S2E7 - Harry Franks, Co-Founder @ Zego

Harry Franks is the co-Founder of Zego, a tech enabled insurance intermediary, servicing commercial customers in the modern world. The company was launched in 2016 and now employs over 60 people spread across both London and Madrid. Much of Zego’s growth is due in part to Harrys high-level understanding of how to build partnerships with leading companies in the on-demand space and within the insurance sector. 

In this episode the guys discuss the challenges of entrepreneurship, what it is like to fundraise and what scaling looks like. Harry also goes on to share his thoughts on the idea that Zego could one day IPO. 

Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.

Transcript

[00:00:00] James: Hello and welcome to episode seven of riding unicorns. This week, we have Harry Franks. Who's the founder of Zego. We're really excited to have Harry on Zego is a tech unicorn in the UK having raised over $200 million Harry worked in operations at various startups,

[00:00:31] and he was the global head of procurement at delivery and that's where he first identified the problem that Zika is now solving.

[00:00:37] Hector: Yeah, it's super interesting. How frequently we see successful startup founders actually recognising the problem they sent out to solve in a previous scale-up they're working for, so friendly it's out there who want to become a unicorn founder, uh, perhaps go work for another unicorn, discover a problem themselves.

[00:00:55] James: Great advice. Right? Let's get started.

[00:00:57] Harry: [00:01:00] So how

[00:01:01] James: are we always like to start with just a quick intro from yourself on your career today and, how you got involved with.

[00:01:08] Harry: Okay. I think my, my family probably started quite a checkered career, another doing one thing for that long, so having left university, um, I went and traveled around the Arctic for a few months. And then when I got back from there, I worked for a very, very early stage startup, which was helping people, um, get wheelchairs to get out of hospitals. Um, yeah. Was, I would say it was a kind of a bit of a social enterprise, but it's still going, um, and really trying to address some of the problems with the NHS in that if you have a broken leg, but no one's looked after you or like amputation, or I should say no to look after you, you could say up to 18 weeks to get out of hospital and that's purely because they can't get a wheelchair to your bed that you can take home.

[00:01:46] So, you know, really simple problems. But that really got me into the, the sort of small business world doing all sorts of different things from accounts and seeds. So growing the team, moving premises and things like that, which is really good, fun, and micro mobility as well. [00:02:00] The early stages of migraine, she, I think I still have a video of me kind of riding around the office on a true mobility scooter or the old type.

[00:02:07] And then, I went from that and went to workflow for one for state. In the very early stages. It's where I met Stan actually. Uh, and so it did a number of different roles that operational roles and commercial roles in the UK.

[00:02:19] And that was growing pretty quickly. So they set up the Los Angeles office, which I then went, to support taking a bit of UK context and, and helping them scale. Um, and then when I came back from the U S uh, having lived over there for a while, I was a consultant for a little bit, just helping a small business, but then got picked up by delivery.

[00:02:36] So I was global head of procurement ads delivery at it, you know, during a phase when they were growing 15% week on week hiring two and a half thousand writers globally every week. I mean, it was absolutely crazy. It was an amazing, amazing environments and, really great people. Uh, just, just chaos, but kind of organized chaos.

[00:02:56] And, and I've worked for some really nice people there as well. And I think it was there [00:03:00] really that I started to look at some of the big problems that the delivery and, and other on demand companies were facing when it came to scaling up like this. So my role in procurement was really to look at, um, how we were allocating some of our funds.

[00:03:12] How are we centralizing some of our payment structures? And, and what I saw was the drop off of number of drivers that apply to that, she works for companies, right. Delivery versus actually got on the road was huge. And if you can go into that a little bit deeper realized actually the insurance was one of the big problems is, um, as to why people dropped off.

[00:03:29] So you need to have commercial insurance in order to do the types of jobs that you see that the drivers and riders doing on their mopeds and in their cars. The only way that you were able to actually buy that type of insurances, but these guys of course are only working for a number of hours per week or, uh, or days per month.

[00:03:46] And so it just wasn't fair. It meant that the cost of insurance actually outweighed the amount they could earn. So it's just stopped them having access to that job. And really that was the kind of problem statement that, uh, that I started to really wrestle with the kind of, lots of politics of [00:04:00] 2015, early part of 2016.

[00:04:01] And. Quite a number of months, working through that problem with Stan. And then we actually said, right leg. She, we think we've got both the scale here with the rise of this on-demand economy, the rise of companies like Deliveroo. And we think that we could actually build a business out of that.

[00:04:16] So, so we started to develop Zico. How long are we now? Six years later, here we are. I'm still going to still facing some really interesting problems, but enjoying trends. Yeah. Nice. And you, you raised your

[00:04:29] James: sort of first VC round from local globe. And then how did that come about? Was it a competitive process or did you get an intro and then were pretty quick, quickly?

[00:04:37] How did it.

[00:04:38] Harry: I think we have the real advantage of having been in that's to say I'm kind of ultra high growth companies, up to that point. So I think I can even remember some of the body of the email that we sent into Robyn. I think it was, we've worked at this company. We've worked at this company. We know what we're doing.

[00:04:55] That's amazing. and actually we had a very positive first meeting. I think we were running most things off [00:05:00] spreadsheets and some half good PowerPoint slides. Um, but we had a very positive first meeting and I think From memory. We were given our first investment opportunity at the end of the second meeting.

[00:05:08] So it all went well. It's really interesting. When you go through that first stage, there are lots of different people who have money and they are able to give you money, but we learned very quickly. Your money, isn't everything you really want to make sure you're getting investment from the right type of people, both from a personality point of view and people who can help you in ways other than just on this, because that's so much more, what's a to build a business than just raising cash.

[00:05:33] And how did

[00:05:33] Hector: you instead, come together and decide you wanted to work

[00:05:36] Harry: on this? So in that sense, as I was saying, one fine stay, I worked for him for a while, but we just became quite close. And we were quite similar in a lot of ways.

[00:05:45] But at the same time, he's, incredibly determined. He's incredibly capable. Very, very focused. And I saw when I was working with him that he was someone that I would just love to stay close to in the future. When I started to think about [00:06:00] this. Business. I went to him to kind of help me just almost like, uh, uh, give me an agenda to work through to make sure I got to that point.

[00:06:07] Cause you know, I'd never started a company before he had a number of times and successfully. And so we, we got to this point, w he then sent me this kind of timetable of stuff to do so. You need to deliver to your first version of your business plan by this date. And if you haven't, you have to buy me delivery for dinner and that's kind of the way it works.

[00:06:24] So we have this like quite aggressive timetable. I think I ended up spending quite a lot on delivery. To make up for my lack of, planning. Um, have you got a discount if I wish? But we then got to the point where. Because I was almost like showing my work up to somebody else.

[00:06:39] One, I had kind of an another level of accountability and I quite, I guess quite proud person. So I wanted to make sure it was quite good, which is helpful, but in doing so, he was able to see actually what I was able to see in where I thought this business could go in the long run. And then it was a conversation around, well, you know, how could I get Stan involved at that point?

[00:06:58] I think he had been offered COO of [00:07:00] another startup. And so we actually sat down with very open with one another and had a conversation about what this could be, how we could get to that point of launch and how we would actually work it between the two of us. And I, I read a lot during that time around, how important your co-founders are.

[00:07:15] And how you should overcome some of those kind of ego traits around saying, well, you know, this was my idea, actually, we'd never be where we are today if I had actually thought that way. And so we had a very sensible conversation about what it would mean, what it had to mean for him as well as me.

[00:07:30] And I remember having that conversation and patisserie Valerie, underneath that delivery politics. See.

[00:07:36] James: So, what was like your first sort of big win? When did

[00:07:40] you

[00:07:40] Harry: think God, we've got something. Well, I think, I mean, I would say bringing Stan in is a little bit unkind. We built this together. There's no doubt about it.

[00:07:49] And then we had Stu who came in and built all the infrastructure for us to get to that MVP. And then, so there were three of us in this what was our first big win? And I think it was probably [00:08:00] actually managing to engage with the insurance market and get insurance capacity that allowed us to set off as product. One of the challenges with InsureTech is unless you build your insurance company from scratch was incredibly hard to do because you haven't got any history, you have to work with other people's balance sheets. And so getting someone who would put that faith in us in the same way, their VC might put their faith in us and say, okay, we think that you're onto something here.

[00:08:24] We think that you can actually price this correctly, distribute this the right way, control it the right way. And people will buy it. And effectively putting their balance sheet behind us, was a huge, huge moment. And that was a great win. Uh, it was done over a lunch table and I'm hugely thankful to that, to that first person who led us to.

[00:08:43] Yeah. And so

[00:08:44] James: you owe it to your co-founders to bring them in. You sold to the VC to get the money in and you sold to the insurance companies to, to get them on board. So how important is it for

[00:08:53] Harry: founders to have sales skills? Well, I think it's [00:09:00] crucial. Because of what you do at the beginning really is sell.

[00:09:04] And I think, um, as you say, it's, it's all about selling to the big pieces and the big building blocks that build a business. It's, it's people, it's partnerships, it's backers, um, and you've got to be able to sell, but have a very clear vision of what it is that you're trying to deliver. All of those other pieces, those kind of operational requirements of setting up a.

[00:09:22] Phone system or CRM or whatever it might be in order to actually kind of facilitate the business you can learn or you can buy in, or you can get incredibly smart people to come and help you with. But I think, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's selling it's cajoling, it's persuading. Um, but, uh, I think it's crucial. And if you, if you know, Uh, what it is that you want to happen, then you can speak really passionately about it.

[00:09:45] And that's part of the sales process anyway. So, um, I think there are, there'll be very few founders. I imagine that couldn't sell their vision to, um, to all the people that get involved with the business.

[00:09:57] Hector: So how has your role changed from when [00:10:00] Zico was a two person company to, to where it is?

[00:10:05] Harry: Uh, massively, massively with kind of really good reason. Um, so right at the beginning, uh, it was, it was literally standing on the street, came in a little bit later. Um, and we did everything together, you know, hand in hand, went to every meeting.

[00:10:20] Um, and, and suddenly you realize that actually there's so much to do that. You have to start splitting apart. At that point, I was CEO. Stan was COO. Um, and, and really those early days, as we've just been mentioning, it's just all about selling. Um, and, and as the business grew, um, we got some very good early traction over the first couple of years.

[00:10:40] Um, we went from two people to 50, very fast, um, and suddenly the kind of stresses and strains on the CEO changes a lot. You start to have to manage a lot of. It's kind of internal team, external parties, you move quite a long way from the kind of product tool face. And, Stan and I realized about two and a half years in, we looked [00:11:00] at the jobs that we were doing and the requirements of our roles and realize that actually we, we weren't in the right seat.

[00:11:05] So we had a conversation, had a chat with him. Let them know that this was happening and Stan moved into the CEO role. And, and I moved into actually kind of going almost back to product and building different parts of the business again. And, people sometimes think when I tell that story that it must've been a massive blow to my ego or, or just kind of to my pride in some ways, but actually.

[00:11:28] I think it was the best decision that we made. I, I look back on it as a really sensible and most definitely the right thing to have done for me and for the business and Stan. And I always say, you know, what's best for the business. This was best for the business, but also it took a huge weight off my shoulders that I wasn't probably dealing with that well, I've started struggling quite a lot.

[00:11:48] Um, And, and subsequently the areas that I now involved with within the business, just pay much more to my strengths. So, supporting stayed on a lot of the corporate side, working with external policies and going back to that [00:12:00] kind of selling area and going back to what is the problem that we're trying to solve?

[00:12:03] So starting at kind of another little bit within the business, around the key problem that we want to try.

[00:12:08] Super interesting.

[00:12:10] Hector: So we asked you about the, best moment, but we wouldn't let you off without asking about the worst. So, what is the worst or some of the worst or hardest moments in

[00:12:20] Harry: the growth journey? I think there's one standout. Single worst moments. We were told basically that the business had to shut the next morning.

[00:12:27] Um, I can't go into too many details, but we were within the first year. Um, and, and this was kind of nothing really to do with us. It was just that in insurance, the value chain is very long. There are lots of quite large parties and something happened further up the chain, which basically meant that we were, we were told that everything has to stop now.

[00:12:51] So for many businesses, that would be okay because you could almost stop sales for a period of time while you sold the sound. But if you think that our customers are [00:13:00] constantly interacting, so all of our drivers are automatically becoming insured. The moment they log into Justine's or whoever it might be.

[00:13:07] So if we were suddenly not able to do that, we would have a massive break. And that probably would be the nail in the coffin for us. And so. I can say a fairly fraught, 24 hours. And, yeah, let's just say that was the single hands-down , but then there've been lots of other really challenging times, through fundraising processes.

[00:13:27] And, you know, winning some deals, losing some deals. I personally have had some really tough times with kind of the team management and, it's always going to happen when you're growing a team that quickly, that there's things that kind of impact you quite a lot. but, all in all we've, I think we've made more decisions.

[00:13:43] We've made bad ones and, we've been very, very lucky as we've gone through this process. And it's in a good place at this point.

[00:13:50] James: In those tough times, do you generally turn to co-founders or do you have VCs that you can talk to as well? I mean, where does the, [00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Harry: who's the sort of shoulder to lean on in that, in those modes? I can safely say that, um, there is no way that I certainly couldn't. I know she'll stand doing this last five, six years by yourself.

[00:14:15] I take my hats off to anyone who has done it because it's, um, It's it's incredibly tough in so many different ways. It's amazing to rewarding. And then again, and actually having someone to celebrate it as much as to commiserate with is, um, is so important. And anyone is thinking about going on this journey.

[00:14:31] I think making, making a decision around whether you're going to do it with and how many people are you going to do with it is really important. Um, when it came to the VCs, I mean, I can talk about VCs that like, it's obviously your, your area of expertise, but, um, Selecting the right parties to, to, to work with and, and hoping you get the right parties to bring on board, um, is really important.

[00:14:52] And then they really do become part of the team and we work very, very closely with them. Um, I would have, I wouldn't say that I. [00:15:00] I have had to turn to them that much, or, um, Stan has had to send to them that much in the past, but I wouldn't hesitate if, if we needed to, are really a great team that we've, um, we've got within the business now.

[00:15:13] And then the other side of it is, friends and family kind of, I think when you, you start, people don't realize how much of a kind of personal burden you take on, you're working lots of hours. You sacrifice lots of things. And when things really. Are tough that the first people that feel a Bruntsfield frustrations.

[00:15:28] And so, I think it's just really important to have a good strong network and in, in every guys around you.

[00:15:34] Hector: Yeah. So lots of people, um, who've worked in startups for awhile. Um, Think about starting their own business. And it probably takes, it's probably a hard thing for lots of people to, to make that leap.

[00:15:47] What was it, um, in your journey that kind of told you this was the thing to go for, um, and spurred you to take that leap or, or perhaps it was something you always wanted to do to start a business?

[00:15:58] Harry: Yeah, I think it's a really [00:16:00] good question. Um, I think I always had it in my mind that I wanted to start a business, but it certainly wasn't front of my mind at that time in my life that, um, I wanted to go and do it at this point.

[00:16:11] I just got a great job with an amazing company that I was loving. Um, and so I would say timing and fate played a lot into this. Um, as I started to look at this problem that was kind of evolving in front of my eyes and, and the way that I could resolve it in that role was to basically. Well, I couldn't really add more money was, was going to be spent.

[00:16:32] Um, it just, it started to just kind of. Um, evolve into a business opportunity. And the more I looked at it and the more we looked at, you know, how could this go wrong? What are those key dependencies? What massive assumptions they're making. And we got to a place where we felt quite confident that we could get to a certain place.

[00:16:50] If we could get there, we knew we could take a little bit further. And then, timing is all important to that point. Uh, was, was living in London, had a [00:17:00] girlfriend, but not many other commitments. I think if I had fast forward, the doors left it another couple of years where married children, things like that, it would have been a hell of a lot harder because it's a huge risk, you know, I left.

[00:17:12] Yeah. A well-paid good job, and moved into, I mean, a high risk zero paid job for quite some time. And I think you have to be in the right frame of mind and also in the right kind of situations make it happen. But anyone who I think kind of says, I want to go out and start a business, I would absolutely back them to do it, but I would also say, just words of warning, it is so consuming.

[00:17:36] Um, it's amazing, but it does kind of take a little. Personally, I think, um, I'll speak.

[00:17:43] James: what are the big trends that you're seeing?

[00:17:45] Harry: I think insurance is going through an interesting phase right now. I mean, there's a lot of money going into it. It's almost a few years behind, let's say banking and core FinTech. I think it's very interesting, the different approaches that people are taking, going full stack, becoming the full [00:18:00] stack insurance company, or just acting as the distributor.

[00:18:03] And I think the amount of money that's coming in is, is going to create a bit of polarity between the early stage companies, where it's really hard to get to that next rung of getting sufficient premiums to attract the right sorts of VCs and or to show the kind of benefits that your company can offer to really get the degree.

[00:18:21] And then you get the full stack players and on the full stack players, I think it's around, I suppose premium is vanity to some degree. What you've got to really work out now is once you've got that massive scale, as we've seen from. Yeah, a handful of InsureTechs globally is, is how do you then turn that into real, um, profit or performance.

[00:18:39] And that's going to be the big challenge over the coming years. Um, I think it's, it's going to be really fun to watch. Um, I'm really pleased. And I say to be in that, let's say that the kind of larger end, because entering the market now with all the turbulence that we've seen over COVID, et cetera, um, would be, would be particularly tough.

[00:18:57] And then outside insurance, I think there's, there's a lot in kind of [00:19:00] legal tech that I think is, it's got a long way to come. If you think about the amount of time that we have had to spend on kind of corporate documentation, and all the kind of governance that goes with that, there are businesses out there at a relatively early stage that's, are looking to address some of those challenges, and, quite excited about that.

[00:19:19] You should take

[00:19:20] Hector: a look at Robyn AI, which is a shameless plug for one of our portfolio companies. But that D that doing something in that space might be useful. I'm interested in a couple of, trends within InsureTech. One is Peter P, and the other , is insurance as a service more, more broadly than micro mobile.

[00:19:37] And I just wonder whether, whether you guys have a perspective, whether you guys have thought about either of those, whether there's a, whether there's an angle for P2P with, with Zico, and also whether there's, an angle to go, more horizontal with, with your

[00:19:50] Harry: insurance sector. Yeah, I think, so if you start with the second one insurance as a service.

[00:19:55] Yeah. I suppose we all doing that to a degree, but insurance it's simple in some [00:20:00] senses, you've got to pay enough so that in aggregate, when someone has a gain, you can pay it out. But it's really complicated in the sorts of coverage levels.

[00:20:07] And as a result, the amount of different policies that are involved. So if you take motet for instance, If you have a crash, you don't have a limit of liability, you therefore need to have huge balance sheets in that risk shared across a huge range of different companies, organizations globally, to make sure that there is sufficient coverage and one company doesn't become, a kind of pinch points and, and not be able to actually pay out that claim.

[00:20:30] And so motor in particular, I think is really hard to get into sort of peer to peer. Like a thing. Insurance is P2P to a degree because everybody is paying into the pot, which pays out for those claims. I think insurance is a service though. And you know, one thing that we built with our first products, plus this kind of idea that insurance should be embedded in something else that you do it shouldn't, you know, everyone talks about the pain point.

[00:20:55] Buying insurance, no one wants to go out and say, I'm going to pay you for this thing, but I never think it's actually going to happen. [00:21:00] I mean, pay you for an annual product. You'd normally use it for short period of time. It's priced on some proxies based on where I lived. In fact, I work somewhere completely different.

[00:21:09] I drive around a little bit. I pay the same as the person who is next door. And then who drives a huge amount. So all these kinds of these issues with it. And I think insurance is a service is, is in my mind, I can translate. Let's make it really frictionless. Let's put it in so that, you know, when I need the assurance, it actually knows the risk that I am creating.

[00:21:29] And therefore I will pay for that, this. So if I want to go and jump in my car and do some deliveries for the next couple of hours, I should pay a significantly higher premium because I am using my vehicle for something which is high risk, but I shouldn't be penalized over the course of that full year.

[00:21:46] For those signs that I'm not actually keen on risks. So I think insurance has said as being embedded is crucial and we will see this more and more, , peer to peer insurance is, but I'm not sure that in the purest sense, it can get back to some of those components, [00:22:00] indexes.

[00:22:01] I've just got

[00:22:01] Hector: an endless list of questions we're never going to get

[00:22:03] James: through, I'm just going to ask Harry about, getting bogged down in paperwork and things like that. Is there a potential IPO on the cards at some point in the future?

[00:22:13] Harry: We've got a lot still to do. And Stan has built around him and incredibly strong leadership team. They've got some very, very clear targets of what they need to hit over the next couple of years. We've just raised, some really, really helpful money from VCs. And that's going to give us lots of great opportunities.

[00:22:31] I think it it's probably heading in that direction, but we've got a lot of ground to cover. We've got lots more to do. Um, and I feel really confident for the time being, we've got to continue what we're doing. We've got to hire more fantastic talent. We've got to expand into more geographies.

[00:22:47] We've got to improve all, uh, all products and our pricing through better risk selection. We've got to capture more data. So we really understand that risk. Um, and, and that's quite a lot actually to be doing over the next couple of years. [00:23:00] The source of corporate side and where we get to, I think if we did get to an IPA that would just be, a milestone, not an end state.

[00:23:06] So, that's certainly the way that we can let's go week by week.

[00:23:09] Hector: I think it's fascinating when companies like Zico, the founders are inspired from, from previous work. And particularly, that you get the sort of mafia groups for revenue from delivery of Molly's big, this sort of stuff.

[00:23:23] The poster children of, the venture landscape, and companies that come out of problems experienced in those startups. What I wonder is how often you think these company companies like delivery build, the solutions in house, and then someone takes them out because they have general applicability, versus.

[00:23:46] Yeah. I mean, you you've built something that is actually incredibly useful for delivery. Right. And, I suppose the question that I'm interested in and answer to is has your solution unlocked a ton of growth for delivery and should deliver a built it themselves?[00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Harry: So I think that the answer, the first part of the question is probably yes, our products allowed more people to work part-time as opposed to the full-time flexible worker, which is what , we were challenged by.

[00:24:11] When I was there, you now have the true part-timer Haven you can operate in and in this world of so much demand for those types of drivers, with the rise of this huge number of, let's just call them last mile. Gross real food delivery companies. Right. Every person who can ride and drive is, is needed.

[00:24:30] Um, secondly, I think, when we would add, there was no ability to actually get the right type of this, this type of insurance, because unless it would've said massive expense and that really hampered growth in, in more or less, a less urbanized area and more rural areas. And so I think it has been, I wanna say from a general market penetration in those particular areas that we have helped.

[00:24:52] Should they have done it themselves? I don't think so. Honestly, being an insurance company or any sorts of, um, [00:25:00] uh, distributor of financial products is heavily regulated, it takes, and that you just have to be very aware of and it takes a lot of work to maintain. Uh, it's quite an open book process with the regulation for the regulators.

[00:25:15] And I think. You can't do everything being really focused on what it is that you wants to deliver and, and hoping that other people will give you the tools and assets to allow you to, to be better is the way that you should think. And in, in someone like delivery's case, it would be a huge distraction from the other things that they are doing incredibly well.

[00:25:33] And the same with the, just eat same with Uber. It would be another string to their bow potentially, but it would be quite a cumbersome one. So it will be around that kind of cost benefit analysis.

[00:25:47] Hector: And what excites you the most about the next 2, 5, 10 years of Zico? Where do you, where do you see that? It could be.

[00:25:55] Harry: Well, I think that the market that we operate in, in kind of mobility is going to be [00:26:00] just an amazing revolution. Now, whether it's micro mobility, whether it's electric vehicles or, or how we actually use vehicles.

[00:26:07] Um, and that has created some really interesting challenges for lots of things, whether it's charging parking, but insurance is another one. Um, I suppose just as I got quite excited about this problem, that the kind of I saw when I was working in a different role in a different company. And I feel that's what I signed some to try and solve.

[00:26:28] I still feel the same today. It's how, how can we use what we have learned over the last five years? How can we collectively with this amazing team and amazing colleagues, pull together some great solutions for these huge challenges. Yeah, the challenges today, but that only going to grow over the next five years.

[00:26:44] And so it's massively exciting just thinking where we can get to. And on the flip side, I think it's quite, the traditional markets really do struggle by virtue of how big they are. It's huge, uh, hemophilia of insurance companies when, when a lot of the, solutions need to be.

[00:26:59] [00:27:00] Detailed and very technical. I feel in some areas we have an unfair advantage in other areas to be done, but, that gives us a great opportunity for the future.

[00:27:08] James: No, it was very exciting. So when we get towards the end of these, we like to ask people if they could have three guests that are business lunch, who would they

[00:27:18] Harry: invite? I'm glad you prepared me for this one, so I had to think about things that I was interested in.

[00:27:25] I'm really interested in kind of efficiency and how we can do things, like standardized lots of processes. So, I thought it'd be pretty interesting to have a chat with Henry Ford on the back of that. And then, I read an article about Warren buffet, not so much about his amazing investments, but actually about the fact that he has completely empty diary and he keeps it that way all the time.

[00:27:43] And he's not kind of back to back with meetings all the time. And I'd love to talk to him about, with an input of the size that he has, how he acts. Can manage his time and how he can delegate work. That affects the, I just think that's it's it's amazing. You would never see him stressed. I don't think, and then thirdly, [00:28:00] you said, it's a business lunch, I've only got an hour.

[00:28:02] I think it'd be quite fun to have like a loose cannon in there. So I think, you know, Elon Musk, drinking or smoking something in the corner would be awesome. It just, you know, he's a. He's got a, you know, big thinker and I think that's, we've got some really interesting big thinkers within the business and on our board and Mike, I really love the way that they kind of challenge the status quo.

[00:28:19] So I think that would be quite interesting. Yeah, really interesting.

[00:28:22] James: I didn't know that about buffets. I'm one of those people where my, my every minute is accounted for in my diary. And so there must be something in it around kind of keeping a clear mind and sort of staying focused with it.

[00:28:35] Booking loads of things that are not necessarily to the core role.

[00:28:38] Harry: Um,

[00:28:39] James: I guess he started his career in a time where he didn't have a digital calendar. So

[00:28:44] Harry: maybe it's just, I'm very envious. I like you. And I'm very driven by my Dari. Yeah.

[00:28:52] James: Harry, thank you so much for coming on some riding unicorns and telling us about your, your riding unicorns journey. Really interesting. I think there's some [00:29:00] absolute golden nuggets in there about picking the right co-founder the right investor. The commitment. It takes the highs and the lows.

[00:29:08] So it was great to hear.

[00:29:09] Harry: Yeah, just, we wish you all the best for you guys. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thanks. Sorry.

[00:29:14] This week, start out. Spotlight is omnipresent. They're a company who make it really easy to hire on board and manage remote employees, making it super easy to hire people anywhere in the world. I wanted to make this one, I'll start up spotlight because it's so relevant in our new world of remote work.

[00:29:38] Remote first. Yeah. It's such a painful thing. It has been such a painful thing in the past to, hire people abroad that it's stopped people from doing it, which of course just limits your pool of available talent massively. So we're seeing loads of companies using omnipresent and expanding that pool of talent that they can pick great, employees from.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] And that obviously just, opens up a whole world of opportunity for them. Paying great people, less money in different countries. Making it super easy, getting better talent than is available, near you. So yeah, if any, if anyone has a company that's looking for talent looking to hire talent elsewhere, then they should definitely check out omnipresent.

[00:30:18] And also they are growing incredibly fast. And it's a wonderful place to work. So, , you should take a look at the open roles that too.

[00:30:27]

[00:30:27] That's it for this week on Ryder unicorns. Catch us next time. As we have Amy and Carrie managing director at Techstars on. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform for all episodes.