in the mix as well. But I think we've got a disproportionate amount of media attention for the thing, which can amplify the impact of the. Of the thing itself.

[Jamie Laing]

So at that point, just quickly describe Tall Poppy Syndrome.

[Kristen]

Tall Poppy syndrome. So I think a great way to kind of describe it is to kind of compare kind of UK to us. So I think in the us, if you're successful, everyone cheers you on from the sidelines because they're so inculcated with American Dream, they think, that's amazing. Go you. Because that can be me. I can do that. In the uk, I think we've got a very different approach to success. And as opposed to that US American Dream philosophy, it's like, well, I'm jealous, I'm resentful. You're successful, I'm not successful. Therefore, in my head, you must have cheated or done something wrong to achieve that success, and you're not deserving of the success. Therefore, I'm going to try and tear that down or kind of chip away at that. So we received this open letter in 2020 from former colleagues accusing us of kind of all these terrible things in terms of kind of workplace culture, and it blew up into this kind of media, media storm. So at that time, given the size of business we are, we had 8,000 former colleagues. So hospitality business, a team member stays with us in a hospitality business for about kind of 12 to 14 months. So your staff turnover is quite high. So we had 8,000 former colleagues. In any business with the best will in the universe, you're going to have a percentage of your former employees who just want to burn the thing down. You're going to have a percentage of your former employees who are unhappy, who are resentful, who are bitter, who are disgruntled. So in the Overall context of 8,000 former employees, the ones that signed up to the open letter was like less than 0.3% of them. So a tiny percentage of our former employees, colleagues, which is so small, the six people who wrote the open letter and the person who sent it, the person who sent it hadn't worked for us for seven years. The six people who wrote it hadn't worked for us on average for five years. So this was kind of so far in the past as well. The ironic thing for me is that two years before and two years after, on an anonymous independent survey by our current team members, we were voted as one of the Sunday Times Best 100 Companies to Work for. So that is like the anonymous independent reality of our business, that this kind of tiny subset of people who hadn't worked for us for such a long time, who just wanted to burn the whole thing down, managed to get such a kind of disproportionate share of voice. And were we always perfect as a company? No. Is any company perfect? No. None of that feedback came from people who actually worked for me as well. It was all people who were kind of significantly lower down in the company, which is so far away from reality of how I am to work with and how I work with my team and my people and culture. And we do so many fantastic things for our team. At that time, we were doing profit shares, real living wages and taking their carbon footprint, making it negative sabbaticals every five years, amazing career and development progression opportunities. And we just had this small bunch of kind of disgruntled team members who managed to, who managed to kind of blow this thing up in a storm that was way out of proportion. That was so far away from the reality of what it's like in our business. And then you end up in this kind of perception, reality thing.

[Jamie Laing]

If people are saying things which you perceive as wrong and other people are saying, well, this is what I felt, what does it to you? Because especially we go back to your idea of when you were talking about the way that your brain works and logically you can't work that out because you're saying, hang on a second, that is not my version of the company. What does it make you feel?

[Kristen]

I mean, that was tough. I mean, to take that much criticism that publicly, it's tough. It hurts like hell. Got to take it on the chin, got to use it to kind of double down on your resilience and got to use it to learn how to be, how to build something better and stronger in the future. And for me, the key thing that I would have done differently, the key learning, the key takeaway for me, and next time I build a business of scale, I am 100% going to do this. The one thing that I could have perhaps done better was manage expectations at the outset of people's employment journey with the company.

[Jamie Laing]

So explain that more.

[Kristen]

So 2011, 2012, 2013, 14. We were like, like one of the coolest, most hyped companies in the uk, if not Europe. We had this amazing public Persona of doing radical, crazy, different things. We made beer, which is something everyone loves and everyone's passionate about. And so many people wanted to work for us. And I think people just saw the fun, the chaos, the beer. And I think they thought coming to work for Drew Dog would be brainstorming market and ideas with me, playing table tennis and having a few beers every afternoon, when the reality was we were a company that was growing at 100% plus each year, we were investing, we were driving hard, but no company growing at 100% each year is going to be perfect. And I think they expected the perks of a corporate steady state business with the growth opportunities it comes with a company that's growing 100% year on year. Those two things just don't exist side by side. And not every company is for everyone. Not every opportunity is for everyone. It takes a certain amount of kind of person, a certain type of mindset that wants to work in a company that's grown 100% year and year. Any company that grows 100% year and year by default, you live in chaos. Like chaos is your modus operandi. People didn't like that. And again because we're trying to achieve something remarkable, we want to push people to achieve what the best version of themselves can achieve.

[Jamie Laing]

So many things I want to unpack there because also when controversy happens in a business that size and everyone knows, I mean everyone pretty much has heard a brewdog or tried a brew dog or knows a brewdog as soon as that happens, then when controversy happens it then follows again, it becomes a news headline. So the next thing that happens and the next thing that happens and I don't really want to press on the point but I just think it's you know, important. You know you had the letter that came out then there was some, a few other sort of controversy throughout. You brought out a drink which was called the speedball and people got upset as well because it was related to. It's a sort of drug that someone takes. There was that you put bad language on the website. There was a claims of hypocrisy over the World cup anti sponsor lost lager, all that kind of stuff and and Sober as a mother advert was banned. So you've had all of these, this controversy. Do you think because of what happened in that letter then people like to make headlines out of the next things?

[Kristen]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean people need to understand how the media works as well. Like clicks when rises. So when media circulation is going down like sensationalized headlines that are clickbaity like are things that the media want to cover. So the fact that our brand has always been so high profile, any newspaper that does an article criticizing us knows they're going to get a lot of clicks on it. So therefore they're going to get advertising revenue. So there's an incentive like the story of Drudger launches an amazing beer, opens a great new bar and has a fantastic year and employs a thousand new people. Nobody cares. Drew dog controversy Boston toxic work culture claim Brew dog Gold cat can chaotic those kind of things like people click on. So it drives the media, it's the nature of the world that we live in. It's how the media works. It's how the media entries works when their circulation is declining. I think we've had a really kind of tough time of it in the media, massively disproportionate to the reality within our company. But it's one of these things that we can't change, we can't impact. Just need to take the knocks and chin and need to continue our mission of trying to build the best business we can.

[Jamie Laing]

Any of the decisions that you made, do you regret?

[Kristen]

Did we always get everything right? Absolutely not. Did we make mistakes along the way? Absolutely. But those mistakes were part of what enabled us to take the risks that made us a fantastic company as well.

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[Jamie Laing]

You've mentioned your dad.

[Kristen]

Yeah.

[Jamie Laing]

And I'm so sorry to hear that he passed because he, you know, James, I'm speaking for you. He was your best friend.

[Kristen]

Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

[Jamie Laing]

Hard question, how do you deal with grief?

[Kristen]

It's so, so tough. And I. I was like, so incredibly close to my dad and I didn't speak to my mom. So, like, my dad was like, double parents who picked up dad and mom, picked up best friend, picked up mentor, kind of picked up hero. Like, he was my hero ever since I was born. And he was just so amazing, so inspirational, like, such a fantastic person. And, like, so much of what I've done and built has been down to the kind of things that he instilled and inculcated in me. And even just like, now, it's like, what does success feel like without being able to share it with my dad? What does happiness feel like without being able to share it with my dad? And it's been insanely happy. Like, the engagement with Georgia and, like, so much love and connection and smiles. But then, like, there's, like, 15% of you. Like, I just want to share this with my dad. I wish my dad was part of this. So we were just. And I know so many people can relate because so many people lose a parent, and it's incredibly tough, but I was just, yeah, so, so close to my dad to lose him so quickly as well. And also I lost one of my dearest, dearest friends who was my age, Dan Bolton, to pancreatic cancer in January. He was my sales director, but also, like, such an incredible friend and someone I love spending time with. So I lost my dad to the same thing in June. But six weeks before my dad passed away, he was catching lobsters in his fishing boats. So to go from catching lobsters in the fishing boat to no longer within the space of six weeks was just so fast. And it felt like. Like it didn't give you, like, a good enough opportunity to kind of say goodbye and kind of do all these things that you wanted to do and try to book trips and do things. He just wasn't well enough to. He just wasn't well enough to do it. So definitely the most difficult thing that I've kind of been through in my life so far by far. Like, every night I dream about him and just. Just miss him. Miss him so much. And I thought I'd have him with us for, like, another, like, 15, 20 years at least. I thought he was bulletproof, and I think everyone sees bulletproof, and, like, I feel bad for it as well. But, like, I feel so selfish in my grief because, like, I'm so sad for, like, all they're trying, like. But the person. I feel sad as far as me, so I feel guilty about feeling sad because so many other people miss him as well. But, yeah, I just miss him incredibly.

[Jamie Laing]

That Made me really emotional.

[Kristen]

Yeah. Yeah, I've been, been through a lot with my, with my, with my dad. And yeah, I spoke at his funeral. I wanted to speak and that was just kind of really, really difficult as well. And there was like a clock in the back and like I couldn't look at any of my family members, any of my friends, any of my colleagues in the fishing boat because if I knew if I did that it would just fall to pieces. So I was just like locked in the clock in the back and I managed to speak. And then after the funeral, it was in this village that I grew up in, Gardenstown, which is amazing. I wanted to give him a kind of a send off that he would have loved. So we had a 10 piece bagpipe band down the harbor. We had some fireworks, we had boats go out and lay a wreath and then we had kind of food trucks and bits and pieces and the whole village was there. So tried to give him as good a send off as I could, but just thought he'd be with us for another 20 years. And he was such an amazing grandfather as well. So I feel so bad that I've got my two daughters and then my stepsister's kids that they're getting to miss out and like having the best grandfather on the planet, kind of helping them grow up over the, over the next 20 years. So just really sad, really sudden. And then both my dad and Dan to the same disease in the space of six months. It's been a very tough year.

[Jamie Laing]

Cancer is so cruel, so cruel, so.

[Kristen]

Arbitrary and something that so many people listening can relate to because almost everyone has lost someone close to them with cancer. And it's felt so helpless because like, okay, I've achieved a bit of success. I've got some financial means and that only translates into something, I think if you can help people around about you when they need help. And we've tried absolutely everything. But I feel like I let him down in a way as well because I wasn't able to find a doctor treatment, a thing that could at least give them a little bit more time with us.

[Jamie Laing]

James, you can't look at it like that. There's just no ways. Because I understand the thought process where you are able to. You're a superhero in your own mind because you can achieve so much. And then when something is out of your control, you just want to try and control it and make it better and you can't. And you. And look, I'm. You can't fix everything. Life is life and it's just so upsetting and it's, it's beyond us.

[Kristen]

Funnier moments from the journey. One that kind of highlights my kind of dad's character and wicked sense of humor. So it was a week before he passed away and he had an especially bad Friday where we thought he was maybe going to pass away on that day. And then some of the nights I was staying with him, some of the nights I wasn't. So my aunt stayed with him that night. His sister he was close with. The next morning I got in and all of a sudden he's full of beans. And he was like, james, this is what we're going to do. Go and get a calendar for the shop. We're going to put a calendar on the wall there. We're going to put the words dead or alive above it and everyone's going to put a 10 pound bet and tackle on as to what day I'm going to pass away. And he passed away seven days after that. But even to the end, like that.

[Jamie Laing]

Was he his attitude change. Thank you for sharing. Dude, you speak so amazingly about your dad. That's incredible. Can I ask, what do you think? How do you think grief has changed as a person? Your outlook, what you want going forward, do you think?

[Kristen]

I think it just, especially with a head like mine and I'm so driven towards build a thing, make a difference, achieve something. And I think that's still so much of who I am. But just like the realization from my dad is like, life isn't an infinite game. There's only a finite amount of times that we get to. Yeah. There's only a finite amount of times that we get to spend time with those most important to us. There's a finite amount of times that we get to hug our loved ones. There's a finite amount of times that we get to kind of kiss our kids on the head good night. There's a finite amount of times that we get to have like amazing occasions with those people who are closest to us. And I think I'm definitely guilty of being so focused on building things that I can take those occasions for granted and not realize that like, hey, if it's like there's maybe only like there's a certain amount of number of times I get to do this and then it's kind of game over. So for everyone, if it's spending quality time with your partner, if it's spending quality time with your grandmother, which I love doing with my grandmother as well, if it's spending quality time with your kids, if it's having an amazing experience with your friends, this is not an infinite game that we're playing. And regardless of young, old, rich, poor, successful, everyone gets the same. Everyone gets an amount of time, and that is the amount of time that they get. So just realizing life isn't an infinite game. There's a finite amount of times that we get to do those things that are so important and ultimately more important than building a unicorn or disrupting an industry or doing that. Those are the things that really matter. So I think the key thing from missing my dad was, like, wishing that I had and I spent so much time with him, but wishing I spent even more time with him and created more moments like that, and just making sure that I do that going forward with the people that's most important to me.

[Jamie Laing]

James, he sounds like a wonderful man. And what a blueprint to be a dad as well.

[Kristen]

Yes.

[Jamie Laing]

Isn't that great?

[Kristen]

Yes. Yes. And, like, that's it. Because, like, I'm devastated, but at the same time, like, I can't be devastated without about being so grateful as well. So being so grateful to have had someone in my life who I loved too much, who had such an impact on me, who helped make me who I am, who helped set me up for life, who, like, helped create so many amazing, special memories and, like, do so many amazing things. And, like, some people don't get to know their parents. Some people have fractious relationships with their parents. So I'm absolutely devastated, but at the same time, just, like, so grateful to have someone so amazing in my life.

[Jamie Laing]

I wanted to start the conversation with. I call her Toph. Your fiance. Her version of you. Because I really, for me, it's about the person behind the business. It's actually. And I get you. I think anyone listening to us and seeing this can see how empathetic you are. And. And I think that hasn't really been in the press that much. That actually doesn't sell.

[Kristen]

Newspapers.

[Jamie Laing]

It doesn't sell. But you can. You feel it in your passion, your drive to shake up industries and build something and employ thousands of people, give 4,000 people jobs, and you can really feel your heart and your passion, which I really admire. And you did say to me that your vision is life. You want to build three unicorns. And for anyone who doesn't know what a unicorn is, it's pretty much a startup business that gets a valuation over a billion. That's what it is. And you're onto your second business venture.

[Kristen]

Yes.

[Jamie Laing]

Right now. Which is.

[Kristen]

Which is a Business called Social Tips. So I often laugh with Georgia that I've created a business which is successful, is going to put her out of a job, which is quite a fun conversation. But Social Tip takes advantage of everything I've done and learned about marketing, community engagement, brand building over the last two decades. And also where I think market and brand building social media is going in the future. So Social Tip is quite simple. It exists to help any business turn its customers into its influencers. So we want to reward everyday people. It doesn't matter if you've got a private account with 500 followers, you can earn money for your social media posts and our whole sales pitch to the brand partners. And we've got 250amazing companies signed up from Tala to ASOS to Specsavers to Huel to PureGym. The whole sales pitch is rather than give all of your market and influencer budget to an influencer with say a million followers, who's going to charge you £5,000 to do one post, take a small part of that budget to sit alongside it and give £5,000 to 500 of your customers, give them £10 each to do 500 posts. It's going to be so authentic, it's going to be so genuine because these are the people that care enough about your business to buy your product or service. So we're going to create amazing UGC at scale, we're going to create buzz, we're going to create hype and we're going to put money back in the pockets of your customers which is going to shorten the distance between you and them. And ultimately for me, user generated content is so important in terms of the future of market and it cuts through the noise online where a studio content for marketing is more and more difficult. It drew dog. Gone are the days of the 10,000 pound photo shoot with the perfect condensation. It just bounces off people. It's UGC that matters. So with Social Tip we want to help the best companies win, put money into people's pocke and democratize influence.

[Jamie Laing]

That's amazing.

[Kristen]

Your idea, my idea, my idea. And when I had the idea, I remember when I had it, I wasn't excited about that idea because the idea is inherently simple. You buy something you love, you post about it on social media, you get money into your bank account. It's quite a simple idea. I wasn't excited about the idea because I thought this is so simple, somebody must have done this. And the more that I explored and kind of dove into it the more excited I got when I realized that loads of people are doing this for influencers. Nobody's doing this for, for people with 1,000, 2,000 followers. Nobody's doing this for private accounts, but that is the accounts that are going to be most authentic and most genuine because you know your followers, you get to share the things you're passionate about. So the more that I dove into it, the more excited I got and yeah, excited to be building that business.

[Jamie Laing]

Now can I invest honestly? I think honestly, Jason, whatever you put your mind to, it's. You're an incredibly amazing, unique person. You really are. Just quick on, when you talk about business and things you put on your LinkedIn that you got engaged, you mentioned it before and you posed it as a business. And I think one of the, forgive me for mentioning it, but one of the titles, I think it was the Daily Mail say James Watt has done the cringiest of all engagement posts. What happened?

[Kristen]

So not just Daily Melt.

[Jamie Laing]

So it went everywhere.

[Kristen]

And I'm used to a bit of controversy. I'm no stranger to Media Storm, but this one was very unexpected. So I share so much of my LinkedIn, it's my main social platform that I use and I shared so much of the journey with my dad, through cancer, through losing my dad.

[Jamie Laing]

It's beautiful. I love the way that you're doing that. It's amazing.

[Kristen]

So I don't just use LinkedIn for business and I think with LinkedIn you want to know about the business, but also the people behind the business. So it was like such an amazing personal update that I decided to share it on LinkedIn. And I also thought it's funny for LinkedIn if I speak about it in the terms of business deals, like signed a long term investment, signed a long term contract, lots of opportunities for business and personal growth. I stopped short of putting in some for how I was going to depreciate the value of the engagement ring and kind of amortize that over the next 20 years. So that would have maybe been a little step too far. But anyway, it's a lovely photo, a little bit tongue in cheek copy. And it went insane. It opened up this massive can of worms. As should business. This only be the kind of normal for LinkedIn should you post about these things. And this became a global news story. New York Post, New Zealand Herald, International Business Times. It went everywhere. I got roasted. It was like called the most strange, worthy post of all time. Some people loved it. And it's just one of these occasions and it's so many occasions in my kind of history where you just need to step back and like, the reality is often so far away from the reality, it's kind of portrayed in the media. How can we have over a million comments on Twitter hating me for posting an engagement or LinkedIn? You've just got to kind of laugh and move on.

[Jamie Laing]

James, we like to end the episode with some questions. Are you ready for it?

[Kristen]

Yes, I am.

[Jamie Laing]

What's the saying or phrase that always makes you smile or cheers you up?

[Kristen]

Oh, good question. It's such a stupid little one. But like, George and I often say with like, Monty, he's a little dog. If he takes something he's not supposed to, it's not for dogs. And I don't know why. It's like so stupid and so silly, but I just can't say that and not smile. It's not for dogs. It's not for dogs. Like, we say that all the time. It's not for dogs.

[Jamie Laing]

Best compliment you've ever received?

[Kristen]

Best compliment was maybe the one that Georgia gave us on the telephone at the start of this podcast.

[Jamie Laing]

What scares you most about yourself?

[Kristen]

That I might just. Just end up working so hard that I miss too many important things and important moments and important connections along the way. And I think that was a kind of bit of a wake up call with my dad passing. And I love working. I'm obsessed with working and I just need to make sure that I balance that with making enough special memories in the journey as well.

[Jamie Laing]

What's something you can't let go of?

[Kristen]

I'm insanely good at holding any type of judge, so I've got a little backlog of it.

[Jamie Laing]

Dragon's dead.

[Kristen]

Among. Among others. Among others. But yeah, definitely not good at letting go of any grudge at all.

[Jamie Laing]

What's something you'd be embarrassed for people to know you like or want?

[Kristen]

I think I'm so open with, like, what I do and kind of how I spend time and what I do. I guess, I guess there's nothing on that list which is. Which is a lousy answer.

[Jamie Laing]

No, it's not a lousy answer. It's a perfect answer.

[Kristen]

It kind of strictly open with what I do and like again, because I kind of don't have the kind of, say, emotional threshold to other people. If somebody doesn't like or judges me for something, then I don't care at all. So I just cheer it.

[Jamie Laing]

What turns you off?

[Kristen]

What turns me off? People who want all the things that come along with success without being prepared to do the hard work that it takes to deliver that.

[Jamie Laing]

What turns you on?

[Kristen]

Ideas, creativity, intelligence, drive, work ethic, and my fiance.

[Jamie Laing]

Great answer. Finally, what do you like most about yourself?

[Kristen]

I think with most things, I've got a kind of radical honesty, which I like. So people can agree with me, they can disagree with me, they can like me, they can not like me. They can buy into the controversy, they cannot buy into controversy. But what they're always going to get from me is such erratically honest perspective, in my opinion. That's something I've always done and it's something I really like about myself, that I'm like, good or bad, I'm tell it straight. And that's how we're going to do it.

[Jamie Laing]

For a bonus one, James, for someone who's listening right now, who admires you and for what you've built and what you're going to build, if you could give that person one piece of business advice, what would it be?

[Kristen]

If I could give somebody one piece of business advice is you've got to find a way to do things differently. So if you're taking on any industry, any challenge, any business that you're launching, you've got to have such a radical point of difference to your competition. Every industry that you're going to go into at the moment is so, so saturated. Unless you've got a really radical point of difference, you're just going to get lost there. So just spend so much time, like, honing, defining, distilling, like, what makes you so different to the competition? Out.

[Jamie Laing]

James, thank you so much. That was unbelievable. Okay, what do you think?

[Jemima]

I. I really, really enjoyed that. I thought. I really enjoyed that you encouraged us to have him on the show. And making people podcasts are amazing ways to make people a bit more 3D. When you read about the, you are physically 2D in print, whereas in a podcast, you've got the space. It's beyond a social video. It's a long interview to kind of just get a little bit more about the person and be able to inform, like, make your own decision. And I think he's a really fascinating character. Incredibly ambitious, talented, unusual.

[Jamie Laing]

Totally.

[Jemima]

And I like, I really enjoyed hearing you ask those questions about the controversies. And I found his responses, I found they were interesting and they gave light to a situation which I guess a lot of us only hear one side, so, like, it's always worth hearing both sides.

[Jamie Laing]

Yeah.

[Jemima]

And I came away from that being like, I actually thought that was a really interesting interview.

[Jamie Laing]

Oh, I love that. See, I mean, that's the whole point of different things. I think what was so interesting about that is that we got behind the businessman James Watt and we actually found out what he truly is like. And that story of him going on the boat with his two daughters and finding the notes from his father was the most beautiful thing in the entire Watt. Yeah, and James is a. To be a. He's a. I think, you know, he's a pretty ruthless businessman and so to see emotion come out is unbelievable. I hope you guys also enjoyed listening to this and just want to say again that we love the fact that you listen to this show.

[Dax]

We do.

[Jamie Laing]

Really, really thank you to that. And if you haven't subscribed to the show, please do. Also, you can email us great companyamproductions.co.uk or you can slide into our DMs great company podcast and listen. We are going to be back next week for another episode, aren't we?

[Jemima]

We are of great company.

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[Kristen]

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[Dax]

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