0:03

Welcome to

0:08

TBH. Throughout these

0:10

first shows we're looking at the dotcom

0:12

boom in the UK. And if you lived

0:14

through that time and took the slightest interest

0:17

in what was going on, you would have heard

0:19

of the business co-founded by my guest

0:21

this week. He's Toby Rowland

0:23

and his company Clickmango, famously

0:26

raised a lot of money to launch an online

0:28

health site . It wasn't the site

0:30

that you would have read about in the papers, but the

0:33

story of the raising and the spending of the

0:35

money and how the actress Joanna

0:37

Lumley was signed up to promote Clickmango. If there

0:40

was.com fever in the UK, then Toby

0:42

Rowland was at the centre of it.

0:46

I was really aware of,

0:48

of the kind of historical and

0:50

normally we were living through, you know , this was

0:53

going to be significant in the future. And

0:55

, um, and one of the things that I didn't

0:57

do, and I just wish every,

1:01

every a year that goes by a wish I had done it was, was

1:03

to start collecting like

1:06

there some of the business plans from that era, you

1:08

know , because they were just a fascinating insight

1:11

into, you know, this kind of combination

1:14

of mass hysteria

1:16

and genuine and a genuine insight

1:18

into what was going to happen into the future because those

1:21

business plans were amazing. Some of them.

1:23

Well, let's just go back to the start because one

1:26

thing that I'm interested in, I'm just sort of slightly relates to what you're saying

1:28

is, was that.whoa.com

1:31

era the kind of epitome

1:33

of entrepreneurship, was

1:36

it a completely unique

1:39

, uh , period ? Like you're suggesting

1:41

really whether so many kinds

1:43

of things about it that were just actually totally

1:46

different from normal that we

1:48

shouldn't really in, in a way even think of it

1:50

like entrepreneurship

1:52

in the normal sense?

1:55

Well, it's, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think that

1:57

we, that the nature of

1:59

entrepreneurship , uh,

2:01

changed in that , through

2:03

that time. Right? So, because I think

2:05

the way that we thought about an entrepreneur entrepreneur

2:09

before 1998 or 1989

2:12

was , um, we, we kind of thought

2:15

about Richard Branson. Yeah . Didn't we

2:17

? And , um, and we didn't

2:19

think about this kind of mass mass

2:22

printer ship that, that , that we

2:24

now have, you know, it was a few individuals,

2:27

you know, entrepreneurship and people wanted

2:29

to be to be like them and that's

2:31

body . But is

2:34

that the reality or one

2:36

of the things that Rory says in his book

2:38

, um, is that although

2:41

that sort of the media likes to portray it

2:43

as sort of like anyone can start a business.

2:46

In fact, when you look at it, the people who

2:48

came through came

2:50

from a relatively privileged background

2:53

and they weren't representative

2:55

of 20 year olds in general.

2:58

Is that, is that, I think

3:00

I'm probably at the time

3:02

if he calls to mind that people were

3:05

very intent on security,

3:09

you know, and so that was the way that the people

3:11

would leave Oxford and they'd be thinking about their

3:13

pension. Um, you know,

3:15

like in our first year out of Oxford. And,

3:18

and that , uh, has

3:20

changed, has completely changed

3:22

now , um, because

3:25

people know that if

3:27

they seek security, they perhaps weren't habit

3:29

. Um, and that the weight

3:31

to the way to achieve security

3:34

is to co is to be more forward looking.

3:36

And that involves being being a risk taker.

3:38

Right . So yes, risk taking has become

3:41

a sort of part of conventional wisdom,

3:43

I guess in terms of working lives.

3:46

Yeah, exactly. So, so I think, I mean,

3:48

where I think you're right is that some

3:51

of the people then from that time,

3:53

some of the entrepreneurs from that era did come

3:55

from comfortable backgrounds, but

3:57

it wasn't, it was not because you

3:59

needed money. It

4:01

was , um, it was because those people

4:03

were less intent on,

4:04

on that security, which, which was

4:07

proven to be fleeting. But

4:09

just to go, just to go back to your story then,

4:12

you left university and

4:14

you became a consultant KPM

4:16

tree [inaudible] and then

4:19

you worked for Disney.

4:22

Yes. Both sort of , um,

4:24

employee positions. Yes.

4:27

What was your sort of mentality

4:30

about going from a

4:32

salary to starting

4:34

a business

4:36

seemed like a big step. I mean, I'd been at Disney for

4:38

five years and I was

4:40

, um, I was very happy in my

4:42

work at Disney. Um, and

4:44

, uh, they, Disney gave me a lot

4:47

of love as a wonderful place to work. Um,

4:50

but , but through my work, I

4:52

came in contact with all sorts of fascinating

4:54

companies who were , who had started at that

4:56

time to come to Disney

4:59

and want to license the content. And

5:01

so myself and a couple of a

5:03

few others inside Disney world

5:05

, we're more and more regularly deployed to speak

5:07

to these people because we spoke the

5:09

same language. Um, and

5:11

, um, and to see what we could get from

5:14

them in terms of, you know , options and equity

5:16

and et Cetera, et Cetera, for doing

5:18

kind of minor content partnerships. Uh,

5:21

and so I kinda got,

5:23

I'm a little bit of a taste for this, this wild

5:25

world outside of, outside of the big corporations

5:28

making . Yeah. So

5:32

how did you get from there to say , all

5:34

right , let's give it a go?

5:36

Well, I mean myself and my partner Robert

5:39

Norton from , from um, uh , of , of

5:41

click mango days. Um, we were very , we

5:43

are both very anxious about it til about leaving

5:46

our jobs. And I think we actually kind of quit

5:48

on the same day , um, because,

5:51

you know, with , it was kind of time and we had

5:53

an idea that we thought could, could fly. Um,

5:56

and it was a wonderful time

5:58

to quit your job because everyone

6:01

was looking for, you know, defined

6:04

like young guys , uh , with

6:06

a , with a credible plan. Um,

6:08

and who , who looked like they could get something

6:10

made, you know. So this was [inaudible] 98

6:12

or something, was it , or 97? This

6:15

is 1998. Yeah. Yeah. Nice . Um

6:17

,

6:18

and so just, let's just

6:20

go through it . So I believe it was his,

6:23

your partner, your business partners,

6:25

stepfather had a

6:27

health farm.

6:29

Right, right. And was that in a way

6:31

the inspiration for you going into online

6:34

health as a business? I

6:38

think that there's , um, there's always been

6:41

a kind of slightly cynical process

6:43

of , um, of saying, okay,

6:45

if there's something happening in America is

6:48

it hasn't yet been done in the UK

6:50

and , uh , if it hasn't or in Europe,

6:52

and if it hasn't, then , um, there's

6:54

a , there's an opportunity to do it. Yeah. And

6:57

so , um, uh , and it's always

6:59

been a little bit like that. Uh, so,

7:01

so at that time there was a

7:03

, um , a website in the u s called Mother nature.com,

7:07

which was raising a lot of money , um, which

7:09

obviously subsidy went to the wall. Um,

7:11

but that that company had

7:13

had, was attractive to investors

7:15

and looked like it was going to do well because, well

7:17

, I had a real story of why

7:20

it was going to sell product to B to c

7:22

and a, and we were emulating that. And I think, to be

7:24

honest, I think that we back filled, I'm

7:27

the kind of inspirations of why, why we

7:29

should be doing that. Um, you know,

7:31

we need to set that was there and we , and there hadn't

7:33

been done in Europe and we said, okay , let's do it.

7:35

You were in a way sort of casting around for something

7:38

to do it . Was that one of several possibilities

7:40

that you were considering? Oh

7:43

yeah. Um, we had , uh , I

7:45

think I probably had probably had three or four much better

7:47

ideas before that one. I just got it

7:49

. You said you

7:53

needed to raise money. Yeah.

7:55

And you went along to the first Tuesday

7:57

meeting, I believe. Yeah, that's right.

8:00

Yeah. And first Tuesday being

8:02

this networking event in London

8:04

that was trying to sort of emulate the,

8:08

the kind of networks that you found in silicon valley,

8:10

I think. And , um

8:12

, it was a particularly good one. I mean, Brent

8:15

Hoberman , um , and Julie Meyer , uh,

8:17

both , uh, incredibly accomplished

8:20

kind of networkers and, and collectors

8:23

of people. Um, and so

8:25

, um, and, and first Tuesday was an amazing

8:28

place to be. And , uh , and so, yeah,

8:30

so we met at this venture that , um

8:32

, and pitch them. And then we followed up, followed up later

8:34

on. And , um, and we had a few,

8:36

we had a few offers, a atlas venture.

8:39

We're not the only one, but yeah,

8:41

they were , um, they were the ones that we selected.

8:43

Was it true from breweries book, but you didn't

8:45

have any business cards with you at the first

8:48

Tuesday meeting and you have to tear off a bit of a tablecloth

8:51

and write your contact numbers and stuff on it for

8:53

people. I think

8:55

I did. And I think what's, what's makes

8:57

it , it's gonna make you sound even worse than that was

9:00

I think I then drew a small star

9:03

on the , uh, on the one on this

9:06

bit of this kind of as that business

9:08

card.

9:09

And what was that representing ? Well,

9:12

just to sort of distinguish it from the other, the

9:14

other disk , right.

9:17

Well, anyway , yeah, it worked.

9:21

And so how much money were you wanting?

9:23

How did you decide how much money you wanted?

9:26

I mean, in those days, you know, one could raise an a

9:28

round, you know, what today would be seen

9:30

as any around , uh, it was kind

9:32

of legitimate to do that on a business plan

9:34

because a website, you know, today

9:37

is free and , but then it cost a

9:39

million pounds really in it . Yeah. So,

9:41

and that was people that was accepted,

9:43

you know, people might, people thought that might

9:46

be even be a little bit cheap, you know . So

9:48

, um ,

9:48

in a way that's a curious thing, isn't it? Because when we look

9:50

back on it now as the sort of.com

9:53

days when anyone could start an

9:55

online business, you tend to forget

9:57

that actually they couldn't because they

9:59

couldn't even get a website for, you

10:02

know, unless they have money.

10:05

No . They , um, they just, everything,

10:07

nothing was there. You didn't have the

10:10

libraries . Uh , you just didn't have , um,

10:13

uh , the easy ways of whipping something together and didn't

10:16

have Shopify. So , um

10:18

, yeah, so if you want to make an ecommerce website, you kind

10:20

of started, started at the

10:22

, um, you know , uh , the

10:24

command line,

10:25

right? So you raised 3

10:27

million pounds, I think. Yeah. And

10:30

what, what was the process of trying

10:33

to persuade the vcs

10:35

to part with that money? Like, I mean, you have

10:37

to write a business plan and then you

10:39

took it around to people.

10:40

We had a business plan , um, so which,

10:43

which I actually read last

10:46

year and I was surprised how good it was . Right.

10:49

That respect because I , you

10:51

sort of, you know, you think you look back and you think, oh, we,

10:53

we young than and what we know

10:56

and so forth because you hope that you've

10:58

made progress in the interim. But

11:00

in fact, I don't necessarily think that

11:06

was pretty good. You know, it's well written,

11:09

made a huge amount of sense. Well researched.

11:12

Uh, yeah. And was

11:14

it over optimistic? Well,

11:18

I think that what happened

11:20

then was

11:23

that people did not use

11:25

credit cards online unless they

11:28

absolutely had to, you know, or unless

11:31

they were young and male, you know? And

11:33

so it didn't care. Um, and if you

11:35

were an older vitamin buyer , I've

11:38

seen , we're not going to put in your credit card online. So

11:41

I think that was one of the reasons why our

11:43

business plan was, was over optimistic.

11:46

Well , I mean Amazon was sort of around

11:48

at that time, wasn't it?

11:50

Amazon was around , um, and people,

11:53

you know, Amazon was a magic site and safe . I

11:55

mean, you know, the, the business that click

11:57

mango was, was not going , was

11:59

not going to work out then

12:02

and wouldn't have worked out later either. You know, it

12:04

was, it was optimistic.

12:07

And I think that the idea of , um,

12:09

of creating content in order

12:11

to sell product,

12:14

I think that you knew that was obviously a, a

12:16

something that people believed at the time.

12:19

Um, but which subsequently proved

12:21

to be not true. And what people really

12:23

wanted was , um, user

12:25

reviews. Right,

12:26

right. So it wasn't that it was much more than just a

12:29

retail, psychiatric was

12:31

almost like a news and information

12:34

site where you could buy stuff.

12:36

Right. I think that's right. Yeah, it was

12:38

, um, it was, I think it was cool to

12:40

an info Taylor was that the more that that might've

12:42

been the model , uh , at the time.

12:45

Yep .

12:47

Tech business history with

12:49

this week's guest, Toby Rowland.

12:53

So just talk me through sort of how,

12:55

how you got on

12:56

then with your 3 million and you hired people

12:59

and how did it go?

13:01

Well, I think that we , we had to

13:03

have a

13:05

lot of people in a hurry.

13:08

Um, we had to get, I

13:10

think it was decisions , um,

13:14

uh , Manoj Batali and uh

13:16

, and Charlie Mendenhall , um

13:18

, had to compound an agency called net decisions,

13:21

who we then , uh, we

13:23

then kind of a s

13:25

well we awarded the contract to build the website

13:27

to them. And then we had

13:29

really had a lot of a lot of people

13:32

and we made a beautiful crazy.com

13:35

office. Uh, you

13:38

know, and I think it was very , it's very exciting

13:40

at that time, you know , if , if you think now that

13:43

the east end was not a place

13:45

where , uh , hipsters and

13:47

, uh , you know, digital entrepreneurs

13:50

who are working, you know, we, we, I think we were

13:52

one of the very first companies to base

13:54

ourselves there . So , yeah,

13:58

it was cheap, but it was also, it was kind of Funky, you

14:00

know , it was wild. And , um, and it

14:02

was, and it was, it felt very,

14:04

I think if it felt quite edgy, a

14:06

space to be so , um,

14:09

if I'm out at night in , um

14:11

, in brick lane or that whatever I say,

14:13

yes, I, you know, you don't know this, but I invented

14:16

this place , right . We

14:18

were kind of at the , um , at the edge

14:20

. He could buy a house on [inaudible] Street, which is the most beautiful

14:23

streets. I don't know if you know , um,

14:25

you could buy , have beautiful Georgian

14:28

House with four stories high for of

14:30

600 grand.

14:32

God , well, it's the same in Britain , 3 million into

14:34

your , into that a little bit much better. Um,

14:39

but just going back to the sort of, the whole environment,

14:42

I've been reading this great book, I don't know whether, you know, burn

14:44

rates by Michael Wolf . Yes.

14:47

Uh , it's a wonderful account of his

14:49

, uh , experiences in

14:52

New York. One of, one of the things he

14:54

talks about is that nobody

14:56

really knew where this was going. And

14:59

so that from the sort of entrepreneur's point

15:01

of view, as long as you are confident

15:04

and sort of just maybe one step

15:06

ahead of the

15:08

people who were holding the money,

15:11

you could get away with it and , and confidence

15:13

and optimism where really

15:16

what you needed at that time.

15:19

MMM , I think so. I mean I think

15:21

, um, I think it at some

15:24

point the in is that the music

15:26

clearly stopped. Um,

15:28

we, I think we've in

15:31

people wanted you to be spending

15:33

money and doing more

15:35

than the next person.

15:37

You , they wanted you to spend the money fast.

15:39

Right?

15:40

It , they certainly did. Yeah . So, so people

15:42

said , um , they , they wanted

15:44

you to have one in

15:46

your space and then to be extending

15:49

in. So they wanted to see a lot of

15:52

coverage. Lately , once you , a lot of press coverage

15:54

they want to see on TV , um , they

15:57

wanted to hear people talking about it and

15:59

uh, and they, and then they were , then there's going to be more money.

16:02

But you didn't, you,

16:04

you were, you were ranch

16:06

.

16:07

I , I think, I mean the , you know, a certain

16:10

point, obviously the tide,

16:12

you know , started to , uh,

16:15

to add. And so,

16:18

yeah . And at that point, I think it became,

16:20

I think it became very clear , um

16:22

, a few weeks after we've launched, I

16:25

think it became very clear that, you know , there just

16:27

wasn't the

16:29

demand that we'd forecast and there

16:31

wasn't the, there wasn't the conversion

16:34

that we do cost. Right.

16:35

So I think you actually launched the site in

16:37

April, 2000. Yes.

16:41

Um, so to take a new, a

16:44

good few months since the

16:46

previous year to , to actually be

16:48

ready to sell anything, but

16:50

you'd already had massive amount of publicity

16:53

we had. So we , we were , um,

16:56

I think people wanted like

16:58

crazy.com startups to

17:00

, um, to write about, you

17:02

know, and I think that we, to a certain extent, made

17:05

ourselves , uh , to

17:07

capture that publicity, you know , so the , the

17:09

things that we did, you know, that we

17:11

that are kind of beautiful office, you know, we had an

17:13

inflatable boardrom. Um,

17:16

we had , uh , you know, there , there were lots of , there

17:18

was always something new for

17:20

people to come and film

17:22

or write about and uh,

17:25

you know, and , and so, so we kept

17:27

that going.

17:27

It was a shame that you didn't actually have product

17:30

for them to buy while they were reading about all

17:32

this stuff in the papers.

17:33

Well, I think I , yeah,

17:36

I guess you could say I could , I guess

17:38

you could. If you are doing it today,

17:41

you'd say, oh , why

17:43

are you bothering to do publicity when

17:47

there's nothing for people to come and do you

17:49

? So what , why, what's this , what's the point of

17:51

that? You know? But at the time

17:54

we were on a mission to get publicity

17:57

, um , from the Keck though , because our , our

17:59

very first funding we had appeared in

18:01

the ft, you know, when we were sort of

18:04

two guys in an office that

18:06

had a lot of mice in

18:08

it, you know, like just daytime, like lot

18:10

of mice. And , um,

18:12

you know, the FFT came and interviewed us

18:14

and wrote quite a long piece about

18:17

how this , this company had just raised 'em 3

18:20

million pounds

18:21

because there was a great market in the media

18:24

as he said at that time for any

18:26

stories about young people

18:29

who thought they were going to be very rich very

18:31

quickly.

18:32

Yeah. They wanted that. Um, yeah,

18:35

let's see. So now you would say,

18:37

oh wait, wait until, wait

18:39

until we've launched. And then, you

18:41

know, get, get some publicity for the right kind

18:44

of publicity that makes people want to come

18:46

and buy. And then I think, you know,

18:48

it was very much any, any publicity is good publicity

18:51

that because we want to be known, we want to be famous,

18:53

you know? And so we would spend money

18:55

and we would do stuff and uh

18:57

, and ultimately we had joined Lumley a

19:00

onsite , he was , was just the most incredible

19:03

kind of brand ambassador to half. Interesting.

19:06

Tell me about trying to love me because I mean, obviously

19:08

she's a , she's a great sort of personality,

19:10

but yeah, I mean, she wasn't exactly

19:13

kind of a cool character. Was she,

19:15

I mean, she wasn't somebody who was representing

19:17

youth at all or is that deliberate?

19:21

Well, I mean, it was a vitamin site and

19:23

vitamins are for, you know,

19:25

for all the people. Right. So , uh

19:27

, and so for all the people at that time

19:30

, uh, her patsy character

19:32

was extremely attractive , um

19:34

, and very funny. And

19:37

join the army in general was just, was just

19:39

brilliant, you know, and she, the

19:41

reality is Joan is a highly intelligent

19:44

person , um, and extremely

19:46

funny to talk to and just generally,

19:49

you know, I think probably could have done anything. I think she

19:51

probably, if she hadn't wanted to be an

19:54

actress, then I think she probably

19:56

could have been extremely successful

19:58

politician. You know, she, she

20:01

could've done anything. She's amazing.

20:03

I mean, obviously you enjoyed your

20:05

dealings with Joanna alumnus , but what

20:08

status was that a really a strategy that you should

20:10

have pursued, do you think?

20:12

Well, I mean, I remember Robert , uh,

20:15

came into work one day looking a bit a bit

20:17

depressed, my partner and said

20:19

, um , he said yes. He said, I was at

20:21

my grandmother's birthday last

20:24

night and I was talking to her about , um,

20:26

about click mango. And

20:28

she asked me if we had any of our

20:31

own product. And I said,

20:33

no, we don't, we don't have, we just sell other

20:35

people's, you know, we just sell like

20:37

major brands or whatever. And she's , and

20:39

she said , uh , and , and , and he said, yeah, she said

20:41

to me, she asked me, well, why is anyone

20:43

going to come to your shop then?

20:47

And did , she'd

20:48

had a, she'd had a handbag shop and

20:50

she said, well, you know, people would come

20:52

for my, for the handbags that I had, otherwise

20:55

it gets someone else. That

20:58

was kind of a significant moment,

21:00

I think Robert's grandmother and her

21:02

handbags, but

21:04

it wasn't going to , you couldn't have done everything

21:06

you did plus create

21:09

a whole range of products as well.

21:12

Yeah , no, that would have been very hard. But now,

21:14

I mean the , I think probably this like a site

21:17

that in some ways kind of reminds me

21:19

of like mega what and what it in

21:21

what it sounded achieve or what does achieving is like hum

21:24

nutrition , um , which is critical, which

21:26

is a site that offers

21:28

you nutritional supplements, which

21:30

are in some way , um,

21:33

uh , customized to you. And uh

21:35

, and it does very well. You couldn't

21:37

have done that either because of the sophistication

21:39

of the technology required. Presumably

21:42

we, we , uh, no, we had our

21:44

hands full. What's there ? Anything you

21:46

could've done that would've

21:49

created a sort of happy ending? No,

21:52

I don't think so. Um, because I think

21:55

that, I think we just had the wrong model, you

21:57

know, and it's very hard to go from

21:59

the wrong model to the right model. You'd see very

22:01

few people doing it well because the whole

22:04

beach to see thing change to be, to be

22:06

during your while you were bad

22:08

and well, it

22:10

was interesting actually the focus change for

22:12

it because people, it was kind of like, well we try BTC , I

22:14

didn't work must be B to B. You know, that

22:17

must be the answer because this

22:19

other thing didn't work. But in fact , um,

22:22

and I , and I remember people being quite

22:24

kind of Smug, you know, about the

22:26

whole B2b kind of gang got quite smug

22:29

, um , in 2000 when

22:31

things are bursting and that they suddenly they were

22:33

the serious ones. Uh, but the reality

22:35

is that they all went to the wall to eventually

22:37

, um, and the things that, the

22:40

things that worked where , you know , where , cause

22:42

I had to get pretty folk after click mango.

22:44

I mean that was a bit of a wake up call for me about

22:46

business models. I got quite kind

22:48

of focused on how you actually make money.

22:51

And then I figured, and I went to this online dating

22:53

site, you know, so um,

22:55

that you date and , and there it

22:57

was amazing. You know, we couldn't stop making money because

23:00

people were desperate, but their credit cards in and , and

23:02

go on an online date. And so was that because

23:05

the Internet was that much older and more familiar

23:07

to people? No , because it

23:09

targeted people who had much

23:12

strong that they couldn't get that otherwise. You

23:14

see what I mean? So they could get vitamins in

23:17

business , you know, but online dating

23:19

with something they never had and that , and

23:22

you date , um , no Morris in

23:24

use the CEO, like he was, he

23:26

was , uh , you know, like a very

23:28

prescient in many ways. And , um

23:30

, and so at ut we had a , we had

23:32

a form of instant messaging, took about

23:34

a minute for each message to get through. But

23:37

if that, if you hadn't had that

23:39

was like magic, you

23:41

know, said , oh my God, all I'm doing is I'm paying 14

23:44

pounds 95 months and these messages

23:46

are coming through from like , uh , like

23:48

a nice girl in Sunderland, you

23:50

know? But

23:52

I mean ,

23:53

you're saying, I'm surprised you're sort of saying

23:55

that the problem was that the business model,

23:58

because you could equally

24:00

well have said at the time

24:02

that we needed the next round of funding, that climate's

24:05

just completely changed and there was just no way of getting

24:07

any money for anything.

24:09

No. I think that , um, I think that online

24:11

, uh , vitamin a

24:13

each hell , I don't , I don't think that that was ever going

24:15

to be a massive, massive

24:18

business. I'm sure it's, it's a sort of business now,

24:20

but I would imagine it's quite low margin. I don't

24:22

want to be mean about other people's businesses or whatever, but , um,

24:25

but I don't , I just, just considering

24:27

the basics, the basic fundamentals

24:29

of it, I can't, I find it hard to imagine that

24:31

selling, you know, fit them and a over the Internet

24:33

is working really well for anyone.

24:35

But was it rather painful? Your venture

24:38

capitalists who had been so enthusiastic and giving you

24:40

the money the first time round where

24:42

so unresponsive when you went

24:45

back and asked for more when you needed it,

24:47

what was that like?

24:50

Do you know what the , I think that , um,

24:54

I mean at this venture we're actually, they

24:56

were amazing actually because , um, they,

24:58

they knew, I think when it, when

25:00

the wind changed that they immediately

25:02

knew that something

25:04

was different. And , uh , they tried

25:07

their hardest to help, you know , just sort of help us to

25:09

, to do something at that time. And

25:11

these kind of sewer coming. Um,

25:13

and they said, listen, we've got to get on with it because stuff's

25:15

going to things, things that can stop learning up.

25:18

And so I think that we all knew

25:20

that, you know, some, something

25:23

had changed you . A venture capitalists

25:25

are very optimistic people and

25:28

at this venture I think where , um,

25:31

you know, th th they have to be optimistic and the most

25:33

optimistic ones are often the most successful,

25:35

you know, so that , um, so,

25:38

and I think at this venture in a way like that, but

25:40

they're also , they will say pragmatic. And

25:43

they knew when it was time to just,

25:45

you know, look for something else. They

25:47

knew when in that time of come

25:49

you sound remarkably sort

25:51

of and bitter about the whole thing. I

25:53

mean, did you, I

25:56

mean obviously you learned a lot. Did you lose money

25:58

on it personally or did you make money in our sort of how

26:00

, what was the sort of bottom line as far as you concerned

26:02

with clickbank ? Okay .

26:04

Oh, well, I mean in those

26:06

days , uh, you would, this

26:09

is why, this is why I say that it was a very open opportunity

26:11

that anyone could really do this because Robert

26:13

and I probably put up , um,

26:16

I think our office cost us 60 quid a week.

26:20

Uh , you know, and

26:22

then we didn't have any other costs , um,

26:25

you know, both before and then be ready to business ban . And

26:28

, um, and then, you know, we, I think

26:30

we were probably an unsaturated for maybe

26:32

a couple of months or something like that. So,

26:35

so we didn't really have to put in any money.

26:37

And then we closed it down. We had declared

26:39

it down when the money ran out. There was, it was expensive,

26:42

you know, 100,000

26:44

times a week or something with , uh,

26:47

I think , uh, I

26:49

hate to say that. Um, I

26:52

know , I think it probably won't be about that. Maybe a bit

26:54

more even. Yeah, probably a bit

26:56

more. But you weren't getting paid by that stage?

26:59

Oh yeah, no, we're all being paid . Like

27:01

I said, it was, you know, we , we raised 3

27:03

million pounds and we, we , uh, we, we

27:06

spend , we'd spend it within probably a year and a half

27:11

TV tech,

27:13

business history,

27:19

things you always hear that silicon valley is

27:22

that there's no sort of shame in failing.

27:26

Um, uh , the British are not really good at

27:28

failing. And , uh,

27:30

you know, it seems like you've come through this

27:33

absolutely unscathed and you've gone onto great

27:35

things with other businesses. I

27:37

mean, how did you manage

27:39

that? What

27:42

I think at the time I

27:45

had,

27:48

I think closing a business, it can

27:51

just be terribly depressing, you

27:53

know , or it can be quite cathartic. Um,

27:56

and fortunately haven't had to do at once.

27:59

Uh , so , um, that, that was

28:01

a nice thing. Um, but

28:04

I think just the process of saying,

28:07

all right , this is printed there , you know, how much

28:09

can I get for that? Thank you . Um,

28:12

and trying to say , uh , and

28:14

trying to kind of come out as best as possible for

28:16

the , uh , for the investors and make sure that everyone's

28:19

been paid and stuff. That process is quite,

28:21

it's quite focusing, you know, and I

28:23

think it's quite good preparation for just

28:25

saying, okay, well, you know, take a take

28:27

a maybe, maybe six weeks off and

28:30

then late start, do something else, you know, so

28:32

because it's, it kind of really pulls, you know

28:34

, you get a bit strung out when the business is looking

28:37

shaky, but actually closing

28:39

it and going through that process, laying everyone

28:41

off, you know, paying off all

28:43

the , all the , um , uh , creditors,

28:45

you know, it , it Kinda gets you back

28:47

into the quite an organized frame of

28:49

mind.

28:50

So when you took the six weeks

28:52

off and then started again, yeah

28:55

. And you went around and saying,

28:58

you know, I'm Toby , you've probably

29:00

heard of click mango. Was

29:02

that , uh , uh, an asset or

29:04

a disadvantage? In terms

29:07

of people's confidence in what you could

29:09

do next? Well , I think

29:11

it was , um, it was actually, it

29:13

was, it was quite bad actually because

29:16

, um, click mango was

29:18

one of a few

29:21

really spectacular busts.

29:24

And , uh, and uh , we,

29:26

we had to, we

29:28

realized that we couldn't actually just stopped talking

29:31

to the media because we'd been courting media attention

29:33

so much on the way up that

29:35

we thought that we were advised by our

29:38

, um , uh , our public relations agency

29:40

are very , um, and I said, listen,

29:43

you've got to, you've got to give them time on

29:45

the way down , uh , because otherwise you'd

29:47

just look like in a real sort of jokes

29:49

or whatever. So we will , we would be filmed,

29:51

you know, emptying, kind of like documents

29:54

into the back of dumpsters and , um , all

29:57

this stuff all

30:00

anyway, so we were , we were like famous

30:03

adopt bombers. You weren't famous in the way that bu

30:05

was though, for kind of, totally.

30:08

You know , I think, I think

30:11

we will , I didn't think we were famous

30:13

as being useless. I think it

30:15

was more like, this was a dot bomb . You

30:18

know, w we , we personally didn't look too bad,

30:20

but you know, we, we

30:22

had quite a lot of notoriety , um,

30:24

at the time. So we say

30:27

[inaudible] I mean what I did was I, as soon as

30:29

things started to look by ad a tactic

30:32

Manga, I actually started looking , um,

30:34

for various , uh, you know , finance courses,

30:37

masters and finances. So, and I applied

30:39

what while click mango was still going. I

30:41

just thought I'd do slightly need a backup plan

30:43

head because otherwise it could be quite

30:46

bad cause I don't want to just be stuck without

30:48

a job and nothing to do. I thought it'd be quite depressing anyway

30:51

. So yeah . So I then went straight into lbs

30:53

doing a masters in finance, which is an amazing course. The

30:55

business school . Yeah, exactly. I

30:58

thought that was also, you

31:00

know, I had to do a lot

31:02

of the finance for click mango and that was very

31:04

much a crash course. Um,

31:06

so , uh, I kind of felt

31:09

like I needed to know not more , a lot more than I did. Right

31:11

.

31:12

I mean, you've had a tremendous

31:15

success with, with king.com

31:19

but I unfortunately

31:22

you didn't make the money that you could

31:24

out of that, I believe.

31:27

Well, I, I didn't , um, we

31:29

can , I think probably king's better for

31:32

me than maybe some people imagine , um

31:34

, is the company that , uh , candy

31:36

crush. Yeah. Yeah.

31:38

So, so obviously I wasn't, I , you know, I didn't

31:40

, um, I was the largest shareholder in king

31:43

other than apex , uh , you

31:46

know , for quite a long time. Um, but,

31:48

you know, I did unfortunately sell

31:50

my shares, so I'm not speaking to you from my

31:52

private island. Um , so ,

31:57

uh, yeah, so the word is that you could have been

31:59

a billionaire if you'd hung on a bit longer. Is

32:01

that right?

32:03

Um, yeah, I think, I think, I think that's right. Yeah.

32:07

But again, you seem resigned

32:11

or sort of just unfazed

32:13

by that.

32:15

Um , well

32:18

at the time, you know, it was,

32:20

it was obviously painful because

32:23

it was wonderful to start it, you know,

32:25

one of Europe's biggest kind of Unicorns,

32:28

you know, but, but, and then to , to

32:30

not be there when that, when

32:32

that really monetize was , you know , was there

32:34

was , there was kind of painful, you know, and , and I think it was

32:37

also something that it's a kind of thing that people

32:40

, uh, people

32:42

have a negative outlook , uh

32:45

, dwell on that if they're talking to you,

32:47

if you see what I mean. So that's something that people like to know

32:50

and sort of almost hinter not in the way that you're doing

32:52

it because you're doing it for journalistic reasons, but you,

32:54

but other people might wish to

32:56

dwell on that and somehow somehow kind of prod you

32:59

to see whether that's something that you're

33:02

sad about them. Yeah, but I'm , I'm reconciled

33:04

to it , you know,

33:05

I mean, your dad tiny

33:07

Roland was a tremendous entrepreneur. Is,

33:10

I mean, this is, I'm getting a bit slightly the amateur

33:12

psychologist here, but you

33:15

were brought up obviously in a family

33:17

where big deals were being discussed

33:20

the whole time , uh,

33:22

some, some successful and some others,

33:24

not. Presumably, I mean, do you think that

33:26

that sort of awareness of what

33:28

was going on in your dad's

33:30

working life gave

33:32

you a kind of resilience that has

33:34

been useful?

33:38

Oh , very much. Australia. I mean, because

33:40

I saw, you know , my dad when he was up and my dad

33:42

when he was down, and you know, those

33:46

two , you know, he, he was very resilient. Um,

33:49

so, and I think that , um,

33:52

you , you need to be pretty phlegmatic as a

33:54

, uh , as an entrepreneur. If you , if you let everything get to you

33:56

, um, and if you let , if you let either

33:59

the art or the ups the downs get to you,

34:01

then , uh , you , you, you're not going to play

34:03

very well. You know,

34:05

w w well , finally, just looking

34:07

back on the whole sort of.com craziness,

34:10

I mean, what, what's , what's your sort of abiding

34:14

memory and, and sort of feeling

34:16

about it?

34:18

I think it's just like

34:21

a genuine sort of happiness

34:24

to have been part of something

34:26

that I see is, you know, of being, of,

34:28

of a kind of historical importance,

34:31

you need to have just played a to have played or

34:33

something and played it, you know,

34:35

not terribly. Um,

34:39

and, and to have been part of something

34:41

so fascinating, you know, and

34:44

some momentous

34:45

exactly. Because you know, whatever happened

34:47

in 2000 and 2001 the

34:50

Internet didn't miss a beat

34:52

rally . We went from strength to strength and he

34:55

created the world that we live in today. Really.

34:57

It did, you know, and , and I think that even

35:00

the wildest predictions of that time

35:02

, uh , we're all very quickly surpassed,

35:04

you know, the things that people do,

35:07

the things that people could have predicted them or

35:09

the people did protect turned out to be incredibly conservative.

35:12

So , so it's , it's odd that, isn't it, because in a way,

35:14

the hype which

35:16

we look back on as being a bit crazy was

35:19

actually correct.

35:21

Oh yeah. No, everything was, everything

35:23

was correct. Yeah.

35:26

It's , it's, it's a source of , uh , it's

35:28

kind of a source of satisfaction, you know , to, to

35:30

, uh , and also just a kind

35:32

of lesson for the future of saying

35:35

you knew things that, things that

35:37

sound unlikely but possible

35:40

con can be achieved. You know

35:42

, just, just takes a little, just

35:44

take 10 years, not five. Toby,

35:47

thank you so much. It's been really, really interesting.

35:51

Chose . I really enjoyed him.

35:53

Thank you for listening to Tbh with

35:56

Charles Miller. Thanks

35:59

so much to [inaudible] a true entrepreneur.

36:03

Please join me for another Tbh podcast

36:05

next week.