← James Reed: all about business
James Reed: all about business
20. LADbible Founder: The contract I signed that put me in hospital | Alex Partridge
00:45:25
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- [00:00]
James Reed
Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business management and leadership. Every episode I sit down with different guests who bootstrapped companies, masterminded investment models or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. How do you turn an idea you had at uni into a multi million pound enterprise? Today's guest, Alex Partridge founded media company unilad and then lad Bible after starting 15 different businesses at university. Later, Alex was forced out of Unilad resulting in a life shattering court case that took years to resolve. In today's episode, Alex explains how to avoid dodgy business partners, why every entrepreneur needs to develop their self awareness, and how finally getting an ADHD diagnosis transformed his life and business. So Alex, thank you so much for coming to see me today. I've been looking forward to this conversation. I know your story and I'm very excited about you sharing it with our listeners. I'd like to begin by asking a sort of heads up question. You, I believe were a multi millionaire by the age of 25. How did that happen?
- [01:31]
Alex Partridge
Gosh, yeah, great start. Hit the ground running.
- [01:34]
James Reed
Let's get straight on.
- [01:36]
Alex Partridge
So it started with lots of businesses that didn't work and that started when I was six. My first business was a board game company. Always been very creative and I remember thinking I wanted to start a board game. When I was six years old, I went through my parents drawers and found all of the board games in the house, found all of the addresses of the companies that manufactured them, spent the summer designing my board game, all the little pieces, writing the instructions, packaged it all up and sent it to all of these companies. And I didn't hear anything for a few weeks. But I did get one response and it was and I think they could tell I was quite young. My handwriting, my handwriting was quite messy. They said, unfortunately, Alex, we're not looking for any new board game designs at the moment. But always lean into this entrepreneurial spirit.
- [02:28]
James Reed
I think you get the prize, Alex, as being the youngest entrepreneur we've had on All About Business so far, starting at 6. I don't think anyone has topped that yet, which is really good. So by the time you got your mid-20s, you've been in business 20 years by the sound of things. You'd started a few other things. After the board games there was a.
- [02:44]
Alex Partridge
String of start and talk me through some of those.
- [02:47]
James Reed
I'm really interested in how entrepreneurs get going.
- [02:50]
Alex Partridge
I suppose there's a lot of the sort of standard. There was a car washing business going around the streets that my parents lived on, knocking on doors. Loved that for a summer. My dad's an antiques dealer and a lot of the stuff that he couldn't sell. I used to really enjoy organizing, pricing up and selling outside my parents house when people were walking past. I started this website called Quick Presents.
- [03:10]
James Reed
Did anyone ask you where the furniture had come from when you were selling it outside the house?
- [03:14]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah, all the crap my dad can't sell.
- [03:18]
James Reed
Those were very innovative. Yeah, go on, what was the next one?
- [03:21]
Alex Partridge
So they were fast forwarding a bit here but say when I was after college, this was when the Internet was all over the place. I started a website called Quick Presence and the idea was if you needed to buy a loved one or a friend a present but were struggling for ideas, you'd come to my website and you would input their interests. So you would say dad, mum likes fishing, likes musical theater, whatever it is. And then my website would generate some gift suggestions and I had a affiliation with Amazon. So it was, that's sort of how it worked. Very basic. What all of these ideas had in common was there was a tremendous excitement in the early days. And I remember with every single one it was the thought process on day one and day two and day three was the same. It was this is my new life's purpose. This is the business that I'm going to do for the rest of my life. But with every single one it didn't last. And fast forward two weeks and it was the motivation and enthusiasm for every single one had evaporated. The biggest one really was in my first year of university I had this idea. I wanted to create this late night pizza delivery company because this was pre delivery, pre all of that. And I noticed that there was a clear demand for food after all of the clubs had shut. And I remember thinking this is such a good idea. I impulsively spent half my student loan on this six foot massive giant freezer nearly the size of this table. Two delivery men carried it and delivered it into my bedroom. Ridiculous.
- [04:42]
James Reed
Well, it must have filled most of the room. You in the freezer?
- [04:47]
Alex Partridge
Yeah.
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James Reed
Then what happened?
- [04:48]
Alex Partridge
I set up a Facebook page called Quick Pizza, filled it with frozen pizzas from the supermarket from four different varieties. Pepperoni, Hawaiian plain and another one. And I put my phone number on this Facebook page and if students wanted a pizza in the middle of the night they would text Me, long story short, I had four people cycling around Oxford in the middle of the night delivering pizzas.
- [05:07]
James Reed
You weren't going to sleep much.
- [05:10]
Alex Partridge
I loved it so much. The university shut me down because I didn't have a food safety hygiene certificate.
- [05:17]
James Reed
That's a shame. We could have helped you with that because we do those courses, we're years too late. Obviously, they shut you down and shut you down. What I'm thinking, listening to these sort of ideas or examples is you're ahead of your time on quite a few of them almost. I mean, you've come up with things that have, you know, like Deliveroo has become mainstream, you know, ordering things, or AI will now help you find things for your loved ones if you put in their interests. You had incredible creativity around those ideas. I did car washing, I remember, but that was for the Boys Scouts. It was, Bob, a job week. I remember doing that and earning quite a lot for them, but they got the money.
- [05:50]
Alex Partridge
It's all stuff that irritated me and. And I just went into problem solving mode. And I think out of a lot of my early creations, you know, fair enough, I didn't necessarily stick at them and we can probably go into why a little later on. But the very seed idea, the very early stage was things that irritated me and how could I find a solution to those?
- [06:09]
James Reed
You went into problem solving mode. I like that thought. We'll come back to that. Because it was while you were at university that you. You started a business for which you became very well known, which was called Unilad. Tell me about that, Alex.
- [06:20]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, so Unilad, I mean, this was back in 2010, when social media, particularly Facebook back then, was really dominating the university campuses across the country. It was so new. And I remember my brain just completely became obsessed with it, hyper focused on the platform, what the algorithm wanted. I was in a relationship in my second year and to cut a long sort of romantic story short, I got dumped. And she was the editor of an online university magazine. And the reason for the breakup was that we didn't have anything in common. And looking back now, really, I went into problem solving mode and I thought, what can I do to make her think that we do have something in common? So I didn't want to tread on her toes too much. Her online magazine was targeted at female students, so I thought, I don't want to compete with her, so I'll start one directed at male students. So the name Unilad came to me quite quickly. I remember running downstairs to my housemate's room and he blew out this puff of marijuana smoke and said, yeah, that's a really cool name, man. So with a focus group of my flatmate, that works. So, yeah, the name Unilad was stuck. You know, the brakes were off at that point. I was obsessed with Facebook and creating content.
- [07:35]
James Reed
So what was your first content? Can you remember?
- [07:37]
Alex Partridge
I think it was, funnily enough, it was like a review of the kebab shops in Oxford, right? Very much. Because I knew that, you know, people wanted late night food. So there was still a bit of an echo of the pizza business in my head. And I did a review system of the local kebab shops. I wanted to take it to the next level. So I created this idea that, well, I now call it the free condom campaign. And it was. I changed the artwork of the Facebook page and I said, if anyone likes the Facebook page, you will get sent free contraception in the post. And I took the idea to the local clinic, the local NHS sexual health clinic, and they absolutely loved the idea to promote safe sex on campus. And they gave me these two industrial sized boxes of condoms. And I think anyone who saw me walking home that day with this two boxes, I have no idea what they would have thought.
- [08:23]
James Reed
But did you still have the freezer in your room?
- [08:26]
Alex Partridge
Oh, yeah, I did.
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James Reed
Who did? So you got to put them in there.
- [08:28]
Alex Partridge
I suppose the excitement for that idea had gone. This probably is still there. But that campaign went incredibly viral. You know, I didn't even have enough contraception to send out. But the snowball effect of that marketing campaign took hold and it took unilad from a couple of hundred likes to multiple thousands within a very short period of time.
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James Reed
So going viral and then you had to keep creating content. So I suppose you suppose you built a little team that was doing that with you?
- [08:53]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, there was a team of about six of us, other students at Oxford Brookes University and other people remotely who were submitting content. And I remember I got an email from, funnily enough, it was a pizza company, it's one of the UK's largest pizza companies and they offered me an amount of money to be promoted on the page. They saw the value in this concentration of university students and I thought, well, if I somehow manage to stick at this degree and stay in Oxford for three years, the amount of money that I will get in a graduate job as a salary will be less than what this pizza company is offering me for this contract. That was the validation that I needed and I dropped out of university the next week and Moved back in with my parents.
- [09:34]
James Reed
Were they pleased to see you at this point? Did they ask what the hell are you doing?
- [09:39]
Alex Partridge
In hindsight you can sort of say, well, that was a good decision, but.
- [09:42]
James Reed
It looks like it from here. Well, what did it look like to them then?
- [09:46]
Alex Partridge
You know, there was no precedent of success on social media if Facebook was very new. There was no case studies of creating a business on social media. So it was very, you know, it was very anxious time. I think, you know, they wanted me to get a degree and I was abandoning that and sacrificing it for a Facebook page where there was no evidence that it would have any longevity or sustainability. The email from that pizza company with those zeros on the end of that figure did soften the blow a little bit.
- [10:15]
James Reed
And you showed it to them?
- [10:17]
Alex Partridge
Yes. Yeah. But you know, my parents have always been incredibly supportive and I think, you know, there's a degree of privilege I have to acknowledge there, where I was always encouraged to do what I thought was a good idea. And they didn't really give me any friction at that point. They trusted my decision to, to go all in on this Facebook page.
- [10:34]
James Reed
That's good to hear. I hope any parent with a potentially entrepreneurial offspring will listen to that and do the same. As a parent myself, I think that's good advice. We're delighted that you're listening to this episode. Hit the follow button so that we can continue to bring you the best business insight and actionable advice to help your business and or career. You had a Facebook page, but then it went beyond that, became a website. How did it evolve? What did you do from your parents house to turn it into a business?
- [11:06]
Alex Partridge
Well, I was getting lots of inbound requests from brands similar to that pizza company. My initial sort of knee jerk reaction was to spread my risk and to create another one because I didn't know if Unilad was going to be safe. I didn't know how long Facebook pages were going to be around for. It made sense to spread my risk and not have all my eggs in one basket. So I created another page called Ladbible and because I had Unilad on one screen, which by this Stage had over 100,000 followers, LADbible was relatively easy to launch off of the back of it. Ladbible, funnily enough went super viral very early on. It got to over a million followers in the first month.
- [11:49]
James Reed
What do you attribute that to? If someone listening wants to get to a million followers in a month, what's your advice? Hard to do I think, but go on, what happened, do you think? What was the magic source for that?
- [11:58]
Alex Partridge
Well, at the time, and here's the thing, at the time, it was because if you clicked on LAD Bible, it would take you to an article that you sort of read the first paragraph and then it would fade out to nothing. And you had to like the page in order to see the rest and the landing tab. So if someone clicked on LabBible, was that your idea? That was my idea, yes. The page that they would land on first was that. And the algorithm on Facebook at the time worked in a way where if you liked a page, all of your friends would be notified. So it would say James and seven of your other friends liked LADbible. So if you were to log on to Facebook as a user, you would see this notification that all of your friends were getting in on this other page and it would create this. Well, it did create this curiosity gap, this sort of sense of fomo, which really snowballed LAD Bible incredibly fast. But I think the advice is like, because that wouldn't work now, but what I was doing at the time, which is applicable to people now, is that I had a consistent culture in my head of testing the platforms and really analyzing what was working and what wasn't working. And that implies to people who are trying to build something on social media today, like, you have to have a culture of testing. Because like many things, social media is, is not just a ever changing landscape. It's a relentlessly ever changing landscape. There's different platforms popping up. Each platform, Facebook Now, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, they all have, and they make little changes all of the time behind the scenes towards what they're wanting to see on it, what content type they're favoring, what format is it video, is it text, is it pictures? And not only that, but the length of these things that, the formatting. So having that culture within you and constantly testing to see what works and wasn't and what doesn't, working and adapting based on the results is the advice that I think is absolutely essential for anyone looking to build a following on social media today.
- [13:53]
James Reed
So really trying to sort of second guess the algorithms and test, try things and really study it. I mean, that's what you said you were doing at the time, when you were doing Facebook earlier, I noted. But that's, that's a real important focus for people.
- [14:06]
Alex Partridge
You're stressing, oh, it's, well, yeah, 100%. We can go into it later. It's why I think it's so perfect for my ADHD brain because it is ever changing and it never gets stagnant and it always allows the novelty to be front and center. I love the testing and a B testing and putting out two versions of different content. Now, short form video is key to growth on social media across the board, whether that's YouTube shorts or TikTok or Instagram Reels. Short form content is completely paramount and should be front of center in any one strategy. And then you have to look at the different elements of that short form content to see which bits can you test. And it's always the first two seconds that are the most important part of any bit of content. And we've got two seconds, the hook.
- [14:53]
James Reed
So how would you test that? You'd put two different versions?
- [14:55]
Alex Partridge
Yeah. Two different ways to write the captions. There's loads of ways you can do it. Two different first words are really important. So if you think how people consume social media content now is very different to how they consumed it back in 2010 11, you were very much sat at a computer screen back then, sort of scrolling with a mouse. Now you're on a bus, sat on a sofa, scrolling up with up a newsfeed very fast. Watching TV with your finger. Exactly. Yeah. So you've got really. You've got a second, two seconds was really quite conservative. You've got really a second or less to grab someone's attention. So it's that first second you really have to put 80% of your effort into, and then testing that first second as much as you can with different sound effects, different facial expressions, different first words that the user hears and really diving into the results of which first second portion generates the best clicks.
- [15:44]
James Reed
Right. And so you did that successfully with Lad Bible and Unilad, I suppose, because they both grew, didn't they?
- [15:50]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, I mean, and then what happened? Yeah, well, going back to 2011, I had UNILAD on one screen, which was on about 300,000 likes LAD Bible, which was on over a million. But in my head it was. Unilad was very much my baby. I was very much more emotionally invested in that one. So I decided to sell LabBible at that stage and that was all. I got approached by numerous people. I ended up selling it to Alexander Solomo, who still owns it now and has done a brilliant job at taking it from what it was in my bedroom to where it is now, which is a huge global business. And then my attention went back to Unilad and I continued to grow it. I can reflect now and see the overwhelm that happened at that stage and not. And trying to do too much on my own was causing me to not be as efficient as. As I wanted to be. Essentially I needed help and I put an advert out to bring in two people to help me. And I remember I went to Brighton to meet these two people and they presented me with a bit of paper to sign. We were going to go into partnership and, and to, and to all work together. And I remember that day, my intuition, my judge of character, the gut feeling, it was screaming at me, telling me, these two people are not on your side. These two people do not have your best interests at heart. But there was something in me, I can now reflect. It was me being a massive people pleaser, me being terrified of confrontation, me not knowing how to say no, me not knowing how to assert boundaries. It was. I signed the bit of paper.
- [17:20]
James Reed
May I ask, how old were you at the time?
- [17:22]
Alex Partridge
That was when I was 21.
- [17:23]
James Reed
So you're very young and were they older than you?
- [17:26]
Alex Partridge
No, similar age.
- [17:27]
James Reed
They were similar age. I think some of those confidences grow as in my experience as I've got older. You were looking for partners and what they were going to invest in it and work with you where they, they presented you with a piece of paper rather than the other way around.
- [17:41]
Alex Partridge
Yeah.
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James Reed
What's the advice here? Don't sign anything if you're listing. If you're an entrepreneur, someone gives you a piece of paper without having it lawyered.
- [17:48]
Alex Partridge
Is that the obvious stuff? You know, like don't. If you've got a business that's generating any business, whether it's early stages or not. Like don't sign anything unless you get a legal pair of eyes to look.
- [17:58]
James Reed
Really sure what it says.
- [18:00]
Alex Partridge
But you did make sure you understand.
- [18:02]
James Reed
And I didn't know you didn't sign it.
- [18:04]
Alex Partridge
I did sign it.
- [18:05]
James Reed
Yeah. But you didn't get the lawyers. So what happened after that? So you, you then I imagine rumbled along with these two new business partners.
- [18:13]
Alex Partridge
I went home, this is a few weeks later, logged on to Facebook to do my normal updating of Unilad. And I had realized that I had lost administrative access to the Facebook page. Essentially I'd been removed from the, the business, which at that time was the Facebook page.
- [18:29]
James Reed
That must be deeply shocking. Well, this is a business you'd created and then you couldn't get into it at all.
- [18:34]
Alex Partridge
Oh yeah. I remember the moment very vividly, you know, sat there in my desk in, in my parents house and just not in disbelief.
- [18:42]
James Reed
And this was within weeks of you meeting these people?
- [18:45]
Alex Partridge
It was very shortly afterwards, yes.
- [18:46]
James Reed
So your intuition has quickly proven to be correct?
- [18:49]
Alex Partridge
Yeah. I mean, part of me knew straight away what had happened because again, it was that intuition piping up and saying, you know, you were right, these two people are not on your side. But again, that. The part of me that didn't want to believe it or avoid confronting it was telling me, well, maybe this is just a technical issue on Facebook, and go to bed. It'll be sorted in the morning. Facebook must have just locked everyone out of the pages. But of course, I woke up the following morning and that wasn't the case. So what did you do for a few months? I didn't do anything. I just was in disbelief. I messaged the men and I didn't hear anything. Eventually, I went to a solicitor and the solicitor said to me that they're not. I presented the bit of paper I signed and they said, he said, they're not allowed to have done what they've done. All decisions have to be unanimous. It clearly says that in the partnership, but this is going to be a big fight if you want to pursue this. I did. He said to me that it trickled on for two years. It was letters back and forth at that stage. It was clearly no backing down. They were not.
- [19:49]
James Reed
What was their justification? I mean, what was their case?
- [19:52]
Alex Partridge
Or in a nutshell, essentially?
- [19:55]
James Reed
You didn't agree with it, obviously.
- [19:56]
Alex Partridge
No, no, the partnership agreement was very clear cut. It was, you know, two. Two partners cannot override a third. Everything has to be unanimous. And it was very clear. But.
- [20:04]
James Reed
So I suppose the counter argument was there's a majority view or something.
- [20:07]
Alex Partridge
And, yeah, all decisions had to be unanimous. My solicitor said, this is going to be won or lost in a courtroom and you're going to have to take the witness box, you're going to have to give evidence. And my mind flashed back to the little version of me in a classroom when I was seven years old. I had a panic attack in a classroom when I was seven years old. I've always had this racing mind, this internalized hyperactivity. Describe it as having 10 highly caffeinated squirrels barreling around in there. And it has enabled me to be very creative and entrepreneurial in some settings. In other settings, like a classroom, very anxious. And that day when I was seven, the teacher put me on the spot. All the other kids turned to look at me. And I remember my face went bright red, my heart rate sped up, ran out of the classroom. Found someone in the corridor and said, please call an ambulance, I'm having a heart attack. When the paramedic arrived, they reassured me I wasn't having a heart attack, I was having my first anxiety attack. I've never been good with when I'm put on the spot and when my solicitor said that this is going to be won or lost in a courtroom and you're going to have to take the witness box in front of their legal team, my legal team, the judge, the press will probably be there because Unilad was quite a big name at this stage. My mind flashed back to the. The seven year old me in the classroom and I went to a petrol station and bought a bottle of vodka and I remember, I can only explain what happened next. And that's the nurse. I woke up in a hospital the following morning with a nurse looking over me and she explained that two members of the public had found me in an alleyway clutching this bottle and I tried to stagger away. I didn't want help, apparently I'd hit my head on the wall. They called an ambulance and as the nurse was telling me this, I remember this tremendous shame and embarrassment that came over me and in that moment, to cure that feeling, I needed more alcohol. I remember thinking that I stood up from the hospital bed, tried to run out of the ward. Security had been called and before I knew it, I was in the back of a police car and I looked out and I could see my parents, they had been called and my mum and dad were, were looking at me through the, the window of this police car with this look of just fear and desperation in their eyes. They didn't know how to help me. That took me to aa, you know, that experience and I remember hearing those four letters, ADHD and in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but it didn't go in. Fast forward two months. The trial happened in London. I took the witness box and the judge was very accommodating. He let me take as many breaks as I wanted to.
- [22:55]
James Reed
Must have been very hard for you though. That must have been really difficult.
- [22:58]
Alex Partridge
I was cross examined.
- [23:00]
James Reed
You must find that very challenging given what you just said.
- [23:02]
Alex Partridge
Well, very challenging. I was cross examined for six days, you know, full days even. The judge said it was excessive by the other parties. By the other parties. Top barrister who was relentless. But I took multiple breaks. I remember walking off anxiety attacks around the streets where the courthouse was throwing up in the toilet, you know, But I got through it.
- [23:24]
James Reed
Six days of cross examination when this had happened to you, not you.
- [23:29]
Alex Partridge
Yeah.
- [23:29]
James Reed
Yeah, yeah.
- [23:30]
Alex Partridge
And you know, and go into the. But the judgment said later that was unnecessary and the strategy was to try and traduce me in the eyes of the court.
- [23:38]
James Reed
But so the judge said that. Judge said that certainly sounds like that to me. There's some tactics involved. Yeah.
- [23:44]
Alex Partridge
You know, fast forward two months later after the trial had finished, I got through it and my phone went and it was my solicitor and he said, alex, are you on your own? And I said, yes. And he said, you've won everything. You've won unilad back. And I remember just pleased to hear it falling to my knees and you know, and it sounds quite theatrical, but I remember just bursting into tears because yes, it was a five year legal battle, but really it was a huge mental health battle for me that nearly cost me my life.
- [24:12]
James Reed
It sounds very traumatic, but ultimately you were vindicated and your struggles were justified and you got it, you got it all back, do you say?
- [24:21]
Alex Partridge
Well, yeah, I was fighting for my stake. Yeah, yeah.
- [24:27]
James Reed
So then what did you do? Because I suppose you were back in partnership with the people you'd been in court with.
- [24:32]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, well, it was a bit of a mess afterwards because I've been out of the business for five years, essentially. I. And I couldn't really go in at that stage and sort of say, I'm the boss now or integrate. I didn't really want to as well. The company had grown so big and I'd been out of it for so long, I kind of just wanted an exit at that stage and I was advised to sell it. We put it unilad on the essentially open market. Lots of people bid for it. Lad Bible Group, funnily enough, bought it in the end and I. And I essentially took a chunk of money and drew a line in the sand.
- [25:04]
James Reed
So your sister company ended up.
- [25:06]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, yeah.
- [25:09]
James Reed
The buyer. Well, that's what that sounds like.
- [25:10]
Alex Partridge
The.
- [25:10]
James Reed
Completing the circle. Closing the circle to me. And you walked away hopefully with a good pay packet. So. Sounds like it. So that was that whole unilad. And so how old are you at this point? Not very old, by 26, 27 or something?
- [25:23]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, I was. Well, I was 28 or 29 at that stage. Yes, yeah, yeah.
- [25:28]
James Reed
So what do you do when you've had a sort of career like that at 20, like 29. I mean, where'd you go next is on my mind because, you know, you've accomplished so much, you've had huge struggles as well. What's next for Alex at this point?
- [25:42]
Alex Partridge
Well, I very much just needed A break afterwards, you know, and I took a break. In my head, I'd very much thought I was a bit, you know, I got this huge amount of money. I was very much under the impression, well, I've retired now, you know, I bought a nice car, went on some holidays. But it was very quickly, I got tremendously bored.
- [25:57]
James Reed
Yes, I can imagine. I was thinking about myself. I'm sympathetic, holidays are okay. But after a bit, yeah, I think.
- [26:05]
Alex Partridge
I'd been convinced by Instagram that that was the definition of success, you know, but it really wasn't because in my head it was a bit boring. I ended up getting addicted to my Xbox and I just, just went for six or seven months without leaving my flat that much and playing my Xbox. And it was really hitting my self esteem. So I wanted to start a podcast to do something next. And it was, I had this identity that I was his businessman because of the Lad Bible and unilad success. So I started a podcast, a business podcast called Walk Away Wiser. And I remember I had this idea and I impulsively spent a small fortune on seven cameras similar to the ones here. Dismantled my bedroom, dismantled my bed in my flat and turned my bedroom into a soundproof studio. Hired all, bought all of the foam, tripods, lighting, everything. It looked, looked really cool.
- [26:56]
James Reed
No freezer at this time. I can see a pattern here though. Yeah, go on.
- [27:00]
Alex Partridge
So hired a producer, booked all of these guests, and three days later the postman knocked on my door and he delivered all of these boxes of camera equipment. And I remember just sat there looking at all of these Amazon boxes and thinking, I don't want to do this podcast anymore. I've lost interest in this podcast idea. And I didn't understand, you know, the juxtaposition between the enthusiasm three days ago compared to now and the person I hired to be the producer looked at me and said, when did you get your ADHD diagnosis? They recognized this boom and bust pattern before I did, even though I had experienced it so many times throughout my life.
- [27:44]
James Reed
That's why you call it boom and bust pattern.
- [27:45]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, well, you know, quite literally, it's the boom in the early stage where it's like, this is my new life's purpose. Buy the domain, design the logo. You know, three days later, bust. Your interest is gone. And that was the first time I really took those four letters seriously, adhd. And I dived into what ADHD was and I got assessed shortly afterwards and I had the meeting with the psychologist and, and she looked at me and said, your adhd is clear as hell. So that was.
- [28:13]
James Reed
Right, that's a diagnosis. Yeah, so, so, so that's interesting. So you had this diagnosis. What did you do with it?
- [28:21]
Alex Partridge
Well, I used it to be a lot kinder to myself immediately because there was, with these boom and bust cycles, this sort of glitchy DOP that is quite common with ADHD is very easy to, when something does come into your front and center, to get really excited by it and take steps to action. Something, whether that is buying the domain or even jumping into a new relationship, starting a job, starting a business, and then you lose interest in it. And what comes with that is a huge amount of shame. Because even though there is some humor in it, when you're in that height, you tell people about it, you tell your family, you tell your friends, you tell people on social media. It's like, this is my new business idea, this is what I want to do. And then you lose interest in the idea and you have to confront that person because you'll meet them and they'll say, how's that new idea going? And you have to again say that I've lost interest in it. And you ghost people or you hide away. So there was loads of color and context that I was adding to years and years and years of shame that actually alleviated a lot of the self esteem issues that I facing simultaneously, I suppose.
- [29:31]
James Reed
So you're confronting yourself too or you're being kinder to yourself by recognizing that. So that sounded quite a helpful moment.
- [29:38]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, I it for me, as soon as I got the diagnosis, like many people do, I dived into Google and I wanted to know what is this thing I've been diagnosed with? Because I didn't know anything about it and I googled it and it said ADHD is a struggle with is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by traits of impulsivity, forgetfulness and disorganization. It means you're going to struggle with disorganization, you're going to struggle with being late. It was all struggle, struggle, struggle and more struggle. And it was enough to make anyone feel hopeless. And I reflected and those things are there, but also from my experience and speaking to so many people in the community who have adhd, ADHD is also creativity and pattern recognition and being great in a crisis, being able to zoom out and see the big picture and spot details that other people miss, being resilient, being a great judge of character, having heightened intuition, being very loyal, being entrepreneurial people. With an ADHD diagnosis, you're four Times more likely to start your own business. All of these things, I think, are a tremendous asset to society. So my goal was to balance the narrative around what it actually means to live with adhd.
- [31:01]
James Reed
Well, what you just said, I thought was incredibly inspiring. I mean, I was thinking of people I love who maybe have those characteristics and how I'd like them to hear that, because I thought it was very inspiring. And I think I'm asking myself the question, what can we do to make sure more young people are supported rather than shamed in their journey through school and education so that they become, you know, fulfilled as the wonderful people they are? Because the description ADHD has a sort of mixed meaning, doesn't it? I mean, some of the words are quite sort of negative, as you said. And, you know, neurodiversity is the sort of word that we hear more now. I don't know what you think of that, but how come. How come we as parents or educators, teachers, how can we make sure we don't make that mistake and support people and help people constructively?
- [31:53]
Alex Partridge
I had a guest on my podcast, an amazing woman who has an ADHD daughter, and she shared the story of how she, from a very young age, she gave her daughter a teddy bear. And the teddy bear had embroidered on its chest, it said, never too much. And I asked her what she meant by that, and she explained that it had two meanings. It firstly meant that. That it was a constant reminder to her daughter that her behavior, she, as a person, as a human being, was never too much. And secondary to that, it was to remind her daughter that anything the daughter wanted to come to her, the parent, about whatever struggles, whatever worries, whatever concerns the daughter had, nothing was off the table, nothing was too much. I think. So many ADHD kids, well, we know ADHD children, they're exposed to 20,000 more negative criticisms, more micro corrections. Stop fidgeting, calm down, stop doing that. Stop biting your fingernails. 20,000 more than the neurotypical child throughout their childhood. It creates this intrinsic feeling of being different and broken and too much. So less of that. Obviously, in the classroom, movement breaks are so helpful. It's so important that the child in the classroom recognises and is reminded that if they don't connect with maths or history or science or whatever, it doesn't mean that they're broken.
- [33:17]
James Reed
Yeah, I mean, I recognize. I mean, you use the words in our discussion as I'm obsessed with things that you got addicted to, things impulsive. And these are all words I recognize, you know, in my own life. And Career and, and also, you know, from people I've interviewed here in the podcast who have been, you know, successful as entrepreneurs or pursued, you know, very interesting careers. I mean, they are in some way, I don't know how you turn those. Sometimes they can be negative. How do you turn them into a positive? Something like addiction or impulsiveness. I mean, you've been quite clear about impulsiveness where it's about having a go, isn't it? That's sort of, that's the starting point of any, any journey.
- [33:54]
Alex Partridge
The impulsivity. And being a starter is, is, is a strength for the reasons that I mentioned, but it has to come with a massive side helping of self awareness. Because it's not a strength. If you're starting a new business every week because you're excited by an idea and then the boom and bust cycle happens. And that's not a strength that.
- [34:19]
James Reed
No, you have to give it a bit more than a week. Yeah, I can see that. So how do you manage that? Is it about getting people around you or the self awareness about delegating as well or finding people who compliment you? I'm thinking of working with my father. It was a great idea. I mean, your early career reminds me of his starting all these ventures and getting bored with them and doing another and, and he's got ideas all the time and I found myself sometimes curating the ideas and we've worked well as a team for years, but it is a, it's an interesting struggle.
- [34:54]
Alex Partridge
Impulsivity is great when it's aligned with, with self awareness. Because when an idea comes into your front and center, into your now, into your present and you're deciding whether to act on it or not, you have to have an awareness of yourself that will enable you to align or to understand whether that thing is a good fit for you and therefore whether or not it's a good idea to take that first step to buy the domain. So then you have to ask yourself, how can I build self awareness? And I think there's three main ways that are really beneficial to building self awareness. And they're not easy. These are hard exercises to do, but I think they're so important. The first one is to really, at the end of the day, or as often as you can, or have time to have time for, ask yourself some really honest questions like what did I do today that made me happy? What did I do today that made me sad? What did I do today that I found easy? What did I do today that I struggled with? You know, we have to be really honest with yourself as well when you, when you ask yourself these questions. And that will give you a foundation to help you build up this arsenal of self awareness that will make you much better equipped to recognize if something is a good fit for you or not. When an idea comes into your front and center, the second thing is to always listen to your knee jerk reactions. You know, you're so many people with adhd. We've, we've gone our entire lives pretending to be someone that we're not. So we don't often actually know who we are, what is us and what's a coping mechanism. What's, what's really Alex and what's part of this mask that I've spent years.
- [36:40]
James Reed
So just going forward, you, you're doing a lot in this space now. I mean, you've got ADHD Chatter, the podcast going. You've just written a fabulous book which is behind me, which I'll bring down. It's already been very positively reviewed. We'll put that on the film. And you're, you're in a sense starting a new career in a way. Is that right? Is that how it feels or. Because you said you'd retired, but then you didn't really like being retired, so what's next for you?
- [37:07]
Alex Partridge
Well, it's very much the podcast now. And I, I started it very small and I think it's great advice for anyone, ADHD or not, who's starting a business, is to really learn the basics before you learn the basics first. I started the podcast in my bedroom in my flat on Zoom. I did the first 20 episodes, learned the basics, how to ask questions, how to write questions, how to be a good podcast host. And I didn't overwhelm myself. I didn't get overstimulated. Once I was confident that my motivation was not going anywhere, I then scaled up. I moved into a studio in Battersea, hired a producer, really took it up a level. And the podcast is lots of episodes, lots of bricks that stack on top of each other over time to create this business. I think with starting a business, it's very easy to go all in at the beginning and just go a million miles an hour, try to do everything in a very short space of time, like I did with my first podcast. Walk away wiser, and suddenly, in no time at all, you're standing in the shadow of this massive brick wall and you have no idea how all of the individual bricks work. And in that moment, it's no surprise that you get overwhelmed and you abandon it. So my advice for anyone listening is to really whatever business that you are thinking of starting or have started, find the bricks within the business, really understand all of the different parts of your, your business and how they operate and really try and break it, break it up into manageable chunks to avoid the overwhelm that is actually I think the reason why so many ADHD entrepreneurs end up abandoning the business.
- [38:56]
James Reed
So one brick at a time, so to speak. So any other thoughts for sort of young people who are thinking of starting a business who may or may not be adhd? So I mean, I guess many won't know, maybe not for many years or what other key pieces of advice that someone who's done it more than once would you give give someone starting that journey?
- [39:20]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, this is really interesting and it's a genuine advice. I wish I had years ago. It would have saved me so much shame. I think is you get an idea and whether it's a, whether it's, whether you're excited about it or not, like, like imagine you've got this metaphorical ideas shelf on the wall behind you and something comes into your brain and you think this is a brilliant idea. Don't action it immediately. Like put it on this metaphorical idea shelf, let it brew and if you're still excited about it in two weeks time, then that's probably a good indicator that the components of that idea is a good fit for you and they are connected to your intrinsic self and motivations and you need to do the self awareness exercises to really understand what they are. But if it's still pulling on you in two weeks, then buy the domain, then design the logo. It's just about putting that breaker between the initial thought and actually starting the business. Because you know, it's so easy to impulsively jump into the business and start it without really understanding if it's a good fit or not. And if it's not, then you're abandoning it. And that comes with so much shame. Self esteem issues, comorbidities that can be avoided. Did if you just put that breaker in place at the very start of. There's so many mini businesses within the main ADHD podcast business, so many problem solving ideas. You know, I think memory is a huge issue for me. I can put my washing machine on and it cleans the clothes and then, then I will forget to empty the machine, the machine, the clothes go damp, I have to repeat the cycle. I can never remember to take my reusable shopping bags to the supermarket. I get parking fines and they double so many little things like that, which, you know, there's humor there, but there's also a lot of anxiety and shame. Because I'm 36, I should be able to remember to empty my washing machine. So I went into problem solving mode and I thought, well, I'll just create memory bracelets. I'll take advantage of my nighttime brain, which is so much more productive than my morning brain. I'll think, what five tasks do I need to do tomorrow? And I'll write them down on a bracelet. I'll wake up in the morning, put the bracelets on, clean the flat, pay that parking fine, book that guest, and as I complete each task, I take a bracelet off, put it in a bowl, and if I take all my bracelets off in one day, I reward myself with something. I gamify it, you know, really basic stuff that, you know. So there's a product there which, which is in the pipeline, you know, to create these, these memory bracelets. So there's, there's businesses within the business that are solving problems within the community, which. So it's very much still part brain that's active.
- [42:04]
James Reed
Yeah. And I can see that. That's fantastic. And I wish you continued success with that. Thank you so much for coming to talk to me today. I like to ask two questions at the end, which I ask of everyone. The first is because we love Mondays here at Reed. You know, what is it that gets you up on a Monday morning?
- [42:23]
Alex Partridge
Yeah, I mean, it's going to sound a bit cheesy and maybe even cliche, but it's very much, much like when I open my eyes in the morning, I very much instantly see my why, why I started the podcast, why I started the business. And it's so many people with adhd, particularly women and girls, have been let down for so long. It hasn't. It wasn't even recent. Recently, the medical community realized women could be have adhd. There's this whole generation coming through that have just finally realized that there's a reason for their overwhelm, anxiety, racing thoughts, those highly caffeinated squirrels I mentioned. Um, so it's very much that. It's very much recognizing that 90% of my audience are women. It's huge numbers of people that are connecting with my content because it's finally making them feel seen. And that's what gets me out of bed, is to continue that mission. I read my comments, I read my messages. You know, life saving is the feedback. Life changing. It's very much about keeping the why. The reason the initial Motivation, whatever business everyone starts, there was an initial seed, seed that was planted, that grew. Right. And it's so important some people lose touch of that and that's often why people quit. But having that, that, that, that, why that, that seed, that initial excitement, that initial motivation front and center. So that's very much what gets me out of bed. It's, it's waking up and thinking of that and realizing that there's, there's a mission here to do.
- [43:53]
James Reed
Thank you. And the last question is a question from my interview book, which is one of the fateful 15, and it's where do you see yourself in five years time?
- [44:04]
Alex Partridge
I see myself doing, if I'm honest, I'm is very much doing more of the same, just on a bigger scale. You know, I think ADHD is such a big topic. I'd love to interview Gabor mate, very much on my, on my, on my radar. Mel Robbins would very much like to interview. But just continue the mission, you know, really keep making the podcast, keep growing it, because so many people out there still think that they're, they're, they're broken and obviously they're not. They're just different and they've always been enough. So it's just continuing to grow my audience and keep as many people as possible reminded of that fact.
- [44:44]
James Reed
Thank you very much. Well, I wish you every success in that endeavor and I've found it very inspiring and interesting to talk to you today. Alex, thank you so much for coming in.
- [44:54]
Alex Partridge
Thanks, James.
- [44:56]
James Reed
Thank you, Alex, for joining me on All About Business. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reed, a family run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to find out more about Reid, Alex or the ADHD Chatter podcast, all the links are in the show notes. See you next time. Him.