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The entrepreneur who raised £300m for charity after cheating death - Matt Pohlson, Omaze
00:39:12
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Transcript102 lines
- [00:00]
Matt Paulson
Foreign.
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John Evans
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the uncensored cmo. Now I'm joined by the founder of Omaze, Matt Paulson. Welcome to the show, Matt.
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Matt Paulson
Thanks for having me, John. I'm excited to be here.
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John Evans
Great. Now I don't usually do this, but there are not many people that walk into this studio and the first thing they tell me is they've had a near death experience. So I mean, maybe we should start there. It's not the usual place I start, but yeah, you had quite a life changing event happen, didn't you? About seven years ago I did.
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Matt Paulson
So I had this crazy near death experience where my mom like saved my life and you know, changed my life. It changed our business everything. But, but someone compared it. They're like the, the power she unlocked to be able to save you is similar to what like a founder can unlock to save their company. You know, like there's this like they feel like it's their child and they like they will, they will fight through existential crisis to make it continue. It's a really crazy story. I was like, I flatlined for four and a half minutes. Like they declared me dead. They brought me back to life and. Yeah, and then when I came back from that, it was like very clear. Like when I was leaving the hospital, the doctor sat at the edge of my bed and he said, look, when I finish my career 30 years from now, and I'm talking about the most extraordinary case I've ever seen, this is going to be it. You know, we had you at less than 0.1% chance of survival.
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John Evans
0.1.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah. And the fact that we have you going home with your full faculties, we have no medical explanation.
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John Evans
What happened to you? What was the.
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Matt Paulson
I was born with my stomach twisted in a knot and then this. I was supposed to die when I was born. And then the scar tissue from that surgery freakishly broke off all these years later, created a bowel obstruction which led to my heart stopping. And then like literally my mom was at the hospital and burst into the operating room as I was being resuscitated and helped coach me back to life. There's all this other crazy stuff that happened too, but it's. It's like a wild story.
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John Evans
Wow.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah.
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John Evans
And that changed your business.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah, because when I came back from that, it was like we. The gut. The doctor said to me, he was like, look, the. We have no medical explanation for this. And I said, do you have, do you have any explanation for this? He said, we were inspired by your mom and she had also, before the second surgery, she was grabbing the doctors by the cheeks, looking into their eyes, saying, this is my son, but today this is your son and your brother. And their company's trying to do good. You need to help them. But he said, but outside that, there was larger forces at play. And I said, well, how do you define larger forces? And he said, it was love that brought you back. And then I really, I really believe that. So when I came back, I was like, we're never going to like, truly make an impact at a global scale by just doing celebrities. And so that was like the motivation to switch the business. And so I came back and said to the whole company, the board, we're switching the business to prizes, and got a lot of resistance, but we did it. And then it changed everything.
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John Evans
That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, going through something like that must fundamentally change who you are and how you see life, you know?
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Matt Paulson
Yeah, it really has changed me fundamentally, but not in the way that I expect. It wasn't immediate. It was like Hollywood esque, you know, it was actually like, in some ways I was almost, I was incredibly elated for a while and then kind of depressed for a while, not knowing, like, why that had happened and why, why did I get to keep going? And then this kind of, you felt this pressure of like, you know, people saying, you, you're here for a reason and all the stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of that, you know, and you're like, wow, that's a lot. You know, I think it's really changed my relationship to fear. I used to be really fear driven, you know, fear of failing, fear of not being enough, fear, comparing myself to others. And so that was like my motivation in some ways. Like, that's where I kind of operated from. And now I have learned that, like, fear is just a story, right? And that is nothing is as bad as the fear of the thing, right? When you face death, which is supposed to be the scariest thing, and you realize, okay, that was actually not that bad, then it helps you kind of move past the fear faster, right? And so I try to operate more from a place of love. Like, you can make the same two decisions right, out of a fear or love, right? You can, you can fire people out of fear or can fire people out of love. Like, and so I try to make it much more from that place, expansive, relaxed place. So that's one, you know, and I really try to practice that on a daily basis. The second is like, I, like, I, I believe a lot of things I didn't believe before, but I really believe that I see how interconnected we all are in ways that I didn't. And I think that like optimism and love is kind of woo, woo, as that might sound like are frequencies that you can push out. And if you continue to, like, tap into those things, like, they can change the trajectory of events. And so I, like, work to get in the mindset, to be in those places as much as possible.
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John Evans
Makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know how the stories we tell ourselves are incredibly powerful. I mean, it talks about fear. I mean, I think fear is one of the biggest inhibitors in life and business, isn't it? But, you know, we're perpetually worried about what might happen if this goes wrong. What, you know, I'm not good enough to do this, you know, And I think that the internal dialogue is very profound. And if you can find a way of resetting that, I mean, you had to go through a big experience to get there. But I mean, if you can do that without going to that peak experience, I mean, I think so much of success or happiness in life is down to how we think about it, you know, and how we view.
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Matt Paulson
Absolutely success. Yeah. You know, I. You don't have to go through that. Right. Like, that just became a trigger for me to become curious. Like, I didn't get any actual knowledge from the actual experience. You know, it was just a reason to think about things. But yeah, you. I think especially for an entrepreneurship or business building, you know, a lot of people who get success, it's because they kind of drive themselves and they maybe have this voice that says, you gotta go harder. You're not enough. Like, and that's, that's useful to a point. But I think what I've learned from this, especially on the entrepreneurship path, is you have to be a best friend to yourself. Right? Like, you gotta be really. Like, I used to say stuff to myself that I would never let anyone else say to me, you know, And I thought that was helpful. And then you realize that's not actually helping me. Like, it's much better to, like, kind of support yourself through the journey, you know, still hold yourself to a high standard, but just say, okay, right? You know, you're human, you made some mistakes, let's like, move on.
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John Evans
Yeah. Now, this event happened after you'd set up a maze, hadn't you? So describe to me what was the origin story for a maze? And why did you set it up in the first place?
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Matt Paulson
Yeah. So before Omaze, I was A filmmaker, and my passion was using storytelling to inspire action and had done a bunch of different projects along those lines. Me and my buddy were the first directors on this thing called Live Earth, which was the biggest concert ever thrown seven continents in one night with everybody from Beyonce to Rolling Stones. Did a documentary series called Girl Rising that was funded by Oprah. Queen Rani of Jordan. Meryl Streep was the narrator. A bunch of other big projects like those with really fancy people, and we were working with these incredibly influential people who really wanted to do good and just realized we were not doing that much good. You know, we were creating awareness around these projects, but not a lot of impact. So I decided to go to business school and surround myself with new ways of thinking. I had never even opened Excel before I went to Wharton. I was purely on the creative side. And then when I was in school, went to this event that Magic Johnson, the basketball player, was hosting, where he was auctioning off the chance to play basketball with him and go to a Lakers game. But it was one of those things was only available to the high net worth individuals in the room. And I was in the room, but not a high net worth individual. I was like the guy who gets invited last minute to fill the table and comes for the free drinks. You know, I was that guy. Still am that guy, I feel like, but. And so, you know, sat and watches. The auction went up to 15,000, and magic was our childhood hero. There's nothing rather do than play basketball with Magic. But we couldn't afford to participate. And so when me and my buddy were driving home, we said, that makes no sense. Magic has fans around the world, not just in that room. And celebrities weren't really on social media yet, but we said, they're gonna be, and they're gonna be able to reach their fans in a whole new way. So if we make it so Anybody can donate $10 for the chance to win, you could raise so much more money, so much more awareness, open up a whole new donor base.
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John Evans
So. And what was the format so that people would buy tickets effectively with a chance of winning the Magic Johnson prize. Is that how it works?
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Matt Paulson
Exactly. Yeah. So for the first seven years, we just did celebrity experiences, and it was exactly that format. You put in $10 for the chance to win like a. Like a charity raffle.
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John Evans
Yeah.
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Matt Paulson
And we did crazy stuff. You know, we did ride in a tank with Arnold Schwarzenegger and crush things. We did win a Lamborghini where Pope Francis hands you the keys. You know, we did. We did sit with Jon Stewart underneath Stephen Colbert's desk while he's performing and like, mess with him. You know, we just did all these, like, really kind of fun stuff and we would create really funny videos about what it would look like to ride in a tank with Arnold and crush things. Or Matt Damon and Ben Affleck would, like talk shit to each other about who you'd rather hang out with and that those stuff would spread virally. And so that's. Our whole business was built on, you know, fun little stories about what the experience would look like.
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John Evans
Yeah. And as I understand it, part of the purpose of this was then to raise money for charity.
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Matt Paulson
Oh, yes.
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John Evans
Alongside doing it, wasn't it? As well as getting access to prizes, you also.
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Matt Paulson
Yes, each. So the charity raffle was for the charity of the celebrity, so they would choose it.
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John Evans
Yeah. Now you made a big pivot, didn't you, because you're now in the uk and as far as my social media feed goes, you're giving away a lot of very nice properties in the Cotswolds. Yes, that's certainly why I get in my feet. Dream homes coming up. So why did you make the move from US celebrity experiences to UK win your dream home kind of thing? How did that happen?
- [10:41]
Matt Paulson
Yeah, it happened after my. I came back from the near death experience. You know, it just changed my perspective. It's really helpful to step back and you see some things that's hard to when you're in the day to day, you know. And it just became clear that we were never going to be truly world changing. Just do just doing celebrity experiences because we're totally reliant on someone else for our supply. And before I left, we had done this campaign with Daniel Craig where you got to go to New York, you got to go to the Aston Martin track, you got to ride around in a one of a kind Aston Martin, and you got to keep the Aston Martin.
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John Evans
Wow.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah. And it was supposed to raise 300,000 for the United nations and it raised 2.1 million.
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John Evans
Wow.
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Matt Paulson
And so then I went to our CFO Nina and said, hey, I think we should try doing a car on our own. No talent, just Omaze. We should buy a $250,000 McLaren. We'll offer it with our own distribution. If we can raise 500,000 on our own, then we would really have something. But it was a big bet because we only had 900,000 in the bank at the time. So it was like more than a quarter of the company was on this bet. But we decided to go for it. And then that car coincidentally launched the day before I unexpectedly went into the hospital. And so when I came back all those months later, I was sitting down with Nina and said, hey, you know, by the way, whatever happened with the McLaren, did it raise the 500,000? Are we out of business? What's the deal? And she said, it raised 1.9 million. Wow.
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John Evans
Amazing.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah. So I was like, that changes everything. Yeah. You know, because I had the fresh perspective. And so I was like, we are going all in on prizes. So I went to the team and the board and said, instead of doing these celebrities, we're going to stuff we control with the prizes. There was some resistance to that, but we pushed through and we started doing holidays and then we did like bags and watches and jewelry. And then we started doing more cars and then we started doing supercars. All those did progressively better. And then we finally said, you know, where it's really at is houses. A car changes someone's house lifestyle, but a house changes someone's life.
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John Evans
Yeah.
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Matt Paulson
And it's an incredibly visual medium. And, you know, we could create a subscription product if we just did a house every month and really focused it. So we decided to launch that in the UK because the US celebrity car business was a good business. I mean, it was, you know, it was a nine figure revenue business. It was real business. But we wanted to test it here, not disturb that business. But also thought because the UK is a more densely populated country, all the houses are relevant. They're a little bit less expensive. We had a great operator here named James Oakes and we thought, okay, let's test it here. And then it just, it just took off. It was wild.
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John Evans
Amazing. And do you have to buy the houses? Because, I mean, like, we're talking four or five million pounds dream homes here. You know, they're quite, they're pretty expensive. Do you actually have to. Presumably you can only give it away if you own the houses. You got to put a big outlay.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah, we buy all the houses. We sometimes we're building the houses now, but in all cases we renovate the houses or put in, you know, pretty, pretty significant changes. But yeah, we buy them all out. So we're buying because we offer a house every month. We've got to buy eight houses out.
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John Evans
In front, all of which are multimillion pound houses.
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Matt Paulson
Right? Exactly. Anywhere from three to six million pounds.
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John Evans
Yeah. That's quite a cash flow investment, presumably, isn't it?
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Matt Paulson
It is, it is. You lose money in a market until you get up Your subscription? You know, we had raised money from venture, so that helped fund that. But then, you know, we built up a subscription business and the subscription revenue is really strong and really sticky. And so that's. So therefore there's no risk in the houses anymore.
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John Evans
So with subscription, does that mean people are automatically entering every draw?
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Matt Paulson
Yes.
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John Evans
Is that effectively how to use subscribe? How much would that be? For example?
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Matt Paulson
Typically 10 pounds is the minimum. You can go up to 50 and.
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John Evans
That just auto renews every month. Then you automatically get entered into the. Into the drawer.
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Matt Paulson
Exactly, yeah.
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John Evans
So how, how many, how many houses you giving away today?
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Matt Paulson
40.
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John Evans
Wow.
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Matt Paulson
So you know, roughly around call it £180 million worth of houses, probably £250 million worth of prizes.
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John Evans
And on the other side of the coin, how much have you given to charity off the back of that, we've.
- [15:00]
Matt Paulson
Raised £90 million in the UK for charity. In the US before we moved here, we had raised 200 million for charity. So you know, globally we're over 300 million that we've given to charity.
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John Evans
That's amazing, isn't it? And what's the relationship between the kind of charity and I guess the lottery or game, however you describe it? Because it seems to be quite common thing to do, put those two things together. I was just wondering what the psychology of that is. Is it that like people like to feel, do people play more if they know that they're also going to, you know, make some good? Is there some psychology behind that or is it what's the, what's the thinking behind the charity element? Or is it driven more by your personal desire to, to do good and leave a legacy?
- [15:46]
Matt Paulson
Yeah, it really started with. That was, you know, I was in that space for a decade before I started Omaze. You know, like that goes way back to my childhood and like what my parents instilled in me. You know, I grew up in Laguna Niguela, California, which is like a upper middle class, weird, you know, area. But I was, I joined a basketball team when I was really young that was based out of Compton, which is like a well known, you know, if you know the movie Straight Outta Compton, like very challenge area. And so being on that basketball team as a kid, I got to see like what my friends environment is. So I spent like half my time in between these two very different worlds. And then just again like the service that my parents instilled, you know, I always wanted to do something that had a purpose, but I also wanted to do something where we could create economic opportunity And I, and I really believe that that's a false choice. Like, too often we're told, like, you can either make money or you can help people, but you don't get to do both, you know, and we're fine paying people a lot of money if they do bad. We're totally good with that, but not if they want to do good. And I just think that makes no sense in the world we're in now. We need business to be a force for good. Like, governments are getting defunded at every level. And so that's where really it came from. And that became a natural way to do it. But yes, it also, from a pure business perspective, customers like to know that they're having an impact when they have this fun game. It's a form of entertainment that they can also feel good about.
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John Evans
And I suppose most people won't win, right? Because I don't know what the odds are on winning. But at least you know, your subscription is funding a good course. You're getting something, aren't you? You're getting a charity donation or may.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah.
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John Evans
End up winning a house at some point.
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Matt Paulson
That's right. And we have a bunch of smaller prizes and stuff like that that people win. But yeah, most people are not going to win a house. But yes, they do. The community, the Omega community really does care about, like, these tangible projects that they do. And oftentimes it benefits in their community. Right. We. We fund. We did a house in Victoria park last year to fund the London Air Ambulance. London Air Ambulance, or these helicopter ambulances that pick up 3,000 Londoners a year. So we Omaze funded that service. Right. It wouldn't be here without the money from the Omaze community. And so, like, that's also like, you know, a nice loop.
- [18:11]
John Evans
You mentioned something earlier which struck me about, you know, the power of storytelling. And I believe you even take that as far as actually training people in the organization, don't you? Around. Around how to tell stories. Why is that so important? Because, I mean, it strikes me that, you know, pretty much anybody in their career needs the ability to be able to create a vision and communicate to people that's internally, externally, and I think it's probably something that we don't train enough of. So how do you go about it in Amaze and what kind of insights do you have on the importance of how you tell stories?
- [18:42]
Matt Paulson
I totally agree with you, first of all. I mean, I think it's the most important and underrated skill in entrepreneurship. You know, people like, it's obvious to see the. The impact on marketing, but it really, like, impacts everything you do, right? The ability to tell a good story matters a ton for fundraising from investors, right? That's mostly about story. People think it's mostly, you know, metrics matter, but, like, story really matters. It's huge for setting a vision for your team. It's huge for recruiting, it's huge for product development. Being able to see the world through the eyes of another. It has massive impacts throughout the business. It's important from a CFO to be a good storyteller, to be able to and people on the finance team. It touches everybody in terms of how we teach it. We have our principles of storytelling. We're inspired by this book called Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller. And so we take some of his principles, mix it with ours, and then we go through and we look at the. The brands that have won and beat their competitors over time and explain through their storytelling why that worked or why that didn't. So we'll look at why did Spotify beat Tidal? That had Jay Z and Beyonce and Madonna and everybody. It wasn't the technology, it wasn't the distribution. It was the way that they did their storytelling. And so there's lots of principles, but the three that really matter is make the customer the hero, right? It's understanding the classic hero's journey that we all go through, right? A character wants something, they have a problem, they need a guide. They like, they face some jeopardy, they have a transformation at the end. You want people to understand that clarity is key, right? People too often overcomplicate their message. And the human brain just wants to preserve calories after you make it, use a lot of calories to understand what you're doing. You'll lose, like, if you confuse, you'll lose. And that your brand is the guide, right? And you, the way you are a great guide is you show empathy and you show authority. So that's why it really is powerful if a brand can make someone laugh, right? Or cry. But like that, like that is a neurological shortcut to connection that shows empathy. If your brain can make you laugh like that, you feel a connect in connection. You remember that. And then authority is social proof, statistics, endorsements, all those things. So those are the three principles that we really focus on is like, make the customer the hero. Clarity is key. We are the guide, not the hero, right? And. And then we have a bunch of principles underneath that.
- [21:24]
John Evans
No, they're really good. It's funny. Actually, our finance team at System One asked Me to go and do a talk for them the other day about how to communicate. And it's really interesting because, I mean, you know, if you're in a function like finance, sometimes people see you as kind of like the, you know, the police or telling you what you can't do or controlling your costs. It was really fun because they were like, how do we present. How do we pivot that and present ourselves as a support for the organization, helping people do their jobs better. It's really, really good fun, actually, for me to try and unpack, I suppose, what comes naturally to me or what I instinctively do and break it down. But I found that very interesting. But some of the things that it made me think were, I mean, I know this is a classic one, but people remember how they feel more than, you know. So feelings over facts, for example, if you make people feel something, they're far more likely to remember, you know, years later. Or the element of surprise as well. Always, you know, we, we lock on. It's why behavioral science, I think, is fascinating, isn't it? Because you go, you think that's how it works, but actually it works like this. So, you know, turning things on their head and supply surprising people, I think, is. Is really powerful. And one of the other things that struck me as well, that I've noticed in my career is sometimes it's better to let other people tell your story. If you can get someone else to tell your story, people will believe it because people expect you to, you know, sell yourself, you know, whereas if other, if you, you can kind of get other people. A bit like having a podcast, you see, great thing about a podcast is other people are telling your story rather than you as well. So it can be, you know, quite powerful.
- [22:53]
Matt Paulson
Absolutely. And we, we, we also teach the principles of influence in terms of, like, you know, at the beginning, we had to get the most famous people in the world to do stuff with this brand of, like, you know, these young kids that didn't know what they're doing. And so whenever we would face an objection, you know, let's say George Clooney's team was concerned about doing content in this way. We'd say, yeah, Bono's team had the same concern. And the reason that Bono made this decision was because X, Y, Z. And so therefore, Bono is endorsing without, you know, versus us just saying, oh, yeah, we, we get it, we can do this. Like, that has no credibility. Right. And so, yeah, that's, it is like getting others to tell your story is really critical.
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John Evans
I Mean, find the most influential person in your, in your market.
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Matt Paulson
Yes.
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John Evans
The most influential person to your target audience and then get that person to basically endorse what you do. I think it's one of the most powerful kind of tactics out there that people just don't do that enough. You know, it's the kind of earned media.
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Matt Paulson
Yeah. I mean it goes down to, you know, if you look at first principles of why storytelling really matters, like, you just got to understand like our brains are constantly looking for ways to survive and thrive. Like it's constantly scanning. Right. And so the reason, like a lot of brands, like consumer brands sell status is because we associate status with survival. Because if you didn't have status 150,000 years ago, you got left behind as a snack. Right. And so, and so that's really powerful in our neurology now. And so we're constantly looking for things that we think, okay, this is going to help me gain status or conserve financial resources or whatever. And so. But it's exhausting to constantly be searching for that. Our brain doesn't want to use many calories. And so if you have someone you can trust, that's like a shortcut. It's like, oh, that takes the work off me. That person seems to be surviving and thriving. I will therefore listen to them, you know, and that's why, that's why it works so powerfully.
- [24:53]
John Evans
Yeah, that makes, makes sense. I had a look at your, your advertising. You've done quite a lot of advertising and not just in my feed as well. Because I think, I think, I mean it might be just because I'm aware of what you do, perhaps, but, but I swear I probably get more advertising from you than pretty much anyone else. Or it might be just how beautiful those Cotswold homes in the feed. But I did actually, because I got the benefit of the system 1. I did actually go and pull out the numbers which, which were really interesting. Actually the first thing I thought was interesting is you've made more new ads than Apple over the last five years, which I thought was wild. So we've got 620 different versions of your advertising on our database. As if you realize you've made so much.
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Matt Paulson
No. Wow.
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John Evans
But you've got a busy team out there.
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Matt Paulson
I would imagine Apple would be at the top of the heap too.
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John Evans
Right? Well, you were not. You didn't quite match Nike. So Nike have done 849 different ads. These are audio visuals. So we basically measure every new ad that breaks and we define a new ad. It has to be different enough to what's gone before, you know, in terms of time, length or style or whatever. But every breaking new ad, every 24 hours, we test on our database and measure the emotional response to it. So we've automatically done that in the UK for about six years now. So we've got six years of data, hence why I know, going back to 2012, 2020, rather how your advertising is done. The other interesting thing as well, and credit to you by the way on this, is that you've steadily improved your scores over those six years, which is great. So as I was mentioning before, we kind of measure things in terms of emotional response and also have people recognize the brand. So on a five star scale six years ago, you're averaging 1.6. You're now averaging 2.8. So getting close to double in terms of the emotion that people feel towards what you do and then fluency is our version of branding. How many people can remember who you are at the end of the ad? The average in 2020 was 52% and now it's 81%.
- [26:58]
Matt Paulson
Wow. Is 2.8 good or is it just better?
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John Evans
2.8 is above average. The average for lottery and casino. In the lottery and casino category, the average 2 point. Okay, so 2.8. So you've gone from behind the category to a little bit ahead of the category on average.
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Matt Paulson
And what's like who's the best in general?
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John Evans
Well, the best in. You have the number 5ad of all time in that category. So there's your top scoring individual ad is 4.7.
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Matt Paulson
Oh, wow.
- [27:26]
John Evans
Yeah, out of five. So you've got 5.9. Technically it goes up to almost six. So yeah, you've got the fifth best. And I have to look up who's number one. I should do. I didn't check out which one. We'll set you the target of number one. But the interesting point about the data which I was going to draw to your attention is obviously emotion matters and the way you tell the story, because I think the app with 4.7, it's 90 seconds and you see the reaction to people at the moment they realize they've won and you also see the people responding to the charity donation. So you tie in those two things together. The kind of surprise and emotion when people realize something life changing is happening and then you contrast that with the emotion of the charities that are being helped. So you've got double whammy in terms of emotions. You've got surprise and happiness coming through together. But the interesting Thing I think about the data was your consistency. And this is where I wonder whether this is a conscious thing you made as a founder or not. Because over the last six years you've been very consistent in how you've shown up. And we did some research last year called Compound Creativity, where we actually looked at brands that are consistent in the way they execute advertising over time. What happens is it's the old phrase, familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt. So actually the more back to your behavioral science about recognizing signs and social proof. We like things that are familiar because we trust what we know. Right. And so what you see is over. Over the, over the few, over years, the gap between brands that are consistent and brands that change their creative year gets bigger and bigger.
- [29:03]
Matt Paulson
So, yeah, I mean, that's a credit to. If you don't mind me shouting out Anushka, Mike and Kat on our team have been there since the beginning and they're really, really diligent about quality control. Like they really sweat it and they're. I think a lot of people make mistakes internally where they think, oh, this is getting boring. Like, be they assuming because they're seeing it every day that it's, that it hasn't changed, but like the audience doesn't, like, no one's thinking about you as much as you're thinking about you. Right. And so our team is good at recognizing like small, like consistent iterations. So they definitely deserve credit and they are intentional about that.
- [29:42]
John Evans
Well, kudos to them. And actually I'm not surprised you said that, that you've got the same team working on it. Yeah, that is exactly what I expect looking at results, because one of the, one of the predictors of success is the same team being in place. I mean, really good example in the UK would be Yorkshire Tea, which has just done a phenomenal job over the last 10 years, going from I think 16% market share to 40% market share in the tea category. The tea category in the UK is like the most old style, nothing happens kind of category. And yet they've massively taken share, gone from number three to number one. But if you dig into it and they came second in our report of all brands that we assessed in terms of creative consistency. They've had the same management team, same marketing team, same agency, the same idea, the same strategic insight. They change the execution brilliantly. It's very fresh, it changes, regular changes. But the core idea and the way they come to market is exactly the same and that really pays off.
- [30:37]
Matt Paulson
You know, we believe a brand is just a Representation, just an expression of your culture and your customers. Right. And so we really work to make the customers the hero and then we are really diligent about the culture. And your culture is just expression of your, what we call virtues, right, which is your daily actions. People think about brand as this, like this like kind of, you know, esoteric, kind of ambiguous thing out there. It's not, it's just people, right. And so we like, we really try to work hard to ground those virtues into our actions every day and then like allow that come through and then we really spend a lot of time on our brand book. We've created GPTs around that so people can use that to maintain consistency and all that kind of stuff. So that team really does care about it. So I'm glad it comes through.
- [31:28]
John Evans
Yeah, yeah, 100%. That's really good. I wanted to talk to you as well about what it's been like being a founder of the company and the journey you've been on. Beyond the near death experience, which obviously is quite high on the list of challenges. What have been the most challenging elements of being a founder?
- [31:46]
Matt Paulson
I mean, we've had a lot of near death experiences as a company, not just my own. You know, so much of entrepreneurship is just taking punches. You know, we call it type 2 fun, where you're like, this really is not fun right now. Telling the story in a while from now will be fun. And so, so I think the biggest source of our resilience as a company through all those punches is laughter. Like we really believe laughter is the shortest distance between two people. Like I said earlier, it's a kind of a neurological shortcut to connection, but it breeds resilience, right? If you can sit there and be like, wow, we are really getting punched right now. This is more like a face punch than a bodybuilder, like that kind of stuff. But just like if you can have fun with it, that's a big reason. And I think that's the hardest part about being a founder is you care about this thing like you would a child. Dedicated a lot of my life to this. And so doing whatever it takes to fight through those hard times I think is like the number one thing that you can do.
- [32:52]
John Evans
One book I came across few years ago, which I absolutely love, go back to it time and again, is called the Founder's Mentality. And it's interesting because it looked at founder led companies versus management led companies and how much founder led companies outperform over the long run management led ones. And I think the Three principles they came up with was, one is having an owner's mindset, like, you care about everything if you own it. You literally care how everything is done. The next thing was Frontline Focus, which I thought was brilliant, which is basically being much, much closer to your customer, is that founders, typically, because the business grew up with them, they're much more likely to know their customer, spend time with their customer, be representative of their customer, than a management team, which rely on reports and departmental reviews, and that kind of thing, which I thought was interesting. And then the final bit was obsession with how things are executed as well. Really, really tangible. Really know how to kind of get things done and make things happen. And it looked like those three elements were the. The key predictors of success for kind of founder companies, first management ones, which seems to ring true, certainly from the conversation we've had.
- [33:59]
Matt Paulson
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me.
- [34:01]
John Evans
Yeah. So what advice would you give? So someone's sitting here listening to you right now, and they're thinking, I'd like to create my own business. What tips would you give them?
- [34:12]
Matt Paulson
The first tip I would give them is, nobody knows what they're doing.
- [34:22]
John Evans
That's pretty good.
- [34:24]
Matt Paulson
So that's okay.
- [34:25]
John Evans
Yeah.
- [34:26]
Matt Paulson
You know, my business school class, we had a lot of really randomly, a lot of really successful entrepreneurs. So I watched these guys who built amazing businesses. They had no idea what they're doing. I certainly had less idea than them what I was doing at the beginning. But I remember when I was starting on the journey feeling like, gosh, I'd look at these people that were successful and think, oh, man, they have. They understand things I don't. They have courage that I don't. They're not afraid like I am. You know, all, like, all this stuff. And sometimes I've heard people say similar things to me now. Like, they look at me and they think, that's. And I'm like, that is not me. Like, I was very confused. And so that's okay, I think, is the first thing. It's just like, let yourself know, you know, it's really just about, like, getting a little bit better every day, I think. That's the first thing I would say. And the second thing I would say is become an expert storyteller. Whatever industry you're in, it serves you, isn't it?
- [35:21]
John Evans
I had Scott Galloway on the podcast a few weeks ago. Yeah, he's great. There's a couple of things he's wrong about, particularly brand. But anyway, put that to one side. But one of the things I think he got absolutely right, is he talked about entrepreneurs, how they are basically very, very good salespeople. He said, find any successful entrepreneur and if they're not, they've got a number two absolute is they've got to. Well, the first thing is they've got to learn the art of rejection. Like it's, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then. Yes, right. So first of all, you've got to learn the art of rejection. Secondly, you've got to be able to sell. He said if you don't sell, your sunk basically is you've got to. Whether it's investors or customers or the internal team, you've constantly got to have the ability to sell. And that's what I think you're absolutely right about. Storytelling is to keep people on the journey and to get everyone, you know, moving in the right direction. You've got to be absolutely brilliant at telling the story of the business and where you're going.
- [36:21]
Matt Paulson
I mean, that's all it is at the beginning, right? Like you. All it is is a story. Right. You know, next year, Omaze is just a story. Right? Like, but like, the world has always changed by stories. It's always changed by, hey, this is where we are. This is our reality. We can be this other place. I can see it. Let's go there together. That's. That is. That is how it all works, you know, and so you've got to be able to. You've got to be able to see that clearly, paint that clearly and make people understand how they can go on that journey with you.
- [36:53]
John Evans
Well, very interesting. And tying it back, actually, to where we started with your near death experience and the stories we tell ourselves. I think the thing that stops you most or stops people is that fear. The fear that the story won't play out the way that they hope it will. And I think that's. That's why probably, I think there's a brilliant quote. I quote this all the time, but Greg Hahn, who's on the pod last year, said, what would you do if you weren't afraid? I think it's just the most brilliant question because you got to start there, removing the fear and going, actually, what would we do if we weren't afraid? And then build the story around that.
- [37:25]
Matt Paulson
Absolutely, yeah. And you're right. The fear. The fear can be your inverse story. Like, we talk a lot about trying to tap into a childlike imagination, because when you're a child, you use your imagination to think about what's possible. And when you're an adult, you tend to use your imagination to think about what could go wrong. And so how do you let that go? How do you let the things that did go wrong not inform what could go right in the future?
- [37:56]
John Evans
And it's that old quote, I can't remember quite he said it. But you know, you win 100, you know you lose 100% of the bets you never place. Yes, you know, which is true, isn't it? Like you got no chance of winning unless. Unless you take the bet.
- [38:07]
Matt Paulson
Yeah. And they have all these studies and stories and it sounds obvious, but it's helpful to hear sometimes, all the time about people at the end of their life when they look back at the regrets. It's never what they did, it's always what they didn't do.
- [38:19]
John Evans
Yeah, 100%. Well, on that bombshell, I think we'll leave everyone with that thought in mind to think about what they will do from. From listening stuff. So Matt, thank you so much mate. It's been great to talk to you and very pleased that you got through your near death experience and get to tell the story.
- [38:34]
Matt Paulson
Thank you. Thanks John. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for keeping putting wisdom out in the world. This is really helpful.
- [38:39]
John Evans
Cool. Good seeing. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do I'm over on x uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.