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The key to breaking into the 200-year higher education industry: Ed Fidoe #12
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Jan 13, 2025
You might have considered opening your own restaurant or launching your own clothing brand, but odds are, you've never once thought about starting your own university. Fortunately, entrepreneur Ed Fidoe, co-founder of London Interdisciplinary School (LIS), doesn't think like the majority. His plan? To bring new and improved value to an education system that dates back hundreds of years. “What we do is innovation – which is essentially undoing the last 200 years – to reorganise knowledge, not around disciplines, but around problems," he says. In today's episode of Founder Favourites, Fidoe sits down with Jennifer Sieg and Emmanuel Nwosu to discuss how his approach could become the new norm. That is if he has the patience to wait a couple hundred years more. Get more of City AM 👇 🌐 http://www.cityam.com X(formerly Twitter): http://twitter.com/CityAM Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cityam Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/city_am LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/cityam Produced by: Jennifer Sieg, Emmanuel Nwosu, Joe Lee, Joseph Curay Teneda #university #school #education #highereducation #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #business #businessnews #startup #startuplife #finance #personalfinance #investing #investment
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0:00
the people look where did you go what did you get and if you go I didn't go to university they're like o I don't quite know what to do with you so I think now
0:08
that is a very poor reason for society be be supporting uh which it is doing
0:13
because it's funding half the people at University uh because they're not paying their loans back that's a societal
0:19
investment University so that we can kind of rank them what we should be saying is what's the Knowledge and
0:25
Skills that these people that our society absolutely needs and we are not doing that at all we're saying we're
0:32
still shipping people off to do the same history physics whatever it is without much consideration about what they should be learning and Chris would
0:38
actually say in the pitch this is highrisk low return are you still interested honestly yeah I would never
0:45
have thought and uh but they're like keep going keep going um and and only
0:50
one one vet Capital firm which is Jam Jar which is the the the guys that started innocent smoothies innocent
0:56
drinks they started this bench Capital firm called Jam Jar they backed us I think cuz they're excited about changing education and we had the founders of
1:02
funding Circle uh another big business news based near here come uh back us the
1:07
the the family behind the H&M family backed us and now and now we've got this business school but it but it was hard
1:15
and in the end it was families and family offices that were better because they have a very long-term View and they
1:22
don't care about the returns they just they're thinking about generational Investments for their children and their
1:27
grandchildren [Music]
1:35
thank you so much for joining us Ed um U and I are really excited to talk about uh London interdisciplinary school it's
1:43
a mouthful so we're just going to consider it Lis yeah that's what I do um cool so why
1:50
don't you just start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you came to find Lis and then we can dive
1:56
into what makes it so unique okay uh well the thing I did before Las was I
2:01
started a school a 4218 school or K12 as U Americans would call it and opening
2:08
that in East London in 2012 I quite quickly with the two people that I was founding that with started to
2:14
feel really constrained by the narrowness that was you know you're thinking these students are going to have to move from nine to to nine
2:20
subjects when they're 14 to then three subjects when they're 16 then they're going to study one narrow thing at University despite the fact that we were
2:27
really trying with our education to broaden out and make create links between subjects all of this was going to go away and I was thinking what is
2:35
causing that and realized that the way universities do their entrance exams particularly in this country has this
2:41
huge narrowing effect on the education system and actually universities are very powerful so if University said we want you to be we want everyone to be a
2:48
great salela dancer before you come to study Physics here then every school in the country would start employing salela
2:53
daners and like the parents would be on the phone going what are you doing what's your Sela program looking like right and that's they are more powerful
3:00
universities entrance than any education secretary so I thought how do we change University entrance and in the end
3:06
started to think maybe the best thing is to start a new University with a very different kind of entrance and then you
3:11
start to think what do we teach and then you get to interdisciplinarity because all of our degrees in this country are
3:17
monodisciplinary so then talk us through what Las does then so I know like I think the
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headlines can talk about it not being you you don't go to get a specialty degree you don't go to get a mathematics degree or an engineering degree I think
3:30
you did an engineering degree correct I remember that correctly we'll get into that oh that'll be fun yeah so uh yeah
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just talk us through what how L operates then so uh you're right to so most
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universities are organized around subjects disciplines like libraries basically uh or organize you know social
3:48
science Corridor or social science department we organize it completely differently we organize the knowledge around complex problems so problems that
3:56
you have you know problems like uh climate change Ai and ethics problems that you get in kind of urban growth um
4:03
problems around sustainability and so on inequality and we say right what are the
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disciplines you need to be able to tackle a problem like climate change you need to be able to understand some science potentially some uh mathematical
4:16
modeling you might need to understand some psychology why are we not responding given that we know all the data um and we have uh it's still very
4:24
academically challenging this is not just a sort of practical course where you kind of don't you know it's intellect challenging as cerebral we
4:31
have academics who are expert in data science law philosophy but they are the
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ones teaching this problem of AI whatever right so in that sense it is uh
4:42
much broader but it's just as uh academically challenging and at the end of it you get a degree in
4:48
interdisciplinary problems and methods which is essentially you can grapple with these complex problems and you can
4:53
use different methods to tackle them MH and what kind of jobs do students then
4:58
go for with that I mean I know we spoke when we first met about the internships and things like that that go on through
5:04
those years of University but what kind of jobs would that well up until very recently we were just guessing because
5:11
we hadn't had any graduat like any good startup right so yeah yeah exactly so we had a slide with what the jobs we going to be um but now we know for you know
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our first cohorts graduated um a month after graduation about half of them have got jobs which is really really good for
5:24
the sector yeah how many students so about 60 graduated just under 60 graduated and um so yeah half of them
5:32
are in uh skilled employment so you know professional level jobs and it ranges from uh NHS graduate scheme to Goldman
5:39
Sachs to KPMG through to Greenworks and other kinds of startups in that sort of sector uh the fast track for the
5:45
Metropolitan Police uh the equivalent of teach first um I mean kind of uh
5:51
computer science someone's gone to work for a liberal Democrat MP so it's pretty much I think that's because he wants to
5:57
legalize cannabis personally but anyway that that was I was like what is he doing um great Mission he no no no no no
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problem no judgment no judgment but but he um you know and the interesting thing
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is that all of these institutions or people need help with thinking about
6:16
some of these problems and I think what I hope is that these graduates are bringing a skill set that is a little surprising or unusual because they have
6:24
in their time with us learned to code learned to design surveys learned to do ethnographic research done statistical
6:30
analysis so on and so on through their three years so they have this mix of methods which are really interdiciplinary and I think that's
6:36
pretty unusual no we spoke about it before Manuel I mean we're used to American
6:42
universities where we do general education courses and then we work our way up to this higher you know specialty
6:48
or Focus but it's not really integrated into one big problem like this is but it's very similar in terms of you speak
6:54
with someone who goes to a normal traditional UK University and they just study English for example they don't do
6:59
mathematics and they don't do physics um so I guess my question is how do you get students to want to do that I mean I
7:06
feel like some people grow up being like I'm going to be um a scientist or I'm going to do this or I'm going to be a
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doctor and I know maybe you wouldn't go to get a PhD in an interdisciplinary school but or for do for being a doctor
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but um yeah so I guess what what is it that makes students want to come and try this out given that it's so new so so uh
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first of all you have a filter process which is have you always wanted to be a scientist and a study chemistry for
7:30
three years yes this is not the right then don't come to right uh and we still need lawyers and doctors we don't need as many lawyers as we're actually
7:36
training in this country but we probably need more doctors uh well the lawyers are massively underemployed coming out
7:41
it's one of the crummiest degrees to get for employment stats are terrible for people who are graduating with law which is not what people expect it's the worst
7:47
performing performing degree for being in high skilled U employment six months out worse than things like in Media or
7:54
Arts which you think would have lower employment La has the lowest is that because it's so competitive
8:00
to get jobs yeah but it's a supply it's a supply demand problem we're simply we're simply graduating too many of them
8:06
we don't we shouldn't be training as many because people think it's a kind of nailed unsafe job and I think it's also a sector that's about to get disrupted
8:12
but you know that's not my specialist area um I I I think there are we don't
8:17
know how many but there's a lot of young people that want to specialize and there's a lot of young people that don't and at the minute in this country they
8:24
all have to specialize so we're saying and we're tiny we're just looking for the for for for a number that want to
8:29
continue but I remember being like this personally when I was at school I started off with my a levels doing English as well as maths and physics I
8:36
end and I started off with two many a levels and so I dropped English in the end which I really regret because it was actually my favorite subject mine too
8:42
but it was yours as well yeah I love English yeah it's great but but you're you're you know you're getting good advice I think from the school at the
8:48
time which was you've got to show whichever University that you're really passionate about Sciences or engineering
8:54
and so you don't really need English for that and that's really really sad I think so we said so students kind of
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sheep sheepishly come to us at open days and go I'm doing a really weird set of a levels like I'm doing art and politics
9:05
and physics and you're like that's so cool what's wrong with that and they're like oh we've been told it's a bit weird
9:11
but um we think that's exciting so I mean starting a traditional business is already hard enough um so like what's it
9:17
like starting in a university and why would you decide to do that instead of just like starting you know like a
9:22
traditional business in AI company you know a retail business etc etc yeah so I
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suppose my starting point wasn't I wanted to start something my starting point was I wanted to solve this problem
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um of the kind of rigidness of the higher education system the rigidness of
9:41
universities I've wanted to solve that problem and I genuinely for me personally was looking at could I go and work in a government job that could help
9:49
try and shift how universities are doing admissions like that's one way to try and change the system but i' just gone
9:54
through this process of starting a school really loved it I wasn't a teacher so I didn't have a full-time role in the school after we opened it up
10:01
and I thought starting an institution was really fun and so then I then I looked and thought I wonder if there's going to be any regulatory changes that
10:08
would mean that it's possible to start in University that I wanted the kind that I would want to start and it and
10:13
with that conservative government it did look like that was likely and in 2017 sure enough there was a regulatory change so it was more thinking and and
10:21
so that's Step One is like what do I want to do what's the problem I'm trying to solve what's the best way to do it my then my next assumption was we'd start
10:28
this as a charity we'd start this as a sort of you know like most universities are kind of not for-profit charity had a
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meeting with the universities minister at the time Sam Jima and said is there any going to be any money from
10:38
government to help us with this and they said no and so I I took the decision then that we were not going to be able to get enough philanthropic funding for
10:44
this to make this happen so we are a private institution we have people backing us who in 100 years might get a
10:51
return um but the fact is you can access 10 times as much Capital if you're a
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sort of social Enterprise but you you you know you could return money to investors over time and so we have many
11:03
backers including a very large french business school um and and that's and that's how I ended up so I didn't start
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by saying what's the company I want to start what's the exit I'm looking for uh what's the best way to get there I was
11:16
starting in a slightly different place and then and then and then a university being a hard thing I think there is such truism and this is not my insight but I
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think there the truth to this if you embark on something very very difficult and if you can get through that then
11:29
you're in a very strong place because you know it's hard for other people to copy it to to do what we did it is very hard the pain and the money and the risk
11:35
that took to get to where we are now is not going to be easy to replicate for others and you said that you you know
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you weren't a teacher so what were you doing after you got your you know University degree you've graduated with
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engineering degree what did you what did you do Straight Out of University I was building cities and
11:52
bridges uh no I wasn't even really able to do that during the degree told uh
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kind of pled scene in toothpicks no so um I wasn't the best I mean look the
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reality of an engineering degree is it's mainly maths and I was reasonably good at maths but I reached my seiling at University for sure and a lot of the
12:09
students that were coming from Malaysia in Singapore were just in a different I'd never seen maths like it so uh but I
12:15
I was never going to be an engineer is the reality I didn't love it I was a theater produc I put on plays with a friend of mine I met a friend who was at
12:21
UCL at the time I was at Imperial he was doing English and we started putting plays on together and we continued to do
12:27
that sort of making money like basically just about getting by in all honesty building up a bit of credit card debt it
12:33
was cheap credit at the time it's the early 2000s um Good Old Days the good old days free money yeah and uh yes I
12:40
wish had understood that it still accumulates and that one day the 18 the 18% kicks in but um yeah and so for five
12:48
or six years that's what we did and then I did want to start I had this idea want to start a school and he wanted to
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really stay in that sector he wanted to be a writer and we parted ways we're
12:59
still best friends but he and he he instantly overnight became this like success sensation as soon as I turned
13:06
right he turned left and he just like went into the you were theat in his I was basically anchor on his success yeah
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and he just unhooked me and off the balloon went so yeah no it was fun to watch genuinely fun to watch but I mean
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he's gone on to be nominated for an Oscar and write an Oscar Min movie and like yeah he wrote Bridge of spies uh
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Tom Hanks movie still still work movie so and he's yeah he's great he's he's yeah go watch go go watch it um hope he
13:30
thanks me for that but um I I uh yeah I went off to I thought I'm going to have to make some money partly to pay off
13:36
these credit card debts and partly because I I'm going to need to start a
13:41
business and make loads of money to start a school right that's what I thought I had to do so I was going to do the the step you you talked about and so
13:48
I got a job at Mackenzie which was the only place that gave me an interview because I've been putting on plays for six or seven years so I think it was
13:54
genuinely I know now it was someone's first week in the Recruitment and they just went yeah looks exciting and then by the next
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week they just been going Ben but uh they uh this is and probably the engineering degree helped me get the
14:07
interview right um and then I did well in the interviews of course and I I got the job but um and I was there for four
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years and I liked a lot about it it wasn't always a a happy time but um what did you do at um at McKenzie I did about
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I I I didn't specialize at all I didn't I didn't have a long-term view about being there so basically they say to you
14:25
you have to narrow down to become a partner I said if I don't want to become a partner can I just continue to choose maximum breadth so I worked on 14
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different sectors in the four years that I was there from forensics to the NHS to financial services uh mining like
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everything BBC so it was really fun mostly and then sometimes just kind of
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pretty brutal but I met I learned a lot and I met a lot of great people and it gave me a disproportionate amount credibility when I came out to be able
14:50
to say now I want to start so the government came in in 2010 and said we're going to do this free school policy Michael Gove saying you can start
14:57
essentially what is called charter schools in the US us we're going to do that here and I went wow that my my
15:02
whole plan to start a school that's just got accelerated by 20 years and because i' been at McKinzie and this is sort of
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crazy people were like yeah you can probably start school you've you've been you've done some PowerPoint slides um so
15:14
but but straight away I met and I got introduced through the Mackenzie Network I got introduced to this guy Peter Heyman who was who'd been in politics
15:20
and was now a a deputy head in a school and had a similar vision of we want to
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innovate we don't want to just help disadvantaged kids get to college which is a really important thing but that wasn't what was getting us out in bed in
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the morning we're like it's kind of boring school and it's kind of narrow what could it be you you're at school
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for 14 years is it good enough to just end with three grades and walk out and go that's what this was all about so so
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we so we were just sort of united in a sense of what might be possible do you think it was your engineering degree or
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anything you experienced throughout School itself that made you so passionate about wanting to change the system yeah or what do you think that
15:58
passion came from combination so I was I was at a we were saying earlier you were you were at a tiny school high school I
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was at a I think possibly smaller School in a village in the East Midlands which was which was 300 people in the entire
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school from from 4 to 18 my goodness I can't relate so you can't relate yeah
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yeah exactly so I think there's about there was between 20 and 30 people in each year Group by six by the end of by
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18 it was only 20 so that was wonderful in many many ways but it was also again
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it's quite limiting there you small school rural area uh very focused on exams very good at getting good exam
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results but there's not much outside it outside of it I was doing act by some
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sort of a fluke I got a part in a TV show when I was young nine 10 years old uh where I turned into a dog was what
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happened on the show but that wasn't that relevant but I was it was sort of got this and that was successful and it ran for five or six years but then I was
16:52
coming back to this tiny school and I was starting to get this idea of what might be what maybe people were missing out on this other kind of experience you
16:58
could have as a kid so I thought well maybe you could create bring some of
17:03
that into a school somehow so that's that that's for the sort of school bit of it and then yeah for the undergrads I
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didn't love my time at Imperial I thought the Teaching Standards were not good obviously the research is world
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class we were not well taught there was a kind of Macho attitude to so many of you are going to fail because it's
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really hard in in afterwards I was like wait a minute what about if you get better at teaching maybe that's going to
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help those numbers but they didn't occur to them they're like 30% of you will fail you know go inspirational
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inspirational speech like like a coaching thing or something tell people before they go on the field it's like
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that like a pep talk why don't you try helping the 30% yeah you're a teacher
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you yeah and too many and too many I think because it was a worldclass research institution too many Saw
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themselves as researchers rather than teachers I mean I had a similar experience I did computer science and
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technology for my bachelors and I hated it after like my first semester basically but I I you I pushed through
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did you find yourself in a similar situation where you know one semester in you're like what am I doing here but you
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just you know push through it now you're just kind of stuck doing I found I was initially on a master's which is four years atang but then I'm founded up
18:15
immediately and say can I change this to a bang but I wish I'd had the sort of kind of advice or the strength of mind
18:21
to just change degree I would have probably had to change to a different University because Imperial is just a sciences and I really probably should
18:27
have done something like philosophy but as I say look I may not have got the job at Imperial without the kind of
18:33
impressive mechanical engineering degree and I'm sure you found it sort of being able to say I got computer science degree that has Kudos right and even if
18:39
you found it a drag um so has other benefits that's kind of what you know made me kind of push through kind know
18:45
this kind of like a degree that people look at it it's like oh okay yeah you know and it could open up many opportunities whether or not you want to
18:51
stay in computer science or going to business or you want to go and raise money in your pitch deck saying I did
18:57
computer scien science to VC is much better than I it looks it looks better than liberal arts exactly don't not the
19:03
liberal arts but yeah you're right and I I've also like oddly interviewed so many people that are
19:10
successful entrepreneurs and they've dropped out of school and we've we've caught ourselves so many times questioning why we did two degrees when
19:16
these people are like making so much money in doing that so I think interesting yeah I don't know I mean do you think a University degree is crucial
19:23
nowadays or do you think it's almost as risky as not having one
19:28
it's not cheap it's not cheap um I don't think in this country it's a bad deal I mean and that's not that popular R you
19:35
but I I think it's a half of people don't pay the you know pay it back uh so
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it's a reasonably Progressive uh way of thinking about it you only pay back when you're earning a certain amount it's
19:46
totals up to about 40 45k with all the maintenance fees I don't think that's too bad um better than the US I think
19:53
it's better than some of the us some of the USU universities but it's not perfect that's for sure I think the the
19:59
reality is we get quite a few mature in averted Commerce undergrads who are sort
20:05
of 22 23 years old who have didn't go to university when they're 18 and have
20:11
started to get work and actually announced they're finding it as a ceiling so they've they're they're trying to apply to better jobs they might be working in retail or something
20:17
they might be a manager in a retail setting but they want to go to Wards Professional Services or something like that and they need an undergraduate
20:23
degree now that that may be changing but it is still a reality in our society that people look did you go what did you
20:29
get and if you go I didn't go to university they're like oof I don't quite know what to do with you so I think now that is a very poor reason for
20:38
society be to be supporting uh which it is doing because it's funding half the people at University uh because they're
20:44
not paying the loans back that that's a societal investment University so that we can kind of rank them what we should
20:50
be saying is what's the Knowledge and Skills that these people that our society absolutely needs and we are not
20:58
doing that at all all we're saying we're still shipping people off to do the same history physics whatever it is without
21:03
much consideration about what they should be learning and all the debate is what should the fees be and how do we get more diverse groups of students
21:09
those are two very important questions but if the if what's happening in the three years is not interrogated properly
21:14
then what's the point of arguing the toss on the fees and and who's going no it's really interesting because
21:20
I think I mean I went to a quite wellknown like graduate school and I thought you know I spent all this money
21:26
I did this whole year of it it's going to go on the top of my resume on my CV and never was like no put your work
21:31
experience first and your your degree last because that might just be a tick boox like that you need a grad degree and it was kind of like a gutting
21:37
feeling so I was like what what do you mean I just paid for this yes and but yeah it comes down to those internships and what you've learned or your projects
21:44
or your dissertation and things like that that you can really talk what what did you do in and I'm sure that's
21:49
something you see with your students as well is being a new University your name might not stand out as much as you know
21:56
Oxford University so I guess what how no yeah give us 900 years 900 years yeah
22:01
okay um so yeah how do you how do your students kind of get around that to some extent so there's lots of employers who
22:08
are a little bit unnerved by the fact they've not heard of us but there's some employers that are really excited about it and give the students a lot of Kudos
22:14
because they see the students grades from school and often they've got three a and they could have gone to a famous university and they chose to come to us
22:20
so that is giving the employers a little bit of like oh pause for thought these are interesting young people who have chosen to do something different um I
22:28
think think uh the the the reality is if you go to a Russell group University now
22:33
you 88% of people get a first or a 21 so we have 150 200,000 people graduating
22:38
every year from from universities getting a 21 or a first and it's very hard for employers to differentiate them
22:44
so to your point what's the point of putting that at the top because that's just everyone's going to have that so then you so then you need to
22:50
differentiate on internships or projects and that's where we invest a lot of time and effort into trying to get interesting internships and our and our
22:57
every year in the third term student is working on a complex problem that they've chosen so they're all unique and
23:02
they're you know building a portfolio of work that they can show to employers um
23:08
and I think for me it's a filter the employers that are excited by our students were probably more exciting to work for than the employers but you know
23:14
I said earlier they're working for we're getting jobs at KPMG and Goldman Sachs so these these sort of Stuffy oldfashioned companies are not screening
23:20
them out um so NHS who thought thought might be more conservative um yeah
23:26
they're they're opening their doors it's but you know sometimes we're literally not on the drop down menu when people are saying which university to go to
23:32
right they happen to put other uh but that will change in 900 years 900 here
23:37
change the drop down get f one thing is it's an interesting perspective because I mean like higher education is such a
23:44
traditional thing and it's it's been around for centuries and centuries and centuries and
23:49
so nobody that we would traditionally interview with a startup would say that they wouldn't say I'm going to be big in
23:56
900 years cuz they're going to be long gone by then so I guess yeah what is that like having such a long road ahead
24:02
to you know keep up with these higher education institutions so our biggest challenge is the reality of the UK and I
24:09
don't know it's probably similar in the US although the UK has this uniquely long higher education history as well as
24:15
I guess Italy does but is that Prestige is pretty directly correlated with how
24:20
old they are right so Prestige is correlated with age which makes it very hard for startups to come in and steal
24:26
their lunch so is not a kind of uber comes in and steals the market type Market this is a market where the
24:34
biggest currency is prestige and Prestige is directly correlated with age so how the hell do you have an have a new entrance so the the and you're
24:41
dealing with the biggest brand the oldest brands in the world not necessarily the biggest but they are definitely the old Oxford University is
24:46
probably the oldest brand in the world I don't know an older one I mean like Venice is old I guess the Catholic church but um you know so these are this
24:55
is a challenge and so what we've been trying to do is establish ourselves as a challenger to these Russell group
25:01
universities and try and establish some Prestige and we are we're not we're doing a pretty good job so far but it's
25:07
a fragile thing so what we're optimizing for is definitely not like get to break even all the sorts of things you might
25:13
be trying to optimize for it is if we can crack this nut of creating something
25:18
which is attracting people away from Oxford Cambridge Imperial King St Andrews which is which is what we're
25:24
doing I don't know how many of you we've attracted away from Oxbridge you have an offer but we've definitely attracted people from all those other institutions
25:30
and we've had people who've dropped out of Oxford to come to us uh we've got a master's program where
25:35
people's undergrads about 30% of people in the did their undergrad at Oxbridge are now doing masters with us so there's
25:42
something where we have gra we have faculty who have joined us from Berkeley and Harvard as well as the the top
25:47
places so there's we're trying our best and we're kind of on the way and we're
25:53
working with some top organizations and I'm I I like to think we can crack it but we can't
25:58
to the answer here we have to take our time and our backers the ones that are my favorite backers have a 50-year Time
26:05
Horizon genuinely because and these are typically family offices these are not five to seven year return VC funds right
26:11
that just simply wouldn't work um we can't return it to them but if you can get that right if you can create
26:18
something which is a kind of has a prestige in London in the UK with her own degree wooding Powers that's the way
26:24
to create something if you're interested in maximizing value then it's hard put a price on that because there are not many
26:31
prestigious UK education institutions that you could buy or invest in or sell right that's just they're not they're
26:37
not for sale um so but it's a long-term View and you have to constantly be
26:43
communicating to the board to your backers this is a long-term thing we need this thing to be around in 30 40
26:49
years how was it like you know getting your backers to invest into um I like
26:55
what was the process like would deck like yeah what was the pitch de like yeah it's that classic thing you know to
27:01
start off with it's me and this guy Chris who's my co-founder who who's a little older than me not much and he he he'd been a tech entrepreneur he'
27:07
started Booker table which is now Fork you know the like Open Table uh which was a success he'd had some businesses
27:12
that hadn't worked he and he was just he' got he'd raised money lots of times I'd never raised uh VC type money we met
27:19
with for the first round probably met with 30 40 Venture Capital types we knew the Venture capitalists would not be
27:25
that interested because there's no hockey stick growth curve in our in Our Deck um and Chris would actually say in
27:31
the pitch this is highrisk low return are you still interested honestly yeah I
27:37
would never have thought yeah and and and uh but they're
27:42
like keep going keep going um and and only one one veg Capital firm which is
27:48
Jam Jar which is the the guys that started innocent smoothies innocent drinks okay they started this Venture Capital firm called Jam Jar and they
27:54
invest typically in fmcg type businesses like delivery and wild the the the oant
28:00
company but they they backed us I think because they were excited about changing education and we had the founders of funding Circle uh another big business
28:08
new based here come uh back us the the the family behind the H&M family backed
28:13
us and now and now we've got this business school but it but it was hard and in the end it was families and
28:21
family offices that were better because they have a very long-term View and they don't care about the returns they're
28:27
just they're thinking about generational Investments for their children and their grandchildren and I think they think
28:33
yeah if you could create this new University and we own 5 10% of it uh that's kind of cool that could have been
28:39
that could turn out to be a fantastic investment so after getting this investment you know you and your co-founder successfully convinced you
28:47
know people to for some reason give you the money to start this University what was it then like like what was the next
28:53
step in like in your trajectory like you know what when you both sat down and okay we have the money now what how are
28:59
we going to do this so so first step First Step was definitely the money can we get the first 300,000 something like
29:04
that just to get going to start employing one or two people then it was regulation so we wanted to get degree
29:10
awarding powers and and no other new institution at no other university had opened with its own degree awarding
29:15
Powers since the 1960s so since War University the open University since that little wave everyone had been
29:22
babysat by another University for seven or eight years but we wanted that the regulation had changed back to that regulation point in 2017 and so we had
29:28
to go after that and that was hard and that was uh we wrote an application which had a million and a half words in
29:34
it I think and it was backwards and forwards and we failed the first time and had to delay a year and so I'm I'm
29:39
this is those two sentences contain a lot of pain and a lot of you write it
29:44
yeah I didn't write it we had three fantastic members of the team that wrote that um and but we had gone out and
29:51
recruited students in the expectation that we would get it and then we had to we'd had 700 applications then we had to
29:57
contact all 700 stud students individually and saying we're going to delay you we're really sorry so that you know that was that was a tough moment
30:03
but you you you you've got two other big challenges to your question about what comes next so there's
30:08
regulation how do you build a brand talk which we talked about like a university Challenger University brand how do you
30:14
get applications how do you convince young people not to go to Bristol all that thing you've thought about when going through school I'm going to go to
30:19
this kind of University or that kind of University no you're not you're going to come and join 50 60 other people in this
30:25
tiny campus in East London with these crazy with this thing that may not work right that's what you're going to do uh
30:31
and I bet you hadn't thought about that so so there's so there's that and then
30:36
how do you and that was that's hard that is a hard job and remains a hard job to this day particularly for undergrads it's such a big decision for them uh
30:42
Master students get it and they're coming in their drives but undergrads it's uh it's a big deal and then how do
30:48
you recruit good academics and I had I had a Prejudice that academics would just be really stuffy non- entrepreneurial not get it not want to
30:54
come uh but there's a lot of academics out there who are frustrated with the current system they don't like the idea
30:59
they have to publish papers all the time or they don't get promoted and they wanted to have their fingerprints on building a new University so we got
31:06
something like 700 applications for the first eight jobs that we put out and and that was a 10x more than we thought we would get so we had to elongate the
31:13
process and and we have um yeah that that was the only bit of it that was
31:18
significantly easier than I thought it was going to be in terms of Outreach and trying to recruit students do you find
31:24
yourselves marketing more towards the parents or to the student which one do you think has more of a a
31:30
grounds for persuasion when you're going to school because if you think about it the student not paying the time that's
31:36
true that's a good point um I can give you an example on this so recently we had a a nice article four page article
31:43
in the Sunday Telegraph or Saturday Telegraph magazine and that was mostly parents age that we're reading that and
31:49
we had a bumper open day shortly afterwards where loads of people came and for the first time I got the vibe
31:56
that there were parents there on the ho that were more excited about L than the young people right and that is the wrong
32:02
way around okay fundamentally so um what you want to have we used we us our more
32:09
usual thing is a student comes they're really enthusiastic they bring their cynical parent all there like skeptical parent or just their parent that wants
32:15
to make sure this thing's a real deal like that you're going to take my child for three years in this high stakes move
32:20
they really want to come but are you the real deal and they come and then usually by the end of the day they we we've got
32:25
them excited and reassured them and spent a lot of time talking to them I don't really want to do that the other
32:31
way around I don't want to try and convince a young person that they would should come here for three years because it's a different thing you should you
32:36
you sort of your heart should be on fire about coming to somewhere whereas the the parents more need reassurance and I think that's easier to do post so you
32:44
want the student driving it so we advertise the students we're trying to get the students excited emotionally but
32:49
uh the best performing channel for us is word of mouth and I think a lot of that comes from press whether it's C or um
32:56
other newspapers and and people going hey I saw this what do you reckon this maybe maybe this is for you and that
33:03
helps because it kind of gives us a credibility and a Kudos newspapers still have this crazy ability for people to
33:08
think oh it's real it's been in the newspaper that makes it a real thing so you know that that that's helpful yeah
33:14
it's true they do I mean it's really helpful and what was it like what's the difference like starting a University
33:19
versus starting you know the K12 that you ran before prior to
33:25
this uh yeah there's a lot of differ is but there was a fair bit of patent recognition as well um and I don't think
33:31
I could have done this without having done the school beforehand because I was learning a lot from my co-founder in
33:36
that this Peter guy who had been a deputy head who took over as the head teacher in the end he was the one running it and driving it um but I
33:45
there's a couple of differences one is that was a c we didn't have to do any marketing or recruitment but your intake
33:52
is young people in newm in Stratford which is one of the more disadvantaged parts of um London brilliantly diverse
33:59
so it's the most diverse burough in the country but one of the poorest so it's not very diverse economically so that comes with certain challenges uh and
34:06
they are coming because they live nearby so that's good and bad it means it's easy to Market because they just come especially when we got the outstanding
34:11
ofstead but um but it means they don't necessarily want to be there um so you have other challenges and we're trying
34:17
to give this Progressive curriculum you're more tightly regulated so ofstead is this sort of terrifying thing that's
34:23
hovering over you all the time uh and you don't get to choose what exams they sit so you know you're constrained
34:28
ultimately on the on the educational model um but we and we also didn't have to raise money for that we got government money we got 15 million from
34:35
the government to renovate the building we got money in the in the sort of startup money and then you get money
34:40
that follows the pupil if if you can attract pupils so there were some bits which were simpler and there were some
34:46
more complexities because of the context whereas here you know we have students who all want to be there they're highly motivated they're all plus 18 so there's
34:52
a lot of difficulties that go away that you have with young children um or considerations
34:58
but you have to raise money and you have to Market and that that was both new to me so that was really challenging and that and it's a hard thing to raise
35:04
money for and it's a very hard thing to Market do you find yourself like interacting with any of the students currently right now from now at the
35:11
University now the university yeah oh yeah a lot I mean we have essentially an open plan campus so no academics no one
35:18
hasn't yes J's been in and seen and there's no no one's got an office so I don't have an office so so a student
35:23
wants to they can interestingly no students chosen to do this but student could sit opposite and work and work opposite me uh during
35:30
the day but um no yesterday we had a a town hall um which we do every term
35:36
where all of the student body across all our programs only two or three programs come uh I go our Dean goes and some of
35:44
the other faculty go and we sort of go right what's what's working what's not working and that is another way of
35:50
having interactions but you know sometimes we play football against them sometimes I'll go and sit in the back of the class uh but we're essentially
35:57
sharing an office right that's kind of how it feels because the campus is used to be a shared workspace it's kind of modern space for 200 people um and so it
36:05
has that kind of vibe that we're all all in this together so you''ll be making tea and coffee next to them which is a
36:11
from a business perspective if you look at it from a business rather than University it is very peculiar to be interacting with your clients or your
36:17
customers on a daily basis and I struggled with this so the moment we opened and income the customers right on
36:23
day one I then you then get all this noise which you're desperately trying respond to so someone's going this isn't
36:29
working that's not working this wasn't very good that wasn't very good and it's all these like anecdotal bits of feedback which if you Tred to react to
36:35
them or you go mad and so we were trying to figure out what's the what's the signal that we should be trying to look for in all of this noise and that took
36:41
us me personally I struggled with that for probably the best part of a year
36:46
because you just you get so stressed that people that's why the town hall is great because then you go I had three
36:51
people say they hated you know this the way that the coding was being taught and then everyone else in the room goes now we love it and get it ah okay talk it
36:59
out glad I glad I didn't change it really interesting it's like you're immersed you're immersed in them yeah it
37:05
is like a staff meing but you're immersing them in the daytime and that is unusual and what what have you learned you know from the town halls
37:11
like what from what has been working and what's you know what you can improve on what you can change what you should
37:16
definitely keep the same yeah so I mean there's lots there's lots that we've
37:21
kept the same we found the way we taught mathematical so quantitative subjects so
37:28
data science or coding or statistics that was a challenge because we have
37:33
people coming in to do our program who might have gone to do computer science at Imperial or they've turned down a
37:40
fine art course at the Slade School for Arts right and they're on the same degree both in the same coding class and
37:46
they have very different mathematical capabilities so we weren't getting that right in the first year we' fixed that now but that's something that we
37:51
discussed a lot in town halls yesterday something we talked about in town halls is how we Mark sort of what what should
37:57
count towards the degree and what shouldn't right so which bits of work should count and which shouldn't and we've moved to more of a program where
38:04
more work counts and we think that's good because it gets people to kind of do their prep work and hand workk in and
38:10
it should be low stakes but it does count towards a degree whereas some students were saying yesterday we're finding this really stressful every week
38:15
we're doing something that counts towards our degree and even if we just get a little Mark out of five it's really stressful for us if we get a two
38:21
or a three versus a four or five right and so and then you get into a big discussion and that's really important
38:27
for them but we're also learning in reality about how to build this
38:32
University because none of us have built a university before so and actually when we say to the students what I've just
38:39
said and and be honest with them but we're trying our best and we're and they get it and they feel a sense of building
38:46
this with us I think do you have a favorite student no
38:51
yes everyone's got a favorite student everyone's got a favorite student and no one diverges who it is yeah yeah do the
38:58
um do the alumni work closely with the incoming students at all I'm assuming that's going to be a really big part of
39:04
yeah they're doing some they're doing some what we call coaching um and they're doing some facilitation of some groups and some because they get the
39:11
program there's not many people understand our program right so our alumni do but we're we're we're new in the alumni game so we're still figuring
39:17
it out and mainly we want them to go get fantastic jobs or fantastic Master's places or go traveling or whatever and then they're busy yeah exactly and then
39:24
they'll be too busy speaking of busy as an entrepreneur I'm sure or you know you're busy you're probably working you
39:29
know 24/7 how is it that you manage your time and what like what do you do when you're not at the
39:36
University uh so I would say my hours are not crazy
39:45
but I'm sort of always on or thinking about stuff and that's not great so my
39:51
hours honestly are probably 9 to six sort of perfectly normal working hours
39:56
I'm not I'm not working and I think that is because I've had some experience of starting things before and I've I think if this was my
40:03
first thing yeah I I feel I feel like coming to this as a second or third major project remember the theater days
40:09
it's like constant startup you know you're putting on a show in your 20s that's like a startup in itself and then you do it again and again so I feel this
40:15
muscle is reasonably welldeveloped and I can see what I can de prioritize and what needs to be prioritized so the
40:21
startup was not this sort of hugely intense literal 24/7 experience doesn't
40:26
mean it wasn't stressful but I though I think for me I have a reasonably good work life balance in
40:31
terms of hours I don't think I have a great my partner would say she'd say
40:37
you're constantly thinking about work I go I don't work that hard you know she's like when are you not thinking about it
40:43
and um that's a tricky one I try to to switch off and for my mental health I do I do a fair bit of sport I play football
40:49
uh and keep fit and then I'm I'm getting back I play I'm 46 years old so I play at the
40:55
back is where I play um I've been played there for a while to be fair uh no I
41:00
love that at toide in uh in East London on a Saturday but um and then and then
41:06
I'm trying to draw more uh I think that's really great for my mental health it's not something I've really done done before and so I'm doing a bunch of
41:12
YouTube kind of videos trying to learn how to do that and I have it's tailed off a bit but I in the in recent decade
41:18
trying to read like a lot more than I had before in terms of actual books so
41:24
I'm not really on social media and for a few years I was was reading about 40 45 books re this year I'll probably read 15
41:31
or something which is still not bad but like like sit down get through the entire book but when I was reading 40 45
41:37
books I was feeling like my brain was just getting so much food and I was just so much better for it and I was trying
41:43
to do some practices like write up the book as soon as I'd finished it at the end of the year write up a synthesis of
41:49
all the books I'd read that year and it was actually terrifying how much I'd forgotten of a book immediately after
41:54
finishing it then trying to write up the notes that I'd got inside it I was like my God I'd forgotten I'd forgotten that note I'd written I'd even forgotten that
42:01
so what about the stuff I didn't make a note about it's like you're trying to replicate the English degree you didn't do maybe that's that might be right
42:08
maybe if I don't that's it I'm definitely not doing maths in my spare time I'm not doing any thermodynamics
42:16
soling that's not happening yeah it sounds like it was a natural progression of doing that but that's that's good because you you don't if you're reading
42:23
40 I'm assuming that's a year 40 I'm not I'm not last couple years I've not managed that but that's where I
42:28
was at yeah I mean man and I both love books I'm going to go ahead and assume you don't read 40 to 45 books you no I
42:34
might get through like that is a lot you would definitely easily forget about them if you did we we read a lot of you do read a lot yeah and but we read a lot
42:41
of things because of different form forms of reading and I'm not sure that the book is necessarily the best thing
42:46
best form to read something right it might be a paper or a blog or that might be better or listen to a podcast I read all news articles yeah
42:54
for work of course yeah you can't help it what is that like you miss like you know being a student what was like I
43:00
don't know I look back sometimes a lot of things that I do miss about being a student like what was that like for you like what is that you said you miss I I
43:07
I think um I didn't I didn't love as I said the degree I don't I honestly this is a little sad for me I don't think I
43:13
miss very much about my mechanical engineering degree really I don't think there are many days where my I was just
43:19
sort of thinking wow God I love this fluid mechanics that fluid mechanics lesson was was one of the better ones
43:26
right it was just just um but I but I did do a lot of theater University I put plays on and that was kind of thrilling
43:32
and really fun and when the stakes are not if the stakes feel high at the time but you kind of know they're not that high and so you're just it's just that
43:39
is just brilliant and and the and the complete freedom of let's just you know what are
43:45
we going to do this afternoon we can do literally anything in r in London um that that of course is great as a student but like all stages in life you
43:54
look back and go ah I didn't really appreciate that and uh trying to figure out what I'm not appreciating now and I'm just not quite sure what it is but
44:00
I'm remember on the yeah it's a good question because I think um I mean going to an American
44:06
University is obviously drastically different than going here and the football games were American football games just crazy in the House parties
44:13
and things like that and all those that that culture definitely different from the UK but also being in you know you
44:19
know the Lis in a smaller like you guys don't have football games or right but I don't know how many I don't I can't
44:24
compare it to UK at University as an undergrad but is there anything that you do to kind of make sure that that
44:29
interaction between students keeps going like those you know I don't know homecoming or you little things like that where people are actually hanging
44:36
out with each other um they don't get that traditional experience well we have to create Traditions so um and so we
44:44
start the whole experience that when people join in a sort of somewhat ritualist in a somewhat of a ritual of
44:50
kind of greeting and meeting each other because Traditions that people just take
44:56
for granted now in these old plac place is started as someone doing something a bit weird right I me saying we're all going to wear this weird outfit and
45:02
we're going to walk over here for no reason and then this person's gonna tap us on the head or something right and and the first time someone does that
45:09
surely someone was going why can't we just chill out and just say hello to each other um and so but rituals I think
45:14
are really important um and uh and rituals don't have to be old they can
45:20
you can vent them so that's what we've done a bit so there's rituals which we do at the beginning you know Mark the beginning and end and and rights of
45:26
Passage and and we did a graduation that was sort of I would say 50% traditional 50% a little bit different uh and that
45:31
was a magical thing and actually the ritual the old part of it that we borrowed people had gowns and you know
45:36
morar boards and they had they were handed degrees this was really important actually to root it whereas you said to
45:43
me five years ago is that what we going to have it I thought boring we want to change all of that but it was really important to root it in the history
45:49
which is a great history of universities but we also have to make sure they're meeting people and having fun I mean they they you know they live in shared
45:55
Halls they can join societ from other universities if they want to be in a play uh at Lis you know there 150
46:00
students there's probably not going to be enough to put on um mamir or something you're going to have to go and do that in a um in another University so
46:07
they're doing that but actually there's the law of sort of the dumbar number of 150 which is that you struggle to get a
46:14
community above 150 but you can actually know everyone in a community of 150 means they sort of know everybody in
46:19
this student student body of 150 and I definitely can't say I have 150 friends from University so you you go to a much
46:27
bigger place and you can end up with far fewer connections I think I actually do agree it's like when you live in a big
46:32
city you realize it's so much harder to make a like to make friends because of no one cares about you you're just like
46:38
you're a slice of a huge pie compared to when you're in a small you know 2,000 I didn't know 2,000 people but you
46:45
need 2,000 people in your town Jenn yeah I I didn't know 2,000 people ever at any point in my life there's no animality
46:53
whatsoever so that that that is very true that like you know it's it's like what's that saying where you know the
46:59
big parties are not intimate you know or something like that yeah and it also goes I guess to show you know later on
47:05
in in your life with those connections I mean if you have a small class or a small University you might not be very
47:11
close with everybody but you're acquainted with them and I think that goes far when you go into certain um
47:17
professions and sectors and industries and things like that you know I might know Brenda but we're not close but we
47:22
can you know we have that connection where we can say hello hi we went to the same University that's important I mean
47:27
I still have that with my McKinzie connections now where I met somebody recently and the reality is because we
47:32
were sort of interested in what each other were doing we'd never spoken at none of us really said it but we' never spoken at Mackenzie in four years but we
47:39
knew who each other were and I think that's the and but if in in a in a big place that's less likely well it's like
47:45
I went to City University for my grad degree and when I came here everybody else went to City University and I was like okay well it's nice to have that
47:51
connection but now you're not unique in any way whatsoever and you might have all gone there but you don't know them
47:57
or of them so it's a yeah it's an interesting perspective for sure yeah I pretty much only knew people either like
48:03
people who were doing the same degree as me or they were like in the University like I was in my University football team um so that was pretty much it those
48:10
are my friends people in my class and the school like the school team and that was pretty much it um I didn't know as
48:17
many people as 60 people proba which which I think is actually you know testimony to how easy it to make to make
48:25
friends and real connections when is a smaller crowd do you feel like eventually that will become you know it
48:31
will grow you will have 5,000 10,000 plus people yeah I mean yeah more campuses that's the idea maybe more
48:38
campuses maybe internationally uh certainly we want to grow um we um we need to be a bit bigger to be
48:43
sustainable right because we're still backed by by external money um but as it grows you will start to see the
48:50
community fracture a little bit it'll just be what is what happens I mean the um it's interesting there's another
48:56
Paradox of a very small community like we have there is and because everybody's friends with everybody I think people
49:02
have the most diverse friend set that they'll ever have whereas when you get bigger and bigger and bigger people tend to gravitate towards people that are a
49:08
bit like them so that the biggest example of that is Twitter where basically people are just sort of connected to or watching people these Echo chambers that just like them
49:14
whereas in this small space you've got people with completely different backgrounds who know each other because
49:20
there's it's such small groups uh and I think that's there a POS that's a positive thing as we grow maybe we can
49:26
try and still bake that in I think that's just a law of the human scale nature of what we're dealing with at a
49:32
minute and as we get bigger it'll be harder but there may be ways of doing it do you have any advice for any you know
49:39
future entrepreneurs that might be listening to this podcast starting a business or a university yeah maybe not
49:45
studing University that's quite a specific one yeah I think think really hard and then come and talk to me if you think about if you're thinking about
49:51
doing University but uh I my main one that I think is not always piece of
49:57
advice that that people might give and it's is to think longterm and to be
50:03
moving towards something with a think about what you can do in seven or eight years rather than one or two so and so
50:09
in my case that was I want to start a school I'm going to go and earn some money at McKenzie then maybe start a
50:15
business then maybe sell that business then I'll have money and I can start a school right so I had like a 10 15 year plan but I started thinking about it in
50:22
around 2004 five and then it opened in 2012 so that is a slow I started
50:28
thinking about the university around about 2011 even before we'd opened we opened in 2021 so now saying to somebody
50:36
I'm going to start a university sounds sort of comic comical like how you gonna do that but if you go well it's going to take you seven years to do it People
50:42
starts go oh okay well and then just make sure you're sailing and tacking in roughly the right direction and then you
50:49
have to retack and rechange but a lot of people say you got to move fast and break things that's not really been my
50:55
the way I've worked I've worked slowly long-term goals but in the end you can
51:02
do you know things that are meaningful would is there anything that you would change if you could go back and you know
51:07
do it all over again yeah I mean there's like a thousand sort of trivial things I
51:13
definitely definitely change um certain hiring decisions I mean in the end hiring decisions are really really important and you you you just have to
51:20
accept that you're going to make some mistakes um
51:25
I and then I think on Su succession we didn't quite
51:30
get right for the school succession is really hard so the post founder who's going to run the thing uh we sort of got
51:38
that half right half wrong I really want to get that right here so for l so at some point I'll move on and and ardino
51:44
move on and I I want to make sure we have the right succession so that's something I'm thinking about and I guess
51:51
what I would want to know is just basically where do you see l in the next you know 10 years 100 100 years yeah
52:00
hope still here 100 I mean look what do I want I want um this sort of Las in Las I want it to be
52:07
this thriving institution where all kinds of different people are coming thinking about these complicated problems and no one saying I don't do
52:13
math and I'm this kind of person or I'm only that they're just interested in ideas and they're bringing ideas from a range of places and it's sort of place
52:19
you can walk through the building and just feel that kind of energy and that's quite a touchy feely description of it
52:25
but then outside of L I want the impact of us to be that people are talking
52:31
about interdisciplinarity or rather if they're not talking about that they're talking about we need multiple perspectives on this problem so you know
52:36
when a problem like covid comes along again you've got some people in the room who are scientists and who are politicians but you've got some people
52:42
in the room who really deeply understand both those perspectives and I think that's what we're missing we're missing
52:47
people who understood uh exponential growth rates kind of how viruses work as well as some
52:54
legal and psychological stuff so who were the people that understood all of that to some extent right not deepex who could be the glue in those conversations
53:01
so I want more of those people in the world and the conversation to be much more about we need an interdisciplinary
53:06
approach to these problems it's like some of the I mean best CEOs and best entrepreneurs Founders you know they can
53:14
sit at a table with their marketing department they can sit at a table with their editorial department they can sit at a table with their you know any any
53:21
Department within their business and understand it enough to be able to direct that department so it's almost like that's who's going to be leading
53:27
businesses ultimately um if you're just you know a master of one thing how can
53:32
you I I guess manage so many different types of teams I think that's right and I mean we're looking at now launching a
53:38
new version of an NBA I think we've mentioned this to you before and the question there is like what does the future leader need and and in our view
53:46
they need to be able to understand things like technology how intelligence is going to evolve artificial and human
53:53
the energy transition that needs to be able to understand trust in institutions they need to be able to understand the increasingly complex world we live in
54:00
and they need to do that at a level that is beyond just listening to a podcast or or or or or or having read a BL blog
54:05
about it so they need to understand fundamentally some of the academic underpinnings of those things so for me
54:11
that's those are the leadership programs of the future is leaders in you know you want the person leading your
54:16
organization particularly if it's a large one to be able to grasp the shifting terrain of the world that is
54:22
really important because what's going on in the world affects organizations more than it ever did before and would you
54:27
say it's you know it's it's been really you know helpful having a co-founder know because of know there's always had
54:33
to bate co-founder no a co-founder what would you say there's no question you got to have a co-founder in my I have to
54:39
have a co-founder I uh is too lonely and too hard it's just too hard so the the
54:45
the simplest thing is other than the fact that no one's got the complete skill set I mean even two people don't cover the whole set of skills you need
54:51
right you need to build a team but the mood swings in those early days if this
54:56
isn't going to happen are serious so you'll be lying in bed at 3: in the morning going what am I doing I'm going to run out of money I've got no this
55:04
this was Preposterous anyway the last eight people have told me how crazy this idea is and it's not even a good idea um
55:11
whereas you then phone you as founder the next day and they're buzzing and they're positive about something even when you later discover that they'd had
55:17
the same the same sleepless night right but you tend to show up for each other and you just get each other through and
55:23
if you can see they're down you pick them up vice versa I don't know how I'd have done this on my own I wouldn't have
55:28
been able to so I for me it's quite straightforward and this whole thing of like splitting Equity or whatever or
55:34
falling out there's a risk of falling out and I just wouldn't care about the equity thing just you know just build
55:40
something that you want to build that's exciting and don't you share share generously just got our
55:46
clip on that note I think that's all that we had to cover for the day but is
55:51
there anything else that you wanted to touch on no I've enjoyed it it's great thank you so much for joining us yeah thank you great having you yeah I loved
55:58
it thanks very much [Music]
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