S2E16 - Jeremy King, Founder & CEO @ Attest

Jeremy King is the CEO and founder of one of the leading consumer research platforms in the world, Attest. Jeremy graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA, which led him to secure several prestigious interning positions. In 2005 Jeremy began working at McKinsey as an Engagement Manager. After ten years with the consultancy firm Jeremy had decided that he was ready to go out on his own. He created Attest with the goal of simplifying consumer data. The company now services over 110 million consumers across 45 countries. 

In this episode Jeremy explains how his love of science led him to pursue a career in consumer data, his unique strategy to fundraising and why data continues to be mis-used by organisations. Jeremy also helped us unpack What questions founders should ask themselves at the start of their journey, how to navigate the complexity of a product and how you evolve that product so that you start generating revenue. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to riding unicorns. The podcast about growth startups. I'm James Pringle, and my co-host is Hector Mason from episode one ventures.

[00:00:20] Today we are delighted to welcome Jeremy King, founder of Attest. To the podcast. Uh, test are making consumer research simple. It's a great conversation. This one with Jeremy, he is the master of asking the right questions and there's some fascinating stuff in there for founders, investors, and anyone that's working with a business to consumer products and looking to understand their target audience in a better way. So.

[00:00:49] please do continue listening. So on that note, let's start the episode.

[00:00:55] Hector: Hello everyone. And welcome to riding unicorns this week. We're thrilled to [00:01:00] have Jeremy King, the founder of a test on the show, Jeremy. Hi.

[00:01:04] Jeremy: Hi, excited to be here.

[00:01:06] Hector: So as always, we would love to start off with hearing about your journey so far and what's led you to a test.

[00:01:12] Jeremy: What? My story basically has three parts. I'm originally a scientist. I worked in what's now called synthetic biology. I worked in understanding animal behavior. I worked on mathematical modeling of how different animals interact to move around their environments and use genetic techniques to understand measuring train those models, which was quite fun. And that they DKI. I worked with one of the guys. In blue planet, too, the guy with the fish puppets and the underwater hydrophone they looked like two footballs on a stick and we published lots of things about, the streets or poor moves and Oman and how that will refresh, move around in there. So I personally have a big love for empiricism data, following hypotheses and threads of ideas and constantly exploring them like a scientist and here's little bit of a test [00:02:00] and what we stand for. I'll come back to that in a second. I then spent nine years at McKinsey, which is a big strategy consulting company. I flew around the world to lots of different, weird countries and situations, trying to solve them and make them better using the power of a laptop and open questions, which was always quite entertaining. But I think in those experiences I saw in lots of different places, businesses everywhere, really struggled to know their target. It's easy to know your existing customers. It's you just know how you're doing and how you're performing and to look all your analytics and data that's coming in about your business.

[00:02:36] But what about the people you don't know? What about the people that you haven't met yet? What about the consumers that aren't in your CRM and you wish they were, what about the people who don't give you feedback on your website? Because they're not customers and you don't know why everywhere I went. I saw this problem in different forms, in different shapes and sizes. And as a scientist, it made me feel very unhappy. And as a McKinsey consultant, it made me think there must be a better way to solve this problem. [00:03:00] put those two ideas together. That's the kind of the Genesis of a test. It's a personal love for data and using data to make decisions, which is something I think we all share to test plus a business problem that exists everywhere to which there is no satisfactory solution. And when you put that altogether, it's basically saying. The world of market research should reach everyone, not just professionals who know how to do a very complicated thing. A couple of times a year, there should be something that you do every day. It should be for anyone to use it with no prior experience. If you've got a problem, you should seek data, you should seek answers and it's has to exist to make that easy. So we say, we want to. help our clients inform every intuition and dissolve any doubt by making consumer research ridiculously easy because your target consumers hold all the answers to your burning questions. And that's what a test is. And that's my story of how we got here, but it is so little about me. It's about what we stand for, what we're doing, and that's very hard.

[00:03:57] Hector: Interesting. And, I used to [00:04:00] work in innovation consultancy and, you know, we could really use something like a test and that there's the sort of graveyard of brands. I think it's called something like that, where, big companies trying to innovate new products. And the one that stands out and I really remember was Colgate, releasing a lasagna, frozen lasagna, which is just like the most. Awful decision to anyone. Anyone could have told them it wasn't gonna work. and I guess you get all sorts of these kinds of products and innovation that are just completely ill thought out. And, so I wonder is, is that something you really saw at McKinsey or maybe you weren't doing kind of market research stuff or maybe you were, but did you feel the need to have for something like a test in, in the jobs you were doing?

[00:04:45] Jeremy: Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere in that there was, I mean, let me pick two examples. One from the past one more recent, that was a time where I was in Chicago, working in a room full of [00:05:00] Caucasian Midwest American men who were trying to figure out how to launch a home care product. Targeted at Indian Housewives. Only two of these gentlemen had ever left the United States. one had been to Canada and Mexico one had been to Mexico and they were so convinced by what they were doing. And I asked them, how do you know what these, Southern Indian Housewives want in their product range? How do they choose? What matters? What are they even cleaning or doing? What product do they use today? And the answer. We're the experts. And as a scientist, it just absolutely kills me. That's not just wrong. That's like morally illegal. Like you should be shocked down from a bolt of lightning from Charles Darwin for even thinking of that. That is so wrong. It's ridiculous. And that's when you get ideas like Colgate, lasagna, like cocaine is well known for white. Yeah. The minty and clean your teeth inside lasagna is better Mel sauce, which is a white paste. Like [00:06:00] don't do that. Like, don't do that. Just anyone could have told you that as a bad idea, like we even saw Peloton recently, the champions of brilliant marketing premium product scarcity. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the work from home and home exercise trends that we've seen in the last 18 plus months. They ran that campaign. I'm not sure if you remember it, but it was a campaign that was quite notorious. Now. It was very sexist. It's sexualized all the people in it. And there was this huge backlash they wiped out of that campaign and everything that came with the alone, several billion dollars off their market cap, just from launching this campaign. If they just stepped outside their own building for 10 minutes and shown that adds 30 seconds to a hundred people, they would have known that this backlash is coming and you were just not sensitive to it right now. Doing what I just said is as easy as walking out of Sergio building and ask a hundred people. And we believe that this should be something that [00:07:00] everyone does all the time. And our role in the world as a tech company is to make that incredibly easy and doable for anyone. And it's quite exciting when you come across these places of kind of apocalypse and the brand graveyard that you mentioned, because that's exactly why a test exists is to help people stop that from happening by understanding your target customers and getting their feedback because your best guests probably isn't the best answer.

[00:07:24] Hector: I just think it speaks to such a widespread problem about people in positions of power politics, business, thinking they know best, and actually not representing the masses and in politics. we've seen so many examples of where doing proper market research would have led to so much better decision. Way better decisions than, basically basing decisions on policy, which affect millions of people. but basing them on the views of a few people sat around a table, which are almost entirely unrepresentative of the, of the population. They are super interested in [00:08:00] so many applications.

[00:08:02] Jeremy: Completely agree. Like anytime that you think we have intuition, we have, but a bunch of things that we could do, but we're struggling with ones to pick, or doubt about how bold to be. that's why we use those words. we know our clients who are mainly B to C companies. They have these ideas, they just don't know which ones are. Right. They don't know how to validate them. They don't know how far to take it. dissolve any doubts. Should we. Completely change our brand. Should we make it purple in Brazil? Or should we pick this idea for this market? Is our idea about how we sell to younger people, older people or different genders are these, right? Like we don't know, that's why we're in that situation. So we believe that your target customers always have the answer and we just make it easy to find it out, can be applied anywhere. And that's where the magic happens for us having to talk about a few examples, if that's interesting,

[00:08:53] Hector: Yes, it's definitely interesting. I just have them,

[00:08:56] Jeremy: my favorite one recently Valentine's day 2021, [00:09:00] where I'm sure we're all familiar with bloom and wild for those that aren't, it's a subscription box of flowers that comes to your letter box and you can also buy flowers that arrive very easily and conveniently and very fresh for any occasion.

[00:09:12] Hector: We have no found to coming on the show soon.

[00:09:14] Jeremy: Oh, great. Yeah. Aaron's amazing as well, great business. so they had this idea. their brand stands for I'm going to butcher this a bit. making the most and celebrating every occasion using flowers, but they had this intuition that red roses at Valentine's day, Like it's kind of old, it's kind of obvious. And if you want to make the best of that occasion, choosing red roses might not be the best. But red rose is the number one selling skew. That's the top seller for flowers at Valentine's day Taylor's oldest time. So they had this intuition that there is a better choice and we probably should do something about it. It completely aligns with our mission and our brand values. So they ran some research and they discovered across European countries, specifically in the UK, this idea that red roses. As a [00:10:00] recipient of red roses, kind of a lazy choice. It's last minute, it's probably overpriced. It costs twice as much as other flowers, but it's probably worth half as much. It's unoriginal. It's a bit sad. It's a bit old school. as they also pretend to people who give red roses, they were like, It's last minute. It's a bit, it's not, it's overpriced. It's also not sustainable. Like the whole red roses trade Bloom's up just the Valentine's day. And then it's kind of dead the rest of the year. It's actually a really terrible choice to make and like giving and receiving. Everyone's unhappy about this choice. So bloom and wild discovered, and they informed their intuition using a test to know this. They then dissolve the doubt. How far do we take it? And they became so convinced by the data that They delisted and banned red Rosa, vine Sansei. They didn't sell any. that got them at year on year of four times, increase in funding times, day, period revenue, and a 51% increase in share of media attention and voice that simple move to take the number one, selling skew and stop selling it because you don't believe it should [00:11:00] be number one. And then to take that to the extent where they don't sell it at all worked. That's what I mean by inform any intrusions or any doubt you've got ideas and information turns out we were right, but in a completely different way. And the same thing does not apply in other countries. There's all, any doubt we have. So little doubt, this is the right move. We're going to ban it completely and look at the results. And that's the power of putting consumers in the heart of your decisions is that you can come across these things and boost your business. Bloomin' wilds also use the test for a whole bunch of other stuff, but that was a particularly fun one in February this year.

[00:11:33] Hector: It's awesome. We should all be using a test to bust the myths that we hold. you know, views that we hold that might be.

[00:11:40] Jeremy: the McKinsey expression is challenged your assumptions, but I'm pretty sure that's not trademarked.

[00:11:46] James: So Jeremy, I wanted to ask about you've come from this thesis of, this is how the corporate world should challenge their assumptions. How did you go from that as an idea to your first working product? [00:12:00] Who was your first customer? I don't know if you can name them, but like, how did you, how quickly did you go from idea to product to actually generating revenue?

[00:12:08] Jeremy: Yeah. the last bit was a bit slow, but I'll come back to that. So. I kind of wanted in the early days to go about things in the exact opposite way than is generally recommended. So I wanted to compress the first few years of kind of discovery and learning and validation and be paying. I wanted that to be a short phase, With two goals, a getting a bunch of customer input as early as possible, but for it to be very objective, not in any way, subjective or biased or favored towards my own view of the world. I think second was, I wanted to get hold of some VC funding quickly because I knew that this would be a very difficult product to build We make a test look like it does something very simple, but behind the scenes, it's incredibly complicated to actually deliver. Like if you break down all the little pieces and steps, they will have to hold together and look like one contiguous process. That's actually really [00:13:00] hard to pull off. And I knew that from the very beginning, and it would be easy to build a bad product. It would be hard to build the best or a longstanding product and wants to do that. So particularly early days we did a couple of weird things. One was deliberately set out to find three groups of real clients to give us. But also with the secret second agenda, I'll come back to, so I set out to get five people who worked in potential target clients that I knew, and that I could ask about, they worked in companies like American express and Expedia, a few others. I then went to find five people who I'd never met before, but I could get an intro to so people who. Get access to easily, but had no prior relationship with just adding more objectivity, but also making it easy. And that also sets out to get five potential target customers I'd never met before and had absolutely no reason to help, because if I could get five, then there's some validation that they were [00:14:00] probably onto something. And that's probably be the hardest to do, but I probably get the most honest feedback. They're like, oh, you're complete time waste what you're even here. and I asked them all a couple of questions, and it's, you know, caught a test ideas without really sharing the idea of the business or what was going on. I asked them things like, what is the data that you wish you had today that would make them the most. Benefit for you this quarter or this month that you have absolutely no access to or sight of today. what is the biggest hole in your knowledge or the biggest gap in your information about the things that matter to you most? And they often talk about a whole bunch of random stuff they talk about. I wish I knew more about my supply chain or I wish I knew more about competitors. And then we started to get into competitor. Specifically about why do people choose X over? Y we've never figured it out and like, how do I take my product and sell more to older people? We're really good at these demographics were really bad in these two. Everything we've tried. Every idea we've come up with it doesn't work. These consistent themes that are [00:15:00] coming up, and these became the sort of core ideas behind a test, like unlock. This information and putting consumers where you have right now with nothing that is sort of part of the core ideas of what the test product and proposition became, but it came from this fundamental understanding of. The data people were missing and what they wanted to get, and then went back to those same 15 people, all for different reasons at different times and said, okay, how would you want to receive this data? Let's now say that this is possible. And here were probably the top five things we're going to focus on. How would you want to receive this data? What would, where does it go wrong? Why, why wouldn't you use it? What, what would stop you from believing X, stop you from sharing it and sort of trying to understand the barriers? again, understanding the problem, not the solution, showing the, concept, but not the. In the background, we were building product and building prototypes and kind of testing it against this sort of set of input. But by design a bit like a science experiment, building these three different groups of input [00:16:00] to give us different levels of activity and familiarity and to focus on the problems. And that gave us really, really fast track product input and proposition input really, really early on the other thing. and they'll probably kill it. But I got those, um, companies to then call a bunch of investors and say, please, can you invest in this company so that it can exist? That I can find out? and that helped us solve the problem around this is going to be a very difficult and expensive product to build. And therefore, I knew I needed to get some, investment money very early. And that's exactly what happened. So all these clients said, you know, if these people can do this impossible thing, it's going to be very valuable business. And I'm lining up to be a customer. I think all, but one of those initial 15. Potential clients did that. and then that 15th client actually became a client in reality, down the line, which is nice. So it became clear we're onto something. We got really valuable feedback from a mix of different sources and then trying to crack the next problem, which [00:17:00] was like actually building a product to make it real and solving the stage gates that would slow it down as early as possible. And that was a very deliberate approach to the first two or three months. Do those two actions and to defeat those two problems that would cost us five years or a whole bunch of trial and error.

[00:17:17] Hector: Very interesting. And in those early days, How did you navigate that complexity of the product? you know, for most people embarking on this, they're probably thinking like, holy shit, This is, this is a biggie. were you in charge of product and were you just hammering out sketches, thinking about how does everything connect it? What was that kind of thing?

[00:17:36] Jeremy: so we built some prototypes MVP. He's sort of more on the functionality angle just to try and figure out some of the, overall problems. So things like user journeys, as opposed to, specific designs or nomenclature about specific features and prioritization of features or aspects of the functionality. we came across the problem very early on that everyone has a fear of doing market [00:18:00] research is daunting. As you think about how to do it, people tense up like no one, not even research professionals, claim that they know how to write the right questions. Nobody has ever claimed to be able to write the right questions that does not exist. But everyone we speak to particularly in early days says, I don't know how to write the right question. The real answer is nobody does. There is no right question. It's like picking the right pass in football or cooking the perfect meal. There is no perfect meal is completely subjective. And it comes down to the seasonality, the ingredients as much as who is the diner and who is the chef, like it's crazy. so we came across these problems and we were testing more ways to defeat those problems. So like to remove the stigma of research is difficult or hard to do too. Break assumptions about how research has worked in the past. So, you know, one of them really early on, we discovered that people think research is something that you set and forget. Like, you have to say, we're going to run a project. We're going to achieve this very specific outcome. We have to wait [00:19:00] three to six months for that to happen. And I really hope that one, we set out in the right direction. And two it's still useful when we get to the destination. Those two things are just wrong. that's just so unhelpful. Wait three to six months to get the data and hope that it's still used at the end. The modern world does not work that way. Guess where you need to end up and blindly embark on the journey. Again, the world doesn't work that way. as a scientist, things should be more iterative. You should discover, you should adapt as you go. Like experiments. Methodology means you probably completely trashed the first experiment you come up with and, you know, burn it all down. Day two, somebody tries something completely different. With every, person we met had assumptions about how research and data and insights by consumers worked and it turned out none of them had to be true, which is kind of a great gift to build a new SAS product, which is actually. All the rules need to be reinvented and broken, not just, we're going to [00:20:00] reinvent and break the rules and see what happens like it was remarkably consistent. And all of this turned into the test we have today. The one thing we didn't do, going back to your question earlier, James is get to revenue quickly. Like we had a long and torturous period where we were just building product and we had lots of kind of gravity and expectation from, early shareholders that like. Maybe having some revenue, but useful. How about that? Huh? Like you might want to do that. Like, did you know that real businesses make money? Not just spend money? Whoops. so we tried to stay true to building something that was scalable for the longterm and that, you know, truly solve some of these big gaps and that built on all the feedback that we've got. And it took a lot longer than I. There were a few moments afterwards that showed us we're on the right path and that, you know, some big choices we made the cut it. Right. But the first 18 months were very slow to like gather all this feedback, turn it into first, start to charge for things. But because it's so complex, it was necessarily slow and deep down. We kind of knew it was going to be that way all along. [00:21:00]

[00:21:00] James: And Jeremy, you've made a career of asking the right questions and this might be really difficult to do, but I think if anyone can do it, you can do it. what is the one question that founders should be asking themselves internally at the start of their journey?

[00:21:17] Jeremy: It's the genuine one that comes to mind is. What would it take for them to care about this? As much as I do, and that applies to the them is potential clients, potential investors, potential people joining the company. What does it take for them to care about this? As much as I do in that, if you can get clients to care as much as you do, that is great, but what does it take for them to get there That will tell you more about pricing and product and proposition than you ever thought before? What will it take for investors care as much as you do that will give you investment, but more importantly, it will give you belief in the long-term as well as the short term and what it takes for investors to care. You probably have to jump through a number of hoops and. [00:22:00] Big bold investor type questions and burdens of proof to prove to them and yourself that you're on the right lines. What does it take for new prospective employees or team members to join the company and care as much as you do here comes all of the things you need to answer around culture and values and proposition and compensation or things like that. Like if you're constantly trying to put yourself in the people who you need to come with you on the journeys, shoes and ask, what does it take for them to care as much as I do. about the, this challenge, this company Then you are always honing in on the critical path of what is going to cause you to succeed. And I think this question leads you to the point where you know more about that with every passing moment.

[00:22:44] James: Amazing.

[00:22:47] Hector: That's really interesting. I just to sort of double click on the employee's part, what do you think it does take to get them to really care about this? And therefore be great employees.

[00:22:58] Jeremy: I think here it's really [00:23:00] important to be authentic because, you know, you could easily take people on a wild goose chase and tell them what you think they want to hear, but a much better version of that is to tell them what you really believe and get them to choose to join in. So. Massive war for talent now, massive war for talent in early days of attest as well. So we wanted people who were prepared to join an earlier stage company because they believed in the upside of the opportunity. They believed in what they could learn along the way they believed in the upside of the equity. And they believed that it would be fun chance to address the challenge. That's kind of the four things we were looking for, but the manifestation of that is very different for a. You know, backend or infrastructure engineer versus our first designer or marketing hire like completely different motivation on the scene. But if we can create consistency and continuity of why people care about the company and alignment of interests in what they're hoping to achieve. What being part of a test can do for them as well as what they can do for a test. I think that's where this becomes very important. So [00:24:00] hence why, the question, what does it take for them to care as much about the company as I do? It's things like belief in the long-term vision. It's things like belief that working on this will be helpful for my career and my interest too. And that's where we can. Full alignment of interests. I'm all in on, everyone's doing the same thing. But doing that in an authentic way means that you naturally have a team that is set up to all be on the same page and will move in the right direction, as opposed to, if you cobble together a bunch of mess and race, it's, doesn't take a lot for it to fall apart very quickly.

[00:24:31] James: When you ask questions like that internally, and you get the output. Where does that then go, does it go into things like brand Bibles and employee handbooks what sort of documentation are you creating off the back of asking these really penetrating questions about your own business?

[00:24:49] Jeremy: generally turns into two things for me, personally, this is highly subjective and therefore probably not recommended. it turns into. A new set of actions linked to [00:25:00] solving some of the problems or opportunities that those types of questions uncover. what does it take to get perspective new team members, to care about a test? As much as I do like, oh, we need a, an Aesop in an EMI plan to make sure that when we give an answer around your equity ownership in the company, we give you the best possible answer that has all the best things attached to it, as well as a level of belief. What does it take to get prospective clients to care about Tessa? Much as I do, it leads you to all sorts of assumptions about how to motivate those 15 people. I mentioned to give us early product feedback and also to get them to do the next level things like, meet with us for many hours, rather than just one to call investors and say, Please invest in this product so it can exist so I can buy it, to convince them that they're a beneficiary and that they're part of the journey, as opposed to please give us an hour of your time and for the input, very different position. So I think those types of things cause you to challenge your assumptions and need you to one actions and then two. Places where you write these things down and they become consistent. That is things [00:26:00] like articulation of culture, which, we haven't really ever changed articulation of mission and vision, The second part of that is starting to turn those things into documentation and documentation. So that there's sort of a single point of reference so that we know what we're doing, but also continuity of planning and execution and that's was manifested early days for me and things. I was talking about it with investors, things we were talking about. team members, things we were talking about with clients and prototyping and these turn into very quickly product strategy, company strategy, investor proposition, employee value proposition, but all of these ideas come from the same places. And it's the things that you believe in what you're trying to do, why people should care about it as much as you do, and, taking actions and then writing bits down so that you can build upon. It sounds simple, but that was the key.

[00:26:47] Hector: Brilliant. and Jeremy, you've had a lot of success with fundraising over the years. and you've talked a bit about how you got those initial investors on board. You, paid your mates to call them up and, tell them how great your product was,[00:27:00]

[00:27:01] Jeremy: even if that was true, that learning to be a third of what happens immediately say that isn't what happened, but even it was true.

[00:27:10] Hector: Yeah. So then, after those very early rounds, how did you go about fundraising and what were the difficulties and big wins that you saw? And maybe just tell, tell our listeners, what your fundraising journey has been. I know you've raised tens of millions already.

[00:27:25] Jeremy: Yeah. So we've, raised a total of about a hundred million over five rounds in six and a half years. We talk most about the, things that were difficult. So one is nobody really likes or wants to like market research. everyone in 20 15, 16 love to big data and MarTech, it would have been very easy to say we're a big data or a MarTech company. We aren't, in 20 17, 18, it would have been very easy to say. Something, something, something AI, [00:28:00] something, something, something value a whole bunch of companies did that and have done really well with it. we use machine learning, we use aspects of artificial intelligence, in our product, but we aren't AI for AI sake. So, you know, it was, difficult to avoid the temptation of saying, we're the flavor of the month. Please give us your money. the other thing was, Market research and the problem we solve, everyone's familiar with it. It's a bit like, you know, everyone thinks they can run a restaurant, you know, make the foods have front to pass that back of house, have a menu. It's cool. It'll be really fun. We'll have cocktails. It'd be amazing, but we all know that most restaurants completely bomb and it's a great way to lose loads of money and end up with lots of secondhand kitchen equipment. You're trying to sell. Everyone has an appreciation about the problem we're trying to solve, but everyone has their own unique aspects to it. And no one really knows how it works, including us. So being in quite an unsexy industry and then trying to completely challenge every assumption about it and reform how it works, nobody was looking for a company [00:29:00] doing that. So we were nowhere near the radar and certainly not particularly sexy. And those were always challenges The gifts that work in our favor and the way that we defeated those things was by, one B2B, SAS is not sexy, but having a very large total addressable market is, trying to expand that market to new buyers and having a unique way to do that. That's very interesting and sexy. Suddenly we're talking about things that aren't cool, you know, we aren't delivery, but we do have a much larger market than delivery. There's also no one in it. even today, 92.2% of the time we're competing against nobody. We don't really compete against anyone for over 90% of ideals. That is really interesting and very attractive for us as a company for me as a founder, but also for investors. Like if you can crack this and if you completely fail, it's still going to be a multi-billion dollar company. And like, I genuinely mean that because it is actually true. We could completely screw it up and still be ridiculously large as [00:30:00] a business. And these are kinds of things that work in our favor. So I think the key early on was understanding. What are strengths? What are weaknesses, how to unpick the weaknesses, how to really build the strengths, not just in investor's eyes, but more as to what we're actually doing. And then hope that investors will recognize that and investments that do recognize that are the ones in our cap table today. And the ones that didn't, we probably didn't do a particularly good job of convincing them. And somewhere in the middle is five rounds and a bunch of money. But as I always say, Raising money is not an outcome. doing something with that money and turning it into returns for the company returns for shareholders, but more importantly, value for clients and completing our mission and vision. That's the key. And there's always, we always try to stay true to that. I think, funding will always follow.

[00:30:51] James: Yeah, well, I think not a great thing to kind of end on. I mean, we just sort of scratch the surface really, and I'm sure we could [00:31:00] ask them any more questions and dive a lot deeper. but we always like to wrap things up by getting our guests ideal three sort of dinner party guests. so who might not be for you?

[00:31:11] Jeremy: Wow. I'm going to go with, and I've thought about this before, so, you know, there's expanding the market right there. Hope catering covers four, if not, we can share. in no particular order, I've got Charles Darwin shack, Marie Curie, and Warren Buffett's jumps. The idea of hearing. Charles Darwin Marie Curie talk about cause You know, they had a bit of overlap, but when Marie Curie was far too young, just like for Darwin to understand from Marie Curie, what happened next and how she broke so many aspects of how the world works. She went to an underground university in Poland that was secret. It didn't exist. She's still the only person ever male or female to win a Nobel prize in two different sciences. Her meeting Darwin would be amazing. Darwin's yeah. Where she [00:32:00] could take science and breaking all the rules. That would be fascinating. Hearing shack, explain no mics to Charles Darwin and then getting Warren buffet to explain the kind of capitalist elements. That would be amazing hearing shack, ox questions to Marie Curie about her early research and like what it took to break down the different barriers that she broke down, but more, what, getting more buffet to share with Marie Curie, what her legacy became. That would be amazing. And then getting Charles Darwin and Warren Buffett to debate modern capitalism and what has happened since Darwin died and also how buffet is both complicit, but also a force for good within it. That would be very interesting. And I think, between those four people, language is going to be an issue here as well. So just immediately assuming that someone's going to be able fish in areas and they can just understand each other. That will be interesting what they chose to eat. That would be great. Darwin lived on ships and sailed [00:33:00] around the Galapagos. So, you know, pretty much anything would be good. Buffet famously only eats hamburgers and drinks, Coke, and sees candies and other various terrible things. So like, is everyone going to have that? Shaq is famous for tipping thousands dollars of restaurants. If he gets really good service and he gets the waiter to write their own.

[00:33:20] Hector: James we'll, we'll be doing the catering won't we,

[00:33:27] Jeremy: and what we would make of everything. I just said her interpretation of all these other people, why they exist, what's happening and what is the world we live in now, that would be amazing to them from too.

[00:33:39] Hector: I think I'm going to ask you. Yeah. I was going to ask you what your position is on this. Are you taking, observe, observe a seat or do you have some strong views

[00:33:48] Jeremy: to join in? But I cannot say to that table, I would love just to be in the room and be the water guy.

[00:33:55] James: I feel like you could just moderate, but you'd just ask one question and it would just [00:34:00] open up and then sit back and let it go.

[00:34:05] Jeremy: Chuck, that's some interesting, but what would it take to get them to care as much as you do about that? Exactly. Be quite fun. But I think in that we've got a mixture of different times, different understandings, different rule-breaking different. Eras different views of different periods of time, but the also linked together, and this is happening in the present day, but they're all at their peak moment. And I think it would just be amazing. But every time I think about that, What they eat, but what are they wearing? What's the first thing they say to each other. What order do they speak in? What's the kind of the hierarchy Darwin was notoriously kind of an introvert. And that's why his ideas took a long time to kind of land and stick. There was a guy called Louis magazines. a creationist and, you know, the exact opponent to Darwin who was much more popular at the time, because he was basically like Jimmy Carter, like everyone liked him and they wanted to listen to him talk. And what he was saying was the opposite of Darwin. Whereas Darwin was much more like Jeremy Paxman. Like [00:35:00] it's a bit watching that most of the time

[00:35:03] Hector: it's gotta be it's, it's gotta be one of the most interesting things because these huge characters from history, we kind of, have a tendency to think of them. Extrovert, you know, great orators and all of these things, but actually, you know, the reality is not, is not necessarily that. So, yeah, seeing the dynamic would be interesting.

[00:35:21] Jeremy: Yeah. and even, you know, what is the most surprising thing to each of them? That would be amazing. I could guess, but. Guessing is exactly stopping, scratch that, scratch that in August, I will not be guessed.

[00:35:38] James: And jeremy, if, there was a company out there or companies that you wants to work with, what types of businesses should be buying a test right now?

[00:35:48] And where should they go?

[00:35:50] Jeremy: The test is for anyone in any BC business who wishes, they knew more about their target customers and would be better off if they did. So [00:36:00] often that's people who work in marketing, product pricing, strategy, innovation, understanding competitor moves entering a new country, figuring out which product to launch. These are the problems where getting input from the customers who were. Decide, whether you win or lose would be useful. So it's pretty much anyone to deal with revenue in any B2C business. and it tends to be people who work in marketing, brand, product, pricing strategy, things like that. you can find us@ascatest.com or just Google the test and we'll come up.

[00:36:31] You can also try our product for free. You can run through a real server with real consumers and you will definitely learn something new. And that will happen the same day. It takes about 90 seconds, set it up and you will learn something new that is free. And you can just try it, have a go it's. You will definitely learn something new about something and it's on you to figure out what is the most interesting thing you want to learn about and a testable magic. Can you take care of the rest? Companies who are small and fast moving like Kleiner manscaped [00:37:00] attack her brands, mallow and marsh user test for all sorts of things. Big companies use a test to understand how 30 different European markets feel differently about the thing they're trying to launch in that 20 those markets, good to go. Five of them, some major adaptations to make, and five of them apocalypse is coming and we need to start again learning that this week, rather than over the course of the next two years is very useful. And that's what a test is here for. So whenever you find yourself guessing, think about us.

[00:37:28] Hector: brilliant. We should do one for the podcast, James. Perhaps

[00:37:31] Jeremy: What would you research about the podcast

[00:37:33] Hector: school thing is, is knowing our own listeners better and attest wouldn't do that, but you know, hearing about what people want from a business podcast. You know, I haven't really thought to be honest,

[00:37:44] James: showing that our listeners care as much as we do.

[00:37:48] Hector: Yeah.

[00:37:52] James: We care a lot about the early stage UK tech ecosystem tech generally. Yeah, encouraging more [00:38:00] people to come and work in tech and you know, all these types of things, founding businesses, how they can learn to do that. And launch companies raise money. So we need to, Hopefully inspire people to care as much as well.

[00:38:12] Jeremy: Well, we have a bunch of investors who use a test VCs, private equity, sovereign wealth funds, and they use a test for, when they meet a company that has lots of bold claims about what's happening in industry. They crosscheck those claims, like you were saying that these markets really want your product. We're just going to cross check that because this could be a, $500 million mistake or about to right. They also use a test to understand trends. So let's pick an example, food trends, what is the company that should exist within the food trends that doesn't today? And let's start throwing out some propositions.

[00:38:45] And now here, we're kind of scanning the ecosystem and the landscape and the trends constantly just to look for opportunity and to see things others don't. And then for also helping their portfolio companies, like when you come across a big challenge and you're trying to. Grow more revenue or win more [00:39:00] customers, knowing more about this, how your customers is a great way to help your portfolio. So like investors use a test for these exact problems. So there might be something fun to do in the podcast around. Exploring a trend for a UK tech company that should exist, but doesn't, and then trying to fabricate exactly what that would look like and what it will take to make it real. And that will be quite fun.

[00:39:19] Hector: Yeah. And then we, as the founder, you might want to hold that and the wraps for two years, what do you build the company then? What costs? Maybe you've already done it. Yeah. We've got a few things up our sleeve. Jeremy, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. It's always a pleasure to. Of your good humor has been very fun. and yeah, brilliant hearing how you're bringing data-driven decisions to the world and, you know, your journey with a test, the, the ups and the downs. it's been really brilliant to chat and I'm sure the listeners are going to, going to love this episode.

[00:39:50] Jeremy: thank you. Having me function chats, always a pleasure and see you soon.

[00:39:53] Thanks for listening to if you haven't already please like, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. [00:40:00] If you want to receive episodes direct to your inbox, go to riding unicorns dot sub stack.com and subscribe on there as well.

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