[00:00:01] Jay: I stepped down as CEO two and a half years ago. And I've had so many people ask me, why did I do that? Cause hold on which, which company this is UDFI okay. So I was CEO of Yieldify for seven years. It was literally my dream job. And from the outside, it looks. Running a text startup is incredible. And why the fuck would you leave that job?
There are a lot of things. People probably don't appreciate what happens in a startup. Unless you run a company, you probably know these intricacies and I'm willing to be super open about it. And just tell you guys really the good and the crap that goes on in a startup. So. I was running Yieldify for seven years.
I was the co-founder with my brother and I was the CEO. It was literally the dream job I wanted. Right. I had offices around the world like London, New York, Sydney, and Singapore. I was like travelling around the world and the team was roughly about 200 folks and we got funded by Google and SoftBank, you know, on the outside.
This is like, You are the ultimate tech entrepreneur, right? Mm-hmm, you're going on that incredible journey. Honestly, it's probably like year four or year five, something didn't feel right. It was just, that I was no longer enjoying it and you have to be on 24-7. If you are a tech CEO it's 24 7, like literally, your day starts at the moment you wake up.
Yes. There are all these little trends now where. You know, put your phone to the side, but like, you know, if you really wanna make the most out every minute, like you, you are on cuz you've got some guys in America who come in, they may have something urgent. Or if you've got someone in Sydney, like they're still in the office, they only have a few hour windows.
You're just on 24-7, you know, you've got a big team and let's just say, you know, there's 252. Working days in the year. Right. And I say, you got a team of 200. That means like every single day during the week, it's very likely someone's birthday. Right. and birthdays are really important. And I appreciate birthdays.
Right. So if you wanna give a personal touch, you need to go over there and have a little chat, like, Hey, what are you doing on your birthday? What's going on? And I like doing that. Right. But as you start getting bigger, it starts to become a bit Ingen right? Yeah. Cause I'm just there. I'm like, look, I got that bazillion emails I need to go through.
I got a bazillion meetings to go through like, Hey buddy, how's your birthday? Yeah, cool. All out at the same time, like, you know, as humans, you know, each person. In our business, you know, had a personal thing going on. Like maybe they want a promotion or maybe they've got a complaint as the business scales.
You can't do that. And yes, you've got the team around you. But as a CEO as well, you wanna try to be there for those right moments. There were just too many things that I was handling. Right. You're still trying to raise money. Yeah. You're still trying to launch your product. You've got all these people's responsibilities.
You gotta do. Like, I didn't really have a life. Yeah. Like I was just working 24-7. Like even when I was out with you, I remember I'd check my email sometimes like, oh person we've got a client issue. You
[00:02:14] Rupy: lost that sort of personal touch with your employees. I know you. As a very personable person who loves to have a chat, love to make sure people are happy.
If you separate yourself from that element of the business, that would've been like a. Issue something that you wouldn't have liked leaving behind. If I think about it from the lens of like my small company, I love the fact that I can check in with my employees and just, you know, see how they're doing.
And as you scale, you lose that.
[00:02:38] Jay: So yeah, also the level of impact you can make is much smaller. Like, you know, if you've, if you've just launched a product, it's, it is just the X factor. This big impact element has gone. You're just gonna be making a small little. Impacting loads of different places, but I know I'm like one of those people that wants to see the result as well.
I like to see it and you just don't see it as much in the big company. So, you know, all of these things led me to. Do a big reflection. It was. I remember I was in New York cause I was living in New York for quite a while. Um, you've been to New York and a lot of people probably have been to New York. New York is absolutely crazy.
It's a hundred miles per hour. It's like, everything's on, on you go outside. You've got the taxis, you've got people just making noise. It is just mental. And I just promise myself one weekend, I'm gonna keep my calendar empty on a weekend, which is actually really difficult to do because there's always a bazillion thing going on.
And I. I need some me time. Right? I need to just work out what the hell I'm gonna do in my life because I can't, I was no longer enjoying it. I was probably quite miserable and I could feel it. And, you know, we all know those moments. And so what I did was I wrote down all the different things I do as CEO.
And what I figured out was. There were a few things I really liked. So I liked doing the strategy piece. Um, I really liked the branding elements. I liked hiring key people and like those bits I just loved, but the day-to-day responsibilities yes, I could have probably hired people around me to help me, but as CA you still have to be quite involved in data operations.
And that's just, wasn't that interesting for me when I reflect back, I probably hit all my egoic dreams and I just, there was a bit of ego me probably, and that bit just all went. What I found was there was this like sidestep move, which. The right move for me. And that was actually me becoming a board member.
So that's what I did. I transitioned out from being CEO. We hired and recruited a phenomenal CEO. Who's now running the company and I became a board member. And that way I could still do what I love. And now it's given me this whole pocket of extra time that I can then use on things that I'm really passionate about.
I
[00:04:29] Rupy: wanna ask you, actually, because in my mind, A founder of a company, the true entrepreneur who has the sort of bravery to start a company. And, you know, the small scale is that a natural CEO? I was dunno. I was gonna ask you actually, whilst you were talking are a lot of your colleagues in a similar boat where they've started companies, but you know, the day-to-day running, when it's got to that scale, you've got multiple offices around the world, you know, you've got all this investment revenue generating, you know, and then it just transitions to a different.
Place in the company's trajectory, isn't it? Where it's just all about operations and making sure that you're doing things strategically from a different way. What is that? Something that a lot of people do, they, they put in a CEO and then they do some other aspects of
[00:05:10] Jay: the business. A few things there's two moves, right?
The classic move is getting a COO mm-hmm right? So you bring a COO and he can take that key bit of responsibility. Right. So that works right. Mm-hmm is the early stage, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. So there are two steps, right? If you've got a CEO who can take it to 10 million in revenue, then that's great.
And that's probably. In like series B face. That's probably like four, four years in right? Then it's a good time. Cause that point you've probably got about a hundred people. And you need to put some real operations in otherwise you're just not gonna scale. The thing just breaks. It starts, uh, they are very fragile.
People think, oh, these epic companies and they've got the fancy logo, but no, no, they're, they're super, super fragile. Right? And it needs this architect who can essentially put the pipes in. I've seen companies put it in too late, but you can put it in too early and you've just got too many processes. So it's important.
You put good COO in that can give that business. The the. Like for the mountain, it's that next part of the mountain? Otherwise, you might have a co just is just a crazy operator. Right. And that works as well. You know, for me, it was actually me as an individual. Like I just lost my interest cause I've gone further.
Yes. I probably could have it just needed the side step to be the right move. Yeah. But then you went
[00:06:13] Rupy: on to start a lot of other companies. So I think you're still exercising that sort of desire to do what you like doing on a day-to-day basis. But that would have to be in a different company because unify a sort of, I, I, I think it's right to say it outgrew you, it got to a stage where you weren't really enjoying the elements of the CEO role.
Whereas being a CEO of a smaller company, I think is probably more attractive. Yeah,
[00:06:33] Jay: I think it's, um, I'd say it growth probably could be the right word. I think it's just my passion and interests in startups don't excite me. Like right now, if you, even if someone offered me, Hey, you can be CEO of like Uber or Facebook or whatever, like mate, I would never do it.
No, definitely Facebook. I would never do it. We'll just sorry. sorry, Facebook, but yeah, like, you know, any, you know, any cool tech company, honestly, like I just, I got no interest, but I can't deal with politics, structures, all this sort of stuff. It's like, literally I get, it's probably like me getting punched in the face about 7,000 times.
I'd rather take that
[00:07:06] Rupy: my other, my other. Also called Jay, who you've met on the stage. He is wired differently. He's an operator, right? Yeah. He is someone who can go into a company, dive into the P and L dive into like, the structure of the HR do all that kind of stuff. Honestly, I find it very boring, but some people absolutely love it, but he knows himself.
He's never gonna start a company. He's never gonna start his own business himself. He knows what, where he fits in terms of that, that co and the, and the wheels of, of a machine. I'm more on the side of starting companies. But I realize at some point when I do get to that level, I'm not gonna be the CEO of my company either.
[00:07:41] Jay: That's great. You know? Yeah. Like I wish, you know, in that situation, you got a few different things, right? So I've seen some CEOs go into it again. Mm-hmm and that's pretty cool. Right? Mm-hmm gets a certain scale, you know, they may get it to a hundred, 200 even may IPO it. That's awesome. And they go do it again.
They just love it. They love that whole process. Right. Um, you get some folks that just wanna start investing. So I did that for a bit, but that just didn't excite me. Cause I didn't feel like I was making an impact. And then, so what I've got is I've got a startup studio. So my. The vision here is I want to create an incubate company like one company a year, maybe two, but most likely it's one.
I don't wanna work crazy, crazy hard and go nuts. But you know, depends. It might change. Right. But I like to incubate I'm right at the inception. Right. And that's what I love. So that's involved in all the branding, the launch, the first product hiring the first people like that's the bit I get. That's the exciting bit.
I'll be honest. Exciting. You know, my plan is to, you know, really build the number one startup studio in the UK, and very much focus on like software companies. That's what I've invited and will probably diversify. Yeah. That's where I wanna go. And it's, it's been great. Like the journey with bliss, growth has been awesome.
And, um, you know, I've had loads of other entrepreneurs come up to me and, you know, ask me questions about it. And hopefully, um, it's inspired a few other people to go. Do you ever
[00:08:53] Rupy: see, do you ever see failed entrepreneurs, um, who I'm sure you've met along the way, go back to sort of the nine to five schedule or like, do they go the other way to just keep on trying, keep on like
[00:09:05] Jay: taking those hits?
Yeah, I've seen quite a few, so I feel it's a good option. Like if imagine you are now, you know, you started your journey out, I dunno, in your early twenties and you go and build a startup for 5, 7, 10 years. You're now in your thirties and you might have kids and you've got family, like at this moment, can you take another punt?
Yeah. Right. Can you take a punt? And I've seen loads of my friends say, no, let's go join a big company. Let's take all my experience. Let's go to a sector, which I was previously in. And this, by the way, is a great move as well. This is an unbeliever movie for someone who has had some experience in a fast-growing startup, go to a, maybe a corporate job.
Mm-hmm right. It's not, there's no harm or bigger company and bring the expertise. Trust me, you get a shit ton of money from experience. So like you can cash in on your experience and I've seen guys get good equity in. Let's say you go for a late-stage company. You might become like a general manager.
Cause actually when you have a start and you've been managing 3, 5, 10 people, the skills you build, you're like, you know, you're a CEO. So being a general manager, like launching a product for a big company, like they love that sort of skillset. It's a great side step. Choose the same concept. That's why I do think if you go down the start path, things just happen.
Like, don't get me wrong. It is really risky as well. But I do think people sometimes underestimate the moves you can do if you do fail as well.
[00:10:14] Rupy: I, I reckon it comes down to your motivations as well. Right? A lot of people are motivated by money and consistency, and if they are being motivated by that, then, you know, actually.
Going to a corporate job is probably much better. And the other thing I think is I I've been reading this book called wanting its amazing book. We're gonna have to read it and we're gonna discuss it in the podcast, cuz it's all about the theory of my behaviour or, my theory. There was a philosopher called, uh, ARD and he talks about this in, uh, I think it was the 1950s.
He was, uh, a lecturer in Indianapolis, and then he went, uh, onto some other places, but basically. His theory is that we're all tic beings where we like to see other people and try to emulate their behaviour. If they are seen to be successful and socially desirable right now, being an entrepreneur, being a mark Zuckerberg, maybe like 2018, mark Zuckerberg or whatever is seen as like, you know, the goal that's like, oh, you want to be that kind of person raising money, fast-growing companies, all that kind of stuff.
We're selling, a dream. Not reality. Cause the reality is it's freaking hard to break through. We have to discuss this on the podcast. I think because this also applies to happiness or a perception of what happiness
entails.
[00:11:25] Jay: I'm hoping with this podcast as well, we can really shine a light on what it's like to be an entrepreneur.
Try to share your personal stories. I think when we bring on our guests, I want to go deepen all the shitty parts. Yeah. Um, and also the good parts. Like I would never, ever change my decision. I think. Yeah. Providing some context to folks would. Be a bit of a game-changer. So
[00:11:45] Rupy: one of my mates, who's, um, CEO of a company called Excel, the DTC coffee brand.
I don't know if I've discussed them before on the podcast, but, um, anyway, I should declare I'm an advisor and I've got shares in the company, but, um, we were having a conversation cuz I see him as like. Basically creating the next red bull. It's basically a healthy coffee brand. So they roast their coffee, such that the polyphenols and the coffee are heightened and coffee's a very healthy substance, you know, taking a moderation.
It's got an amazing array of like thousand different Pinos and. They know about that and they've roast it to basically maximize the health benefits. And he's getting himself sort of intertwined in like wild swimming, outdoor lifestyle. He lives and breathes an outdoor lifestyle. The reason why I think about it is that he was an accountant for many years before this and had this sort of entrepreneurial urge and left the corporate wheel to like, you know, to go and pursue his dreams.
Um, and we were checking the other day I think he's got 15 to 20 employees hasn't taken on that much investment growing their companies. Get to like the good scale at the moment. And he already knows that he doesn't want to be CEO of the company long term when it gets to that, you know, level of red bull.
I see, like Excel being the next red bull, it would be pretty amazing to watch is true. True, because it's a pretty fast growth, but I think it's good to have sort of like that mindset. If you are interested in entrepreneurship, if you are interested in, starting a company, know what your strengths are.
Based on what you desire. And I think that branding and all that kind of stuff, that's really fun. And if you can get through that stage, that's awesome. But when it gets to the point where you're dealing with all the sort of the corporate office woes that's co-level that's D stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:13:19] Jay: Yeah, no, I, I hear what you say. So I'm curious I wanna try stuff. I wanna see what happens to me when I have his stuff. So. Yeah, bring, bring it back. He's awesome. He's good. So what have you got roots far away? What have you got all? Have I got, um, well, I wanted to talk about this podcast
[00:13:35] Rupy: actually to start off with, at this point, we haven't pushed anything live, right?
So we don't really know what our audience is. Well, we banked a couple and you know, we're putting it out there, but you know, we, we, we made the strategic decision to it's like batch cooking. Right?
[00:13:47] Jay: We did we've done a massive batch cook. It could be a really shit set of cookies. Whoever it is. You're gonna eat
[00:13:53] Rupy: this for the rest of the week, now a couple months.
So anyway, we've batch kicked it. And, um, we don't actually know what our audience is. It's kind of like starting an app with no insights, no feedback, no metrics whatsoever. So I'm kind of curious as to how we're actually gonna garner that feedback in the first instance, but I'm curious as to where else we're gonna find these sort of metrics to guide ours.
Conversations are other than our own musings week by week. Cuz I have random musings and this is a very good outlet for it. cause on the, on my entrepreneurial journey, I'm just like, you know, what do I wanna do? What am I actually being happy about? I actually like enjoying and being fulfilled or should I go back to medicine?
You know, there's a thought that I have like, it's like a little
[00:14:29] Jay: therapy session for ourselves. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I've done it as a really good point. Well, I guess looking back at your doctor's kitchen, right? Mm-hmm, you were really one of the first people to start putting. Content around food is medicine, right?
Yeah. So how did you take that information and help?
[00:14:42] Rupy: I started my podcast at two the end of 2017. Yeah. Yeah. So at that point, I had like two and a half years of. Chatting to people via social media, via YouTube, reading comments, reading, DMS, and all that kind of stuff. Plus on the back of those seven or eight years of clinical experience at that point in the clinic, chatting to people, figuring out what their woes were, figuring out what their behaviour, uh, insights were, you know, how, how am I gonna motivate this person to eat well, eat better?
You know, what, the strategies that I can sort of utilising in the clinic to give them. And I've basically reflected that on the podcast because I'd kind of already knew like, well, what people were struggling with. And so. When I started, it was like off the bat. It was like already. Okay. Yeah. People vibe with it because I kind of already have that understanding, whereas this, this is, this is kind of different.
This is, I mean, this is new for you as well. Right.
[00:15:31] Jay: I've made this totally new. So. Yeah, like I think after you've, we've been chatting for a few years, we're like, Let's do something together and this, this is it. Yeah. Um, like this whole concept of us doing a podcast really started when you, me and Amit hung out.
Right. We always hang out, do like, and we talk such random shit and like Amit, something goes, dude, do you know what that is really good? Like we should talk about like, someone else should probably listen. That's great content. Yeah. So I feel like, I don't know. I see this as just a couple of mates talking about random.
and hopefully, it's valuable. Right? And there are some lessons. They have a bit banner along the way. You know what, if they get a few good few takeaways, like that's sick, like then I think we've done our bit. I just ask people, Hey, what, like, you know, a little bit about me. Well, what'd you, what bits do you, you quite intrigued to hear more about?
So that's where I've been getting my topic so far. I'd be interested, I'd
[00:16:16] Rupy: be, I'd be really interested in the critical comments. So I think the critical comments are the ones that you actually wanna read and actually ask yourself. The question is. Genuinely something that is an issue that I probably know deep down, or is it someone venting, you know, there, there's a fine line between those two.
And I actually found out quite a bit through my own podcast. So, you know, halfway through my pod, I started doing like a Saturday kitchen style, like where I'd cook for the guests and, you know, I'd find out what they like and I'd help the fire it. And it was great for video. Terrible for the podcast, cuz all you heard was just chopping in the background.
And so I had all these comments, I was like, yeah, yeah, great podcast, great content. But all I can hear is chopping. He's gotta stop doing this. And so we can do that at the end of it. So, you know, there's gonna be some feedback. I reckon like some annoying things that we've probably already done. Cause we've batched cooked.
This I'd be interested in how you, how you deal with that
[00:17:04] Jay: criticism. Do you know what, in UD I received as CEO, there's so much crap? You get in so many different places. So you get like Glassdoor reviews. I remember I was in the newspaper a few times for like good and bad stuff. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. I got like, what was the bad stuff we had this, um, company in the us that basically was trying to Sue us, you know, I was on the front page of the Ft.
Oh, wow. So I've had loads of like people going after meaning weird ways. So yeah, I dunno. I think I'll be okay, but let's see. What's that like, are there people
[00:17:31] Rupy: that have gone after you in the past that you now know and like have like
[00:17:35] Jay: sort of, yeah. I guarantee anyone who runs a business. Has been sued multiple times.
Really? Yeah. Yeah. A hundred per cent. Like I spoke to those of my friends, Mo like, there'll be a lawsuit or there'll be some things happening, like 100%, you know, in those situations, it's just, it's a bit like forgiveness, right? Like, it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong to some degree. It's just at the end of say, like, you just want it to be buried and gone.
Right. Those guys, every single person I've had an issue with. We're actually friends now. So really? Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Like it. Oh my God. That's so weird. It's a weird thing. Like. I've spoken to so many people. Who've had lawsuits? They've now friends with the people that they had the lawsuit. Well, is
[00:18:08] Rupy: it's just like the nature of
competition?
[00:18:10] Jay: It's just business. Yeah. It could be like, it could be anything from even a client complaint to a competitor in us, for example, like people get sued every bloody like it's, it's really regular. So if you are like, I'm a UK entrepreneur, I go to us. It's very common for us company to Sue you. Wow.
Right. It's very lit. Country. Right. You know, that's why lawyers make a shit ton of money over there. It's all, you know, it's all fun and games. Everyone's at least someone's making some money, but yeah, it does. It does like, yeah, it's just the game. Like people don't realize, but I guarantee if you running a company with over, let's say a hundred people, plus like, I'll be shocked if you know, I had a lawsuit within the five-year window.
How did you deal with that?
[00:18:47] Rupy: The first time? Because school isn't teaching this stuff, the university isn't teaching you how to deal with this. Yeah. And you were young, I'm assuming you were like, you're probably
[00:18:53] Jay: in your twenties. Yeah. So I, you know, when I got on the basic front page of Ft, cause basically Google invested in my company.
So went Google's back company gets sued. So that's what happened. Do you know what, like I just laughed? Yeah. It's like, you know, I was okay. So I'd already been in the newspapers in different places. Right. But this was another good, good thing. Yeah. For good things, right? Yeah. So I would raise money. In all those, um, places you like, oh, you know, like B Mar goes, oh, I'm gonna be on Forbes and stuff.
So I did all that weird stuff, which was nice. Right. And this time I was like, oh shit, man. I'm on some I'm on it for some like really crappy stuff. Right. I know. I just laughed. I just thought it was funny. I don't know why. Yeah. I just laugh. Cause I just you've. Cause you knew the claims were unfounded.
That was Marvel. It was that, but at the same time I just, I believe life is just, I've always thought it was just a fun little game. Like I don't know. I just so. Whenever things get quite serious. I just laugh because I know at the end day, it, all sort itself out anyway. So in the end, I just like, that's quite common.
The Ft for stupid shit. So, it was actually quite so, so meals, my brother and me, like, we were just like, ah, I feel like we're like, the gangsters are like bad boys in our stars. So it's like literally like that. So I remember mine. So, my brother was actually dating at the time when it came out and he actually is quite funny, but he used to show girls and like a date.
He's like, oh yeah, look that's me. And like, they, they used to think he's like a proper, bad boy, like a gangster. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So my brother was like, milking it for some reason. He's now got an amazing girlfriend. Um, so she to Mix's lovely. Yeah. and, um, but yeah, it was just, I dunno, like life is just if you take it too seriously.
It'll just get more serious. I weirdly I've got this skill in me where if it gets really, really weird, I just, I take the whole piss out of the situation,
[00:20:32] Rupy: mate. That is a life I know we're having jokes about that, but I'm, I'm telling you that is a really good life hack for happiness, right there. Just this sort of knowledge that things are gonna work out.
And B there's sort of guiding principles is that you've just gotta take. Things as part of like the game of life. Mm. And if you take it too seriously, it's basically your perception. So your perception was like, I can either think of this as like, oh my God, they're gonna take them a company. Yeah. It's gonna be, this is gonna wreck my personal career.
I might not never be able to raise again because they're gonna see me as a, you know, red flag or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Or. Isn't that funny? I'll it's funny. I'll get it, I'll use it for my
date,
[00:21:08] Jay: mate. What was even funny? What was, yeah, exactly? My brother, my brother got the upside on it. Right. um, what I found really funny was, um, I think it was like the next day or something.
Like, I get a bunch of my mates, like sending me the link. Have you seen this? Have you seen this? So like the front page of FTS, like, Nah, no, no, man. I didn't see it mate. I ain't seen it. It's like, yeah. It's like, I'm like a normal day. So happens in like, and I'm sure you've gone for this right. Something really shit happens in the day.
Right? If you can suck it in and you can make it till you go to bed, you wake up the next morning. You're okay. Like it just always beds the next morning. Yeah. It's the best hack. Like if, if you've had a really shit day at work or whatever, just, get to bed, man. Just get up, and go to the gym. Just like clean up, like there are times when it's like four o'clock I've had such a really crap something's really crap happen.
I someone just go home. So, and then I wake up the next morning and I'm much. Actually, why you were
[00:21:54] Rupy: talking about, the newspaper staff. I haven't been front page of any Ft or anything like that. I've been front page. Don't worry, mate. It's not that great. No, I've been front page of like, there was the daily mail and there was also the times but for good reasons.
Yeah. Yeah. But the daily mail sort of took a lot of my second book out of context. So that the second book's called eat Tobi, honest. Right? It's a play on words. It's like tongue in cheek. Like, you know, you're not, it's not genuinely about eating. Be honest. If you read the. Lines or you read them, the first chapter or even, you know, the final, uh, intro chapter.
It's very, very clear that what I'm talking about is food. Is medicine, medical treatment or a preventable substance or intervention, or reduce the risk of a certain number of diseases that are the main conditions that cost the most for healthcare systems around the world? Anyway, The daily mail obviously has daily me fired, eat this, and then you'll, you'll never have cancer or eat this and whatever, whatever.
So it was all that kind of stuff going on. And that sort of garnered a lot of ill will towards me and the brand. And remember my reaction to that was the complete opposite of yours. I thought the world was sort of like caving in on me. And I went through this experience and it took quite a few months, I think for me too.
Back on it. I was always like looking over my shoulder as to like, who's gonna try and come after me now, or who's gonna like try and go after my GMC or like, you know, my professional license, right? Yeah. My license. Yeah. Yeah. So all that, that was, that was a pretty hard time, actually, I would say. But if I took your sort of strategy of like, everything will work out and life.
Just a, a bit of a game and you know, this is just part of the game. That's a little bit weird. It's a little bit dark, but you know, you're gonna come out of it. I would've fared that a lot better. I had to learn that the hard way. I wasn't like the next day, like living at the headlines or laving at the comments, whatever, but there was an article.
This is generally funny. There was an article, it was a hit piece about doctors in general, who do brand posts. Now I do brand posts on, on my social media. And well, they were particularly going after doctors who promote, uh, like me and dairy or like, you know, beauty products. The vegans were after you or the, yeah, not the vegans.
No, it was, it was after all those kinds of doctors, right? The main doctors, who were labelled, I, I don't really know them anymore, but there was a line about me because whoever had written. This article was trying to just drum up as many people in much high-profile doc as possible. There was one line about me, Dr.
Repeat, or has also taken money for sponsored posts and branded content. He has been associated with tender stem, broccoli and walnuts.
[00:24:27] Jay: Yeah, Walnut and broccoli. I know broccoli and
[00:24:31] Rupy: water. So I was like, I felt like taking that picture and putting it as my profile.
[00:24:36] Jay: I'm like, I'm proud of that. That's so funny.
That's by the way, how does that work? So is there like a society, like the head of like, Broccoli and Walnut. And they like, they sit in a room and go, who should, who should, who should we get this budget too? No joke. There are,
[00:24:47] Rupy: there is a community of growers association. So the,
[00:24:51] Jay: uh, association, gang growers, he or almond's stuff?
No, no, that guy. Who is it? Is that a girl or not? No, it's a, it's a whole like a committee sit in a room to watch. No, no, they got like 400
[00:25:01] Rupy: growers. It's like a consortium. Oh, okay. So it's like, it's like O. But for, for almonds. Oh, sick. And they have them for different ingredients. They've got them for walnuts.
They've got them for mushrooms. They've got 'em for different types
[00:25:12] Jay: of mushroom broccoli right now, mushrooms killing it, killing it. I
[00:25:15] Rupy: actually did some stuff with mushrooms saying that last year. So they, they, the UK island grows association. So all the mushroom grows, all get together and they like to pay essentially for like a branding organization to help them like.
Distribute more positive content around mushrooms. And obviously like they're coming to me, they're coming to your boy here. Yeah. Because I'm all about the mushroom tray.
[00:25:38] Jay: it. I'm like the so versatile, it's gonna help you,
[00:25:42] Rupy: you know, like reduce your meat content, all that kind of stuff.
So. They came to me and I'm really happy to promote these brands.
[00:25:47] Jay: It's like a win-win for me. I'm just trying to think what that guy puts on his LinkedIn, like the head of mushrooms, society, committees, like, yeah. Imagine bowling in for jobs game, man. Like, fuck man. I run the mushroom committee. It's so crazy in there.
You big him up? I don't know you they've got like a lot of budgets as well.
[00:26:02] Rupy: Cause if you think about it, I mean, almonds are a perfect example. So almond. The California growers, just not almond's globe, but just the California grows association. I think it's 400 different growers around the California region and they all chip in a bit of money towards this
[00:26:17] Jay: thing, dude.
I couldn't imagine their Christmas parties, mate. It's gonna be crazy. if you get to invite their Christmas, but they go to that Christmas party, even dude, in, in
[00:26:27] Rupy: 2016, I think it was 2017. They flew me out to California expenses paid sick. It took me, took us to yo uh, Yosemite. Is it your Sur? Yeah, that national.
Give some. Yeah. Yeah. So we went to the national park, everything was like comp. We had Almed on everything almond on the desserts almond on breakfast. I mean, I was a bit Almed out afterwards, but it was
[00:26:45] Jay: delicious. Really good. No good on you, man. Good on you. So, uh, we need a wild card topic, right? Okay. Um, so in this pod, you're probably, hopefully, a bit of.
A format where I think the whole thing is what is hard. Yeah. It's all wing. Right? so I think a lot of people might wanna write a book, but I was doing a bit of research around it. Right. I've had a few people approach me just at a very low level. Like, Hey, do you wanna write a book on entrepreneurship? I was like, no, I'm not in that zone right now.
Right. But I was like, do these guys make money? Right. And what I found out was that basically, if you're writing a book and you look, you are a perfect guy to ask, you've got multiple bestsellers. Right. But, you know, I've realized none of these guys makes that much money and they make money in other areas and it may be a good, good thing to probably like tell some of the listeners like about the process.
I know you get some money, but like, Is it much money? Cause I hear only a few people made money. Yeah. There's there's
[00:27:35] Rupy: not much money at all. I think that when people think about publishers, they think about the biggest sellers of Arana, the JK Rollings, the Matt Haggs, the David Williams. Like all these people who've like absolutely smashed it and sold millions and millions of books.
They are a rarity. The first thing about publishing is that it's a very old-school industry. So it still operates very much like who you are. And a lot of publishing is consolidated now. So you have these big imprints, like har Collins, penguin, uh, all these different traditional media houses and they have imprints within them.
So I think Harper Collins is something like 40 or 50 different imprints and they hold different genres. You got fiction non-fiction so wasn't imprinted. That's the imprints, like a, it's almost like a mini publisher. Oh wow. Within the big publish. So if you look at like the tree, the umbrella of all these different publishers that they've got all these mini ones underneath and they each had their own niches.
So when I. Picked up by Harper. In the first instance, I was signed to Thorntons, which is, not a chocolate company. No, no, no chocolate. No. Thorntons. Which is like the health and wellness arm within Harper Collins. And I, I was one of the lucky ones. I got quite a size board advance of 75 K to do one book.
Yeah. So that's one book deal. It's only 5k and that's like money in my pocket. Regardless if I sell zero
[00:28:50] Jay: books or one book, it's actually on that. Right? Yeah. So you get 75 K is there a deadline? Yeah. I can imagine some people getting this cash and going sick. Right. and just like chilling. Right.
So like, is there a deadline, if you don't do it, you have to pay it back. Like they'll they can, yeah. Yeah. There's
[00:29:04] Rupy: loads of clause. It's like a proper, like, you know, contract 20, 30-page contract. So
[00:29:07] Jay: what was your deadline then? So my deadline was a year, two
[00:29:10] Rupy: years. It was within a year. Oh, wow. That I had to deliver and then it's in stages.
So every contract is very different. Mm-hmm, so you can have, a publishing contract. That's like everything paid off on day one. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, usually that's reserved for celebrities, I reckon, but usually, everything is phased out. Like
[00:29:26] Jay: how much are they helping you? So, you know, you've paid cuz like, and this is something else I wanna talk about.
It's like self-publishing versus publishing. Right. But like, okay, so you got this big. Team helping you, right? Like how much did that actually help you? So if you
[00:29:37] Rupy: ask different authors, you'll get completely different answers. I was, I was lucky. I had a lot of help in terms of PR marketing, um, the copy, and the recipe development.
That was all me, but they sorted out all the photography. They sorted out the best sort of. Um, uh, prop stylists, all the locations where we did all the images, they made it, they made it look amazing, man, if you see you see my first book. Yeah, it's awesome. I mean that too. you, you don't understand, like when you go into a cookbook shoot, I'm the least important person there.
Everything is like a well-oiled machine. You have all these, there are literally eight, nine people. And it's usually in a very small studio as well. So it's very
[00:30:16] Jay: cramped. Is the studio actually within their like publishing house then? No, no, it's all external. They rent somewhere. Oh, an external place like this or whatever.
Yeah. They'll come to, they'll
[00:30:24] Rupy: come to specific locations and I'm literally the least important
[00:30:27] Jay: person. Interesting. Alright. So crunching the numbers. They're paying you 75 grand. Because this is another interesting thing in my research was that you need to sell a shit ton of books before you start making anything extra.
Right. So that royalty
[00:30:39] Rupy: structure really, again, depends on what your contract is saying. Oh, okay. So for my first book, I had to sell 80,000 copies before I got any extra money on the base of that. Right. Okay. So. That's quite a high amount. How much would you get extra for the book? Uh, so that again, that depends.
So sometimes it's 10% of the sales. Okay. Sometimes it's 15. So it's 20. It really depends on what your threshold for books is. Luckily,, I went through that and I, I, I get a royalty cut now, but it was very, very high, like the very high buyer to sell for an unknown author. To have a threshold of 8,000 copies is a pretty high bar.
And, and it fluctuates, from person to person and their self-publishing is probably a lot more popular now. Yeah. But it's very, it's a very different game. So I know people like, um, David Goggins, Gary V even. Yeah. Um, and a few other people have gone down the self-publishing route, but you really need to have a core audience that you've grown for years before that, because you want a willing audience, like whether it's a big newsletter, whether it's a big social following.
Whatever it is, you need to have, you need to have had that community
[00:31:39] Jay: before. No. Interesting. So I found it fascinating. Yeah. The actual money you make is not so much considering you're spending like a year or two years writing. Right. It's like, and if you are writing a great book, I know as well, don't forget.
Yeah, let's cut. Right. And agent, and you're working like full time, like, you know, writing a book, you need to be on it. Like you need to be proper on it, like proper zoned in. So you can't really do much other stuff it's you can, but it's just, you need that zone time. Right? Dude, I was working full-time as a
[00:32:03] Rupy: GP.
Oh, my God. Yeah. I was working full-time as a GP. I was doing all my socials. Uh, I was still blogging. Um, okay. You're just a beast man. And then, and then I, uh, ended up doing me, then I ended up doing my podcast. It was, it was a very unhealthy sort of like, you know, grind lifestyle where I'd come back. I did some videos.
I would literally come back. I was videoing myself on a GoPro. I was in my suit and, tied, just literally come back from work. And I was like, Now I'm gonna recipe tests. yeah. And my first book had like 400 references in the back. So was it just like knocking out a few, like a hundred recipes, even though, you know, cookbook writers, they put so much effort and so MIS research into each of the recipes?
It was me doing a hundred. Recipe cookbook and 40,000 words in the front end. I think the original was 80,000, but it was 40,000 words that I had to cut down to all references all academic papers, everything.
[00:32:52] Jay: It was, it was that that healthy yeah. Let's like gave me anxiety. Um, alright. So I think we're coming to that time when I really good friend.
We'll be joining us, producer Amit. So it'd be great to get him to join us in the studio. Um, if you haven't already please, um, give us a follow on, on your podcast player to be notified when the next episode
[00:33:12] Rupy: drops Amit, I'm nervous. Oh, this is the this first time
[00:33:16] Jay: we, yeah. Yeah, we were in person now. The first time we are getting live feedback is the three, the three, three mates are together.
Everyone was wondering
[00:33:23] Amit: what this third mic was for?
[00:33:26] Jay: that's all the
[00:33:27] Amit: way, your guess was I was thinking of giving Jay some feedback. Are we still doing that
[00:33:32] Jay: bit? Yeah. Are we doing feedback? Yeah. Make helpful, pull your mic
[00:33:37] Amit: thing. So it's quite interesting. So like in terms of rating Jade, like, uh, I'm gonna go back to U cause like when we were 18, I remember like being this guy and he was.
Rate me. And I was like, what? Yeah, you said, I remember it clearly. So I was like,
[00:33:53] Jay: probably ring my uni star, like me. I know you're my uni mate. Right. But like the past mate, like, we're all weird. Why is
[00:34:01] Amit: coming?
[00:34:05] Rupy: We do, you know what I mean? Sure. Much
joking.
[00:34:14] Amit: Still pretty weird when you are, you are 18. You're like, what the hell is this guy talking about? And, um, like credit to you actually, because I think like one of the topics we're talking about is we're talking about feedback and then it transitioned into CISM. You are actually very good at taking feedback and then, uh, building on it.
But yeah, to have that mentality at 18, that that's not
[00:34:36] Jay: amazing. Even my four yet I'm waiting for my number four. Uh, no, I'm
[00:34:40] Amit: actually. Or I don't think it was yous, but basically rich, but I think you are 9.5 or you, yeah,
[00:34:47] Rupy: you saw, you saw
[00:34:48] Jay: it's off slow. You saw it off slow. You're overselling me
[00:34:50] Amit: now. Yeah, I think, uh, like the things that I took away from that is if you're someone who's having an impact in the world, it's basically impossible not to get sued or not to get complaints or not to.
Haters or not together, daily mail rebranding. What you're saying is something which is not, but you can actually like, take that hate and think about the positives. So like in your and your brother's sense, you're like the gangster of the FTS Ruby is the gangster of the daily mail and like, yeah, just don't, don't take it too seriously.
And there's really not that much to it. Cause especially like in Rupe, Case, like I read your book and I know it doesn't say like, eat this and you'll beat cancer, but people are writing out there. And at the end of the day, you know what you've written mm-hmm so you, you don't need to take it on the chin.
And I related it back to my own life cuz as doctors, like, even if you're an amazing doctor, it's pretty much impossible these days not to get complaints. Of course, if people complain you're sometimes you've done something wrong and you, you need to. Like own up to it and you need to learn from it, but sometimes it's, um, it's unnecessary.
Right? I don't blame them, but it's like toxic people putting their stuff out onto you. You can't really let that stuff, uh, stand,
[00:35:55] Jay: stand in your way. I'm so
[00:35:56] Rupy: much more impressed now from hearing that story from university, because I thought that was a learned behaviour of maybe from being in the tech world.
Yeah. And being surrounded by these people. But if you are asking people to rate you, I know we were loving it at the start, but like, if you are asking people to rate you at that early age and actually. iterating based on that feedback, which is basically what we tell tech startups to do all day long. You were already looking for those performance indicators to sort of better yourself, whatever that might be.
So that's, I'm really impressed,
[00:36:25] Amit: man. When we first met our producers in person fascinate productions, uh, whose name was there, this is a guy most dedicated to self-improvement and like it's one thing to solicit feedback, but then like you can't be too precious about it. You have to just take it on the.
And build on it. So I think that's like a, I saying
[00:36:40] Jay: as a J he's the one that led delivery Babylon, he's like a good mate of mine. And, um, he, he lays into me and I like it. I was like, come at me, bro. And he does, we have to get him on the podcast. Yeah. He's, he's, he's a good crack. Definitely. And I'm
[00:36:51] Rupy: gonna, I'm gonna back am it on the, uh, the high rating as well, maybe not as high as 9.5, but like I would say.
Solid nine solid. Oh wow. The improvement. It is the
[00:37:01] Jay: impersonal thing. Ridiculous. I
[00:37:02] Rupy: think definitely the in-person thing. Yeah. Yeah. We can't do them via score cast river. Sorry man. Riverside S yeah, they're getting a, they're getting 3.3.
[00:37:14] Jay: runs this. Um, studios actually singly. He loved it. You can see the smiling podcast
[00:37:19] Amit: will put a promo code in there. The show
[00:37:23] Jay: show. He might give us some free time. Right mate, I'll hype up your place. I
wanna
[00:37:29] Rupy: see your, uh, negotiation skills in practice. Ah,
[00:37:34] Amit: another topic was leaving as CEO. And, um, finally, when you guys were talking about it, I was thinking about like the.
The theory is at the same time as well. So like on one hand, you've got like chasing prestige and this is what everyone is doing. And then on the other side is knowing yourself and knowing what really makes you happy and what like brings joy to, your life. I do think entrepreneurship and being a founder is the most glamorous thing you can do right now.
It's probably what finance was in. Like. The 1980s and the two thousand, like I'm DiCaprio. Yeah, exactly. Like everyone, everyone wants to be a Venus guy.
[00:38:11] Rupy: So
[00:38:14] Amit: pretty good. Yeah. You're getting a big head now.
[00:38:21] Rupy: I love you. You some reason, man,
[00:38:22] Jay: I'm telling you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. And, um, thanks Fascinate Productions. I know we've got rich here, so I wanna thank him as well. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Um, alright, good. Good. I think this was a good one. Yeah. And it's nice. Good person. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're gonna another episode here as well.
Very soon. So, uh,
[00:38:39] Rupy: if they can bring down the prices guys.
[00:38:44] Jay: Um, alright. Awesome. Love reaction. Good team. Good team reaction. Yeah, no reaction, no reaction. All right. Cheers guys.