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Klaus, J-A-Y-C-L-O-U-S-E. I

2:10

hate this question. It goes really hard. Yeah,

2:13

it is. It genuinely is. That's

2:16

Angus Parker, the general manager for Ollie

2:18

of Dolls. He's the guy building out

2:20

the dream team behind Ollie's YouTube empire

2:22

that generated around 120 million views and

2:25

over $5 million in 2023 alone.

2:27

This episode is all about one

2:29

of the most important, but we've

2:31

talked about topics in the YouTube

2:33

space, hiring. And Angus is

2:35

the perfect guy to teach us about it.

2:38

There was one person before me, and now we

2:40

are basically a core team of 12, supplemented

2:42

by maybe 10 to 20 freelancers and contractors.

2:44

Today you'll learn how you need to think

2:46

about hiring. I think the obvious thing is

2:48

you currently don't have the team at all.

2:50

And even if you do, is

2:52

what positions you should hire first. I see a

2:55

lot of phrases, go down the roof of a

2:57

hire a scriptwriter and a video editor and a

2:59

thumbnail designer and a... The

3:01

issue with that for me is mistakes that

3:03

you need to avoid. One of the mistakes

3:05

we made initially was relying too much on

3:07

the traditional approach of... And

3:09

a heartache that some people might not like. I

3:12

think incentives are never

3:14

truly aligned when they

3:17

work together. If

3:22

I'm a creator watching this, what would you

3:24

say is your next step or overall advice

3:29

for me to think about my next steps

3:31

with hiring or building a team or even

3:33

deciding if I should? I think

3:35

the obvious thing is you currently don't have the team

3:38

at all. And even if you do is

3:40

literally mapping out your system and

3:42

what it currently looks like, what is your process of

3:44

production currently look like? And as a

3:47

percentage, where are you currently investing your time? What

3:49

does that look like? And are you happy with

3:51

how that's divided? I think it's very easy in

3:53

this creative space, in this modern world, I guess,

3:56

to just operate at 300x speed.

4:00

and not actually stop and think what

4:03

does my current system look like and where are

4:05

the bottlenecks, where am I currently spending my time,

4:07

I don't want to be spending my time. And

4:10

so combining sort of that

4:13

with the traditional kind of matrix

4:16

of what do you love doing, what

4:19

do you like doing, but don't want to be doing what

4:22

do you don't like doing, and don't want to be doing

4:24

like that kind of division as well. Combining those two things,

4:26

I think, would allow you to get

4:28

visibility on where you need to hire. And

4:30

then it's a case of pulling

4:33

the trigger and trying to hire someone if

4:35

you can, who can sit across multiple different

4:37

seats. So you can start building up that

4:39

kind of generalist person who potentially then could

4:41

become more of that

4:43

right hand man, that COO sort of

4:45

person who could then take on management

4:48

responsibilities, which are currently holding you

4:50

back and therefore holding the channel back. How big

4:52

was the team when you joined? There was one

4:54

person before me, a remote editor. So

4:56

I was the first sort of in-person

4:59

employee. So we have expanded from

5:01

two or three

5:04

all the way up to 19 at one point. And now we are at

5:06

12 full time plus

5:08

Ali, so team of 13. Beneath me,

5:10

we have a fairly flat structure that's

5:12

broadly split into two different areas. We

5:15

have the content team and the commercial

5:17

team. On the content side of things,

5:19

we have the YouTube producer, podcast producer,

5:21

someone managing the book, we have someone

5:23

managing the website, we have someone managing

5:25

socials, and we have our sort of

5:27

editing squad. And then the commercial side of the team, which

5:29

is our sort of courses. At the moment,

5:32

that's a team of three, we have a

5:34

head of marketing, a head of product and

5:36

a head of customer success, which is essentially

5:38

sort of product delivery. So that's like the

5:40

core team of 12. But we then have

5:42

probably between 10 and 20, depending on the

5:44

time of year, freelancers and contractors that we

5:46

rely on beneath those black core team, who

5:48

are pulled in to help with other sort

5:50

of like product delivery on the customer success

5:52

side of things. Or on

5:54

the content side, I think it's mainly editors. So

5:56

we have five or six freelance editors doing shorts,

5:59

and then one or two. to freelance editors helping

6:01

out with Ali's main channel as well.

6:04

So that's kind of the main structure. So it's basically

6:06

a core team of 12, supplemented

6:08

by maybe 10 to 20 freelancers and contractors.

6:10

I want to go back to that time

6:12

when it was you and Ali and a

6:14

freelance editor. What did it

6:17

feel like then? Like, what was

6:19

your experience? What were your expectations even when you

6:21

joined the team at that time? Yeah,

6:23

when I joined the team, I joined off

6:26

the back of a cold email just helping

6:28

to help with research, essentially. So first couple

6:30

of months, it was essentially just contributing towards

6:32

videos. It was just before the pandemic hit.

6:34

But it felt very much like a startup.

6:38

I mean, it still does to a certain

6:40

extent, but it didn't necessarily feel like it

6:42

was, I was going to say, like a

6:45

real job per se. But it didn't have

6:47

that kind of same vibe to it, but

6:49

it was always fun. There was no sort

6:51

of formal structure to things because it didn't

6:53

necessarily need it. We certainly,

6:55

I wore multiple hats. I started as a

6:57

researcher and writer, then learned how to edit

6:59

and did editing, then kind of ended up

7:01

sort of, I guess, producing the channel because

7:04

I was still working as a doctor at that point.

7:06

So I was doing all the admin behind the channel

7:08

as well. And we've retained some of that vibe. But

7:10

obviously, as we've grown, there's need to be a bit

7:13

more structure imposed. But at that point, at the

7:15

start, it was very much like a

7:17

startup. And we were kind of at the

7:19

start of something that's potentially growing to something

7:21

far bigger. Do you remember how

7:23

big the channel was at that time? Yes, it

7:25

just passed 500,000 subscribers. I think

7:27

520,000, Nitroen. Wow.

7:30

So he was still flying

7:32

mostly solo up to 500,000 subs.

7:36

Pretty much, yeah. So he hired

7:38

his first, because the editor, when

7:40

Nitroen was full-time, and he hired him in the

7:42

October before, so about three months prior. So he

7:45

was more or less solo up

7:47

until around 400, 450 subs. I

7:49

appreciate all his context. I think this is helpful to anchor

7:52

people who are watching this to compare

7:54

where they are now with where things were

7:56

then. That is a more mature channel than

7:58

I would have expected. before like

8:00

the start of hiring, you know, when

8:03

you guys were having conversations, like, how

8:07

stretched do you think Ollie

8:09

felt at the time? Did it feel like, oh, man, I

8:11

really need a number two? Or was it like, I need

8:13

a writer, you know? I

8:15

think it was less that he felt stretched

8:18

and more that he didn't realize that he

8:21

needed to outsource. And I think if you

8:23

asked him now, would he outsource earlier and

8:25

hire a team earlier, he would definitely say

8:27

yes. I think his kind of

8:29

turning point was he often tells this story

8:31

when he was leaving the hospital one day,

8:33

someone who, I don't know whether he

8:35

was a doctor or whether it was just someone visiting the

8:38

surgery, recognized him from YouTube and they got talking and turned

8:40

out this guy was kind of a business coach and ended

8:42

up doing like a free session with Ollie. And

8:44

part of the session, they wrote kind of boxes

8:46

on the page of the different segments of the

8:49

production process. And the guy was like, where you're

8:51

currently spending most of your time as a percentage.

8:53

And sort of 70% was in editing. And

8:57

that was when Ollie, I think, clicked in

8:59

Ollie's mind of like, this is where I

9:01

need to be reinvesting in the channel and

9:03

freeing up my time because my time is

9:05

worth more than the time it's taking me

9:07

to do this particular task. And so I

9:09

think it was more that realization of the

9:11

time sink in certain areas of the channel

9:14

that made him realize actually

9:16

outsourcing is something that I need to do rather than

9:18

him getting to a point where he

9:20

realized he literally couldn't do it because of

9:23

burnout or anything like that and needing to

9:25

outsource. So as I said, I think if

9:27

he was to go back and start over

9:29

again, hiring earlier would definitely be something that

9:31

he would do, especially the editing side of things. It's

9:34

always something that we advise people do, because

9:36

I think it is the biggest time sink and it's the biggest

9:38

area where someone with decent

9:41

editing skills and technical abilities can be far

9:43

better than you, even if you think that

9:46

your style is not replicable, which is the

9:48

main excuse for people not outsourcing stuff. I

10:00

want to hear your experience of when you

10:03

stopped looking at this as I'm

10:05

a writer to I'm

10:07

growing into a bigger role I'm thinking about

10:09

the strategy of the company because you know

10:11

you said there was a there was a

10:13

part-time editor also like Who's

10:15

to say that guy couldn't have stepped into that

10:17

role early on so there's something that drove you

10:19

to say I'm going to Be

10:21

this this person. Yeah, I

10:24

think there were kind of two two moments I can

10:26

kind of call to one was sort of midway through

10:28

2020 I in my first year

10:30

when we stood a team of four actually had two

10:32

Offers to go and do master's degrees at the starting

10:35

that September in my mind for like the first six

10:37

months of 2020 I was still gonna probably go and

10:39

do those and this was like a stopgap Skillshare

10:44

starts to take off and the company was growing

10:46

the channel is growing and I was starting to

10:48

kind of actually Enjoy what I was doing with

10:50

the editing and things that was when I made

10:52

decision actually This is a long-term

10:55

thing and I'm committing to this I'm in the second

10:57

moment was probably after we had launched the part-time each

10:59

book had me in November of that year and that

11:01

went Very well We realized that

11:03

we needed to hire more people to be able

11:05

to continue to run that Academy as well as

11:08

continues to put Content out on the channel

11:10

and we made decision to hire writers I eat

11:13

to support the content production rather than support the

11:15

production of the YouTube Academy

11:17

because myself and Elizabeth who is working for out

11:19

of the time had could handle that and when

11:21

they joined there was a need for sort of

11:24

Some level of management to be able

11:26

to then oversee what was then for

11:28

other people aside from me and Ali

11:31

and so when I started You know

11:33

when I took that on those management Responsibilities

11:36

on and I asked me to do

11:38

that that was really the second moment

11:40

when I thought actually this is you

11:42

know This is a more managerial responsibility

11:44

more a bigger role that I

11:46

can step into and take forward Something that

11:49

you said that may be obvious, but I

11:51

want to point out you said there was

11:53

a time when there were you know Four

11:55

other people besides Ali and there was this

11:57

need for a manager and when there's not

11:59

a man by default,

12:01

I would assume the creator, in this case,

12:03

Ollie, is that manager, which

12:06

is a huge responsibility, time

12:11

suck, and so this is the point where

12:13

I think a lot of people watching this

12:15

may be at right now, maybe they don't

12:17

have four part time or

12:19

full time people, but they're probably overseeing

12:21

multiple people and saying, I'm spending as

12:24

much time managing as I

12:26

am creating, which is a completely

12:28

different skill set. And I

12:30

think one thing which

12:32

Ollie did quite early on, which I think was

12:34

good, was he realized that he is

12:36

not necessarily got the skill set to be

12:39

a kind of full time manager. Not

12:41

just the skill set, but I guess, you know, he doesn't

12:43

want to be a full time manager of people, but fundamentally

12:45

his strengths lie in creating content. That's when

12:48

he realized that actually offloading onto someone else

12:50

and having someone in that sort of, what

12:53

we call the integrator position, is actually really

12:55

important for creators. And I think

12:57

it's something which is often overlooked by creators having someone

12:59

in that sort of right hand man

13:02

slash integrator slash kind

13:04

of COO kind of role. It's probably

13:06

one of the most crucial roles that

13:08

you could hide for after the editor

13:10

in my view. Ollie kind of did

13:12

it accidentally, but having someone like

13:14

myself, like someone who's happy to be

13:16

a generalist and do multiple things, and

13:18

then step up into that role of

13:21

just like COO and overseeing the expansion

13:23

and building upon the current company size

13:25

and hiring people, that kind of thing.

13:27

It's almost like key to successfully growing

13:29

a company, a creative

13:31

company, I think, because having that person that

13:33

you can trust and to run

13:36

operations whilst you carry on creating, it's

13:38

kind of really, really important. Otherwise you

13:40

will end up burning out and not

13:42

enjoying the process of creating and

13:44

burning out both literally and figuratively in

13:46

terms of like the channel itself will

13:49

kind of eventually die. And

13:52

so, yeah. This is the thing

13:54

though. So creators are so skilled

13:57

at upskilling. You mentioned it

13:59

a couple times. because it's an interest

14:01

thing. I think there are creators to get to a

14:03

point where it's not that you can't

14:05

manage people, it's that maybe

14:08

you don't have the interest in managing people

14:10

and that's okay, or as you said, it

14:12

comes at an opportunity cost, the cost of

14:14

creating and doing these things. After

14:17

a quick break, Angus and I talk about the

14:19

first hires you would recommend creators make. So stick

14:21

around, we'll be right back. I

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16:06

And now back to my conversation with Angus Parker.

16:09

You said a couple things that I want to double

16:11

click on to make sure I'm hearing right. It sounds

16:13

like you suggested the first hire for a lot of

16:15

people is a video editor and the second hire is

16:17

a general manager. Yeah. Some

16:20

some nuance in terms of definitely for

16:22

like YouTubers. Yes. I mean,

16:24

I would suggest video editor is the main hire. Exception

16:27

being if video editing is your your

16:30

jam and you're like main thing and part

16:32

of your channel is about video editing. But

16:35

in broad strokes, yes, video editor. And then

16:37

I wouldn't necessarily say general manager

16:39

or hire as a general manager. I would

16:41

probably more say content manager to start with,

16:44

but a content manager who you can test

16:47

to be able to both write as

16:49

well as project manage. I think like those

16:51

are the two key qualities. And if you're

16:54

a creator who's looking to both expand their

16:56

creative content,

16:58

it turns out, but also thinking about

17:00

commercialization, having someone who can write and

17:02

is capable of writing both scripts as

17:05

well as things like some

17:07

capabilities of writing copy and VSLs and things like

17:09

that is also important. And this is like a

17:11

difficult skill set to hire for definitely, but it's

17:13

something which I think people should think about and

17:16

often just in few dozen of work ethic will

17:18

get someone to a level

17:20

which could serve a lot of creators. But I

17:22

think too many people kind of try and hire

17:24

specific roles at that stage and actually think you

17:26

need someone and or a couple

17:29

of people who are happy wearing multiple different hats.

17:31

Because as I mentioned at the start, that kind

17:33

of stage of

17:35

a creator's journey is very much startup mode where

17:37

you need to be happy wearing multiple hats. And

17:39

the only role which is really probably specific is

17:42

the editor because that is a very technical skill. You

17:44

guys have a well known brand and

17:46

platform. So I imagine maybe hiring doesn't

17:48

get easier, but getting interested talent probably

17:50

gets a little bit easier. If

17:52

I'm getting started and I want

17:55

to hire, how do

17:57

you recommend I go about finding talented

17:59

people? this question. It's

18:01

really hard. Yeah, no, it

18:03

is. It genuinely is like, I hate my love

18:05

at the same time, because it's a really interesting

18:07

space. But I get this question

18:09

a lot from Ali, we have the parts

18:11

and each group accelerator, which is our kind

18:13

of group of students who are on a

18:15

12 month package and I have office hours. And

18:18

often I get this literally this question. And

18:20

it's difficult because we are in a privileged

18:22

position whereby we can create job description, put

18:24

on an out and I Twitter and Instagram, we

18:26

get a lot of being inbound. But I can't

18:28

recommend that to anyone else, obviously, because we're

18:30

very fortunate to have that. So I think

18:33

this is where there's a bit of big problem at

18:35

the moment in the creative space in that there is

18:37

not a

18:42

filtered and accurate and quality

18:45

kind of job site, I

18:47

don't think we have working jobs, which I think

18:49

is is good. And it's a good start. But

18:51

I think there is still more to do on

18:53

this on this side of things. I think why

18:55

job is it is really it's really positive step

18:57

in the right direction. I just think there is

19:00

so much on there that it's quite difficult to

19:02

filter through the quality

19:04

talent from the best quality teams and find

19:06

those diamonds in the rough and that can

19:08

take time. So you've got why do jobs,

19:10

you've got five people per hour, like all

19:12

of these platforms are the ones that we

19:15

generally sort of recommend. And it is tricky.

19:17

And I know I'm not really answering your

19:19

question, but it's really hard. Because

19:21

I just don't think the recruiting side of the

19:24

creative space is quite caught up with where the

19:26

demand is at the moment, can we say like

19:29

job hunting platforms is

19:31

somewhat tricky, because the creative space is still

19:33

trying, I think trying to break into that more traditional

19:36

job space, which does make it difficult to hire

19:38

roles, which are not, I

19:41

think basically are not video editing or potentially

19:43

thumbnail design, I said, my design is coming

19:45

on board and scriptwriting is somewhat getting there.

19:48

But even then, it's still a relatively small

19:50

pool of people who are really

19:52

offering their best services just as a script

19:54

writers. It is something which I recognise we're

19:57

in a privileged position. And

19:59

there is really... really a

20:01

paucity of sort of

20:03

steps and access to

20:05

quality talent out there at the moment without

20:07

going through and spending a lot of time

20:09

on platforms like X, Twitter, which seems to

20:11

be where there is a lot of talent,

20:13

but you have to spend time finding it.

20:16

So when you are going through the hiring process, how

20:19

do you hire? How do you think about

20:21

screening this person judging for a good fit?

20:23

So I think one of the mistakes we

20:25

made initially was relying too much on the

20:27

traditional approach of we want people to see

20:29

these, we want cover letters, we want like

20:32

written answers to questions. I think

20:34

we very quickly realized that CVs, although

20:36

helpful, are kind of don't really give us a

20:38

full picture of the person. And essentially

20:40

we learned not to hire the CV, not to

20:42

hire the resume. And we didn't actually do that

20:45

at all. But the mechanism that we've got now

20:47

is that every single job description that we put

20:49

out, people need to record a loom of

20:51

some description, whether it's like a two minute

20:53

introduction, whether it's the trial task is a

20:55

loom. In some way, we have some level

20:57

of interaction with them to know kind of

21:00

who they are, what they're like. And that

21:02

has helped speed up the application process immensely.

21:05

It's impossible really to tell

21:07

from purely text based applications,

21:10

who someone is, what they're like, that kind of

21:12

thing. Whereas a loom and getting them on video

21:14

and making sure they're comfortable on video, that kind

21:16

of thing is makes such a

21:19

difference to have made such a difference to our

21:21

hiring process. And the second thing is getting it

21:23

having a trial task as well. I think it's

21:25

fairly relatively standard now for general applications to

21:27

have trial tasks. And again, that has helped

21:30

speed up the process of hiring immensely and

21:32

helped us spot quality talent far quicker than

21:34

if we had sort of just been looking

21:36

at CVs or resumes, just been looking at

21:38

cover letters and then gone out with a

21:40

trial task. One of the other things which

21:42

I would just sort of mention for people

21:44

kind of on the fence about hiring is

21:47

that I think sometimes people build up hiring

21:49

as something which is some big thing which

21:51

needs a lot of thought and effort and

21:53

decision and discussion. And it

21:56

does to a certain extent, but if you're looking just

21:58

to get someone on board to help with. certain

22:00

tasks that you haven't hired before. You

22:03

know, we still often rely on Google Forms

22:05

just to create a simple Google Form with

22:07

instructions for what the job will be, video

22:09

explaining what the job description will be, a

22:12

few questions, loom video, trial task, and

22:15

that's it. Like two years ago we

22:17

used Workable and we had, you know,

22:19

multiple different rounds of video-based questions and

22:21

just with a bit of a task

22:23

and we realized actually simplifying it and

22:26

making it as easy as possible for

22:28

both us to put together but also

22:30

for applicants to, somewhat easy for applicants

22:32

to apply. It's just spare

22:34

things. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

22:36

I find myself in

22:39

this position of stretch where I'm starting

22:41

to hire, I should probably hire more.

22:43

I haven't hired anybody full-time yet, but

22:45

I'm recognizing that what I need more

22:47

than anything is this like general manager

22:49

role, a generalist who can also manage.

22:52

But what's been scary to this point

22:54

has been trust because this

22:57

person is going to see

23:00

everything, need access to

23:02

everything, bank accounts, QuickBooks,

23:05

Gusto to pay contractors. Like they are

23:07

seeing and getting access to everything. So

23:09

can you talk a little bit about

23:11

how trust is built in this position

23:13

and how we should think about vetting

23:16

somebody to be this

23:18

generalist, you know, number two

23:20

type role? That's a really interesting

23:22

question because to

23:25

a certain extent the answer is trust is built

23:27

like over time, not necessarily

23:29

something which can be given overnight. I

23:31

think I was fortunate in that Ali

23:33

is generally quite a trusting person and

23:36

probably at times overly trusting to be like, oh

23:38

yeah, access here kind of thing. But I think

23:40

it's built over time, but it's also built through,

23:42

you know, when I started

23:44

with Ali, it was never full-time to start

23:47

with. It was, you know, what I

23:49

was on a per project basis. So I started as

23:51

a freelancer and it was

23:53

trust through delivery and reliability of the

23:56

actual task I was set

23:58

doing to start with, which was research and research. writing.

24:00

Once I could do that, then I was like,

24:03

can you learn how to edit and edit

24:05

this next video for me? And I was

24:07

like, okay. And so delivery on things like

24:09

that and stepping up to the plate and

24:11

kind of having that enthusiasm and commitment to

24:13

what that person is doing. And I think

24:15

that's relatively straightforward for a

24:17

creative to spot. I think it's clear to see

24:19

when someone is committed to

24:22

what you're creating, and you can kind of rely

24:24

on them hiring people and making sure that you

24:26

trust them enough to be able to give them

24:28

quick access. It's just part of, I think, the

24:30

growth journey of

24:33

growing as a grader and being able

24:35

to trust employees as you bring them on.

24:38

And what I'm not hearing you say, but I'm not

24:40

saying you're not

24:42

saying this is important, but sometimes I

24:44

ask myself, well, if I'm going to

24:46

give this type of access to things, do they need

24:49

to be full-time employees? Do I need to

24:51

have like an ironclad contract to secure myself

24:53

and credentials and access to these things? How

24:55

do you think about the level of trust

24:58

that comes with intellectual

25:00

property or security

25:02

stuff? I think definitely

25:04

having people on full-time contracts will

25:07

definitely allow you to protect yourself far more

25:09

than just giving access to freelancers.

25:12

For us, we don't even

25:14

give access to like YouTube

25:16

studio to random freelancers. They

25:18

have to be on a contract and things like

25:20

that. So the contract definitely does help. You could

25:22

firm that up even further with NDAs

25:25

and other such documents.

25:30

We don't generally do that unless we are sort of

25:32

creating a product that is yet to

25:34

be released or announced and that kind of thing. But

25:36

I think you're on a kind of more broader level,

25:38

even with that level of protection, there is a degree

25:40

to which you just need to build up that sort

25:42

of subjective quality of trust with someone over time. And

25:45

that comes through, as I said, like just

25:47

being able to trust them to deliver fundamentally

25:49

on their work to start with. I think

25:52

that is the baseline. And then from there, you

25:55

should be able to give over more of

25:58

your whatever it is, your happen to be

26:00

wanting to give to them and give

26:02

access to. So I'm watching this, I'm

26:04

a creator, I'm feeling stretched, I want to

26:07

make my first hire, maybe it's a video

26:09

editor, maybe it's a GM style person. How

26:11

do I think about hiring full time versus part time?

26:14

What type of litmus test do you use for that?

26:16

It really does depend on kind of what the

26:18

role is. I think one of the

26:21

key books that we used when we were

26:23

initially starting to go through the rounds of

26:25

hiring was a book called The Who Method

26:27

for Hiring. One of the

26:30

things that they say in that is the

26:32

first point of failure of hiring is not

26:34

actually defining what you want from that position.

26:36

So having an idea of what is the

26:38

mission, the outcomes, and the competency that you

26:40

want from a role and only then

26:42

thinking about, okay, with this outlined, is this

26:44

a full time role or is this a part time role?

26:47

Then I think I would go to the question of do I

26:49

want to bring someone on full time as like a full time

26:51

employee or do I want to just bring them on as a

26:53

contractor to start with? My recommendation would

26:56

be either you have them on a probation period if you

26:58

are going to bring them on full time or

27:00

have them on, my recommendation would be

27:02

have them as a contractor for a

27:05

month and see whether they perform. If

27:07

not part ways and if they do, bring

27:09

them on more. I think definitely

27:11

one of the things that we've learned for sure

27:13

is to test

27:16

in a freelance or contractor capacity first

27:18

before you bring people on full time.

27:20

We've never necessarily had a problem with

27:22

that per se, but it

27:24

just gives you so much more bandwidth to be able

27:26

to be, okay, is this person the right fit? Is

27:28

this actually the right role that we need in this

27:31

month long period that we're having trying this person? How

27:33

do I actually realize, oh shit, this is

27:35

the wrong role. I actually should

27:38

have hired for another role. I think the other thing

27:40

there is I see a lot of creators go down

27:42

the route of I'll hire a script writer and a

27:44

video editor and a thumbnail designer. The

27:48

issue with that for me is that people

27:50

end up spending a lot of time managing

27:52

freelancers and managing multiple different people. Not necessarily

27:54

a problem, but you are then in project

27:57

management mode and reducing the time that you

27:59

can. create. And so

28:01

that's why again, I would suggest having

28:03

someone else do that management, someone else

28:06

find the title of thumbnail designers,

28:08

the script writers, if you are going to outsource all

28:10

of that. Because otherwise, you do

28:12

end up just living your life in

28:14

notion or Kanban boards, wherever, just managing

28:16

projects. And that's not what creators should

28:18

be doing. Yeah, that's, that's a really

28:20

good articulation that I haven't thought about

28:22

before, because I'm exactly here. I have

28:25

hired really great, functional

28:29

people to do specific things, but I'm

28:31

managing everything. And so now that I'm

28:33

managing everything, the the poll is to

28:35

hire a manager. But now I'm

28:37

also going to have to train that manager on

28:40

everything to manage the individual

28:43

specialists. Whereas if

28:45

I were to hire a generalist, they

28:47

would have learned it, they would be

28:49

hiring and training the specialists and they

28:51

would not need trained because

28:53

they basically would have learned on the job. That's,

28:56

that's an interesting, different way of going

28:58

about it. The other kind of key

29:00

points of it is the kind of

29:02

SOP, SOP, application of everything, and

29:04

having operating procedures and things like that to

29:06

make that training a lot simpler. Part

29:09

of the thing with with Ali and I, I've been working

29:11

for like four years now, and I've kind of grown with

29:13

the team. And so I haven't needed to

29:15

sort of come on him, train me because we've kind

29:17

of been learning and training alongside each other, I guess.

29:20

But I think if somebody is bringing someone

29:22

on having those things written down and documented,

29:24

although it might be really dull to create

29:26

initially, will save so much time in the

29:28

long run. I think it's been thinking about,

29:31

okay, how can I make the training of

29:33

this so straightforward and easy? And then you

29:35

can use that training as a way to

29:37

measure capabilities. Because if someone comes on and

29:39

can't follow your instructions, if you think they're

29:41

simple enough and easy enough to follow, then

29:44

that's a good flag for them maybe not being the right

29:46

person. When we come back, we talk

29:48

about incentivizing your people and Angus shares a hot

29:50

take about what he sees happening in the next

29:52

few years. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right

29:54

back. If

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And now please enjoy the rest of my conversation

31:35

with Angus Parker. Let's

31:37

say that I did successfully

31:39

hire or nurtured

31:41

someone into being a really great

31:44

team member. How do I

31:46

keep them interested, happy, enjoying,

31:48

working with me versus going off

31:50

to some new opportunity because other

31:52

people also recognize, oh wow, this

31:54

person is talented and doing really

31:56

great work. Let's try to hire

31:58

them. It's a

32:01

combination of having a

32:03

very open and transparent culture to

32:05

us, as well as appropriate incentivization.

32:07

We have a, I

32:10

think we have a very competitive base salary for

32:12

our employees, but we also have a number of

32:14

benefits on top of that. Obviously in traditional

32:16

units, health insurance and things like that, but also

32:19

we run, we have a nine day fortnight. So

32:21

every other week people get three days off. We

32:24

have, I know before anyone starts

32:26

saying, we have unlimited leave. And I know there's

32:28

a lot of issues around that. People,

32:30

it's a very controversial topic for people. Some people

32:32

say actually the results of people taking less leave,

32:34

et cetera, et cetera. And

32:37

obviously now we are fully remote. There's people

32:39

can work from literally anywhere. And so

32:41

we do have a lot of benefits.

32:43

And I think there's partly the incentivization

32:46

side of things like that, but also

32:48

it's the culture and the values

32:51

that you embody as a team as well, which I

32:53

think are almost more important to keeping people on, because

32:56

if you're having to rely on financial

32:58

rewards or incentives too much to

33:00

keep people engaged in like what

33:02

you're trying to achieve, I

33:05

don't think that's a good place to be

33:07

personally, because then you are always constantly trying

33:09

to compete with others purely based on price.

33:12

And if you can compete with others in the

33:14

same way in a kind of commercial sense, compete

33:16

with others based on like value that you're providing

33:18

as well as value that you

33:20

feel that people feel are part of the

33:22

company, then that's

33:24

a better place to be. It's interesting. You

33:27

said that you have a flat compensation model

33:29

for the core team. And I've heard you

33:31

share on the Passion Fruit podcast as well

33:33

that you guys, at least at one point,

33:36

had some sort of like

33:38

bonus incentive that is also relatively flat.

33:40

Is that a small thing? Yeah,

33:42

yep, still a thing. Ali and I spent

33:45

a lot of time thinking about how can

33:47

we reward performance and

33:50

reward, whether through

33:52

bonuses or whatever, like we

33:54

went back and forth on a lot of different ideas and

33:56

models. And we settled on one

33:58

that was essentially completely flat. in

34:01

the sense of what

34:03

we have is that over and above a

34:05

certain threshold of operating profit, a percentage of

34:07

that extra money is split flat across the

34:09

team, so pro-ars are across the team. So

34:11

anyone who's a full-time employee will get, and

34:13

he's worked for the whole year, will get

34:15

exactly the same amount. And we still have

34:17

that and what we found is that that

34:20

kind of does engender everyone to sort of

34:22

pull together in a more

34:24

collective way. It doesn't encourage sort

34:27

of individual incentives to outperform one

34:29

another or prioritize

34:31

one person's actions over another person's actions.

34:33

You know, a lot of people end

34:35

up helping each other and one of

34:37

our core values is be a team

34:39

player. It has actually, I've noticed, helped

34:41

bring people closer together and I think

34:44

we haven't had a

34:46

comparative period where we've

34:49

had the opposite, where we've rewarded people

34:51

purely based on individual performance and so

34:53

I can't compare it to anything. However,

34:56

I would imagine that even

34:58

if it was sort of subconscious and

35:00

somewhat subtle, there would be a shift

35:03

in motives and attitudes

35:05

on certain things if we had

35:07

a more kind of individual-based approach

35:09

to bonuses. That's incredible. Well,

35:12

this one major

35:14

question I think people have

35:16

around businesses like this is

35:18

how do you incentivize or not

35:21

even incentivize, how do you make

35:23

people happy and motivated

35:25

operating behind the name

35:27

of another individual? How do

35:29

you guys think about that? Does it

35:31

come down to the hiring process? Because

35:34

some people who themselves might

35:36

fancy being in front of camera, I

35:38

would imagine, might have a hard time doing

35:41

that. I think it does come down

35:43

to the hiring process because it depends on

35:45

who the individual is. Like, I couldn't imagine

35:47

anything worse than doing what Ali does. Yeah,

35:49

you're doing it right now. I'm sorry you're

35:51

having such a bad time. I

35:55

don't say that. No, but I'm happy

35:57

doing interviews and I'm happy doing what appears to

35:59

be a... audio podcast, but I know it's a

36:01

video as well. But no, I couldn't,

36:03

I'm not necessarily interested in building out

36:05

a personal brand that has like a

36:08

face to it that you know, is

36:10

purely engaged in creating video based

36:13

content every single week. And

36:15

so I think it's, I've certainly

36:17

noticed when when doing hires and things like that,

36:20

when there are people who are like, Oh, I want to

36:22

join the company because I want

36:25

to know and get experience of how to grow my own

36:28

channel. And I'm like, well, we're

36:30

not going to be a fit them because

36:32

that's not kind of the point. We want

36:34

people who are good at what they do

36:36

and are keen to help grow the brand

36:38

and the business independent of their own pursuits.

36:41

We have people in the company who have

36:43

their own YouTube channels, who have their own

36:45

personal projects now. But

36:48

fundamentally, no one in the company,

36:50

in my opinion, is not

36:52

bought into sort of growing Ali's brand

36:54

and is not bothered by the fact

36:56

that it's growing someone else's brand. I've

36:58

heard Mr. Beast talk about his attempts

37:01

to hire from traditional media, people who

37:03

have like traditional entertainment and media backgrounds.

37:05

Have you guys looked at that or

37:07

tried that at all? We've had coaching from

37:09

various people who are from more traditional backgrounds

37:11

and that kind of thing. And there's definitely

37:14

stuff that we have taken from a traditional

37:16

world into our own business. You know, traction,

37:18

the book by Gina Wickman is probably the

37:20

one that shaped the our company and growth

37:22

more than any other. And that's

37:26

fundamentally built off more traditional companies and structures

37:28

and that kind of thing. And so there's

37:30

definitely lessons that we can learn from it.

37:32

But I do think if someone has had

37:34

exposure experience to the traditional world for years,

37:38

decades, it's harder to move

37:40

into the creative space. I don't think it's

37:42

not it's impossible necessarily. I think it would

37:44

be harder for both the creator to work

37:46

with the traditional person, like person and the

37:48

traditional person to work with a creator. So

37:51

I think, yeah, the less developed the businesses, I think the higher

37:53

it is. But that being said, you

37:55

know, even Mr. Beast, who probably has one of the

37:58

most developed businesses in the creative space. to

38:00

do it as well. So I do think there is something

38:03

there which doesn't quite always work. Is

38:05

there something that you believe to be

38:07

true, but you don't yet have data

38:09

to support it? I think that

38:11

agencies will struggle over the

38:13

next five to 10 years. Oh, let's hear

38:15

it. Love that. I just think I get

38:17

the sense and this might be strongly influenced

38:19

by the fact that we bought some

38:21

of our sponsorship stuff in

38:24

house and realized the benefit of

38:26

doing that. But I think incentives

38:29

are never truly aligned when

38:31

creators and agencies work together. And I

38:33

know that there's a lot of creators

38:36

who work with very good agencies, a

38:38

lot of very good agencies out there

38:40

are not having to go agencies necessarily.

38:42

However, I think potentially over

38:44

the next 10, five, 10 years as creators

38:46

realize that they're the ones

38:48

with more power and control and they

38:50

have the ability to control their

38:52

own outcomes and their own destinies. And

38:55

as they get better at hiring and

38:57

bring on more team members, they realize that

38:59

actually having an agency handle a lot of

39:01

stuff whilst it

39:03

can help ameliorate

39:06

issues and speed things up and agencies obviously

39:09

have contacts and that kind of thing. They

39:12

do lose control and fundamentally agencies

39:14

are businesses from the end

39:16

of the day, like they need to be concerned

39:18

about their own profits and their own revenues

39:21

and things like that. So I don't necessarily

39:23

hold it against them that they have different

39:25

incentives to the creators, but they're always going

39:27

to prioritize those over and above the creator's

39:29

needs at some point. Some might do it

39:31

earlier than others, but they still

39:34

will. And I just have

39:36

a punch that creators might start to realize

39:38

that a bit more and try to go more direct to

39:40

brands. I might be wrong. I could have said that 10

39:43

years ago potentially, but that's

39:45

kind of my maybe lukewarm too.