Antony: I think people who aren’t entrepreneurs think this is so easy to run a company, right? But all this stuff happens, and you’ve got to go, this is bad luck. But actually, how can we turn this into good luck? How can we learn what our options are now and get even better at what we do because of the challenges we’re facing?

Ben: Hey, thanks for listening. We’ve been starting, growing and leading businesses for over 50 years between us. Along the way, we’ve met lots of amazing people doing the same. We started to collect their wisdom, things they’d seen, real experiences that had taught them something, things they’d read that had inspired, and things they’d learned, the principles they’ve applied in growing their businesses. We call these Founder Hacks — the real experiences of real entrepreneurs growing real businesses. And this podcast is to share them with you. Welcome to Founder Hacks.

Ben: Hello and welcome to another episode of Founder Hacks, our podcast where we collect the wonderful wisdom of entrepreneurs everywhere and serve it up for you piping hot through the lens of things we’ve seen, things we’ve read, and things we’ve learned. This week it is, of course, myself, Antony and Alex ready to serve up some wisdom. Alex Moore, how are you? Hello and welcome.

Alex: All right — feeling a bit hungry after that intro. All right, you know, run-up to Christmas, busy, busy, but good.

Ben: Busy, busy, busy. How about you guys?

Antony: I’m very good, thank you. Here, there, and everywhere this week, yeah, but a lot of virtual sessions as well, so that’s great to be able to — it’s so easy, isn’t it, these days, doesn’t matter where anybody is in the world, so it’s great to be able to touch base — not quite as good as meeting people face to face, but still, the virtual stuff’s excellent.

Ben: It has broadened our horizons, hasn’t it — I remember those days of spending all your bloody life on the tube and the train, running around, it’s funny — I had a lunch the other day and literally it suddenly dawned on me I was going to spend like two hours travelling for this one-hour lunch, you’re like, that’s crazy, we used to do that all the time, didn’t we.

Antony: Yeah, we did, we did.

Ben: Well, look, this week, dear listener, we’ve had a little think and had a little plan, and shared what we’ve experienced in this past couple of weeks, and we’ve come up with an interesting theme to base our learning around this week, which is learning versus luck. And I think this is really interesting for us, because so many entrepreneurs, I think, do worry or wonder — is this about just luck, when we hear these stories from others, were they just lucky, was it because of the learning they did, can I do that learning? So we’ll expand on this as we go through, I think. But as ever, time waits for no one, so without further ado, I believe Antony Enright has seen something he’d like to share on this topic.

Antony: Yes, I’ve seen something, and I see it fairly regularly, but there’s a specific example over the last couple of weeks, and that’s with regard to regulatory change. Doesn’t matter where you are in the world, we’ve all got regulations we have to follow, and we’re generally not in control of them, are we — we can lobby, or be part of bodies that lobby, but apart from that, if a government or body decides to change a rule or law or regulation on us as entrepreneurs, what do we do? What I’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, with a regulatory change that’s happened in the UK, is that it’s affected quite a lot of my customers, one in particular. Beforehand there were rumours this change was going to happen, and people were sort of moaning and concerned. What amazed me, though, as soon as it happened — this sort of bad luck of another change, we’ve had so many obstacles in certain industries, haven’t we, over the last few years, especially with Covid, and then regulation change after regulation change — what I’ve noticed and seen this time is that this bad luck has actually turned into learning. Because as soon as the decision was made, they’ve gone, well, we’ve got no choice in this, we have to make this work — so how can we be creative around overcoming this challenge, which immediately most people would look at and go, we’ve got to put our prices up, which is going to affect the end user, the customer. But what they’ve done is sat back, got really creative, got the whole senior leadership team involved to talk about what our options are, what are the things we can do now — it may result in an increase to pricing, but they’re not going there to begin with, what they’re doing is aligning the senior leadership team around it, looking at various ideas, and now going out and learning what may or may not work for them, so they can put certain things in place. I just love to see that resilience in people — I think it’s underplayed, I think people who aren’t entrepreneurs think this is so easy to run a company, but all this stuff happens and you’ve got to go, this is bad luck, but actually, how can we turn this into good luck, how can we learn what our options are now and get even better at what we do because of the challenges we’re facing. So that’s what I’ve seen, I just wanted to share it and see, Alex, have you seen something similar, or what are your thoughts?

Alex: Yeah, I just love the power of the small business owner to affect change in the world, employ people, keep businesses going. And it’s based on a conversation I had yesterday with a couple of founders, really interesting, about building a culture where people are listened to and innovation is encouraged, not stamped down upon. And absolutely, there are all these things that happen, and it’s resilience and reacting to them, but this — successful companies, not only having a smart founder who can come up with lots of ideas, which is great, and that might be the way to navigate it, but for me the really interesting one is when you have a business which, I’ve found in my experience, powers through periods of growth, is where everyone’s opinions are enhanced, are combined together — that’s how decisions are made, that’s how resilience comes from the power of the team, and if that’s listening, if people are listened to in that culture of offering up ideas and suggestions, that’s such a great way to get through this.

Ben: Do you agree, disagree? It’s that attitude point, isn’t it — because a lot of what seemed to be said there was how amazing they had that attitude that they could do that. I think I’ve met entrepreneurs and founders who will just lick their wounds and sometimes have a bit of a strop — oh god, you’re really annoying, kick the board over, don’t want to play anymore because it’s so unfair. And it does take a kind of maturity not to go there — you can easily turn into Kevin the teenager, which we were talking about earlier, lose the use of your arms, oh god. And I’ve seen that, but I think it’s a really good point here, that sort of bad luck, and then you can parlay that into learning if you’ve got the right attitude and culture in your business. I get it, I hope I’ve got the strength to do it when it hits me, but definitely a team thing, and I love the way you were saying this was the whole company, the whole team responded in this way, which was amazing.

Antony: Yeah, it’s fascinating — because you know what it’s like as the owner and the entrepreneur, it can be a very lonely place. So actually, when you’re able to bring the team in and go, this is our problem, this is our bad luck, what can we do about it — you’re empowering them, and we all know what you can gain from getting people involved and giving them a problem and saying, this is our problem to solve, what are your ideas. And it’s when — because again with this one individual thing, there will be organisations out there affected by it who just go, just put the prices up. So if we can sit there and go, well, before we do that — that’s plan B, but what’s plan A, what are your ideas — all of a sudden you get so much creativity, and you go out and test things and see whether it works or not, and just give people the opportunity to have their say and make that difference Alex was talking about.

Ben: Yeah, of course, you get to cling on to find out if next time you might be lucky, right — if you’ve had the bad luck, cope with that, cling on and you might get the luck next time.

Alex: Yeah, and if you do something different, then you’re going to create — that’s how you create your own luck, right, because you’re actually out there working really hard to be different and see what you might do. And the impact on your customer could be huge, because everybody else is going out putting their prices up, you’re not — it could have a huge impact on the growth of your business.

Ben: Very cool. Well, look, let’s press on, because we’ve got more to learn, more to say, and I believe Alexander Moore has read something about luck and learning.

Alex: Yeah, so my read came from an article someone shared with me from The Times, about the rise of Lando Norris. I had to explain — I had to laugh because we were doing the editorial earlier and Ben had no idea who Lando Norris was, and Ben hates sporting analogies for business, that’s why I love to bring them in. But yes, he’s a race car driver, very cool young dude, actually, and he’s on the brink of perhaps becoming a world champion. The whole article was about the fact he came from a very privileged background — his father I think was quite senior, and Lando, when he was learning his craft as a young boy, had everything, every possible advantage bestowed on him — trainers, special go-karts, I think at one point the article talked about him renting Brands Hatch exclusively for his use. And they were saying, well, did this make him a champion, was it an unfair advantage? Actually the article was quite balanced, and what I got from it was — no, he took every advantage he possibly could, which was great, he learned everything he could, but ultimately, if everyone had that, you still wouldn’t become a world champion, so he’s definitely got something over and above. But he jumped on, I guess, luck — where he was born, the role of the dice, the genes — but he utilised those advantages to the best of his ability to become on the verge of becoming a world champion F1 driver. So it got me thinking about founders, and a lot of founders I know are all over — what’s the next thing, what’s the book I could read, what’s an organisation I could join, what’s the latest bit of tech I could use — they try and get every advantage they can, they try and get the Brands Hatch, they try and get the best car. And sometimes that’s luck, they might not have access to certain things, especially if they’re starting off with a limited budget, but other things fall into their laps, and they might be able to jump on — and that’s when people tell the stories of their lives, they talk about a pivotal moment when something happened that unlocked a sort of idea. So that’s why I wanted to talk about it today — what, as a founder, gives you that edge, and how do you jump on it, do you use those little things of luck that fall into your lap, is there anything wrong with using it, does it give you an unfair advantage, or should you just embrace it? What do you guys think, Ben?

Ben: I guess I’ve always subscribed to the Tim Minchin philosophy on this — I don’t know if you’re familiar with Tim Minchin.

Alex: No.

Ben: You see, you do sports, I do musicians and comedians, there we go, that’s why you’re cooler than me. So Tim — I’m going to paraphrase terribly — said, well, it’s all luck, it’s all luck, absolutely nothing you ever achieved is anything to do with you, it’s just luck. Now that may be true or may not be, but let’s pretend it is, because it makes you a much better person, in truth. So you might tell me, well, I worked really hard — well, you’re really lucky to be the kind of person who works really hard. Oh, I did all this education — you were really lucky to be the person who had that education. I did that — you’re really lucky to have whatever personal attributes caused you to achieve this, you’re lucky to have them. Aren’t you lucky you’re the kind of person who gets up at 5am and hits the gym and is now an international athlete, aren’t you lucky. And what was interesting, this was kind of slightly facetious, obviously, and taking it way too far, but the point he was making was, let’s just believe that, let’s just pretend that’s true, because probably it makes us a much better person if we constantly go around and brandish — that said, I also think it’s really important to recognise and be proud of your own accomplishments and talents, of course it is, and be grateful for that learning and apply it. I think we have a duty to contribute what we can to build things, grow things, and make the world a bigger, better place. So it’s interesting, and I think in this case, clearly you have to go — but it can’t all be just luck for Lando, he’s clearly worked his socks off, right? But I don’t know, maybe he believes it — I mean, before you said he’s a nice bloke as well, so I expect he probably does believe it’s all luck, whilst being proud of his accomplishments. So it’s an interesting one. Antony?

Antony: Yeah, I don’t know, Ben — hearing you talk there, we all know that to grow, to start a business and grow the business and make a success out of it, whatever success means to you, you’ve got to work really hard. I get the point around, you’re lucky you’ve got that gene that means you’re able to work hard, but boy oh boy, some of those sleepless nights, some of those really big stressful moments, you don’t think you can make payroll, or you think it’s all about to go pop, that’s really hard. And I’d imagine Lando Norris has had those moments too, even though he’s had all the support and help, he will have still had those moments. So for me, I’m left wondering, for the Lando Norris story, without that support and without Brands Hatch being personally hired for him, would he still be an F1 driver? Now maybe he wouldn’t be an F1 driver because there are very specific things you need to be, but I’d imagine he’d still be a very successful individual, because he’s got that ethic within him, which is to really drive really hard, and pardon the pun, and keep working through those really tough moments. So yeah, he might not be an F1 driver, but if he’s got that ethic, he’s going to make a success somewhere.

Alex: I love that, I love that. I’ve been asked a few times, and I’ve tried to get, put my finger on luck and the part it plays in businesses I’ve been involved in, and why some of them have absolutely powered. And I’ve come up with a theory that I’ve tried to break sometimes and I haven’t been able to — 25 percent luck, 25 percent timing, which you could argue is the same thing, 25 percent skill, 25 percent hard work. And for me, I do try and stress-test that, and I usually find a business, and go, okay, you’re a smart founder, you work really hard, you haven’t had the luck, the business has failed — or you’ve had the luck, you haven’t worked very hard, oh dear — but you’re quite skilful. So those four things interplay, and for me that’s when I look at investing in a business, I do look at those four things. What do you think, and in your experience, Antony, do you have to have all four, can three out of four work, how do you see it playing out?

Antony: No, to be truly successful, all four have to kick in, which is really hard in itself, right? So I guess the bottom line here — how do we apply it to ourselves, how would our listener apply it, what do you actually do? And I think probably what I’m taking from it is that message of, we can’t control our luck, you can probably control the timing a bit, but what we can absolutely dedicate ourselves to is working hard and growing our skills and doing the learning. So in the absence of anything, we may as well — if you want to find out if you’re lucky, if you want to find out how the luck you’ve already had might serve you, if you don’t do those bits, forget about it. Because equally, I’m flipping it on its head — well, I was really lucky but I did no work, had no skill, never did anything — well, you know, that’s going to achieve nothing, right?

Alex: Yeah, yeah, you can’t — luck alone isn’t a thing, you’ve got to do the work to unlock it, and maybe that’s the — we’ve got to do the learning.

Antony: I have got a really, really good old mate, and I do laugh about him — he’s had his own business for 20-odd years, it’s a great business, chugs along, given him a nice life. I’ve had this conversation with him, he goes, yeah, my thing is, I’ve never worked very hard, I’ve never taken it to the next level, I’m pretty good at it, I’ve been in the right place, the right — I’ve never actually worked very, very hard. He goes, that’s why I’ve never been able to sell it or take it to the next level. And I just laugh — that’s why I do think it’s all four of those things combined. But there you go.

Ben: Very good, very good. Well, to wrap this up, I have learned something, and I’d love to share it with you both. So my learn this week, I guess, is about how we access that learning, right — so our business, we all luck a lot, sometimes we have to go through these situations where someone comes and has a really close look at your business, and I’m sure our listeners have experienced this — you’ve got to do that tender thing, and they’re asking all these questions, they want to see this policy and that policy, they want to understand how you do this thing and that thing, and you’re tearing your hair out going, oh, do I have to write all this stuff down. And it can feel like bad luck for a start, it feels painful, it asks a lot of your business. But what I’ve kind of learned this past few weeks, having been through a few of these processes — do you know what, very often that’s where the learning is. We know there’s always a little bit of luck involved in any sales process or tender process, I don’t think any entrepreneur would deny that — when you’re going up against half a dozen different competitors and all putting your tenders in, competing for the business, there’s always a little bit of luck going on. But do you know, there’s a lot you’ve got to do and have in place in order to find out if you’re lucky, because if you don’t do those things, you never get to find out if you’re lucky or not — unless you’ve got those in place, you’re not even in the game, you don’t get to roll the dice to find out if you’re lucky. So I found that really interesting, looking at it through the lens of, instead of going, actually, what if I looked at this and said, this is teaching me what our business needs to get better at, this is teaching me what we need to put in place for our business, and actually take the learning from it. Maybe that’s a way of using these processes to create your own luck, because next time you’re ready, next time you’ve got it in place, next time you can get to finding out you’re lucky faster, because you’ve done the work. So, I know people often talk about DD processes and tenders and stuff with very heavy hearts, but can we reframe this for the world of entrepreneurship? Antony, I submit to you.

Antony: Yeah, well, Alex has given his philosophy earlier, I’m going to give you an Enright philosophy, and that is that I’ve very rarely seen — and I appreciate your situation is different, Ben, here — but I’ve very rarely seen a business sell on the first time of asking. The first time offers come in, very rarely see it. And what tends to happen in my experience is an offer is made, all of the processes start, due diligence is done, and then something for whatever reason falls over, and people are really — I remember it happening to myself, almost depressed, because all the work that’s gone in. But actually, when they’re able to get over the disappointment, get over the hurt, the amount they’ve learned from that process — and what I’ve seen happen on a couple of occasions is the learning then drives them to improve their whole business, and the next time they go through and get an offer, A, it’s much easier, and B, guess what, it’s a higher valuation, they’re getting more money because they’ve learned so much from that process. So again, a little bit discussing earlier, you might say it’s bad luck if that doesn’t go through, but actually if you can spin that on its head and go, no, I’ve been really lucky, because I’ve learned so much from that process and it’s failed, I’m going to implement those things and be in a much better place to get over the line the next time. So I see that happening a lot, and I think if any listener is going through that at the moment, and hasn’t got over the line — what can you take from it when you’re ready, when you dust yourself off, what can you take from it, what can you learn to make yourself even stronger the next time and turn it into a piece of luck. Alex, you’re ready to say something, I can tell — you must have gone through this stuff, DDs, data rooms.

Alex: Ooh. The thing is, yeah, I think for me it’s the taking pride in — and I think my time living in Japan taught me that, taking pride in doing boring things well — the Japanese call it yarikata, the way of doing. I worked as a builder on log houses, and I was allowed to sweep when I started, that was the only thing, but I had to do it well, and I was like, this is the most stupid crap thing, but actually by learning how to sweep well, I created a workspace that was nice for everyone to be calm and do really good cuts, it was very Shinto, I loved it. And I think, Ben, when you’re talking about doing something that’s actually quite boring, you can drive people nuts, and taking that pride in doing it, almost the gamification of it, can be very rewarding. I remember when I came to sell my business to a private equity firm, it was the looking under the bonnet which I was most proud of — here’s my beautiful company, let’s open the bonnet, and here’s the engine, it was all beautiful, all the stuff done, all the contracts done, everything filed, there were naming conventions for everything, there were folders, I love this stuff, it was all neat and tidy, and they’re like, oh, you want your board minutes from the last four years, yes, okay, bang, like — well we’ll give you two weeks — no, I can do that in ten minutes because it’s all here. So taking that pride in doing the boring things well, and the benefit that has to the engine, taking that little bit of extra care. So, yes, failing when somebody buys your company and it doesn’t go through, and then the next time it makes you stronger, but I think the actual benefit to the company, then and there, of doing, making sure everything’s done well and properly and taking pride from that. What do you think, Ben?

Ben: Do you know what, I think I might have told this story before on Founder Hacks, but I’m going to tell it again because it’s a good story. So in my very, very early days, I had my tiny little baby — I call it — IT consultancy, I was an IT boy who’d do the computers in offices, this is like the 90s, right, most of us had the computer and did it. But I worked for a lot of very small three, four, five person businesses doing the computer stuff. And the funny thing was, one of my learns from then, I’m sure it’s had an impact on my journey subsequently founding things for myself — they would always have offices, it’s all in the film industry, above the shops in Regent Street and Oxford Street, that’s where they’d all be based, and you’d go in and they all had two-room offices, so the main person would be in the office at the back, have a private office, they’d have us out the front with all the files, and be the admin team of two or three. And the funny thing was, I became incredibly adept at predicting the kind of owner I would meet in that back room, from what the files looked like on the shelf. If the files were all beautifully labelled, like little printed labels, all lovely, all the same folder, all really neat on the shelf, I’d meet someone calm and happy and pleased to see me, we’d have a lovely chat. If, however, you had files that were a mess, different folders, post-it notes, paper sticking out, looking like an absolute mess, you’d meet someone who was stressed, their hair sticking up in a funny direction, a bit panicked, not expecting me to be there. And you sort of go, that’s really interesting — and it’s something I’ve had such a passion for in my career, going, it might sound so silly, but back in the day it was easier because you could see it all — those files on the shelf, beautifully labelled, all the same type of folder, all really neat, but that sets an attitude and an expectation for your whole company and team. And maybe the same is true now when you open the shared drive and go — is there that folder called admin, okay, what’s in there then — but I think those little habits and disciplines of organisation set an attitude for the company. Sorry, I hope the story was fair to share.

Antony: I loved it. I haven’t heard that story before, and I think it’s a great story. I do worry for the entrepreneur, the founder listener who’s going, yeah, that’s not me, I’m not very well organised — because there are some great entrepreneurs out there who aren’t, it’s just not part of their sweet spot. What I’ve seen in those circumstances, generally, if I’ve been involved with the business, is a little nudge in the direction of saying, okay, let’s just hire somebody who is good at the things you’re not, let’s make that your first hire — because it’s going to make it easier for you later on, because we know, don’t we, especially when it comes to systems and processes, that the earlier you can get good systems and processes in place, the much easier it is later on. Whereas I’ve got a couple of organisations I’m working with at the moment implementing or upgrading finance systems or CRMs, and it’s really hard when you’re putting systems and process in and you’re 10 years old or 15 years old as an organisation. So it’s how can you do it early, and recognise, if you’re not good at it, can you bring the next person in who is. A lot of people would say later on, isn’t it lucky you’ve got all this filed in a particular way — no, no, it’s conscious, and for those that aren’t good at it, it’s then a conscious decision.

Ben: Yeah, that’s on the work side. Well, look, I’ll finish with two things — let’s remember what we build are organisations, and they’re called organisations because they have to be organised, which is not rocket science, but sometimes I think it gets forgotten. And a coach I used to work with once said to me, you have to remember that the highest qualification in business, whether you rate it or not, is called the Master of Business Administration, which I thought was very interesting. So let’s take inspiration — maybe it’s how we make our own luck. But I think, chaps, we are at time, so if I may, I will try to do my very, very best to summarise some great Founder Hacks. Bad luck happens. There are rules we have to follow, and from time to time they’re imposed upon us without our say-so and control. We can worry about that being terrible bad luck, but maybe by turning that into learning we can help make sure we get lucky next time — sometimes bad luck can be, in fact, the very learning we need. And Antony’s experience was that it can unleash creativity and next-level performance — if your whole team can jump into that with you, could that actually be rocket fuel? Lando Norris apparently is some sort of race car driver, and apparently quite a good one, with every luxury afforded to him in his life, and we ask the question — is that what made him a champion? Well, perhaps not, but can any privilege really be enough to take you all the way to the top of your world? Could it all be luck? What seems clear is that working hard is always necessary, so maybe the lesson we can take is that we have to commit to the work and the learning, and only then do we get to find out if we’re lucky, and where that luck can take us. Maybe Alex’s mechanism of 25 percent luck, 25 percent timing, 25 percent skill, and 25 percent hard work can help us shape how we approach it for ourselves. And finally, when our businesses are subject to diligence processes, whether from customers, investors, or even potential acquirers, it can feel very frustrating, but maybe we can reframe — could these be the occasions that really do the learning, and these external parties are actually teaching us the business we need to build? If we do the work we need to do again, can we then find out if we’re lucky? The first time you may fail, but then by getting everything in place, you need to be truly organised, maybe you can get lucky faster next time. Perhaps we can take inspiration from Japan, and developing our way of doing, taking great pride in those simple, dare we say, boring things. And you know what — that might not be you as a founder, and that’s okay, but getting good organisation in place might be the best way to make sure you’re making your own luck. Gentlemen, thank you very much for some awesome learning today, really appreciate it. As a final piece, of course, a huge thank you to Antony Enright.

Antony: Thank you, Alex, thank you, Ben.

Ben: And equally, a huge thank you to Alexander Moore.

Alex: Thanks, you too — it was fun, it was real.

Ben: It was real, it was emotional.

Antony: It was emotional.

Ben: And thank you, of course, dear listener, thank you for joining us. I hope something in here is going to inspire you to take the next step with your business, maybe just survive one more day, get there, and go on and thrive and keep the faith. It’s a tough old gig, what we do, growing these businesses, but we do love it so. And until next time, thanks very much indeed for listening, I’ve been Ben Thomas, this is Founder Hacks, see you next time. Founder Hacks is brought to you by Atomex — bespoke support for the startup-to-scale-up journey. Editing is by Paul Stevens, and music is by Reuven. Join us again soon for more Founder Hacks.