How Helping Strangers Became a 7-Figure Business - With Simon Squibb (Part 2) | Episode 349

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How Helping Strangers Became a 7-Figure Business - With Simon Squibb (Part 2)" | Episode 349

Hosted by: The Futur with Chris Do
Guest: Simon Squibb
Release Date: May 24, 2025

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1. Introduction

In Episode 349 of The Futur Podcast, Chris Do delves deeper into Simon Squibb's innovative approach to building a sustainable business centered around helping strangers achieve their dreams. This episode explores the intricacies of Simon's "infinite business model," which seamlessly blends content creation with philanthropy.

2. Simon Squibb’s Unique Business Model

Simon Squibb has pioneered a business model that focuses on identifying individuals' dreams and providing them with both financial and marketing support. This approach not only empowers the recipients but also generates revenue through content that showcases these acts of kindness.

• Key Insight: Simon approaches strangers, asks them about their dreams, and supports them financially while promoting their stories through various media platforms.

  Simon Squibb [03:01]: "The maximum amount of money I've ever given is US$20,000 to one person."

3. Charity vs. Business of Giving

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around differentiating traditional charity from Simon's business-centric model of giving. Simon emphasizes sustainability and the importance of creating a self-fulfilling system where the support provided can be continually reinvested.

• Core Philosophy: Simon believes that acting like you have no money encourages inventiveness and sustainability, avoiding the pitfalls of traditional charity where funds can be depleted without long-term impact.

  Simon Squibb [14:07]: "So the first thing probably, and I don't know if I'm going to go in the right order on this, but I think the number one thing in a business of giving is to actually act like you've got no money."

4. Revenue Streams and Financial Sustainability

Simon outlines multiple revenue streams that sustain his philanthropic efforts:

• YouTube and TikTok Ads: These platforms provide passive income through ad revenue generated by videos showcasing his support for individuals.

  Simon Squibb [38:26]: "In total, we made 1.8 million pounds from YouTube."

• Brand Deals: Collaborations with brands like Adobe and GoDaddy help fund his initiatives while aligning with his mission to support entrepreneurs.

  Simon Squibb [43:28]: "So all of these different revenue streams allow us to give people their dreams."

• Own Products: Simon ventures into products like Dream Brew and Purposeful Clothing, where profits further support his charitable activities.

  Simon Squibb [44:36]: "We are launching our own clothing line, which is called Purposeful Clothing."

5. Challenges and Criticisms

The episode doesn't shy away from discussing the challenges Simon faces:

• Managing Team Expenses: Bringing a team to locations like LA incurs significant costs, which Simon justifies through the revenue generated.

  Simon Squibb [48:43]: "It costs $50,000 to bring everybody here."

• Skepticism Towards Charity Models: Simon critiques traditional charities for their lack of sustainability and reliance on constant donations, advocating instead for a model that reinvests its earnings to continue supporting individuals.

  Simon Squibb [25:56]: "Better to work with an intermediary. In our case in England, we work with a charity called Shelter."

6. Team and Operations

Simon emphasizes the importance of aligning his team with the core mission. By hiring individuals who share his vision of fixing the broken education system, he ensures that the team remains motivated and self-managing.

• Building an Aligned Team: Simon hires team members based on their belief in the mission, allowing them to self-manage and stay committed without the need for constant oversight.

  Simon Squibb [16:52]: "Manage a purpose, hire people on that purpose, and they manage themselves."

7. Personal Insights and Future Plans

Simon shares his journey from starting a humble podcast to building a multimillion-pound enterprise focused on social good. He discusses the importance of starting with no money, leveraging content creation for revenue, and continually reinvesting to sustain and grow his initiatives.

• Starting Point: A simple gift of a microphone led Simon to create the "Good Luck Club" podcast, which laid the foundation for his current business model.

  Simon Squibb [54:53]: "My first three podcasts are the worst pieces of shit you've ever seen. They're so bad."

• Future Endeavors: Simon hints at expanding into television shows and further product lines, all aimed at supporting his mission to fix the education system and empower individuals.

  Simon Squibb [44:36]: "We are now, you know, in talks about doing well. We are doing our own TV shows and partnering on that as well."

8. Conclusion

The episode concludes with Chris and Simon reflecting on the impact of Simon's work. They highlight the ripple effects of his model, where helping one individual can inspire and empower many others. Simon's dedication to his mission and his innovative business model serve as an inspiring blueprint for entrepreneurs aiming to make a positive difference in the world.

• Final Thought: Simon aspires for a future where individuals can freely pursue their dreams without the constraints of a broken education system or financial limitations.

  Simon Squibb [67:00]: "My dream is for people to realize how amazing they are that anything is possible... to fix the education system."

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Notable Quotes:

• Chris Do [02:05]: "You see this man coming down the street, be ready. Just be ready."
• Simon Squibb [24:55]: "There's a lot of people that rather have equity in something than a big salary upfront."
• Chris Do [33:44]: "It's charitable of you to help that old lady cross the street."
• Simon Squibb [65:29]: "Knowledge is power."

This episode offers a deep dive into how Simon Squibb has effectively merged philanthropy with business, creating a scalable and sustainable model that not only supports individuals but also aims to bring systemic change to society.

Transcript

[Chris]

Hey, guys. Chris here. I had the opportunity to sit down with Simon Squibb. He does something phenomenal. And like many of you, I wonder how he's able to make this work and how it can be long term sustainable. What he does is quite incredible. He asks people what's their dream? And he actually helps them. He gives them marketing support by shouting them out, and he financially supports them. It's mind blowing to me, but when we sat down and talked about it, we uncovered how he built the perfect infinite business model. You'll want to stick around for that. Well, maybe this is a good time for us to transition into something because maybe I'll understand it better once you explain the business model behind this. Okay, you go on the street and maybe this is divine intervention, but the day that we record our podcast, you have recently met a young woman whose dream is to go to UCLA to study graphic design. Something that I know something about. And I'm just struck, like, you go up to random people, ask them, what is it that you want? And then not only do you support them emotionally, spiritually, philosophically, but you also then support them with money. Cold, hard cash. There's a couple things that bothered me about this video, but I guess it was like she was very nonchalant about it all, which is like, kind of threw me off. And I was thinking, how do you know she's a good person? How do you know she's a good designer? And then you just happen to need a logo? And then you told me, I don't need the logo, I just want to give her a job. So when we understand that when you were looking for work or when you were in your most desperate, vulnerable moment, someone looked at you like, yeah, you don't deserve. I'm just giving you anyways. And that changed her life. And so you're just trying to repay or pay that forward so that someone else has that same opportunity.

[Simon Squibb]

This is a therapy session.

[Chris]

Can be.

[Simon Squibb]

Sometimes I feel like I'm in therapy. I agree with you. I see the connection. Yes, Yes.

[Chris]

I told you I was on a Friday. It was pretty obvious.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Okay, that's good. So you say yes. And that's why, also off camera, you were talking about sometimes we need just to get that win to be at the top so we can get going. So there's some win to our sale.

[Simon Squibb]

So just give one person to believe in you, that you one person.

[Chris]

And I guess for a lot of people, you're going to be that one person. So you see this man coming down the street, be ready. Just be ready.

[Simon Squibb]

I'm being replaced by a doorbell, by the way. We now have a doorbell system. Yes, I'm getting replaced, but so my.

[Chris]

Thing is you just approach random people and how do you know she's not a good person and doesn't matter.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. Again, judgment. I really try to remove judgment. It's not about whether they're a good person or not. It's really about hope, you know, so I'm not here to judge people and whether they're a good person or not. What does that even mean? Everyone's definition of that would be different. I think I hear someone say they have a dream and I sense that they don't feel like it's possible or it's something in the future that it may or may not be able to do. And if I have the resources to help them give it a go, I will do it. And in reality, the money I give, I mean the maximum amount of money I've ever given is US$20,000 to one person. And most of the time, like in that lady's case, I think I'm giving her $1,000 deposit and $10,000 if she delivers.

[Chris]

Right.

[Simon Squibb]

So in reality it's $10,000. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's a small amount of money, but I'll probably make that money back from the video of her talking about her dream. So then that money comes back to me and I can give it to someone else. It's self fulfilling system. It's the Mr. Beast of business model. Right. It's like you make content on someone, you help them, you do something good, you promote them, which actually is the most important thing. The money is actually just psychological.

[Chris]

Right.

[Simon Squibb]

The real thing is that you give them a platform of their own. After that you give them hopefully a client, which has happened. In that case, she's got inquiries for people to use her services.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Simon Squibb]

And I think, I think that that whole thing isn't about whether or not they're a good person or not. That whole thing is about the world is fucking tough. The world is tough and people aren't living their best life because money's become so prevalent. Electricity is so expensive. This brilliant invention that's supposed to help the human race is expensive. Accommodations become a business, it's expensive. But basic human needs like accommodation, food, water, power, literally most people, I think 75% of people in America literally have less than $100 in savings. So they, they're literally if they washing.

[Chris]

Machine or will you look at me, Simon. Yeah, I felt like I need to.

[Simon Squibb]

Check on the bank. 100 bucks. Should we do that? But by the way, this is a good clip. Who's got the most cash in the bank? Who's the biggest idiot? Financial literacy person? But the point I'm trying to say is that, you know, a lot of people, they just need one little lucky moment. You know, life. Life doesn't give you enough lucky moments. So we're just trying to add one more lucky moment to people's lives. But the most important thing, as well as people watching the video, a lot of people watch these videos and ask themselves for the first time in their life, what is their dream? And they actually wake up for a second and say, here's the lady that works at Bubba Gump that's now going for her dream. Why am I not going for mine? What is my dream? Why am I not following?

[Chris]

I know what they're saying. Yeah, my dream is to meet Sam.

[Simon Squibb]

Instagram. I don't market it. I think. I think you're a lot. That, of course, is one way.

[Chris]

It's a freaking good.

[Simon Squibb]

It's a bit like the lottery, I guess, is one way to go about it. But I think a lot of the.

[Chris]

Time it's more predictable.

[Simon Squibb]

But one of the things, look at.

[Chris]

This man's face, remember the face and find him on the streets.

[Simon Squibb]

But one of the things that we try to do in our video is what we call fun education. So a lot of the time, fun FQN education.

[Chris]

Okay?

[Simon Squibb]

So what we're trying to do in a lot of the content, if you watch it carefully, is teach people how to get started with no money. Because a lot of the time, okay, I've hired her in that video, but then people, once they're aware of her, are hiring her. So actually don't need money. A service business is probably one of the best companies to start if you've got no money, because you can literally charge a client 50% deposit, which can be your cost to execute the service, do the work, deliver the product that is the design, and get the final 50% payment. It's one of the best cash flow businesses with no money to start. If you can do someone's social media management for them, for example, your actual physical cost outlay to start, that is very low. Maybe you need a laptop. You haven't really got one. Probably unusual in this day and age. You probably got the infrastructure to help someone start doing their social media posting. You can charge them for that service and make profit and have no money and start doing things like that. So I think a lot of people aren't aware of this because school doesn't teach people this stuff. So a lot of people get a job because they think that's the only thing to do. They don't understand that they could be a freelance social media poster, travel the world, getting a few clients, and they're free to at least think what their purpose might be and not have to be stuck in a particular location doing a particular job. And that's part of why we do this content is to educate people that if you have a dream, yes, one way Simon gives you some money. But most of the time, most of the videos, there's no money involved. It's just knowledge. It's knowledge everybody can say at the time. LOPEZ VOICE Knowledge. It's knowledge that you're missing.

[Chris]

We have to work on that. All right, Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. You got to save a little bit knowledge.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah.

[Chris]

How should know about that? Well, I don't know where to go with that. Okay. I'm sorry to kill it.

[Simon Squibb]

That was good. That's good.

[Chris]

Okay. You know why I danger to do that?

[Simon Squibb]

Go on.

[Chris]

I've done the math in my head.

[Simon Squibb]

Go on.

[Chris]

This is what we're talking about. So we know that 520 is 100. So 54 is 20, so that's 120. Right. We had those two zeros then we had the three zeros there. So that's the number we're talking about. 12 million. That's sounds low to me. Simon.

[Simon Squibb]

I'm not giving you, I'm not giving.

[Chris]

You the clipping once. If it's low, it's got to be low. This feels too low to me.

[Simon Squibb]

Blinked once. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I think, I think, I actually think this whole like how much it fascinates people, but I don't think it matters. No. Is that what it is? Is that what it is?

[Chris]

Yeah, it probably is. Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, I think, I think, I think it's the process of building something you love and then being able to monetize it because you own equities. The less I'd like people to stick with. Yeah, but net worth as well doesn't mean anything. But what's your net worth?

[Chris]

What is my net worth?

[Simon Squibb]

You say that if people actually understand how net worth wife works. I would say it's not too high.

[Chris]

North of 20.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, no, I would say it's higher. A lot higher.

[Chris]

The.

[Simon Squibb]

The reason is brand has value. So I want to keep saying that.

[Chris]

Like what the bank would consider.

[Simon Squibb]

No, no, but the bank. The banks, they don't know what they're doing. The banks do not know what they're doing.

[Chris]

They are not every sponsor.

[Simon Squibb]

There is a bank, a sponsor.

[Chris]

No, no, but you're like, f this, F that sponsor.

[Simon Squibb]

These people aren't sponsored.

[Chris]

This video die on Instagram. I don't know why. I don't know why. This is crazy.

[Simon Squibb]

Odd, right? Odd.

[Chris]

Well, let's do this. Let's just quickly recap on a couple of different things.

[Simon Squibb]

50 times 240. Is that. Is that 12? Is it?

[Chris]

Yeah. Okay, 112. Yeah, something like that.

[Simon Squibb]

I can leave a lot longer.

[Chris]

Anyway, thank God we thought about purpose. And purpose is a funny word because it means a lot of different things. But when you were talking, what I got from that is once you have enough money, you have to ask yourself this. And it's an existential question, like beyond money, why you exist. It makes you look for something deeper because you have no more wants or need. And so you have to find something. And I'm loving that you want to try to make a dentist in the universe. You want to try to leave this place better than the way you found it. And you want to repeat the opportunities that you found or created or was given or given to you so that other people can have something like this.

[Simon Squibb]

Totally.

[Chris]

In 18 years, somebody's going to be like, well, Simon did this for me. And you're planting a lot of seeds. You're like the British Johnny Appleseed just planting little entrepreneur seeds all throughout the world, right? And one day there's going to be an orchard of entrepreneurs all over the place, and they're going to be able to pull fruit and say to their great, great grandchildren, like, we're here because there's this British guy with blue eyes and looked in the camera. He looked kind and generous, and he said, you could do it. And I did it. I didn't even need money. I need knowledge.

[Simon Squibb]

Knowledge gain.

[Chris]

That fruit number two kind said to.

[Simon Squibb]

Me, to what you said there.

[Chris]

I was going to go and the thing would, please.

[Simon Squibb]

Oh, no, you can't. No, no, no, no, no, I don't. Well, I was only gonna. You're planting trees analogy. I'd probably take it a step further. What I'm. What I'm most proud of is that people watch this content and plant their own seeds. The whole world is asking, what is their dream? Which I think a lot of people are not asking before. I feel like if I was to die today, at least I've Got people thinking, what is their dream? And waking themselves up.

[Chris]

Seeds you planted.

[Simon Squibb]

But I didn't plant those seeds. I think people watched the content of someone else going for it and felt inspired. And therefore they're asking themselves, why am I not doing that? And. And school doesn't teach people to be aspirational in this way. So I thought that that's. That the analogy is, yes, those. I'm helping those people plant a seed, but actually people watching the content are planting their own seeds. A lot of people send us dms, like from a year ago or two that I watched your video. Now I started a business of my own and now it's working.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Simon Squibb]

It had nothing to do with me. I didn't. I didn't help them.

[Chris]

How about you till the soil?

[Simon Squibb]

How do you want to go on this? Yeah, okay, I'll move on.

[Chris]

Skinny credit.

[Simon Squibb]

But. But okay. Is that a British thing? In America, they all take the credit, isn't it?

[Chris]

Will you take credit for things we have nothing to do with?

[Simon Squibb]

Fair. Yeah, Pastor, I am actually was not.

[Chris]

Behind the scenes helping Simon before any of this happened. So you guys.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, yeah, it's huge. All thanks to your branding expertise. I wouldn't be here today without Chris, please.

[Chris]

That's a clip, right? So beyond money, why you exist. And then you said something. It's like our natural state is to want to give. And I believe in that 100%. There's this episode I listened to on a different podcast, a science based podcast. They said, well, money cannot buy happiness. And it turns out money can buy happiness, but not the way you think. If you receive money, as they say, and then you spend it on yourself, it's diminishing levels of happiness. But if you get money and you're charged with giving that money to other people, your happiness actually goes up. So if each person who receives the money continues to give it to people, the levels of happiness go up. Therefore, some of those viral pieces of content, like $100 or a thousand giveaway, they're like a thousand giveaway. And then 100, you know, they just keep elevating stakes until somebody's like, selfish, I want it. And we're watching that, so we're kind of living that feeling there. Your whole thing is give without expectations. Because a gift is a gift. You give or you don't give, but you can't give and expect people to do things. There's a word for that. It's called manipulation. We don't want that. Like, if you get good grades and I'll give you something if you do this, if you basically do everything I tell you to do, then I will reward you with love, with appreciation, with acknowledgment, or with a roof over your head.

[Simon Squibb]

There's a lot of manipulation, by the way. Political system is one big manipulation.

[Chris]

And you're saying that we live in a society, unfortunately, where we no longer have the ability to ask for help. Because one, maybe there's a stigma again, asking for help. But two, we don't know where to ask help from. If it's not from a bank or government official, we just don't know where to go. And I think you're trying to change that. So that leads us to unconditional giving, which is what you're doing. And what you're doing is the Mr. Beast model. Less rapid. You're actually trying to help people change their lives. And it's not just for shock or entertainment value. Can I say that?

[Simon Squibb]

Yes.

[Chris]

And you've built a business model, infinite giving. So let's unpack this because you can afford to, because of the business model you've built, be able to give this young woman an opportunity. And you stay out of the whole, like, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you're a bad person. I don't care if you drown kittens as you're saying. Those are your words, right?

[Simon Squibb]

I probably care. You don't drown kittens. I don't.

[Chris]

You're not here to judge. Whatever you do.

[Simon Squibb]

I'm a thousand bucks. You want more kittens?

[Chris]

Here we go.

[Simon Squibb]

I love kittens. I don't think.

[Chris]

I don't know how I just put it right.

[Simon Squibb]

I thought that does research on that.

[Chris]

View people, money, what they do, who they become, that's on them. You're going to move on because the business model supports that. If enough people watch the video, you'll make money on Adsense or something else, or sponsored deals or new opportunities. So the bank account can keep filling itself out. So can we get into the business of giving?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, I think the business of giving is a good way of putting it. I think we should have a business that helps people for profit, for good.

[Chris]

You want to raise?

[Simon Squibb]

Should we?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

All right. Okay.

[Chris]

That's a special art to this. And we do it so well.

[Simon Squibb]

All right.

[Chris]

Business of giving. So I want to know, and I want you now not to speak to the philanthropic, but the miserly, the entrepreneurs are like a little tight on their money. How they can build an amazing, sustainable business, helping others while making Even more money. Can you break it down for us?

[Simon Squibb]

So the first thing probably, and I don't know if I'm going to go in the right order on this, but I think the number one thing in a business of giving is to actually act like you've got no money.

[Chris]

That's easy for a lot of our audience because you literally have no money.

[Simon Squibb]

I think if I could go back to the 20 year old me and start a business again, I think having no money is a competitive advantage. I have invested in so many companies and what I've noticed, probably the most extreme example, let's say, let's say wework, right? Wework to raise billions and they spent the money without thinking about how to make it work as a business. So sometimes having too much money can cause a problem and you're not inventive. You don't. So for example, I invested in a business where the people took the money and they hired a marketing firm and they come up with this brilliant marketing strategy. There was another company that I didn't invest in that didn't raise any money and the founder came up with their own marketing system and was talking direct to customers and didn't hire anybody. And so what I found interesting about that was the people that had the money lost because they hired external party and they didn't take control of the marketing themselves, whereas the company had no money to hire. The market firm did it themselves and won. Okay. Because I think basically money makes you weak. And so in the business of giving, probably the first thing to be careful of is not say I've got billions of dollars and I'm going to give it away because then you're going to give it all away. It's going to sound good, but then it's never coming back to you and that's the end of it. Your money's gone, that system's gone. This is my problem with charity models. If you build a business that isn't worried about how to make money, it's too easy to spend it. And when people have charity models and say please give me money and then they spend it one day you can't please give me money and there's no money in there. For whatever reason the COVID comes along or the organizations were funding you before stop and then have a change of policy, you have to actually, I think, act like you've got no money. And if you act like you've got no money, you build an income model. Now in the business of giving, you need to have something to give. So the first thing I think is act like you've got no money. Don't think you need money to start this. Like I could start a business of giving that'll be incredibly profitable with no money. Actually, I did do this. I told my whole team when we started this whole thing. I'm not using my fortune to build this business. I did use some of my money to start it, but I'm acting like I've got no money. It's important because otherwise we won't be inventive. We'll just throw money at things. We won't think about the economic model to make it sustainable. If I'm not here anymore, it dies. So.

[Chris]

Or if you run out of money, it dies.

[Simon Squibb]

Run out of money, it dies. Then you have to have an income model. Now, I think, you know, in the business of giving, you have to have a core philosophy. We'll call it a core belief, maybe a bit of both. And so in my case, the core belief is that the education system is broken. And it doesn't really give people financial literacy core requirements. I think in life, how money works, how the world works, and it doesn't give people as many choices as they actually have. So most people think go to school, go to university, get a job, get a promotion, buy a house. And I think that that system is so baked in and it needs to change. We need to say to people, actually, what do you like to do? Not, you're really bad at this. You get a D, you got to do more of it. I think the system needs to say, actually, you're really bad at biology, you're getting a D. So let's just forget that. What do you like doing that you get an A in. Let's just do more of that. And so I have this core belief that at 15 years old, when I left school, school taught me nothing. I've been in school 13 years. It taught me nothing about how to live in the real world, nothing about how money worked, nothing how sales worked, nothing about how to hire people, nothing about human behavior or management psychology, nothing, nothing. I could use a calculator to replace everything I'd learned at school, pretty much, right? So I think a company doing the business of giving needs to have a core belief. And mine is we need to fix the education system. Now, people listening, they might have a different core belief. That's fine. You need to have a core belief, because then you're going to build an army. And to build an army. The mistake people make when they build a company is they build A business model, let's say the design agency, we help clients get more clients and then they hire people around that to help them do that business. But then if you're not careful, there's many companies that will be offering to do the same thing. And so what if companies make more money, do you make more money? If those companies make more money, everything will end up being about, I need to earn more money. Your team won't be there, you'll be managing a team. And I tell people not to manage a team, manage a purpose, hire people on that purpose, and they manage themselves. Because if my team, which they do, believe that the education system is broken and not helping humanity, then I don't need to manage them. They will self manage because if they go off and do nothing, then this problem doesn't get fixed. So I hire based on, I hire this army based on. Do they believe in what we're doing? Now the income model, I think should be linked to what the giving is. So I'll give another example, except my own. I'm going to explain my own business in a minute. How we make money and what we do and how this all works. Tying back to my own business. But just a general, general example. Most people listening would have heard of property agencies. So companies that help you sell your property or help you buy a property. So those businesses generally, they, they, they, first of all, they confuse people. Who's the client? The person walking in buying the property or the person selling the property? They pretend that they're both their client, but only one is actually their client. The actual client's the person setting the property. Okay, so they're all about making the person who sells the property happy, get them best price because then they'll get more houses to sell in the future. Yes, they want people to buy houses, but they're not really their client. They're just a byproduct of having the listing. Most people buy the house, not the agency who's selling it. So, so under this model, you don't need any money to be a property agent. And my income model is to help people sell their houses and make commission. My core belief in this idea, forget my fixed education, is, is that homelessness is out of control and we need to fix the homelessness crisis. So that's my core belief. And then I build an army around this. We're going to fix the homelessness. And then the income model becomes every time I sell a house, all the profit doesn't go to shareholders, it goes to homeless charities. Now, if you Built this income model around that. Everybody who wins in the property business will win because they get the listing. Getting the listing is the most important thing. Because I'm not buying from an agent because I like them. I'm buying because I like that house and that agent happens to be listing it. So you can win because I will get all the listings if I built a property agency this way, because it's you as the list that now America is slightly different, but in England, if you give me the house to sell, I sell it. You don't lose anything. But now you're helping the homeless as well. You're going to pay me anyway. Now I'm just going to sell your house for you. That's important. I have to sell your house for you. But that profit is now going to solve a problem. Help the homeless. Do you give me the listing? As long as I sell it, you'll give it to me over my competitors. So actually, the business of giving gives you a competitive advantage if you apply it correctly. Now I'll give you that example. So it's not all just about my model. In my model, I think fixing the education system also involves an element of what we call freeing humanity. Right? Just helping people do what they love, which is what the education system is meant to do. It's meant to give you the groundwork to live a really good life in the real world once you enter it. We want to free humanity. So in my particular case, business of giving, act like you've got no money. So how can we help someone? Well, we can video them. They can tell us their dream, we can upload it, and that will help them. Now, even if we got 10 people viewing their dream, that's maybe one person that could be their customer. Yes, today we have millions of followers and millions of views, but that didn't start off that way. Just putting the video up alone helped people a lot of time, even with low views. And then we have an income model where that video makes money, as I mentioned earlier, and that allows us to give people the money to start their dream and free humanity from the trap of the job they don't love, for example. But also we have thousands of hours of content at this point where we are not fixing the education system, but we have made content with people like you. You've been on our podcast where we're giving people the knowledge for free that the education system isn't providing. Now we're putting that knowledge up on YouTube. So you watch that free education video for you, it's free. But we make money from that free education video and then again from that free education video. We can give the money away to free humanity so they can start focusing what they love. So we give them free education. We give them free money. So we have an army that cares about fixing the education system. We have a core belief the education system is broken and humanity deserves to be free. We have an income model. There's much more levels to the income model than just the videos. But we have videos that educate for free, but we make money from them thanks to YouTube. And we have videos that share people's dreams on TikTok and so on that make us money that generates revenue for us to then give away to people to ironically make more videos as a flywheel model. Now, I think social media for social good is an element of this. People are complaining about social media, but they don't understand that today I can make a video with no followers and get 100 million views on that video. Because the algorithms today in the last 18 months are all about is the video good or not. It almost doesn't matter how many followers you got. It slightly does, but it doesn't really. That is incredible opportunity. On the business side, that's a whole separate thing. But for us, we are now able to fund people, promote people, and be profitable.

[Chris]

Couple of challenges.

[Simon Squibb]

Ready?

[Chris]

Number one, you're, like, not a fan of charities because they are always having their hands out.

[Simon Squibb]

Yep. And also they can't pay people properly.

[Chris]

There's two elements to it, and there's a lot of other problems. Those are just some. But your first business model is to give money to a charity. The example, the real estate one for homeless shelter.

[Simon Squibb]

Yes. Homeless shelter, yes. The reason I pick charity to give the money to in that case study, that's not a real business. I'm just making that idea up there. But I say that because homelessness is actually a very complicated, very specialized thing. And I have tried to do this, by the way, if I give money direct to someone homeless, I'm no expert in addiction, for example, and I have given money to someone who's homeless and they've spent it on their addiction. So I'm now cautious when I talk about that type of thing. Better to work with an intermediary. In our case in England, we work with a charity called Shelter. They have experience in how to dish that money out to the relevant homeless folks in a way that's not going to hurt them. So I use an intermediary. In that particular case, in this particular example, I cut out anybody in the middle. I get the money direct to the people.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Simon Squibb]

Because I'm not worried about, you know, those sorts of problems. Whereas homelessness is a completely different model.

[Chris]

So homelessness is a very complicated thing that's not about opportunities or finance because there's mental health throughout the different, lots of infrastructure. How do you even find people this very complicated? So let's get your motto though. Could you say that young woman was also a charity because she doesn't know how to do things for no money either. That's what I have to ask you now.

[Simon Squibb]

Say that again. Say that again.

[Chris]

I'm so trapped. I'm just letting you know.

[Simon Squibb]

Go on, go on, say it again. Say the question.

[Chris]

I'm playing three dimensional chess here.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, I'm keeping up. I think I'm keeping up.

[Chris]

Okay, so we said the homeless shelf thing is not the perfect model. So we switched over to the people. Aren't those people charities of one for themselves? Because they haven't been able to figure out how to act with no money. And they're not building a self sustaining model.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, but they're a product of the broken education system. And this is like a third generation broken education system. So their parents or their grandparents were taught to work in factories and that's what the education system was designed to do.

[Chris]

Right?

[Simon Squibb]

Sit down, shut up, turn up at this time, go home at that time, don't have an idea of your own, read this book. This is the truth. That's the end of it.

[Chris]

Shut up.

[Simon Squibb]

And so we have to break the cycle a little bit. So I call this pattern interrupting people. And so when I walk up to her, she's a young person. I don't think I'd describe her as a charity, but she's a product of a third generation broken system. So her parents are probably telling her, go to ucla. And the education's been this revered thing that's going to somehow guarantee you a better future. But we know that's not true.

[Chris]

They know it's untrue.

[Simon Squibb]

Well, they know it's not true. But again, back to that. Like weeds growing in the mars dirt. I think a lot of the time people, the role models will tell by the way, it might not be true. The psychology of what you're capable of doing is often by your own limitations. A lot of extreme athletes have proven this. You can do ultramarathons back to back. Even though your body's telling you you're about to die, somehow people can do it. A lot of it is your subconscious. So for her, in her case, her subconscious and society has told her that she's 19 years old and she can't be a graphic designer yet. Well, most people were dead by 20 like 500 years ago. So like, so she can do it, but the system is telling her she has to wait until she's got this certificate before she does it. So I don't see her as a charity, but I do see it as perhaps an obligation if I'm in. If my mission is to fix the education system, one is get into the education and try and fix it, which is incredibly difficult. I have tried to do that. They don't want to let you in. It's not broken for the people that designed it, otherwise they'd change it. So the always build an alternative, which we are doing and have done, where you can go and get knowledge for free that school isn't teaching you. And then the final stage I think is like literally intervention. Like someone's a drug addict to the system. You have to get a job. I'm going to go to ucla. I'm going to have debt. I'm going to get, I'm going to get a job because I can't afford to start my own business because I've got debt. I'm going to get, I'm going to get a mortgage and I'm going to get a car and then I'm going to get a credit card debt and then I'm going to have 150,000, $200,000 worth of debt. There's no way you're starting your business at that point. But I go to that 19 year old pattern, interrupt them. Now you're 19 years old. Used to be you'd be dead for a year from now. You can do it. Why can't you be a graphic designer now? Yes, it will take time to get good. I'm not saying it doesn't take time to get good. And maybe you're not good, but now is the chance to try because you're young, you can take some risk.

[Chris]

Okay, I want to say this. I'm a big fan of what you're doing.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, thanks.

[Chris]

But there's, there's a component here that I need to pick apart a little.

[Simon Squibb]

Go ahead.

[Chris]

So we're going to call 1A C and 1A E. Ooh, okay. And you're giving money to indiscriminately Cs and ease. So you as a young man who somebody gave the opportunity to, to say go ahead, mow my lawn, use my equipment, whatever you Were as a charity because you knew how to run a business. That very first day, you went to go and find 99 more customers. So when you meet a C was a charity, it's like, I don't know what I'm going to do. Just give me money. And more likely than not, maybe you have the data to support it one way or the other. They're gonna just blow the money. Not any different than an addict. They're just gonna blow the money because they're gonna support the same habits that got him in this position in the first place. I think it's less of an addiction because we're using a lot of metaphors here from homelessness, addiction. I think it's just more like everybody's been brainwashed to bleed. You follow the rules, you play by the rules, and things will work out. And the truth is, it hasn't worked out in a long time. This is not new news. This is not, you know, Wolf Blitzer saying breaking news here. Okay, so my thing with you is, if you're against the charities, why don't we find more ease?

[Simon Squibb]

And.

[Chris]

But there has to be a process other than you just walking up to people and saying, what's your dream? You just giving them money because when you find the e, they multiply. What you do, where this is going to be the end of the story, where these. These ones explode. Like, for example, those two young black guys that you found that their dream. What was the craziest dream was to clean people people's homes or something. It was something like that. I'm like, what kind of dream is that? And they're doing really well, right?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. Really, Mark.

[Chris]

And that's the kind of thing. It's like, how do you discern? Or I know you don't care, but that's where I just. Following your own philosophy here, you don't want to give to charities because all charities know how to do is ask for more money. You want to give to entrepreneurs who just need someone to believe in them and a little bit of startup capital so they can get on with their lives and break the system in a very good way. What are your thoughts on that, Timer?

[Simon Squibb]

I think there's different elements to what I'm doing. I think the content side, I do quite like fate. And yes, there'll be some people I give the money to that have just blown it and not done anything with it, and there's other people that have taken advantage of it. There's another lesson in this, which is I think my theory is Having interviewed lots of people who've done really well in life, there's eight times you're lucky in life. And so me giving someone money in the street is one of those times. And if I don't take advantage of it, it's up to them. I don't see that as charity. I see that as a lesson. I will make the money back from the video so I can go again. So it's not going to kill me if they don't do it. And equally even in that. And I had a video, got 139 million views where I asked someone to sing because they said their dream was to sing. And then she didn't sing. I didn't give her any money. I didn't have to give her any money. But in that moment, later she does sing, later she comes back and says, oh, my God, now everyone knows my name and everyone's asking me to sing and I want to come and sing. We did another video with her singing. And so I think not every part of what I do involves giving people money. So it's not like I'm going up to someone and saying, here's a load of money, and then they blow it. And it's charity. I think a lot of it is like helping people believe in themselves. And a video is a good way of also helping other people believe in themselves. Because a lot of people in that video said, oh, I've done that. It's self sabotage. Someone gave me a chance to sing and I didn't do it. I remember that. I'm never going to do that again. Or they watch it like, why didn't you take the luck when it came your way? So it's almost like education. Even if in the clip it's seen as charity. If you give someone money, it's charity. But I don't think it is. I think it's education. All of those videos are still education. Even if that person who takes the money blows it, I get the money back so I can do it again. But I also get to educate people at scale for free.

[Chris]

Yeah, charity is just an act of kindness. I don't think it has to necessarily be tied to money. Like, it's charitable of you to help that old lady cross the street. It's terrible that you let me stay here tonight. Yeah, it's just an act of kindness.

[Simon Squibb]

I sponsored a charity once.

[Chris]

It's still charity.

[Simon Squibb]

And a charity said to me, the difference between charity and marketing is whether or not you want us to tell people you sponsored us. So if we give you. If I give you the money and that's it, they consider that charity. If I give you the money and then say, would you please tell the world that I gave you this money? It's marketing for.

[Chris]

Is what you're doing charity or marketing?

[Simon Squibb]

What I'm doing, I'm fixing the education system. So what? I'm. So are you running for office? No. It's easily.

[Chris]

Answer your own question.

[Simon Squibb]

But I don't think it's binary choice. You just said, no, I'm doing a business for good. It's a new definition.

[Chris]

You can do well in politics.

[Simon Squibb]

Thank you. I am actually genuinely trying to ask the question. I don't think it is either.

[Chris]

But you're saying the difference between charity and marketing is marketing wants to get credit. So just ask you. Is what you're doing.

[Simon Squibb]

No, I'm saying that's what that charity said. That doesn't mean to say that I think they're right. Yes, but by the way. But neither. Neither wrong. The charity said to me at the time, neither is wrong. Like, do you want people to know you did this? Nothing's fault. And there's nothing wrong with that. We don't mind charity. Doesn't mind it. But do you want to keep it to yourself? And that's pure charity. Right. That's just so I think for me, like, I. A lot of people tell me, a lot of people criticize me and they say, you shouldn't be filming acts of kindness. Right?

[Chris]

Yes.

[Simon Squibb]

And the philosophy behind it is very ancient and very stupid. It's kind of like, well, if you're doing something good, you should do it behind closed doors. But I think the real value on what we do is we've learned to take social media and make it useful to help those people. The real value isn't the money I give people, it's the exposure I give their dream, the chance I give it to live in the world. If you come to me today and say, simon, please promote my podcast, I charge 150,000 USD to do a promotion on my social media. Right. So I. With a brand that can afford it, because that's one of our revenue models. We have brand income that also helps us fund people's dreams and pay for this. But I think for a dreamer, I can promote them and give them that exposure. And so I think a lot of it is not about the money. The money is just a byproduct sometimes. There's some people that need 10,000 USD and there's some people that need nothing, literally. A singer just needs exposure for songs. Yeah. But if I gave her a load of money and no exposure, that would be awful. I don't think that would be a good use of the platform.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

So ironically, and I think you mentioned this earlier, we have given people in a video US$10,000 just last week and that video got less views than someone we gave $100 to. But some advice.

[Chris]

Right.

[Simon Squibb]

And so I think that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I have answered your question properly.

[Chris]

Yeah. But it's okay.

[Simon Squibb]

You know, I just think that the charity model isn't right and it's not sustainable. We're not going to fix the education system. Yeah. And I think making profit, a lot of it is healthy because there's more you can do, the more profit. Your profit solves all problems.

[Chris]

Speaking into another capitalist here. So I got no problems with that.

[Simon Squibb]

I'm a capitalist socialist these days. Because I also don't think we should make everything about money. But yeah.

[Chris]

Yes. What I'm trying to do is to push against this because that's what's going to happen in the comments and you're going to be too late.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. No good.

[Chris]

I like that we do surfaces that they can either get on one side of the fence or the other. And it's up to them. We don't really care. There's not game here. So I'm just trying to understand it. So everything you say, I'm like, what is our audience going to say?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, what?

[Chris]

Some random person bumping into the channel? So I want to get into the business part of this a little bit. We're going to run out of time here, but I want to get into the business part. So you said YouTube pays you money and you said TikTok pays you money.

[Simon Squibb]

Yep.

[Chris]

You didn't mention Instagram.

[Simon Squibb]

Well, Instagram is jack. They don't pay you anything. Oh, no, there's a slight change. You have subscription now.

[Chris]

Yeah, but it's a little bit different.

[Simon Squibb]

People pay a month.

[Chris]

These are passive.

[Simon Squibb]

I have hundreds of people paying a monthly subscription fee on Instagram.

[Chris]

Let's get into that. Okay, so I'll write IG. Let's just look at it.

[Simon Squibb]

It's not big yet, but there's potential. There's.

[Chris]

What are you pulling in annually on YouTube on that sense?

[Simon Squibb]

I actually don't know. We were doing $20 per thousand views last time I looked at the last video.

[Chris]

Roughly last year we have a whole.

[Simon Squibb]

Video on All About Income.

[Chris]

Exactly.

[Simon Squibb]

It's roughly.

[Chris]

Roughly 24.

[Simon Squibb]

Okay. I can tell you because I just looked at it. January, I can tell you our income stream. In total, we made 1.8 million pounds from YouTube. No mixture of all these different.

[Chris]

Can we break it down?

[Simon Squibb]

I'd have to go get it broken down. I didn't know you want. I don't mind doing it. I just gotta make sure I do. Precisely.

[Chris]

Give me some numbers. YouTube, that's dollars.

[Simon Squibb]

Pounds.

[Chris]

Pounds. Okay. 43K in the last 28 days.

[Simon Squibb]

Right.

[Chris]

Congratulations, by the way.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And TikTok last 28 days.

[Simon Squibb]

Is 4897.

[Chris]

Okay. Big difference there. Yeah. Okay. And Instagram.

[Simon Squibb]

Instagram subscriptions.

[Chris]

Yeah. So does that fix that?

[Simon Squibb]

Brand deals are all part of this here?

[Chris]

Just so we just broke down a little bit about how you're able to make money doing good in the world so that you can do more good. Would you say a good portion of that is through brand deals? Because I. $150,000 a pump. That's a lot relative to this.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. So 10 of those deal.

[Chris]

That's a one and a half million dollars.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, I think. I think the revenue side is pretty. Pretty interesting. Okay, well, I'll keep it as a reference. So there's kind of like steps in this process to make it financially viable. So this TikTok revenue here is the last 28 days doesn't actually sound right to me because I think it's one video we worked out for Emma Wills, for example. That alone was $7,000 just on that one video. Yeah, they five. Yeah. So what we found is this might be slightly an error here in how the system calculates the money. But let's say this 43,000 in the last 28 days is actually from one video. Pretty much stuff on the channel. It's from the channel, but it's coming one nuclear. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's kind of how that works. Now we have other videos that are now feeding off the back of this other video. Yeah. So it's going to have that lift. Yeah. So I think on TikTok we helped someone called Emma Wills. Emma. And that video, last time I looked, that video just on TikTok made $7,000. Now we have actually. We actually have gave. We gave her $500 in the video. And then since that, we've done a part two, which we haven't paid out yet. In that video, we gave her a sewing machine and some courses. We spent another $3,000 helping her with her dream. So in that one case study, the cost to us, apart from editing. Right. And all those things which is part of our fixed cost. Yeah, fixed cost is a different issue. Right, but just fixed cost, that's really bad. Oh, I've written that.

[Chris]

To be honest, I could barely read anything you write. But keep going.

[Simon Squibb]

Oh, fair enough. Yeah, I think she has a drive cost. Fixed cost aside, you know, in theory we May we cost 3500 to help her with a dream and the income is $7,000. So that's the general way we look at how we build out the content. Now not every video goes viral. Every so often we make a video that also loses money. But in the end it seems to work out for whatever reason. Now that is from putting the video on TikTok, putting on YouTube shorts, putting on Snapchat, putting on Instagram, Instagram in particular. The subscription revenue is now coming in. But it's really more about brand awareness of what we're doing for brand deals. Now. Brand deals is phase one. Stage one is the videos themselves making money. Right. Stage two, I've written I'm really doing this badly. I'm now getting judged by you. Normally people let me for you. Stage, Stage.

[Chris]

Okay, because you said stage and phase.

[Simon Squibb]

And there's stage one is the videos make money.

[Chris]

Thank you. Yeah. Adsense passive.

[Simon Squibb]

Exactly. Stage two, brand deals.

[Chris]

Right.

[Simon Squibb]

And right now brands really are supporting us and we have about 12 brand deals right now. Brand deals are getting more complicated because brand deals aren't just a fee. So let's say, let me think of a good example of this.

[Chris]

You know, by the way, while you're thinking, people will love. You're going to hate me. They are not like when you can suck it.

[Simon Squibb]

No. Give me a hard time. I don't care. I don't mind it. I like I'm going to do it. But I'm just. By the way, I think what I really like about this type of interview is that you're thinking about the audience going to ask and I want those questions answered. So I don't mind at all just to say I think it's good. I'm trying to think of a brand deal. Adobe. Do we actually get a sign up bonus? Which one? Side, I can't.

[Chris]

Oh like affiliate. You get them.

[Simon Squibb]

Exactly. Okay, let's just take Adobe.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

Right. So Adobe will sponsor us a flat fee.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Simon Squibb]

Let's say 150k. Right. To do a series of videos. And then we have an affiliate. We have an affiliate. So you know, it's very common. It's not. No, no affiliate you guys. I mean we just do AF affiliate deals. So every time someone signs up. Yep, we get a percentage.

[Chris]

Right.

[Simon Squibb]

And so. And again, people don't mind signing up and supporting us because we're using that money to fund people's dreams and build infrastructure to help people for free and pay people online before. So this is actually quite scalable income. It can be quite. It's not easy to get affiliate income and I never actually recommend people just go with affiliate income only because it's a bit baseless in the fixed cost. You can have to run a platform, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, this can be powerful. Now, stage three in our kind of income model is our own products. Right. So we have Help bank, which based on last money in the last money in a few people invested in that business with me, and that business is now worth US$50 million. It's a year and a half old. So stage two, stage three of this is our own products. We're now launching our own coffee brand. I won't plug it on your podcast, but we can. It's called Dream Brew. And we are launching our own clothing line, which is called Purposeful Clothing.

[Chris]

And Dream Brew is like B R E W. It's mostly the South African brew.

[Simon Squibb]

Exactly. And we are now, you know, in talks about doing well. We are doing our own TV shows and partnering on that as well, not just creating ourselves. So we have all these things in the pipeline which allow us to sell our clothing. And the profit from that clothing does exactly the same as the videos do. And so when building a business, I could have skipped this stage. I've got enough money, I could have skipped this stage and dealt with no brands. Right. A lot of people don't like dealing with brands and it can be a pain. I could have skipped this. Alex Hormozy said to me he's grateful he doesn't have to deal with brands. Right. The reason I, first of all, I like it and it's. And it's important part of what we're doing is because Adobe can help people start businesses. If they give this product to someone for a month, they can do a lot of their creations and get their business going. So I want them to offer my community it free for a month, and then you pay for it every month after that. But I want these services such as banking. Everybody needs a bank account, whether we like it or not. You need a bank account, so I have a bank partner. Everybody needs software often to start their business. I like working with these partners. These brand deals are brand deals, not just because they generate US Revenue to help help fund people's dreams, but also because these products can help people who are starting businesses. So we only work with people who actually products that help people with their businesses. I'm not working with a, you know, a cleaning company that cleans sinks. Unless you want to sponsor us, let me know. But point I'm making, the point I'm making is like when I'm making is.

[Chris]

Any affiliate commission off that deal?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, okay, well, sure. Link down below. But yeah, so. So, you know, there are further stages depending on how things go and things like blockchain, there's some opportunities there right now. You know, these are the stages of the business. We start off by making content that makes money. It's a bit erratic because some months it's a lot of money and other months it's not so much.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

And then stage two, we have brand deals which are a lot easier when you've got a big following, but you can get them when you've got a small following. You can. People have to believe, but you can. Brands will support you if they see some merit in what you're doing. A lot of the brands, supporters. My first sponsor was GoDaddy when I had, I think I was about 15,000 followers. Now I'm 15 million. But GoDaddy supported me when I had a small amount of followers because they believed in what we were trying to do.

[Chris]

You're saying godaddy was your sugar daddy back then?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, sugar daddy godaddy. But now they're not my sponsor at all. So you got too old. GoDaddy. And then I want products. I left home. I found a new love. I don't have a new deal. Well, I'm still talking to GoDaddy. We keep dating, but anyway, but just, you know, I think that's the business model. We now are rolling out our own products and then we promote them, we sell them the community buy them to support us. That money goes back into helping people and funding dreams.

[Chris]

Okay, if we were to take these things away, is your fixed cost given the passive income enough to keep the stream going?

[Simon Squibb]

The short answer is yes. What? But we keep adding team members and growing the business. If I cut the team down and got rid of half these guys here.

[Chris]

Would you love all of them except for one?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, except for one. Poor Arthur. But, but if I, if right now I could. I could run this with the income from the videos, with a team of three making the videos, recording the videos, editing videos, putting the videos up, and we'd be able to fund people's dreams, Mr. Beast model. We, we are doing that now. That's working. We were able to fund people's dreams with the video revenue. It's a little bit erratic. Like, some months we have more coming in and some months we have less. So that's always. If I had no money, that's always. Cash flow would be slightly scary, but. But generally, yeah, we can.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Simon Squibb]

Taking five years to get to that point though, right?

[Chris]

Is there a person in this room who knows your numbers?

[Simon Squibb]

No, they know the numbers. They call access to all the business.

[Chris]

Numbers, like what your. Your overhead expenses are because just rent the house, having the crew here, six people traveling with you.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. This costs $50,000 to bring everybody here.

[Chris]

Okay, let's do that then. Can we erase some of this?

[Simon Squibb]

Oh, I know this is quite interesting. Go on. Yeah, go on. Yeah, I think I know where you're going, but it costs US$50,000 to come. My whole crew to come to LA.

[Chris]

For how long?

[Simon Squibb]

Oh, what am I doing there?

[Chris]

You used to have a lot of space. It's almost like.

[Simon Squibb]

Okay, okay, okay, we can get with the stage one.

[Chris]

This is all the real.

[Simon Squibb]

You want to challenge me? I didn't know you were going to challenge me, but I like it. I like this.

[Chris]

The math, it's got to add up.

[Simon Squibb]

All right, this number, 50k, come to LA. My team of 10. I've got a team of 29, by the way, but 10 of them are coming, so. Yep. What's the question?

[Chris]

Okay, let's just get the teen care. For how long?

[Simon Squibb]

Two weeks.

[Chris]

How about two weeks? Is this just the flight? What is this?

[Simon Squibb]

50K flight, accommodation, food. Okay, 10 people.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Simon Squibb]

In a villa.

[Chris]

So there's 10 people here in for two weeks?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So what does it cost you to run the media? Part of this monthly? The customer overhead, insurance, all that kind of stuff.

[Simon Squibb]

I feel like I need my account number here to give.

[Chris]

That's why I asked you if there's somebody here knew what they're talking about, so.

[Simon Squibb]

Well, now, just to be clear, we have different businesses, right? I don't think I make this too complicated for you, but I could probably do it by business. I know the numbers, but I don't know it.

[Chris]

I'm going to understand their business here. Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

No, no, I'm not sure what. Do you know what? I thought you were going to ask? No, I thought you were going to ask.

[Chris]

Yes, sir.

[Simon Squibb]

How do we justify spending 50,000?

[Chris]

I would never ask that.

[Simon Squibb]

That's a good question. If you were good at Podcast, you would ask. It's a problem. People want to know how they can go on a 50 pound holiday and justify it.

[Chris]

You know why? I don't want to ask that question.

[Simon Squibb]

Why?

[Chris]

Small minded question.

[Simon Squibb]

Small minded question.

[Chris]

Because it doesn't matter how much you spend. It matters how much money you make or take.

[Simon Squibb]

Yes and no.

[Chris]

You just, if you bring in $5 million, 50k is like a dumb small amount.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. I mean we make a calculated guess.

[Chris]

That it's a charity. People who don't understand the 50k. But I'm a business guy.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, but remember I also came in to be on a TV show. So part of that as well, like that's a new income stream coming, right? No, I'm, I was beginning to explain how we, we do justify. Because by the way, I, I go ahead. Well remember I said earlier, I don't want to be a hypocrite. I said you got to act like you got no money. So people listening to that, well, how can they afford to spend 50 grand going on a trip? Right. But we can literally break down Simon.

[Chris]

How can you justify spending 50k?

[Simon Squibb]

Now you, I've helped you be a good podcaster. I'm not actually going to.

[Chris]

I'm pushing the floor.

[Simon Squibb]

Right, so next question is what?

[Chris]

So you can answer it. So this will look like you're talking to yourself the whole time.

[Simon Squibb]

You know, could it make it look like I'm talking to myself the whole time?

[Chris]

No, he won't, don't worry.

[Simon Squibb]

You want to win a holiday to airline, let me know in the comments. No. Okay, but you're asking.

[Chris]

I was asking you how do you justify spending 50k?

[Simon Squibb]

No, that's not what you're asking. You're asking how much each of the businesses cost.

[Chris]

No, no.

[Simon Squibb]

How much we make?

[Chris]

No, I'm not asking a question. I'm asking you what do you spend a month to have a media team? So I could look at if you could do this against the passive income. I'm trying to help all those entrepreneurs who are like this is never going to work. That's what they're thinking. This will never work. I've got $100 million can burn a hole right to my account. I'm trying to compare.

[Simon Squibb]

Then there's a better way to explain it. Okay, wait, I think. Okay.

[Chris]

Does he always do this? Do you there are in circles.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. Am I going around in circles?

[Chris]

You don't worry about that.

[Simon Squibb]

No. Thanks, darling. You creative folks will stick together, don't you?

[Chris]

Yeah. We see each other. I can Tell you when they say we feel seen.

[Simon Squibb]

I know, I know without words hey, brother. So listen. For people listening that want to know how to do what I have done, you have to start with no money. And that's what I did. So the first thing I ever did. And then maybe we can do this in stages because I'm going to talk about where we are now. It's very unrelatable to where I started. If I don't explain where I started, people won't understand how to get away. If I just got. I've got 30 people today full time, right. And, and I split it in a very clever way amongst different businesses that we're doing Help bank. The clothing line, the drinks, Dream Brew, the Simon Squibb brand media team, right? These, these costs of these 30 people are split between these businesses because they're all different businesses doing different things, but it's cross pollination between them. So the Simon Squibb media business will of course also promote the Help bank platform that helps people. Simon Squib Media business will also promote the Dream Brew products and the clothing line. Eventually all of these products will stand on their own with their own marketing teams and put money into the middle to help people with their dreams. Right. But what I'm getting to is I think you have to go back to the very beginning, okay. And I had a lot of money in the bank account, at least 12 million, a lot more than that. And what I did was, is at Christmas, my wife gave me a microphone that cost 100 bucks. And she said, you clearly want to do something. Why don't you just start off by.

[Chris]

That'S kind of a cheap Christmas gift for a guy.

[Simon Squibb]

Totally, totally. But what are you talking about? Like always, it's a thought that counts.

[Chris]

But it was the right thing to give you.

[Simon Squibb]

It was the right thing to give me. And what she gave me on top of the hundred dollars, Mike was why don't you just start interviewing people that have knowledge and share it with people? That's what I did. My first three podcasts are the worst pieces of shit you've ever seen. They're so bad. But I had a cheap mic and I learned how to edit a podcast and realized I couldn't do that. Hired one mic though, right? One mic in the middle, one crappy mic with a little switch on it. It's supposed to help the audio going by. None of this beautiful material we have around us now that no one can actually see. But, you know, one mic. And I actually did 100 podcasts. They were called the Good Luck Club podcast. They're still up today. You can go this Good Luck Club, Good Luck Club podcast. And during that process, I realized that I needed to. I started getting brands in inquiring what I would like to sponsor your podcast. I can see how it was to make money. And then I thought, I can't do it like this. I've got to get a proper editor in.

[Chris]

You were editing yourself?

[Simon Squibb]

I was, I was doing a little bit of fiverr, a little bit of myself. I had someone helping me a little bit here and there, but it really wasn't. I wasn't spe money on it. It felt like it was just a little bit here and there to figure out how it worked. And then I bought in a proper editor and put them on payroll and I bought in a PA to help me organize the guests.

[Chris]

Now, at first one, this is money losing proposition, isn't it?

[Simon Squibb]

Money losing proposition, but not a huge amount. Not a huge amount because to upload a podcast cost nothing, right? The microphone there, 100 bucks, it's nothing. So my fixed cost each month is actually next to nothing. The hardest bit was me learning to be a good podcast host. I can teach you everything I know in a different day, different. But like I did the reps on the work, right, the interviewing people bit. And actually initially I was like, I don't think anyone will come on my podcast. I was surprised how many people would. But I thought that was gonna be my biggest problem, getting people on the podcast. Anyway, they came on. Eventually I realized, okay, hold on, I'm competing with people that are doing other podcasts. I need to get a proper editor and I need to get a PA to help me organize it. So my cost started kicking in. Let's say at this point my costs were, let's say I think about 4,000 US a month, right? But one brand deal and GoDaddy, they are cover the cost, right? So I'm a very rich person starting a business for nothing, just like everybody who's listening to this channel can.

[Chris]

How many episodes in are you getting GoDaddy?

[Simon Squibb]

I think, I think GoDaddy. I'd have to go look back to be sure because, you know, sometimes people are sleuths. They go check your episodes. I'll be right. I think it was about 40 episodes.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Simon Squibb]

I think I was about 40.

[Chris]

40 episodes.

[Simon Squibb]

You're eating dirt pretty much and just doing it. I enjoyed the conversations as well. You know, again, a bit selfish. I enjoyed. And then I was putting it out there and two People were saying, wow, I just. I got so much from that. Great, this is a win. I'm having something to do that I like. I'm talking to great people. Two people found it useful win, right? But then my brain starts to say, you could do this better, right? And you need to compete. So I get an editor and a PA in the next six months, I run this model. And then I realized the editor is shit. I don't have a good. I didn't know what good editing was and what bad editing was. This editor just wanted to make everything look like Casey Neistat done the video. So I'm like, look, it's not working. So then this guy sent me a message. He said, I've got a podcast. Would you come on it? I check him out, okay, his name's Callum. I'm like, all right, yeah, okay, that's our work. I come on your shitty podcast because I had a shitty podcast once. So I remember that was like. So I got on his podcast. Anyway, it turns out he's an editor that's starting a podcast. And I said to him, I said to him, you know, what's your dream? And he said, I'd like to travel. I'm like, go do that, man. You should go and travel. It's like, but I'd also like to be rich and really build a really successful business and blah, blah, and help people. I'm like, all right, if you want to do that, you can come and join me. And I said to him, come and join me. And he did. He dropped his shitty podcast. It was actually pretty good. And he joined me. And then I got serious. I started when. When Callum joined, I thought, right, okay, let's do it properly. In part, because when I first brought Callum on board, who's sitting here now with me, this is three years ago, I said to Callum, you can have 50% of the YouTube revenue, but I'm going to pay you next to nothing. I'm going to give you the GoDaddy revenue, but I'm not going to pay anything other than what GoDaddy are paying us. But I want you to do a lot more and I want you to not be someone I've just paid to do it. I want you to care. So I'm going to give you 50% of the. Was it 50%?

[Chris]

It was just 50%.

[Simon Squibb]

Yes, 50% of the. So suddenly, again, because I'm being invented three years ago, so I'm being inventive, I'm acting like I've got no money. I'VE now brought someone in that cares about this channel as much as me. He actually aligned with my purpose, by the way. His podcast was what doesn't exist anymore. But he's still there. If you want to listen Happy days, listen to it. The point is, the podcast was about helping people. His podcast was about helping people discover themselves. So we had alignment already around the mission, so we just joined forces. And then Callum said to me, we've got to bring in this guy in called Jack, who's sitting outside the back there now. And he said he's going to help us get more commercial deals. I'm like, I remember saying to Callum, I don't really need him. I don't. Commercial deals. Not really bothered. We're okay. We've got GoDaddy. We'll make money on YouTube. We don't need it. He's like, no, no, he's really good. And I met him and he was really good. I'm like, all right, so then, now I've got someone that's generating revenue. Jack and Callum, who's part owner in the whole platform. We go to the next level, it all starts taking off. All the videos start going big. We come up with a formula on social media. What's your dream, right? Where people just love it. The videos start taking up. All the things I've now just shown you about all the revenue things started being consistent and started to work. And in reality, Jack and Callum were on a profit share. So it wasn't even that. I had to pay them a lot to make that happen. And I think a lot of people who don't realize this, that there's a lot of people that rather have equity in something than a big salary upfront. If you can give them upside that's clearly potentially there, then they will join you without a massive salary. They want a massive salary if there's no upside right in the equity ownership. So from that point then it just, over the last two years, skyrocketed to what it is today. And every time I've grown the business, I've directly linked the revenue to the team. So my favorite people to bring on are always people that can bring in revenue and the editor can bring in revenue because if they get the video right, it gets more views, it generates revenue. Right? So I think it's quite important to share that quickly with people. This is how I built the business, because I don't just want to tell people how to do it, I wanted to show people how to do it. Because anybody can say it's easy to build a business. I'm a millionaire. Of course I can build a business. I did it like everybody else who listens to this channel has got no money. Maybe once I start a business, I wanted to do it this way to prove there is a way to do it. If you've got no money, but you have a purpose and you have a mission, you will follow through. So that's how we did it.

[Chris]

Great.

[Simon Squibb]

Did I answer your question? Really? I'm not sure I did, but I.

[Chris]

Think you answered your question. Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah, I answered my question. Yeah, I did answer my question.

[Chris]

Well, it sounds like you found two E's, not two C's.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Going back to the whole C's and E's.

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah. No, of course. I mean inside your business. You've got to be careful you don't have people that are charity.

[Chris]

This was a C. He was a C. What about the pa?

[Simon Squibb]

She was.

[Chris]

Hear how you say it?

[Simon Squibb]

E is entrepreneur you're talking about.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

Okay. So this person, I cried when she left. She was with me four years. She's a really good E. She wasn't an E, though. No, no. I would describe this sort of person. This. Every business I've ever built that's been successful, I bought someone in as my number two initially, who doesn't want to be the front person. They don't want to be an entrepreneur, but they work brilliantly with entrepreneurs. Now, I would actually class them as entrepreneur, but they actually like a salary and they like things to be very structured. And they're a bit. You know, in the movie the Matrix, when Neo gets unplugged, they say sometimes people of a certain age, we don't unplug them because they're so entrenched in the system. There are some people that are really, really good, and I'm scared to say her name in case I insult her, but my pa, she's really, really good. But as soon as we got to this stage where we were getting really entrepreneurial, really scaling. We're building a $50 million tech company. And she got a little bit scared because she's like, wow, I didn't sign up for this. I signed up to do a podcast and too much change and growth too quick, and like, well, this is what we planned for, you know, and so she wasn't. I don't know what the classification dislike person is. They're very, very important people in your company, but they're not necessarily going to go off and do their own business. But they will support you. But equally they don't like huge change and we were building something much bigger. If I just stayed here, by the way, if I just stayed at this level here, I could work one day a week, help two people a day and have a really easy life. So now going to what we're doing now, building a tech platform to help people, building out TV show, building out clothing line, building out drinks company. This isn't for the weak or the lazy. Right. This is to change the system, fix the education system. I could stop here and have the easiest life imaginable.

[Chris]

You could have stopped at the 12 million.

[Simon Squibb]

I could have stopped there. That's true.

[Chris]

We didn't have to get into this mess. You could draw and paint all day long if that's what you wanted, and have a wall in the back.

[Simon Squibb]

But I think the purpose of life is life with purpose. I wouldn't want to do it. I wouldn't want to not do it. I think if I had the capability to fix the world, I should. And I kind of think that's why I admire someone like Elon. I know he's not liked at the moment, but like, I kind of admire people that could sit back. But don't we need people like that in the world? Otherwise we're just going to live with broken things.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Simon Squibb]

There are days though, when I think I should just take it easy. But.

[Chris]

Here'S what I'd love to do. Because I think when you have a relationship, a marriage that is aligned with what you want to do so that you have the capacity and the support and a shared vision, you can do lots of things. But that's another four hour episode.

[Simon Squibb]

And that's true.

[Chris]

So let's do this. Here's a quick call to action. If you're watching this on YouTube or listening to this on a podcast, podcast, find me somewhere and make a comment. Say, Chris, please make that episode and reference that we want to hear what the home life is, the work life, integration, how you raise your child, and how you're able to travel the world together because you hear some pretty wild, crazy things. And I want to say this as a fan of yours, as a person who's gotten to see behind the curtain, so to speak, seeing this team, this is a dream for me. Currently, full disclosure, my wife and I, we do not share this dream. So it creates a lot of friction for us. Because she's like, enough, enough. We're supposed to be winding into our chill life and you're winding up into the crazy, frantic life. And she just looks at my Calendar and gets stressed out just by looking at calendar. I'm like, imagine living it. You just look at it. And that's too much for you, right?

[Simon Squibb]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So I'd love to talk to you about that, to unpack some of those things. But I want to just say this. I think you have a brilliant business model where you can do a lot of good in the world, put some money in your pocket and to support and lift up the dreams of the people in this room, the people who see the content and the people that are secondary and tertiary ripple effects from those people who change their lives. So the way I'd like to bookend this episode is to say this. When your mom kicked you out of home at 15, not anybody would choose that option. But you had said is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me because you basically were free of all attachment. And I think the second point of clarity in your life is when you're bought out by PwC and you have that same kind of I got nothing. No one expects nothing. I can do anything. So what is it that I want to be? Who do I want to become? And I think the 1 billion followers summit chose exactly like person. Thank you for saying the organization, the people. So I know you're not getting tired of this, but you are loved. People do love you.

[Simon Squibb]

Thanks.

[Chris]

And it's great that you do this. And I just want to see you keep doing it.

[Simon Squibb]

Thank you.

[Chris]

Thanks, Ivan.

[Simon Squibb]

Appreciate it.

[Chris]

And thanks for dealing with my unprofessionalism and my lack of how to ask them.

[Simon Squibb]

You're awesome. I really appreciate it. Also, I haven't given away the million dollars yet, so I'm working on that.

[Chris]

Oh, tell us how to me.

[Simon Squibb]

But that. That, that we can do that in the next episode. People want to hear about that as well. Next episode. Next episode.

[Chris]

Here's what we're going to do. I can have your bucks.

[Simon Squibb]

$20.

[Chris]

Is already. My guess has been Simon Squibb. I don't think he even introduced himself, but he's got a book. It's called what's yous Dream? It encapsulates this big idea that he's. He's got. And it's already sold over 120,000 copies. There's got to be something in this book that is worth it. And we both believe in this. That knowledge is power.

[Simon Squibb]

Knowledge is power.

[Chris]

A lot of knowledge out there. Simon, I'm sure you get asked this all the time, but what is your dream?

[Simon Squibb]

My dream is for people to realize how amazing they are that anything is possible. And to perhaps not listen to the doom and gloom view of the world and see just how amazing it is, how amazing that brain of yours is. And ultimately to probably fix the education system would be ideal. But I've got a feeling it's going to have to be. Offer an alternative to it and give people a chance to have more choices in life than just get into debt. Live a basic life. They can live the life they want to. Live the. Live. Live the dream. That would be my dream. That people can live their dream.

[Chris]

And you can obviously see the reason why I'm so connected to Simon and what he's trying to do is because those of you that are fans of the channel know that our mission is to teach a billion people how to make a living doing what they love. And we believe that there must be a better alternative to the system that exists today. We're both building it. So we have shared dreams, I believe.

[Simon Squibb]

And just merge. Should we just merge, Amos?

[Chris]

Yeah, but you want to watch a.

[Simon Squibb]

Clothing line with me? Maybe I should be pretty good at that.

[Chris]

Maybe.

[Simon Squibb]

To be fair.

[Chris]

Now you answer the question the wrong way. You're supposed to say, my dream is to give you all this money so you can buy a building to help you.

[Simon Squibb]

Oh yeah. My dream is to give you all the money so you can buy a building. I'm very anti property learning space.

[Chris]

I know, you told me.

[Simon Squibb]

But not for what you're trying to do. That's different. You're trying to have a building for a purpose. I hate people doing property just to make money. No bullshit business.

[Chris]

That's not a good business. For now anyways.

[Simon Squibb]

For a lot of people it still is the business the kids think is a good business. Everyone wants to own a house and rent it out and that's what they think is a business. But that's again, that's bullshit. That's not real business.

[Chris]

A script in one line, one sentence.

[Simon Squibb]

I don't have to open the editor on this. Okay, okay. Yeah, no, that's too commercial. People won't watch. Okay, I'm Simon Squibb and you're listening to the Future.

[Chris]

That was perfect.

[Simon Squibb]

Done. Now go listen to the future, because.

[Chris]

You are the future.