← James Reed: all about business
James Reed: all about business
56. 3-Step Hack to Getting Better Ideas from Every Employee | Chris Hulatt
00:58:20
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- [00:00]
A
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.
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Most businesses talk about innovation, but few truly build it into their DNA. My guest today is Chris Hulatt, co founder of Octopus Group, the multi billion pound investment and energy business known for its entrepreneurial culture and values driven approach. We'll be talking about what it takes to create a company where everyone thinks like an entrepreneur, how to make risk taking part of the culture, and why values can be a real competitive advantage.
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Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Chris Hewlett. He's an entrepreneur, an angel investor, and is perhaps best known as the founder of Octopus Group. Octopus Group is an amazing collective of innovative businesses that spans investments, energy, real estate and technology and includes Octopus energy investors. In 2017, Chris won Ernst & Young's UK Entrepreneur of the Year award and he's a big believer in purpose driven business and in impact investing. So I'm really looking forward to talking to you about both those things because I'm a believer too. I'd like you just to begin, if you don't mind just explaining what Octopus Group is now. I mean, it's kind of a mothership for all sorts of wonderful companies. But just give us a quick heads up of what it is as.
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B
A. Well, it's great to be here, James, and thanks for your kind introduction. We set up octopus about 25 years ago, myself and a couple of friends I've been working with at Mercury Asset Management and really we wanted to try and build initially a fund management company. So we set out in my lounge trying to do that, building a business that was focused on investing in UK smaller companies, venture capital and more latterly areas like real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy. But you're right, over the years it has also morphed into something bigger and broader than that. And I think that was always part of our dream, was to build something with some real substance across multiple sectors. I don't think any of us could really have said 25 years ago though, that we quite expected that the group would get to where it has done today, where we've got millions of customers across the different businesses. Energy, which we set up 10 years ago, has become the UK's leading power supplier. Really unusual for a business in a mature sector to go from startup to the number one in that length of time. Greg Jackson and his team have done an absolutely phenomenal job. And for us, watching from within the fund management part of the group, it's been a real delight and privilege to see.
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A
That. So that is an amazing story, as you just described it. I mean, there's a lot in what you've just said. I want to sort of probe a little further. So you began as an asset management company, but you've become, in the sense of Octopus Energy, a sort of venture company, is that right? I mean, you were an initial investor in Octopus.
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B
Energy? We'd been building a fund management business for about 15 years. We got to some scale. We were very active in areas like venture capital and smaller companies. And in about 2011, one of my colleagues suggested, why don't we start investing in solar power in the uk? The very first solar farms were being built. We thought, that sounds interesting. We started to do that, that expanded, started building wind farms and moving into other countries. And it made us realise that the whole of the energy market was a bit broken. There was a huge opportunity as the energy transition got underway, not just to build renewables, but also to look at how else could we be active in energy. And we were fortunate enough to bump into Greg Jackson just at the same time as he was having that same.
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A
Idea. So you bumped into him, Explain what.
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B
Happened. Well, we got introduced to him by someone who we knew. We didn't realize at the time, we were just having a coffee with Greg to chat about, sort.
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A
Of. You had a shared.
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B
Interest? Yeah. And then we realized he actually had the same vision of starting an energy company. So we said, well, why don't we do it together, call it Octopus. We'll provide you with a chunk of all of the initial capital that you need. Let's. Let's get going and see what happens. So Greg and a couple of his former colleagues from another business.
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A
Got. Where did he come from.
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B
Greg? Which is he'd been working at HomeServe, really leading all of the innovation there. But it was very clear when we met him, he was someone who really had that kind of drive and passion and determination to build something really exciting. And that is absolutely what he's done. Very, very proud to have that within the kind of wider Octopus family. That business has really just grown so rapidly. Today, the Octopus Group remains a big shareholder in the business, but also alongside a number of other institutions that have come.
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A
In. May ask how much did you invest originally in.
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B
It. Octopus Energy, I think the very first board paper we wrote said, let's commit £10 million into it. I think the, the last fund around the business did was at a valuation of $9 billion. That was a year or two.
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A
Ago. So put in 10 million to start it and what, 10 years.
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B
Later? Yeah, we kept backing it for a number of years, but then it outgrew us and then it was the right time to bring in some very deep pocketed investors. A couple of utilities, one of the big Canadian pension schemes. And they have helped us really create the conditions which I think often not the case in this country, where when a business is scaling rapidly, can it really fulfill its potential? And that is the kind of the position that I think you'd want any entrepreneur to be in, where the growth of their business is not limited by the availability of.
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A
Capital. Well, I mean, congratulations. I mean, that's a wonderful story and we'd like more of those in Britain because you've really built something between you and I love the fact it started over a coffee and sort of shared.
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B
Interest. Yeah. And it's clearly become the most high profile part of the group. But it's also, I think, encourages us to keep thinking about where else can we have an impact within the group. We created something called Octopus Money a few years ago, run by one of my colleagues called Ruth. She has assembled the components to really help all of those people out there who don't really know what to do with their money. Do they really understand where their pension's going to get them? What do they do about their debts? How do they think about saving for a house? 8% of people in the UK get advice from a financial advisor, everyone else doesn't. And that leaves this huge sort of vacuum of a gap of knowledge that people have. They don't know where to turn to, don't really know what the best thing is to do with their money. And we're trying to help provide them with the coaching, the guidance to actually understand how their.
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A
Finances. So are you financial advisors in that sense as.
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B
Well? Then there is a financial advice part of it. But most people need something simpler, which is really. What would you call.
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Coaching?
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B
Coaching. Financial coaching. It's to help you make sense of your money. Maybe you've done a bunch of jobs, you've got these little pension pots all over the place, you don't know what to do with.
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Them.
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B
Yes. Encouraging you to consolidate those into one place, helping you to understand what might your pension be worth in the future. What should you best do with any spare of cash that you do have? Should you making sure you do all of the kind of right things, get the basics right and understand kind of how your finances are set. Sadly, far too few people in this country really think about their money properly. And then later in life they think, well, I wish I started saving more into my pension or I wish I'd put money into an ISA or.
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A
Whatever. And we're given no education in money at school or college, typically, unless you do a business.
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B
Course. Yeah, the financial literacy is a real challenge. I'd love to see more done about that in schools. But the problem with that is it's going to take ages to make a difference. Right now we have lots of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who really need some help and some guidance and a financial literacy program in school isn't going to help them, might help their kids, but making sure that people kind of make the right choices now is so.
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A
Important. Chris, for customers of Octopus Money or prospective customers of octopus money, you mentioned, you know, you have a coach. What sort of things might that coach help people with? How does that.
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B
Work? Yeah, it's a real variety and they'll take the time to understand the nature of your finances and what's happened to you in recent years. Have you got lots of credit card debt or have you got lots of cash sat in the bank? Are you thinking about how to save money for a house? What actually are your key challenges? And it's particularly geared around what are your objectives, what are you looking to achieve and where are you today and how can we help you make progress towards that? Often we find, though, people have quite disparate finances. Maybe if you've done half a dozen different jobs, you have a pension from each one, they're all sat at different firms. You may may not even receive correspondence from them anymore. If you've moved house a few times, you probably don't know what they're worth and you certainly won't have much of a clue as to what they might be worth when you're 65 years old. And so we want to really help people understand the kind of nature of their finance it might be. They should be looking to invest some money through an ISA rather than just keep it all in cash in the bank, consolidate their pensions into one place. All of these are kind.
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A
Of. Sounds like there's a pretty good checklist you could help someone go.
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B
Through. Yeah, and it obviously depends the whole. This is not saying we think you should invest in the Japanese equity Fund run by such and such fund manager. It's far more high level because most people's needs are not about which Japanese equity fund to invest into. They're about are you maybe saving to get married or to put down deposit on a house? What's the best way to do that? They are practical, linked to life situations. Maybe someone's just inherited some money or things like.
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A
That. So is this regulated by the Financial Conduct.
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B
Authority? Yeah, this is slightly. There are different categories. Some things are what they call financial advice and that is a whole different.
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Category. That's you're not that.
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B
Category. We have part of that, but most people don't need that. The high net worth section of society has always had advice from regulated financial advisors. That's about 8% of the population. For everyone else, normal financial advice has tended to be too expensive or not really what you need. That really is about specific allocation to individual investments. But for most people, that's not the help they're looking.
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For. So your financial coaches are for everybody.
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Else? Yeah, essentially. And we feel the reason this is a big opportunity is this huge gap in the market. No one is really doing much to help the normal person. And businesses are very aware of this. They don't want their staff to be sat at their desk all day long worrying about their finances because no one has ever helped them. So businesses are an important conduit for us to help to promote this.
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A
Service to reach your customer. Well, thank you for explaining how that works. This Christmas, your giving can make double the difference from the 2nd to the 9th of December. Through BigGive.org any donation you make to over 1,500 charities will be doubled while match funds last. Whether it's supporting those with cancer, giving children the best start in life, or helping people facing homelessness, whatever charity you choose to give to your gift can go twice as far in the big Give Christmas challenge. Visit biggive.org between the 2nd and 9th of December and make double the difference this Christmas. Thank you. Financial literacy is an interesting concept and I think it would be great if it was in schools because that would help the future generation. But it's obviously a requirement now for a lot of people. And you're saying octopus money is there to help them, coach them.
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B
With. Exactly. And the reason I bring it up is it's a part of the group that isn't as well known as other things we do across the Octopus family of businesses today. But it's something which I think in a few years time might well be reaching large numbers of people and really making a difference. We've always been willing to take bets on creating new areas, new businesses in sectors where we think we can help people, where we can stay true to our values and beliefs and where we think there's a real unmet need. And that's been true of the areas of fund management we went into 25 years ago. No one really invested in UK venture capital. There weren't really many angel investors around. That, thankfully, has changed. We were quite early to do that. Starting a revolutionary sort of energy business again, that's made a big difference. And looking now at money and other sectors, these are things that we think have huge opportunity, huge potential, and the public really will benefit from those kinds of.
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A
Things. I have to ask you, because you said Octopus Energy took the name Octopus. Why Octopus? Why have you called yourself.
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B
This? Well, absolutely. It's really hard to name a business. And.
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We. You got to remember when we set up our company, we were leaving from a fund management company that's named after a planet.
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A
Mercury.
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B
Yes. There are other fund management companies called after other planets. Lots of named after gods or mythical creatures, things like.
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That. Obviously hoping for stellar outcomes. Yeah, you've gone under the ocean. What's in.
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B
There? We were looking for something that would be memorable and distinctive. We were really struggling. Thankfully, Simon, one of the other founders, had a good friend of his from university who worked in marketing at Cathay Pacific. And one day he sent us an email and it said, I've thought of what you should call your company. It's based on an animal. This animal is really clever, really cunning, really flexible, really creative, really imaginative. It was a long list and at the bottom he simply wrote, this animal is an octopus. That's what you should use. And we read and thought right that immediately. That is just.
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A
Perfect. You liked.
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It. And so we registered the name at Companies.
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House. So you saw it and it hadn't been used by anyone else, I.
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B
Guess. I mean, there are lots of other little businesses out there, but no one had done it in fund management. And that was what we were starting out doing. So if you go and look on Companies House today, there are hundreds and hundreds of octopus businesses. Some are ours, but some are not. But we thought people will remember that and that is absolutely true. And everywhere I go in the world, whether I'm meeting a pension fund in career or, you know, a politician or you, people are always intrigued by it. And that, I think, doesn't happen with the names at most.
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Companies. Do you get asked about whether you've got Tentacles in many.
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Things. Yeah. And of course it's easy to kind of make that sort of pun now. Yeah, now it's quite obvious, but when we were sat in my apartment 25 years ago trying to figure out how on earth do we get this thing up and running, our primary aim was build a business that was sustainable within fun.
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A
Mantra. Octopuses, interestingly, don't live very long, do they? But you've gone for.
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Sustainable. We have got three hearts though.
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A
That'S going to keep you going for a long time yet. I hope you've taken that name and it's obviously got a lot of connotations that work well for you. You're also a B corp and I believe you're very committed to that. Just summarize what that is. I mean, I think quite a lot of our listeners will know, but perhaps not all and why you've gone that.
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B
Route. Yeah, we'd always talk to our staff and our customers a lot about, and our shareholders a lot about the sort of values we had as a business and the sort of behaviors. And when we came across the B Corp movement, which at the time had some momentum I think in the us, but there weren't that many in the UK and we thought, ah, that is a perfect sort of validation and a kind of a badge, a way of really signifying we're totally serious about this kind of thing. And to us it's about saying first we've had to change our articles of association.
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But it's more about saying.
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What did you have to.
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Change? You have to. Normally a business is kind of legally set up to maximize its profit and return to share with all that kind of boring sort of formal.
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Stuff. That's the traditional.
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Way. Yeah, absolutely. And our view is you can still make a business incredibly successful and valuable, but go about doing it in a slightly different way where actually it's about also placing great reliance on thinking about what makes sense for staff, for customers, for the environment, for the communities you operate in. And so when we report to our shareholders, when we present to our staff, when I talk to institutional investors, when we produce board papers, it's through the lens of those five stakeholder groups that we think about things and I think that helps you really take long term decisions. It helps you think in a much more balanced kind of way. I remember when we announced to our staff that we'd become a B corp. It was one of the kind of best days, the best things we'd ever done in terms of the enthusiasm, the happiness. I think people felt this just kind of resonates with the kind of business we.
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Are. How long ago was.
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That? That was maybe four or five years ago. Something like.
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That. You've had to sustain every few.
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B
Years. You have to get re accredited. It's hard work. There's a lot of things you have to do. I think that's actually quite a good thing because it means you only do it if you really are serious. It's not something you just, just get as a. In a light moment you have to really be committed to.
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A
It. But it made more business for you. Have you attracted customers because you're.
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B
You know, there's a few things like that. I once went back to give a talk at my auld university and there were some alumni there and some students. And after I'd done my talk, two of the students came up to me and they introduced themselves and said. One of them said, me and my friend, we've already decided, even before I heard you speak, that we only wanted to apply to B Corps for jobs when we left university. And I thought, wow, I had no idea that students would have heard of it. And.
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I was in the US recently meeting a family office that is in the midst of investing into one of our funds. And they told me that they had found Octopus because they'd done a search to look for fund managers that were B Corps. So they were looking for.
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People. So you've got tangible.
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B
Evidence. Yeah, they were looking for people who had some sort of values that aligned with theirs and they thought B Corp was a great screening tool to use. There aren't that many fund management companies that are B Corps. There are lots of businesses in some areas where if you do one thing and you don't have that many staff, the B Corp initiative maybe fits you really well. If you do a number of things and the business has got a bit bigger.
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It'S not an easy thing to get. You've got to be really committed to it and passionate about it. But for us it's been hugely significant. One of the best things we did. I'm really proud and really pleased with.
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A
It. That's good to hear. You said you had funds. How many funds have you got and are they subject.
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B
Specific? Yeah, we've run a number of funds that are primarily invested in by pension funds and insurance companies from the UK and around the world. One of the things I spend quite a lot of my time doing is seeing these clients and traveling to places like Japan and Korea and Australia to meet with them. And then we also run lots of either Funds or individual portfolios for UK individuals, typically kind of mass affluent section of the population who want to invest in areas like UK smaller companies or venture.
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A
Capital. So you would sell a fund as UK smaller.
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B
Companies. Yeah, we run a. What we call the UK Microcap fund, that same primarily businesses listed on aim, which is the part of the London Stock Exchange for smaller.
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Companies. So by buying into that fund you can get a sort of cross.
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Section. Exactly. That fund probably has 60 investments. So you invest your ISA into it and you. You're benefiting from that spread of investments.
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A
Yeah. So how many funds like that do you.
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Have? We have several, three that are run by our smaller companies team. We run lots of individual client portfolios, invest in smaller companies and then we run quite a large number of what are called venture capital trusts. This is the first product we ever started doing when we set up.
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Octopus. And they're investing in private businesses, so that's.
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Illiquid. Yes. So it'd be very hard as a normal individual to invest in private businesses yourself. The point of the venture capital trust is you not only get tax relief from the government, but you also get your money deployed into a whole portfolio of.
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Investments. So that's really encouraging people to invest in.
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Entrepreneurial.
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Absolutely.
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Endeavors. And it's one of the best things we've had in this country has been the venture capital trusts. And also a very similar thing for direct investments called eis, the Enterprise Investment.
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Scheme. That's a tax.
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Break. These are tax benefits to encourage UK individuals to put their money into backing.
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Entrepreneurs. If the entrepreneur loses all your money, you get your tax back. I think that's how it.
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B
Works. Yeah. You get tax relief. You can get something called loss relief if it goes wrong. And typically if it goes right, you don't pay any capital gains tax on the proceeds. So it's really attractive. But the main benefits, over the years, thousands and thousands of businesses have benefited from.
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This. And that's still.
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Ongoing. Yeah. These have been around 30 years.
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A
For people to think about if they want to.
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B
Invest. Well, some of your people watching this from a certain age might remember Ken.
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Clark. I remember Ken.
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Clark. He was.
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Chancellor. Chancellor with John.
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Major. Yeah, chancellor back in 95. And this was an initiative.
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That. Did he introduce.
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B
This? Apparently, yeah. Legend has it he kind.
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Of. He was a clever guy, sketched.
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Out on the back of a napkin over dinner one night and it got introduced and. But it actually has sustained itself through all sorts of different governments over.
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The years and probably because it's a good.
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B
Idea. It is. And. And the labor government last year removed what was a sunset clause in the legislation to give the schemes another 10 years. So this is a really powerful part of how we channel capital into startup companies in this.
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Country. Yeah, because it's difficult for startups.
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To access capital and you want to make it as easy as you can. If you want to have that entrepreneurial culture, then you need people with good ideas to be able to get.
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A
Capital. You need to cultivate it, which is part of what this is. I agree. So you've said, and I like the phrase, that you want Octopus to be a company of hundreds of entrepreneurs. Am I right? You said.
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B
This? Yeah. What does that look like.
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A
Today? What did you.
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B
Mean? Yeah, well, I think in a lot of businesses, people sit back and they assume the people running the business, the founder, the CEO, whatever, are kind of responsible for everything that happens and they wait for orders to come down from top around. New products, how the business is being run, marketing campaigns, everything is kind of led from, from the top down. And actually our experience over the years has been lots of the things that we do as a business today have come about from ideas that people in the business have brought forward and suggested. And it is often younger, more inexperienced people who have these really interesting ideas almost because they are new to the business or they've got a different way of thinking, they're from a different age group, their ideas are super valuable. And my view is to make a business really thrive, you need to create that culture where everyone comes forward with ideas. They know that their ideas are going to be welcomed and appreciated and that if you decide to act on one of those, that they're not going to get blamed if that new product or that bit of marketing material, whatever that idea was, if that didn't work out, and that you're all in it together. And I think we have done a good job of encouraging people to think that way. And so the phraseology we've used is Octopus is not a business of two entrepreneurs, it's a business of hundreds of entrepreneurs. Everyone sat in the building could be a source of the next really interesting idea for a product or the next new area we take the business.
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A
Into. So that sets an expectation that people should be having ideas as well or.
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B
Not. Well, I think there's no pressure. There's no pressure. It's not like some businesses do it in a really stupid formulaic sort of way where they'll say, right, everyone, you know, please submit three ideas on this form and send them in and. Or send us a cost cutting idea or something like that. I think these things work best when they're much more kind of.
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Organic. And so have you got one or two ideas you could share with.
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B
Us? Well, I can tell you how this has worked. Well, for example, a few years ago we had a young guy from Australia who was over here on that two year visa scheme. He'd taken a job on one of our teams and he started saying to us.
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You'Re really active in renewables in the UK and Europe, you should set up an office in Australia. And we thought, that's a long way away. We don't have loads of offices all over the world. We're not that kind of business. This is just not something for us. And he kept talking about it and eventually thought, you know what, that is exactly what we should be doing. Why don't we look into that? And so a few people went down, explored the opportunities. We thought, yeah, let's go for it. Four or five people moved out to Australia, including a guy called Sam, who is an Australian, went back to Melbourne, set up the office and now seven or eight years later, there's 55 people across Sydney and.
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Melbourne. What is that? Octopus Group Australia sort of.
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Thing? Yeah, basically, yeah. Doing renewable energy investments in Australia. We've built huge solar farm, really big wind farm, got some other projects in development, run money for some of the Australian pension funds. And so really from that one idea and a bit of persistence as someone who was really advocating why we should do it, but why did he.
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Think there was such an opportunity? Because he saw what you were doing here and thought there was no one was doing that in.
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B
Australia. Yeah, but his point was also all the political rhetoric at the time was you might remember the Australian Prime Minister once stood up in Parliament with a chunk of coal and said, this is the.
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Future. Is that Tony.
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Abbott? Yeah, Tony.
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Abbott. I met him once, he was a.
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Boxer. And so that was the kind of view that.
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Renewables in Australia are never going to work. That was the kind of thought.
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Process. So you did the opposite, our.
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Viewers. You've got lots of land, lots of sun, wind, growing population, you've got all these coal fired power stations that we know one day are going to not be used anymore. That's got to be a great opportunity for renewables. And that is exactly how it's turned out. And so I think, yeah, it.
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A
Looks obvious now in hindsight, but it was obviously a good.
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B
Idea. But whenever I went there, people said, how committed are you to this? I'm sure you won't be here in two years time you'll have shut the office. And we said no, we are really committed. But they were just used to people doing things a bit half heartedly. And our perspective has always been if you're going to do something like that, you've got to stay the course. You can't just give it a year or two. It takes a while to get something new up and.
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A
Running. So you're prepared. What I'm hearing beneath what you just said is you're prepared to take some financial pain when you start.
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B
Something. Well, we have several benefits. We're firstly very long term in our.
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A
Perspective. What do you mean by very long.
- [25:49]
B
Term? To us we're very fortunate that the business has been around 25 years, we think not in terms of how much profit might we make in three months time or next year, but what should we be doing today that we'd be really glad we've done in 5, 10, 20 years time? And we can do that I think for a few reasons. One is we were pretty young when we set the business up. So even though it's been 25 years, we love what we do, want to keep doing it for a long time to come. We're not looking to sell a business or anything like that. And also we have a shareholder structure that's very conducive to that. The Octopus Group itself is mostly owned by founders, by people who work in the business and by the angels who backed us 25 years ago.
- [26:33]
And that means we don't have, for example, a private equity investor saying you must get us a listing in three years or you must get us an exit. We don't have any large block saying I want to sell my shares. So we've got that sort of long term freedom and flexibility. I think our investors and backers have also realized when we go into new areas, we won't get it right every time. We've made plenty of mistakes over the years, but overall the things we've chosen to expand into, even though they might seem a bit wacky at the time, have been the right decisions and building things steadily over years when you're not hamstrung by having to focus on short term profitability, is a real liberator. And I think you can build a stronger, better business because of.
- [27:20]
A
That. So you've obviously made some good decisions because you have a good business and some very good businesses have come out of it, but you must have made some bad ones as well. I mean, what's the process when you start with a new venture and you decide, maybe this isn't for us. How long do you give it? How do you make that.
- [27:38]
B
Decision? Sometimes product ideas that we're convinced will be really popular with the investing public and they're not. Sometimes it is more on the institutional side. It's very hard to persuade pension funds to invest in things. We've tried a few times to set up funds in areas and it's been hard going to get the.
- [27:57]
A
Back. There's a process of trial and error.
- [27:59]
B
Here. Absolutely. Sometimes it's down to people. And probably my biggest learning over the years has been the right people can do amazing things. But if you get people who aren't a good fit with your organization or they don't have the same drive and determination, then a really good idea can be kind of wasted if you haven't got the right people behind.
- [28:17]
A
It. So what do you look for in people? What makes someone the right person for Octopus.
- [28:22]
B
Group? Yeah, I think it probably depends on different parts of the group, but certainly for us within the kind of wide Octopus investments and fund management business, I think it's people who have real passion for what we do, who really understand customers, who bring some kind of drive and determination, but also have a personality, people who are going to speak up and ask questions, people who are curious, people I think who struggle with us are people who just want something to be nicely kind of contained. They want their role to be pretty steady, to not to change. And people who succeed are those who love the constant change and the evolution. They like the fact that in six months time maybe their rule will be totally different or maybe we'll have asked them to go and set up a different team or go to.
- [29:09]
A
Australia. Yeah, absolutely, that would appeal to.
- [29:12]
B
Me. Yeah. And that is I think what makes it fun and interesting and engaging. But of course people are all different. And some people, if you want consistency and no change in life, then we're not the place for you. If you like a challenge, something as fast moving and where your ideas will always be welcome, then I think we're much more that kind.
- [29:33]
A
Of. So, so how do you make sure that your team feels heard? You know, that they're genuinely involved in shaping the business? You know, you say we want your ideas, but how do you. Is there a process, is there an approach that you bring to it that makes that.
- [29:46]
B
Happen? I think people are not shy with halting pat. When they've got a great idea, they'll tell people we welcome that and make clear we want to hear people's thoughts. But we work in an open plan office, there's no hiding away. I think in some businesses, people are kind of protected by layers of, you know, EAs and assistants. And you. If you want to see the boss, you've got to make a diary appointment. Well, it's only not like that for us. I sit in the midst of our open plan floor. So on any given day I could have loads of discussions, people, some of which might have been organized and planned, others so are just. You bump into someone literally, by the.
- [30:22]
A
Way. So you don't have a private.
- [30:24]
B
Office? No, I sit on. And Simon, the other founder, he sits in our reception area. And he likes.
- [30:31]
A
That. He works in the.
- [30:32]
B
Reception. Yeah, because he sees the flows of people coming in and out. Often they stop for a chat. He might see someone he's not bumped into for a.
- [30:38]
A
While. Does he check people in and.
- [30:39]
B
Out?
- [30:40]
A
Nice. I'm impressed by this. We're refurbishing our office. You're giving me some ideas. I want a place.
- [30:46]
B
In. But what it makes clear is like we are, we're all in this together. That we want to be part of things and that.
- [30:57]
We want people to feel that we're all approachable with the same people we were 25 years ago. There's no kind of. No, you'd literally grandeur to that or anything like.
- [31:05]
A
That. You make that literally the.
- [31:06]
B
Case. We're not in a, you know, fancy corner office with people protecting us from any interaction with the rest of the organization. And that is to me, the kind of thing where you just suddenly, you need to be listening, you need to be.
- [31:21]
Available to everyone, you need to be part of it. And if you're not part of it because you hide yourself away, then I think you.
- [31:27]
A
Quickly. How many people work in your.
- [31:29]
B
Office in the fun mansion building? Probably about 700, something like.
- [31:33]
A
That. On several.
- [31:34]
B
Floors. On three floors, right? Yeah. So I remember the day when you could stand up at your desk and see everyone in the company. And as a business grows and you get beyond that, it gets a bit.
- [31:44]
A
Harder. It's a little difficult. Yeah. Because you don't know.
- [31:45]
B
Everyone. Absolutely. And so you can try for a while, but then you don't know.
- [31:50]
A
Everyone. But you've got three.
- [31:51]
B
Founders. Yeah. Guy was.
- [31:53]
A
The. So are you on different floors?
- [31:56]
Well, thinking the logic of this. I like.
- [31:58]
B
That. Yeah. You could divide it that way. Guy left about 10 years or so. He's gone on set up other businesses since then, but remains a big champion of the business and a big shareholder in.
- [32:09]
A
It. Yeah. Okay. So that's very interesting. So walking the talk, so to speak. So you have a scheme called the Springboard Scheme, which encourages people to start new ventures from out of your business, which has been a successful pattern for you. What inspired you to set that up and how does it.
- [32:27]
B
Work? Really? It's an extension of what I've just been talking about in terms of encouraging people to bring forward ideas.
- [32:35]
I think one of the biggest challenges for people who have an idea is how do they actually get it up and running? And so we noticed that we had people internally.
- [32:45]
They'D say, some comment like, oh, it must be great that you've set up Octopus. And then they say, oh, I'd love to start a business. And when you then replied, well, why don't you? They say, well, I do have an idea of something I might do, but I don't really know how to actually get up and running. And usually if you probe a bit more, you'd find out that there are other blockers, like, if I don't earn my salary, I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent for the next six months. We went nine months without earning a penny. When we set up our business, we know how tough it is. Practical reality is very few businesses get up and running and generating revenue in a way that the founder can pay themselves really quickly. It is really tough. And so we thought, is there anything we can do to not only help budding entrepreneurs and share some of our experiences and some of the things that we've found work really well and some of the things to avo and benefit from our kind of learnings over the years, but also say to people, we'll back you, so we'll give you some financial support so you can step down from your role at Octopus, go and have a go at starting up your business, and then if it goes great.
- [33:51]
We'Ll cheerlead you and support you and watch your progress, maybe we'll invest. We'll certainly help you where we can. But if it doesn't work, then come and have your job back at Octopus. We'll find you a role again. And so we're trying to de risk it for people, to encourage people to be entrepreneurs and say, you know, most people, if you really push them, they could come up with something they are passionate about that they think they could do. But we're trying to take away the reasons why people don't do.
- [34:16]
A
That. Okay, so I've got an idea like that I work for you. Do you pay my wages while I'm Doing the new.
- [34:21]
B
Venture. Yeah, we, we usually agree. Some form of financial support for.
- [34:25]
A
You. So what, for a year or something.
- [34:27]
B
Or. Yeah, it could be like let's give you, let's call, let's call it six months and we'll see how you do and there'll be some sort of check in.
- [34:34]
A
Process. So after six months it might be going. Looking like it's quite exciting. I might be thinking, I'm not sure.
- [34:38]
B
This. Yeah. And if it's going really well, you're probably in the midst of thinking, how do I start to raise some external capital from angels.
- [34:43]
A
To. Yeah. And then we come back and talk to you again, I.
- [34:45]
B
Guess.
- [34:45]
A
Yeah. And yeah, because you can help with.
- [34:47]
B
That. We do some of that personally. OCTOPUS does it. We know plenty of other angels so we can help with that kind of thing. And there's.
- [34:54]
A
Some. How many companies have come out of Springboard like.
- [34:57]
B
This? Yeah, there's been quite a number of people who've given it a go and there's. There's a number in progress at the moment and we've had some new ones. One great example is a woman called Karen who used to work in our HR department and she'd been on maternity leave and she'd been thinking a lot during that time about all the challenges new parents face and prospective parents, about all of the stuff that you kind of wish someone would teach you or give you access to knowledge and support and help about being a parent. And so she had this dream of setting up a business called Parent Cloud and that is what she has done and it's growing. She employs a whole bunch of people. Parent Cloud, it's all about advice and help and support to parents and prospective parents, community communities, but also support networks, information, I think classes, loads of different resources, which I think is really valuable. It's a great.
- [35:52]
A
Idea. She went through this process and.
- [35:54]
B
She'D experienced what it was like being a parent and I think that inspired her. But she also is doing a brilliant job of transitioning from being an HR manager to being an entrepreneur. And it is brilliant to see and I think we all feel really proud that people have emerged from Octopus to do things that maybe aren't a business that we could just isn't something naturally that we would do within.
- [36:18]
A
Octopus.
- [36:19]
B
Yes. But it's an idea that is a really great thing to give a go and that's absolutely something we're really passionate about trying to.
- [36:27]
A
Encourage. So you've obviously done a few of these. I mean, is there a sort of success rate? I mean I imagine it's not.
- [36:32]
B
That. Well, In a way, 10:20. Yeah. I think it's probably higher than that. But it's also. That is kind of not the.
- [36:40]
A
Point. Why is it not the.
- [36:42]
B
Point? Well, I think if it works, great. If it doesn't, you have learned so much about what it is like to try and start a business that.
- [36:49]
A
Next time you as the.
- [36:50]
B
Entrepreneur. Yeah. You as the entrepreneur.
- [36:52]
A
Have. So you come back to.
- [36:54]
B
Octopus. You've learned a lot about.
- [36:55]
A
Yourself. Better.
- [36:56]
B
Educated. Yeah. So you've learned a lot about the challenges of business. What that really means. You've learned a lot more than you would have done just doing your existing role for another year. And on the back of that, next time you have an idea and you give it a go, you'll. You'll have a much better chance of making it work. You'll know so much.
- [37:11]
A
More. Have you got some people who have done it more than.
- [37:12]
B
Once?
- [37:14]
Well, certainly there's a former colleague of ours who worked in our renewables team for a long time. He was very passionate about Africa. He went down to Africa to join a small energy software company in Johannesburg and he was involved in running that for a while.
- [37:34]
He then moved back to the UK and he has with another former Octopus person started a new business in the UK again doing energy billing software with particular applications in, in Africa. He's really passionate about it. He's learned so much during his time in South Africa and now he's bringing that to bear on the next thing he's involved with. So this sort of learning process is so important and then getting the right people around you, the right supporters, the right angel investors, mentors. This is like what the ecosystem.
- [38:08]
A
Means. Yeah, I think, but I think you're doing yourself in a way a disservice. I think what's really interesting or striking to me is how you're quite happy for people to go and learn and take a risk possibly at your expense and come back maybe or go.
- [38:20]
B
Off. But if they come back and do their existing job, I think it'd be so much better at.
- [38:25]
A
It. Well, that's what, so that's what's so inspiring about this for me and thought of it like that and I think that's really interesting that you've created, you've created a sort of academy or ecosystem for entrepreneurs here.
- [38:37]
B
That.
- [38:37]
A
Yeah. And I'd love and.
- [38:38]
B
Grow. We'd love to keep expanding that and to really just champion other businesses to think about this as well. Some businesses do little sort of spin out programs and things. But this is the thing that I think works really well for what we do is it doesn't have to be anything to do with Octopus. So it's. We're not saying to you, we'll only help you if it's something to do with financial services. That's not really the point of it. A lot of ideas might be because that's the sort of.
- [39:05]
A
Background. Yeah. I could set up an electric motorcycle company or.
- [39:07]
B
Something. People's.
- [39:09]
A
Passions. Can people come to you who don't work for octopus? I mean, if someone listening thinks, oh, I've got an idea, should they come.
- [39:16]
B
And. Well, a lot of people approach Simon and I think partially because, you know, we do do some angel investing ourselves and that's something we enjoy doing. I think like a lot of people in business, investing in other early stage businesses is far more fun to me than investing in the FTSE 100. I'd far rather meet someone think, oh, they are super talented and driven. I love their idea. I'd love to be a small investor in it. That.
- [39:41]
A
Is. So you're really backing the person quite a lot.
- [39:44]
B
Here. Always the person, because they're the ones who got to get up every morning and make it happen. The best idea doesn't just sort of turn into a successful business in itself. So, yeah, it's all about.
- [39:54]
A
People. When you marry a good person with a good idea, you're onto a.
- [39:57]
B
Runner. Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think a good person can take a sort of reasonable idea and make a success of it.
- [40:02]
A
Too. So it doesn't have to be a super good idea with a good.
- [40:05]
B
Pulse. Well, if you think about what we do across the Octopus Group, I'd say none of it is kind of unique. It's not sort of patent protected drug discovery that we're doing where you design something and then you've got an absolutely sort of secure position. We do things in fund management, which lots of other companies within a few miles of where we're speaking today do. Energy supply, there's lots of businesses that do that. It's the same electrons out of the plug, but it's how you package it up in a way that is super consumer friendly and engaging and has some brand behind it. Those are the ways you take a product and turn it into a.
- [40:38]
A
Successful business by bringing energy and creativity in a.
- [40:42]
B
Way. Yeah, absolutely.
- [40:43]
A
Yeah. So what do you think are the biggest barriers to entrepreneurship today? You know, and how can businesses help remove them? What could be done.
- [40:51]
B
Here? Yeah, well, I would, I would love there to be something of a kind of national springboard program. I think a lot of people, particularly outside of London, the Southeast, might be sitting there with a bit of an idea of how to start a business, but no real idea of how to access that early capital that they're going to need. And if you're in a community where none of your friends or family or neighbors have started a business, you haven't really got the role models that you might need and you probably don't easily know where to go and where to turn to raise capital. And I think the barriers are even higher if you've never managed to build up.
- [41:23]
A
Anything. So you see London and the Southeast as a sort of place where it's easier to do some of these things. Well, perhaps the north of England or Wales or. Is that.
- [41:31]
B
Right? I think when we set up.
- [41:32]
A
How can we help the people in.
- [41:33]
B
Those. Yeah, exactly. And so if you've done a job where you've been able to build up some savings and that's great, but. But a lot of people haven't and yet is it right that that means you can't really have a crack at starting a business. You know, so many ideas will be in.
- [41:47]
A
There. Well, you could well be a good person with a good idea in some other.
- [41:50]
B
Location. Yeah. So I think could you craft some kind of national government backed version of our springboard program where you say to people, if you want to leave your job and sign up into this program, you'll get a little bit of financial help to maybe ease the way of paying your rent for three months, six months, access to lots of online training courses to really help you turn your idea into a business as quick as possible so that you don't spend loads of time learning stuff that you could easily be just shown what to do, all of the kind of basic stuff, how do you even set a company up, all of that kind of thing. And ideally also access to role models and mentors who can be a sounding board for.
- [42:31]
A
Yourself. I think someone should give you a call, Chris, and ask you to help set that up. It sounds like a very good.
- [42:35]
B
Idea. And I think the point is then can we become a kind of nation of entrepreneurs again?
- [42:41]
I think that is where economic growth comes from. That's where jobs are created. Typically it's not in the large.
- [42:47]
A
Companies. So for that to work you'd need some central sort of click clearing, organized or it could all be a platform, digital platform. You need the commitment of the. The individuals employed so you can always come.
- [42:59]
B
Back. Yeah, and that's probably the Hard part. And you might never be able to make that component work.
- [43:04]
A
But. No, but you could give some incentive for the employer to have them back, like no national insurance or something like that if they, if they do encourage.
- [43:13]
B
Entrepreneurship. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot you could tinker with to try and do that. But my, my basis point is we've got a great startup culture here, but a lot of it is in some sectors. A lot of it is in the southeast. A lot of it's in Oxford and Cambridge and London and those kind of places. How do we break out of that? So that if you're in parts of the country that are not traditionally associated with that really strong ecosystem, how can we, how can we.
- [43:37]
A
Democratize? Well, they used to be, interestingly, you know, those great industrial towns in the north was where the 18th and 19th century entrepreneurs came from. They built all sorts of huge businesses and so there's no reason why they shouldn't be.
- [43:50]
B
Again. No. And you can build a business anywhere. Now that is the great thing that with, with digital connectivity you don't need to be in London to start a business.
- [43:59]
But I think often people think it's not for me or I'll never be able to do it. And trying to break out of that mindset would be so.
- [44:07]
A
Powerful. It'd be better if there were more people, rather like you have in the States, who just encourage you if you have an idea rather than say what you think of that for. Sort.
- [44:14]
B
Of. We did some research a few years ago in conjunction with a think tank and they went out and asked people in their 20s, can you name an entrepreneur role model? And the two names that got most mentioned were Alan Sugar and Richard Branson, who obviously have had great careers, but they're guys in their 70s. And can we not find role models in their 30s or something that people can look up to.
- [44:38]
A
Instead? Yeah, I mean, that is interesting that those are.
- [44:43]
B
The. If you ask people, I mean.
- [44:44]
A
They'Ve been on television quite a.
- [44:45]
B
Lot. Yeah. And that helps. But, but that just kind of shows. There's not, there's not a great raft of well known.
- [44:51]
A
Business. It'd be easier to name American Elon Musk or. Yeah, so yeah, that's.
- [44:57]
B
True. In America, you know, people are just much more exposed to, to businesses, to, to people who run them. Founders are quite vocal and there's a lot of interest in media coverage of it here. It's, it's, it tends not to.
- [45:09]
A
Be. Well, we're trying to encourage more coverage through this podcast and Other ways. So you and Octopus have. Have your tentacles, if that's fair to say, in a number of different things. You know, you mentioned fund management, Octopus Energy. How do you keep a shared purpose across such a diverse business? So if indeed there is a shared purpose by Sensor.
- [45:32]
B
Is. Yeah, I mean, the businesses run very separately. So on the Octopus Group side, we've got the fund management business, we've got Octopus money, we've got a fintech platform within the group and a few other bits. We run that as one entity. Greg runs Octopus Energy very separately. It's in a different building to where the fund management businesses are. For example, we've always run them with a lot of autonomy, very separately. But I think there is still a bit of a kind of shared DNA. One is people who really, really believe in the customer and really think about that hard. That encompasses and is part of anything, really that we'd ever want to have the Optimus name attached to. I think increasingly use of technology is part of it, but the values are sort of making a difference. Can we play a part in tackling climate change? Can we play a part in trying to help people build businesses and can we do things in the right way? The sort of behaviors within an organization are as important as what people see externally as well. And I think those are, again, things that we just believe in, like do things in the right way, move quickly, you know, be decisive, don't get bogged down in bureaucracy.
- [46:46]
Sort of thing. I really don't like within a business, when you hear people say things like, oh, maybe I'll. Can I write a paper for next month's committee meeting? Well, why don't we sit down, talk about it now? We can make a decision in 10 minutes and then you can get on with it. So businesses need to move quickly. The world is evolving so rapidly. I think businesses have to really keep up with that. And if you don't have a structure that allows decisions to be made quickly and you sort of get bogged down. I think businesses, as they grow, they become fearful of failure, so they lose that spark and that willingness to try things that were so powerful when they were much smaller. You've got to fight all of that all the time as a business grows. Otherwise you just plateau and you become like every other large business. And that, I think, is something we've always been very conscious of and want to.
- [47:30]
A
Avoid. So when you say you've got to fight that all the time, you've got to be alive to it, you've got to be alert to it, you've got to stamp it out in a.
- [47:36]
B
Way.
- [47:36]
A
Yeah. Because you're saying, I think that it will appear if you.
- [47:38]
B
Don'T. Well, you don't partially just because people who joined the business might have worked in bigger companies where that was part of their role and just how they saw life. Whereas for us we've all, we've, this is all we've done for 25 years. So we don't know the kind of bureaucracy of big businesses. But we do not want that to kind of permeate into our business. I think, I think it's about also challenging. Like there are 10 of us sat in this meeting room. Do we need all 10? Why? Maybe there's only needs to be three or four people and making sure. Does a meeting need to last now? If it can last 15 minutes? What is the point of this discussion? What decision are we taking? Can we take it quickly? I remember occasionally colleagues would bring, you know, maybe a little spreadsheet, crunching the numbers on something and.
- [48:27]
Their response was often, shall I go away and do some more analysis? And I think that is rarely the answer. I think so much in business you've just got to make decisions quickly without perfect analysis. You cannot wait until you know all of the information, all the answers to something. By then so much has passed by. I think you've got to be willing to trust your instincts. And we've done that a lot over the years and we've learned that that has turned out to be very powerful.
- [48:53]
You kind of learn to get a bit of a sense of people you meet, opportunities.
- [48:58]
Decision making. It becomes a sort of innate thing that I think business, you know, once you've been around a while, you just can do that quickly. And that is so important as.
- [49:07]
A
Well. Decision making is key. Good decision making makes a big difference, obviously. But someone once said something to me that I found quite helpful. The great thing about making a decision is you can always make another.
- [49:17]
B
Decision. Yeah.
- [49:18]
A
Absolutely. Just carry on making decisions. And that's helped me a lot actually over the.
- [49:22]
B
Years. The worst is to just sit, not make a decision. But I think so many people fall into that trap. And I think it particularly happens when people start to get a bit more risk averse. And I think often as a business grows, people start to focus more on the downside and protecting what they have and they lose some of that enthusiasm. They used to have to be looking for ways to grow, to launch new products, do new things.
- [49:44]
Some of that may be natural sort of human behavior, but what it does do is just change the whole culture of a business. And for us, we have always wanted to be the kind of place that was willing to try things and keep taking risks, launching new things. As you say, you can always decide to row back from something if it's not right. But way better to try and keep that ambition. Be bold, do stuff. Don't get paralyzed by fear or by.
- [50:11]
A
Indecision. Be bold, do stuff, and don't get paralyzed by fear or indecision. I like that very much. So Octopus Energy scaled incredibly fast. Yeah. What do you think made it stand out in such a crowded.
- [50:23]
B
Market?
- [50:25]
I think the time of its launch was.
- [50:30]
Looking back at it, very important. We were coming into the market at a time when there was lots of change going on in the energy market, but people were also very dissatisfied with their energy providers. And I think there was a sense in the market that for many consumers, they thought, I've been with that supplier for 20 years, I'm so loyal, surely I'm getting their best price. And suddenly the answer was, usually you were getting their worst price. Loyalty was not.
- [50:54]
A
Rewarded. It was.
- [50:56]
B
Punished. Punished. And rapid switching was happening. All these.
- [50:59]
A
Things. Promiscuity was.
- [51:00]
B
Rewarded. Yeah, just characteristics of a market that was going through rapid change.
- [51:06]
We thought we could do a few things differently. We thought, firstly, we could build something that used technology in an amazing way. And that is absolutely what the team have done. They've created what's called the Kraken technology platform that underpins Octopus Energy. That is now not just what we use within our business, but we've licensed it to a whole bunch of other utilities. And it has this very unusual characteristic which allows very low operating costs, but also amazing customer service. And that's because it just puts at the fingertips of the customer service people all of the information they need in a very usable kind of format. The technology is constantly evolving and being updated to make it as user friendly as possible, both for people like you and me, submitting meter readings through the app, but also for people in the team trying to respond to customer.
- [51:51]
A
Queries. So if you want to switch, it's easy? Basically.
- [51:55]
B
Yes. If you want to.
- [51:58]
The key is do the basics amazingly well, look after people, be very responsive to any queries, and also we found, bring some brand and personality to it too.
- [52:10]
So signing off emails with the slogan love and power, using bright colors.
- [52:18]
Making sure we minimize any use of jargon. We talk to people as human beings and as customers, not as that sort of adult child looking down at you, swamping you with jargon. Trying to confuse you. That's not for us. It's all about. We want people to understand what we're saying. We want them to feel they can get in touch if they've got a query and want them to feel that, that we are on their side. In an energy market, it's quite complex, quite difficult, where sadly, power prices have been pretty high in recent years, partially because of the Russia Ukraine war and the impact that's had on gas prices. So we want to do everything we can to make sure people get a fair deal, that loyalty is worth it. And we look after them, make them feel part of something and just look after them really, really well. And you can see that in things like the trustpilot ratings. I remember how my parents said none of their neighbors would switch to Octopus in the early days until we won our first which recommended.
- [53:15]
A
Provider. You've won a few awards and.
- [53:17]
B
Then we've won it, I think seven.
- [53:18]
A
Or eight years in a row, taking the cup.
- [53:21]
B
Home. And that's really, I think just. That's something which is a real validation of what we're trying to do. I think about one in four UK households as customers and a real voice to champion all of the things I've talked about. And you know, Greg does that amazingly well and I think he's a real, you know, pro consumer voice within the energy.
- [53:43]
A
Market. So customer first is what I'm.
- [53:46]
B
Hearing. Absolutely. If you look after customers and you do a great job of that, then you'll build a big business. If you spend all your time looking at monthly P Ls and that's what you obsess about, then I don't think you can. You're going to build a successful.
- [54:00]
A
Business. Don't be surprised if you.
- [54:01]
B
Don'T.
- [54:01]
A
Absolutely. That's very helpful to hear. So, final question. Where next for Octopus Group? What are you looking forward to in the.
- [54:09]
B
Future? Well, the way I think about it is kind of what do I want to tell my grandchildren one day in years to come that we did as a business what we feel proud about. I'd love us to continue doing great things in fund management. So a few years ago we started an affordable housing team, you know, an area that in this country we really need more of and it's been really pleasing to see the growth of that. So I'd like to keep finding new areas like that where we can set up teams that can make a difference, building things or backing things, investing in entrepreneurs. I think there's an opportunity to do that on a more international basis We've made steps recently into new markets like Spain and looking at one or two others. We have the Australia office I talked about earlier. Those things are really important. You know, fund management is a huge industry. Our needs as consumers for pensions and things just keep going up. So I think there's a lot we can do in this sector. And for us as the group being a big ongoing shareholder in Octopus Energy, watching what and cheerleading as that business continues to go international and expand into new markets and get real scale and play its part in the whole energy transition, that makes us really proud too. And I think there's a lot more to.
- [55:20]
A
Come. Was a huge amount there. I wish you every success with that and I think we'll have to have you back in the studio and find out how it's going in a few years time. But no, that's a remarkable story and thank you for coming to share it with me.
- [55:31]
B
Chris. My absolute pleasure. Really enjoyed.
- [55:33]
A
It. Thank you very much. I'm going to ask you two questions at the end which I ask everybody. The first is what gets you up on a Monday morning? Because here at Read we love Mondays. So.
- [55:44]
B
What? Yeah, I think it's like the challenge of every day for me really is different. I meet new people, get to do different things, meet new colleagues and still learn new stuff constantly. And so that to me is the day when you stop enjoying it is probably the day to hang up your boots but hopefully that'll be a long way down the.
- [56:06]
A
Future. I hope that's a long way off. And then the last question, you maybe partially answered it just now, but where do you see yourself in five years.
- [56:15]
B
Time? Yeah, some things I really enjoy doing, I like taking the Octopus story out to the wider world and traveling to meet potential investors in our funds around the world. I love visiting the team in Australia and also lead our government relations on the fund management side. So those will keep me pretty busy. There's a lot happening in the political world, I think a lot of opportunities for us to keep meeting new pension funds in places like Japan where they're liberalizing their international markets. So yeah, that, that keeps me busy. Keeps.
- [56:49]
A
Me. There is a lot happening in the political world. I mean it could change a.
- [56:51]
B
Lot.
- [56:52]
A
Absolutely. I mean it's, it feels very volatile and febrile to.
- [56:58]
B
Me. Yeah. UK politics clearly going through a sort of transitionary period in terms of we've gone from very stable, largely sort of two party kind of, of.
- [57:09]
System into one where lots of parties have a reasonable vote share and that is going to make it, I think, really fascinating. Interesting.
- [57:17]
A
Times. Yeah. And quite unpredictable.
- [57:19]
B
Perhaps. And also, you know.
- [57:21]
A
Change. So.
- [57:22]
B
That'S. Well, from where we are today. Next election is a long way off too, so I think there's all sorts of things that can happen. But, you know, right now our approach is work with the government to help share with them our thoughts and ideas and suggestions around what can be done to really chase that economic growth that they keep talking.
- [57:37]
A
About. Yeah, well, I wish you absolute success with that because that would be good for everyone. Thanks very much.
- [57:42]
B
Chris. Pleasure to talk to.
- [57:44]
A
You.
- [57:47]
Many thanks to Chris Hulat for joining me today and sharing how Octopus has built a culture that empowers people to innovate and think boldly. If you'd like to learn more about Octopus Group, their springboard scheme, or becoming a BCorp, you'll find all the links in the show notes. I'm James Reed and this has been all about business. Thanks for listening and see you next time.