9 to when‪?‬ iwoca

We've been away for a little while!

Before the world was rudely interrupted by coronavirus, the 9 to When? podcast had a bit of a switch-up. Our beloved host, Jamie, moved onto pastures green and Tom – a member of our accountants team – kindly offered to take over the show. Unfortunately, Tom only got to record one episode before we had to cancel our other guests due to lockdown restrictions. 

This was the first episode of Tom's series – a fantastic interview with Emma Watson, proud owner of children's hats company – Little Hotdog Watson. We loved Emma, and were keen to release her interview regardless of the circumstances. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Unfortunately, this episode's release is a one off, but we hope to add more episodes to this series when things are a little easier.

Stay safe, Dan. 

In this episode of 9 to when? Jamie speaks with Ahlam Alharthy of Grow With Me.

Ahlam’s story:

‘I really wanted to know how I could best nurture my daughters brain development and wanted her to have good quality toys that were open ended so she can learn whilst playing. But it was extremely difficult to find the time to do that at the early stages of motherhood. Once life got less crazy, I became completely obsessed with baby development and play and that’s when Grow With Me was born. I wanted to create a play box not only because I would have loved it myself at the time but also to help other mums like me.’

In this episode, Jamie chats with Nigel Berman from School of the Wild — a different kind of team building company. They discuss the power of the great outdoors, Nigel’s path to becoming  a business owner, and how nature itself can be used to reset teams.

Show notes

Lauren Pears is the proud owner of Lady Dinah's cat Emporium – an Alice in Wonderland themed cat cafe based in Bethnal Green, London. They currently have 16 cats and an enormous waiting list for weekend visits. 



Starting out

- Lady Dinah’s has been running for around six years. The first two years were stressful! 

- When starting out, Lauren faced a lot of challenges. One of these was a disconnect between herself and investors

- Lauren also underestimated the hype – when she opened her booking system in 2013, she received over 20,000 bookings within the first seven days

- The flip side of this was that people were forgetting about their bookings, and while it was booked out according to the online system, Lauren had an empty cafe

- No shows are a massive problem, and as a result Lauren now requires customers to purchase their ticket upfront 

- Along with the usual cafe staff, Lady Dinah’s have cat carers who are trained to look after the cats while customers are enjoying their time



Interior design - Alice in Wonderland

- Lady Dinah’s is named after Alice’s cat in Lewis Carroll’s famous book, ‘Alice in Wonderland’

- Upstairs, the cafe is themed as the Mad Hatter’s tea room. It features a giant top hat that the cats like to walk around, and rope bridges connected to the walls

- Lauren learned quickly that cats destroy everything, so anything you build has to be cat-proof

- Her creative team have helped her build the interior, including turning a structural column into a hand-sculpted tree



Social media 

- Lady Dinah’s have a strong digital following on social media, with over 250,000 followers across various platforms

- Marketing has been an 'unsolvable problem' for Lauren since she first opened the cafe

- Lauren has found it hard to get someone who isn’t regularly in the cafe to do marketing for her, so for a long time did it herself

- In order to free up a little bit of her time she has had to learn to delegate social roles 



Negative customers 

- Lauren has inevitably had to deal with customers who don’t know how to interact with the animals properly 

- She believes it’s essential that as a business owner you stick up for your staff

- Negative reviews on Trip Advisor are hard to navigate, and are frustrating when a customer’s account doesn’t align with the truth or is unfair

- For small businesses, negative reviews can be really damaging 

- Ultimately, there is a bigger margin for failure as cats are unpredictable – some customers are more understanding than others



From video games to cats

- Before starting Lady Dinah’s, Lauren was working in the game industry

- After a number of different jobs working on some exciting games, the 2008 economic collapse meant that Australia was no longer a cheap place to develop games 

- After a brief break from the game industry, Lauren was drawn back and made the leap to move to London where she worked at Sony Playstation for around two years  

- Her time in the games industry means that she has been able to take on the techy / analytic side of Lady Dinah’s with relative ease



What’s one thing you wish you knew when you were first starting out?

- Don’t try and behave like a boss, the boss’ you’ve already had are the reason you left

- Be the boss that you want to work for



The big biz whiz quiz

Lauren scored 7/10

Nearly seven months in now, Jamie and Mat get chatting again after an extended break from talking to each other in the Alps. They discuss the challenges of family business, what can be learned from digital bank N26’s exit from the UK, spotlight an entrepreneur making mementos from dead pets before concluding with the timeless Brilliant or Bonkers – where Mat has a tough time tricking Jamie about who said this week's quote

If you've got any feedback, or want to be featured on the show then send your thoughts to podcast@iwoca.co.uk or visit our [insights](https://www.iwoca.co.uk/insights/) page for content for small businesses.



Show notes

Jamie and Mat have both been out in France on a company retreat taking a break from office life. 



News

Rushden based shoe firm, DB Shoes, run by two generations of identical twins turns 100

- The business was initially set up by a pair of identical twins in 1920: Jack and Bill Denton

- In 1990, Jack's grandsons David and Charles Denton (also identical twins) took over the business and helped protect its future

- This year, the business turned 100



Challenger bank N26 has closed 200,000 UK accounts

- They cited not having enough time to put group structure in place prior to Brexit as their reason for pulling out of the UK

- According to N26: “The timings and framework outlined in the EU withdrawal agreement mean that the company will in due course be unable to operate in the UK with its European banking licence.”

- They appear to be focusing more on their primary market – Germany – where they are based 



Business spotlight: 9 Lives Twine

'The business that lets you keep your pet forever'

- Theresa Furrer spins your old pet fur into jumpers, scarves and hats so that you can continue to enjoy their soft fur after they pass away

- She works 60 hours a week by popular demand

- A lifelong knitter, she didn't want to continue using sheep wool because of the sustainability issues associated. So, she appealed for cat and dog fur so that she could continue making her fur jumpers

- She also runs a business called Close By Me Jewellery that takes the ashes of pets or loved ones, turns them into a resin and then sets them in gold or silver jewellery



According to Theresa: "The poodle is the worst dog to spin. If I can get this poodle [done], I can do anything.



Check out the New York Times article here.



Brilliant or Bonkers



"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." 



– Henry Ford

Show notes

In an info-packed interview, James Gibson – Lead Product Owner at Revolut – runs Jamie through the principles and processes the global money app have used to build and sustain their growth, which last year topped The Tech Track 100 (with an 507.56% annual sales rise over three years).

They cover roadmapping done right, hiring the right people and finding the balance between robust stretch targets and unrealistic expectations of success.

Of course, there’s also the big biz whizz quiz for James to fight his way through, before at last concluding on Brilliant or Bonkers, where we look at an American literary giant and ask the question: if you’re on the side of the majority, should you reflect and reform?

The ingredients for growth

Revolut was named is the fastest growing UK tech company in 2019 and their growth strategy is centred around three things: KPIs (key performance indicators), people and roadmapping:

KPIs – Do you know what you’re optimising for, are you pushing everything in the right direction? 

People – Are you hiring and nurturing the right people? How is your team developing? Without the right people, you’re never going to get to where you want to be

Roadmap– What are you going to do with those people to reach your goals? Being critical about bad ideas, just focus on the ones that are going to support KPIs

According to James, the key to Revolut’s success is structuring everything carefully, and then being ruthless in that approach. Using smart experimentation to work out the best way forward is at the heart of Revolut.



Hiring problem solvers

- Despite being a banking app, Revolut typically don’t hire individuals with banking experience. Instead, they hire people from tech companies who think outside of the box in order to drive growth and success. 

- Being creative and doing things differently is one of the keys to growth as doing what everyone else is doing will result in you growing at the same rate as them.

- Accountability:people who own the problem they are given and don’t blindly accept advice from others just because they outrank them 

- Analytical: anyone can think of a product, what’s hard is not to work out what you **could**, it’s working out what your **should** do.

- Spark: An element of creativity, someone who brings fresh ideas to the table 



Achieving KPIs

- As a team, you’re given your target for the quarter but are then given a huge amount of freedom in how you reach that KPI

- You then get to pitch different ideas so you can work out how to get from A to B

- While you have more freedom, you also have more accountability and responsibility for your projects

- Leadership at every level– you own what you do and are judged on your results



What’s a realistic target? 

- Set stretch targets that are more general, as you progress, they don’t look as unrealistic 

- Revolut has grown quickly through this strategy 

- Revolut is looking to launch in the US and Singapore in the coming months, these have been huge goals for them

- Gradually, elements of these projects have come together and now it seems far more feasible 



James’ key takeaways

- Know what your goals are and make sure everyone in your company knows too

- Hire the right people

- Make sure you have razor focus on what you decide to push forward 

- Investing your time and effort in the right things when you’re small is probably the most important thing you can do