Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best business podcast for curious entrepreneurs. Hosted by Top 20 Female Founder, Stephanie Melodia, Strategy & Tragedy features candid interviews with entrepreneurs who have scaled - and failed - their businesses - sharing their lessons in entrepreneurship along the way. From Nick Telson-Sillett who achieved financial freedom after selling DesignMyNight (on The Wildest Exit Day in History™) to Emmie Faust, the founder of Female Founders Rise, who opened up about her breakdown on the road to discovering her mission in supporting female founders.
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In this episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Simon Squibb is the founder of HelpBnk. He is also a serial entrepreneur, content creator, and investor. Simon started his first company when he was homeless at 15 years old, and sold his last company, Fluid, to PwC. He has since invested in over 70+ startups, and is now on a mission to help 10 million people achieve their dreams.
Simon, all right, let's kick things off with my first question here.
Can you point to one single catalyst that put you on this mission to helping people achieve their dreams? Yeah, I think when my mom kicked me out of home when I was 15, really, I think, um, I'd never been asked what my dream is when I was young, it was always, what am I going to do when I grow up? Not what do I want to problem?
Do I want to solve? And so I was never asked what my dream was. I was just asked what I would do, you know, as a job. So, um, I think when I was, you know, out there in the world for the first time and realized, you know, That I didn't have a dream that was probably the catalyst to doing what I'm doing today.
If that hadn't happened to me, if I hadn't had that difficult time, if I hadn't had that difficult process of trying to start a business with no money, with no experience, with the education that taught me biology, but didn't tell me how to handle money. I think that was the catalyst probably for me. And what gave you the idea to grab a microphone and go out on the streets and interview strangers?
That was kind of a process, I guess.
Five years ago. And the main, the primary reason was I'd sold my company. I'd retired. I didn't need to earn money anymore, but I was bored and I wanted to be useful when I wanted to be seen. And I think that's quite a normal human instinct to be useful and to be seen. So I went on social media to just, I've got this knowledge in business.
I had no money and I've made it. I thought, right, I'll just go on social media and try and answer people's questions and give them help. And it kind of snowballed really, because as I started to help people, I realized that, you know, I could only help one person at a time. Social media, you know, helped me then maybe reach 20 people that were listening on the live.
And then that 20 people turned into 400 people. I mean, right now, between the two channels, I've got over 2000 people listening in, you know, so slowly it built up. And I think I, I remember there was a change on the TikTok algorithm and system that allowed people who were listening to give you money so they can gift you.
So if someone likes what you're saying, they can give you money. And I remember the first time that function got turned on because when I closed my live on TikTok, I earned 150 and I remember thinking, I'm a millionaire. And I haven't done this to make money. And now I've made money from the people that have been listening to me, giving advice and decided to gift me, I should, I should give this money away.
And so, um, and so what I actually did initially, I didn't go and film it, but I just, I met someone in, I was going to the supermarket to get some lunch and the person filling up the counter. I just said to them, you know, do you have a dream? Um, and she told me this incredible story about her dream. And I thought to myself, wow, you know, I could have easily walked past this person and just ignored them.
And I wouldn't have known that this incredible dream they have in their mind. And I gave her a hundred pounds there and then, and there was no camera at the time. And I left thinking, wow, that was incredible. And I thought, why didn't I film it? Why don't I film her dreams so that I can then share it with people and maybe that would help them beyond just the little bit of money I gave and the little bit of advice that I gave.
So, um, so the next time I, I actually went to a Pizza Express , um, because I didn't get lunch in the supermarket 'cause I talked to this lady and then I just left. Uh, and I, and at this time though, I filmed it. So as I walked in, I asked the person behind the counter as you know, what was your, what was your dream?
And they told me. Um, and, uh, and, and then I, I gave them some money as well. And, and that this time I recorded it and I put it up online. And, uh, yeah, the rest is history, as I say. Absolutely. You beat me to it with some of those questions I was going to ask you as well, if you remember the very first time.
So it's awesome to hear that story of being in the supermarket. And then the first time that you actually filmed it on pizza express, you also mentioned your business. I want to come onto that as well afterwards in terms of, you know, how you picked it up. But sticking with kind of the beginning of the help bank journey here, you've actually received like a quite a surprising amount of backlash given that you are essentially a modern day saint, Simon, you're going out there, you're giving people money, you're making people's dreams come true.
Has that surprised you? And how do you handle some of that negative backlash that I've seen you get? Yeah, I mean, I think that Out of the 8 million people that follow me, you know, maybe I get one comment a day that's negative. So I mean, first of all, you got to put it into context, right? And I think the, the negative people, I kind of generally, they fall into kind of three categories.
They're either just trolls, they have no profile picture. You don't know who they are. They're not saying who they are. They're just having a bad day, probably. I mean, I don't, I don't take it too personally. Um, uh, the second type of, I guess, negative person is they do say who they are, um, but they've got the wrong end of the stick.
So if someone comes on my life for the first time and they hear me saying, I'm giving away money, maybe they think of scam, scam, scam. Cause the world has got very cynical, right? But if you follow me, you'll see, I've been doing it every day. And I have never charged anyone for help. I'm not selling a course.
Um, in fact, I just put a video up on YouTube. It's now become the most popular business video on YouTube. It's all my knowledge for free. So it's not me, you know, selling a course. It's not me. You know, pretending to give money away, I'm videoing me doing it, giving the money away, and then, and then I'm actually, you know, helping people and I haven't, you know, haven't charged people a course fee.
So after five years of doing it, those people are what I call undecided voters. There are people that don't know what I'm doing. And as they follow me and get to know me, they, they actually often become my biggest fans. And, and so, and then the final, I guess, hate I get are people that don't agree with my philosophy.
Right. So I believe that everybody can be an entrepreneur and there's a lot of people that say, no, they can't. And I'm always like. Okay, you've got your opinion, you know, like, but please tag someone you think can't be an entrepreneur and then they shut up. You know, like, I think it's, it's, it's more a, you know, if you have an opinion on things, there will always be someone that has the exact opposite opinion.
Doesn't matter what we say. If you say everyone should love everyone, they're like, well, if we did that, then, you know, We need more tension in life, blah, blah, it doesn't matter, you know, so there will always be someone and often what I've noticed as well as I've got more popular on social media is people are using me to get their own attention.
So they'll, they'll have a deliberate opposite view to me just to get my attention to get attention for their, for whatever they're working on. Right. So, yeah. So a lot of it, if you have to take into context, um, I don't believe people should get a mortgage when they're young. So of course, all property people hate me about how we shouldn't.
If you're a successful entrepreneur making so much money as an entrepreneur, do you really need to charge a course to young people to help them? Why not just do it for free? So those people hate me. And that's fine. You know, like, I, I think it's just, um, part of the course when you have, you know, strong opinions on things, there'll be people that don't like your opinions.
I think there's a very clear personal brand lesson there. And what I would distill that down into one statement is, you know, you stand for something, otherwise you'll fall for everything, right? So you're very clear on your mission and what you stand for. Linked to that, I'm actually going to bring in one of the audience questions that I think just makes sense here.
So from Fiona Hammond, she's asking, What did you tell yourself that helped you get through those lowest moments? And what I just want to add to that is your previous answer there was very balanced, was very, was very rational. You've got the context, but of course we're still human. So I can imagine you get affected like most of us.
How, what do you actually tell yourself to get you through those darkest moments? Yeah, well, I think, um, over the years, I have, I have opinions, by the way, that aren't always right, okay, and I, and I'm definitely up for, like, debating things and, and people showing me that I've got an opinion that's wrong and I, I evolve and I learn and, you know, I, I don't think I'm always right.
I have seen a lot and done a lot. So I do base a lot of what I believe in on fact and what I've seen in the world. Um, I've also probably done one of the world's biggest human surveys on like what people's dreams are, and I understand what stops people's dreams from happening. I guess, you know, to answer the question directly, it's like, I always think about like why I'm doing it.
And if I help one person today, fulfill their destiny, go for their dream, have a better life, that's generational change I've had by helping one person. So when, when I, and I have felt down when people have had a go at me, I think I, I, I, I accept, I've learned to accept that, that being famous is a pain in the arse.
Uh, but I can help a lot of people with the fame that I've built. So I just have to accept the rough with the smooth. You know, like, and there will be, and there are days when I'm like, Wow, you know, some people really hate me out there. Like, it's odd. Um, and I don't want that in my life. But I also, you know, today, for example, um, I've got a team of 14 people that helped me with this content, by the way, this isn't me on my own and 14 people helped me.
So today alone, we've had five people message us where we've helped them and their lives are better. And they sent us thank you notes or updates. And we have an internal chat and the team, and we share that. I mean, that lifts us up. Yeah, it's like we, you know, people, a lot of people will criticize and have a go.
They're not in the arena. If they're not in the arena, I kind of think they don't, they shouldn't have, they can't have an opinion. You can't blame someone doing something if you're not in the arena doing it yourself. It's very easy to criticize the player on the field when you're a spectator of the sport, isn't it?
What I can take away from that is, is removing that individualistic level and actually zooming out and that more macro view on the mission that you're working towards. So, um, Absolutely beautiful, Simon. I love to hear that. I want to dive into a few other things you've already touched on. I'm going to do my best to get through these questions because there's obviously a lot.
So I want to extract as much as I can from you in this very valuable time. So you mentioned that you've already conducted the largest ever survey on what people's dreams are. So one of the questions I actually had was given that you've interviewed hundreds, if not thousands at this point of strangers on the streets, how have people surprised you the most?
I think what surprises me the most is how Many people have a dream. Uh, I think a lot of the time, like I was in New York recently asking people what their dream is, you know, having having a dream is very common in America, right? It's it's the American dream is very prevalent. So, you know, I just You know, there was a guy who was cleaning the bins out and you know, you could easily walk past him and think, Oh, it's just a guy cleaning the bins.
You know, that's a weird job. And then you hear his dream and it's, it's deep and it's meaningful. And it's, I think people, normal people are so interesting. There's not enough Hollywood movies done on normal people, you know, like. And, and, um, people, people are impressive. And so I, uh, I think, I think that's the thing that I really love it now.
Like I, I just went on holiday to Amsterdam and I just kept asking people their dreams, even though I didn't have a camera or anything necessarily on me. I just, people come and serve me a coffee. I just want to know. It's a habit now. You can't break. And it's super, super fascinating people and their stories and their purpose and their, you know, the other thing that has surprised me is how many people don't think their dream is possible.
They have a dream, but they're just kind of like, you know, I can't do it. Cost of living is too high. You know, I'm not that special. People just don't realize how brilliant they are. And so that's the other side of it, which is also surprised me. Which links to the blocker that you mentioned as well. I was going to ask what that biggest blocker is.
It's the narratives that we tell ourselves, right? What's the most shocking answer that you've had? Um,
shocking answer.
I don't know if it's shocking. I think a couple of people have told me their incredible dream and then I've offered to help them and then fear stopped them doing it and they won't do it. Um, I mean, there's one person I'm thinking of particularly when I tell this story. I offered them 50, 000 to make their dream happen and they, they just, they were so scared they didn't do it.
And I'm, you know, but initially they're like, they couldn't do it because they didn't have the money. I'll give you the money now, what, I can't do it because of this, I can't do it because of that. I think that always surprises me that people don't just go for it. And I think fear is an interesting thing.
Conditioning is an interesting thing. People have been conditioned a bit to not want to be failing, especially in the public eye. People don't want people to know they failed. And I get it, but it also shocks me when you kind of remove the excuses and people still say, I can't right now. No, people always make excuses for not doing it.
And I think that's because the school system has a lot to blame there. I think we know when no one wants to stand out of school and be bullied or teased, or no one wants to look super smart. No one wants to look super stupid. Everyone just wants to be, you know, average. And so I think when you're presented with an opportunity to fund your dream, you know, people might see you fail and it might not work.
People shy away. Even though their instinct is to do it as in they've had that dream. Yeah, that's amazing, isn't it? But I think the more you talk about it, the more influence that you have. At least it's warming people up more and more to the idea. So we're getting some It's blown my mind. I mean, I, um Just walking around Amsterdam the last few days, it's like hundreds of people coming up to me and just wanting to take pictures, saying that the content's inspired them, that the individuals in the videos have inspired them, it's got them asking the question, what is their dream?
They wondered what they'd say if they bumped into me. It's got people thinking and it's, it's kind of amazing. Yeah, and wonderful at the same time. Could there be a documentary in the works? You're obviously a born entrepreneur, is there another creative project here? Oh, yeah, well, I've launched a book called What's Your Dream with Penguin, published, my publisher is Penguin, so it's quite, it's quite exciting.
And we are working on a TV show, um, which should come out next year, that is all about, like, helping people's dreams happen. So yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't, this is my life's work now. This is, this is it, this is it for me. This is all I'm going to focus on is trying to help people's dreams happen. And I think there's also a need for Uh, you know, a mainstream TV show that teaches people business because Dragon's Den isn't real.
It's not a very good representation of how it actually works to start a business, a bit distorted. And, and then you've got The Apprentice, which is really about getting a job. So, you know, what is there on TV in general, in mainstream to teach people about business? There's nothing. So I'm, I'm hopefully going to bring something to the mainstream system that allows people to, to learn business and do what they love.
That is so exciting. What can you share about that? Is there a name? Is there a title you can give us? Oh, the name is What's Your Dream? So it's the same, same theme. So this is actually my book, by the way, What's Your Dream? It's reversed. Casually placed in front of the camera there. But yeah, but yeah, no, I've got it on the side.
No one can see it. Um, but, uh, but yeah, the, the, the show itself, it's, it's following similar format to my YouTube channel where we take someone who has a dream and we just follow their journey really. We help them along the way, but we follow their journey so people can learn how to start a business from nothing.
If you've got no money. It's possible and we, we kind of share that journey and we've got, you know, a recent video on YouTube that's got 3 million views of someone's story from beginning to end. It'll just be more of the same really, but, um, but YouTube, you know, is, is great, but we want to see it on mainstream TV too.
And you say mainstream TV, where will this be airing or streaming? Can you share? I can't say that yet because it's not signed. Okay. Okay. All right. Watch this space, everyone. Okay. Do we have a date? You said next year? At some next year? Yeah, early next year. Okay. Q1, hopefully. Okay. Crossed. I start El Musk saying that we're gonna have self-driving cars by 2024 and we haven't, so.
Okay. I don't, we get myself into trouble, but yeah. That, that's the plan. We, we are scheduling it in my diary for, for full recording. January, February, March. So, so hopefully, um, that's, that's all how it will play out. All right, let's dive in. The next sort of chapter I want to get into here is the impact, diving into your mission.
So clearly you're affecting change through social media instead of through the government. I would Love to get the inside story as to what happened when you tried to become a politician, Simon. Yeah. So five years ago when I told my company, right, I don't need money anymore. I've got this knowledge in business.
What should I do? And so I went through the whole gambit of like, start another company. What would that look like? Um, what would I do? What would I like to do? I made this to things I love, things I hate. Um, I started writing a book. I just always wanted to do that. Um, and then, um, I think. The one thing that kind of crossed my mind is, you know, I want the education system to be updated.
It, it, you know, it's the same as it was when I was at school, people come out, they don't know how money works. And they don't know how to build a business and it's all teachable. So sales is teachable. Introvert extrovert doesn't matter. You can be this house person, just different ways of doing it.
Depending on your personality, if to build a brand, everyone can do it. You just need to be taught how it works. You know, how cashflow works, how, what is an asset? What is a liability? All of this can be taught and it's not taught in schools even now. And I'm like, what the hell's going on? So I thought, what is the easiest way in theory?
to fix it, become education minister or get into politics and affect change from inside the system that's meant to work for the people, right? So then I hired a political advisor, uh, to tell me how do I, you know, how do I get elected? How does it work? And wow, what a cesspool. Like I, I got the complete insight into how it all works and it is, it is just awful.
It's basically, the basic principle is you have to lie to people to get elected. You have to say, you have to look at what's popular. And then you have to say it to get elected. So it's all done based on data. And I just like, well, what if I have a belief system, for example, that, uh, we, we shouldn't have private schools and that we should make sure people aren't forced into university and even curtail the power of the university system.
Everybody has to go to university now. That's what it's become. So people that don't even know what they want to do, go to university, get into sex debt, spend four years of their life in that system, and that's what it's You know, they're learning marketing in university. I'm like, what the hell? If you want to learn marketing, go work in a company that has marketing needs or start a marketing agency of your own.
Like what the hell we, you know, four years of your life learning marketing. Like, and I have interviewed someone coming out of university recently with a marketing degree and said, what are the five ways you make money on TikTok? No idea. How do you, how do you, how does the algorithm work on YouTube from a marketing point of view?
No idea. Yeah. They teach, you know, about pets. com that didn't work in the nineties. I'm like. Brilliant. That's useful. It's not useful. It's not even relevant. And so, so, um, so yeah, so I thought, okay, I'll become a politician. And then I think it took me about six weeks, I went to two political events, for Labour and Conservatives.
And I was just like, this is like, Weird. And then I basically realised that probably to put a fire out in a house, you can't do it from inside the house, you have to do it from outside the house. So why don't I just try and help people get educated, help people learn business from outside the house. Yeah.
Now I have a platform that probably combined more than all the politicians in parliament or something. So it's, it's probably more, it's probably more impactful just doing it the way I'm doing it from a, that's probably why Elon Musk isn't in politics. It's just easier sometimes to build something that helps people that isn't affected by the bullshit of politics.
Wow. Is that door completely shut in your mind with affecting change through government? Or do you think that now that you have amassed so much influence, the You have a better chance of making change. No, I'm, I'm, I'm very happy to talk to these. people in politics. I just yet haven't spoken to someone that genuinely genuinely wants to solve the problem.
I mean, the education system is now 100 years old from its present design, you know, this kind of get an A means success memorization means you're clever. It's 100 years now we already know the results are in it's not it's not a good system. Yeah. And so it's going to get even worse with AI and all the rest of it.
But you know, Google came along, we don't need to remember these things. We're wasting our memory on the wrong things. So you know, it Everybody knows it, uh, and every political party in the last hundred years has been in power, so why have they not changed it? So I'm not, I'm not relying on them or hopeful, but I, I do speak to Number 10 quite frequently, and I do have dialogue.
I'm definitely not shutting the door on any sort of political connection or conversation, but I'm just not waiting for them. Um, and when it suits them to use me, they'll contact me, I'm sure. But when, when I, you know, to actually affect change, I'm yet to see like true grassroots wish to do that, but I'm hopeful in the meantime, I don't need them anyway, to fix things.
Absolutely. Beyond the number of total followers that you've amassed on social media in recent years, is there any other way that you're measuring the impact that you're having beyond the viral clips that we see online? Well, we measure it by different things. I mean, of course, someone has a dream and we put it up.
The last video got 57 million views. So that person's business comes alive. That's one measure, right? I mean, then the people, 57 million people have watched that video. So we hope that 1 percent of those people think, Oh, maybe I'll start my dream or another 1 percent think, well, what is my dream? And then maybe one day they come up with something that makes the world a better place.
So it is, A bit like the measuring the impact of a TV show. Yeah. You know, like David Attenborough talking about the planet, how much of an impact has he had, you know, has it meant that we reduce climate change? I think it takes time. Education is a process. And so we also measure it by you know, do what's the community internally.
So we now have a platform called help bank. com, which we built, which has 152, 000 people on it, successful people on it that are helping people with their dreams. So we also measure it that way. It's not just the views on the social media channels, but it's also how, how big is the community committed. To what we call take four, right?
And take four is taking four minutes each day to help one person without any expectation of anything in return. So if we have 152, 000 people doing that every day, um, you know, that's a great and second metric because I can't help everybody, even if the content goes viral every day, I still won't help everybody.
So I think it is a community effort. to help people. And so we built a platform, not just to help people with help bank, but to help people help people. And we now measure that by okay, how many people have pledged today to take four minutes to help someone. And if I can get all 8 million people who are following me to also pledge to take four minutes each day to help someone without any expectation of anything in return, then you know, we're starting to have scalable impact beyond me.
I love that, Simon. So inspiring, so understandable why you're in the position that you're in, Simon. It's, yeah, it's amazing and obviously always fantastic to hear you speak about this. So you did mention before about the business that you sold, you know, about a decade ago now, I guess. You sold it for, you had a marketing agency like myself.
Unlike myself, you managed to sell it for millions and millions of dollars. So I think it's important to just, I'd love to get your, in your own words, your take on the whole risk subject in entrepreneurship. So you say there's a lot that you can teach. You can teach people how to sell. You can teach people how to build a brand.
That risk tolerance is something that I think people need to feel more comfortable with internally. And of course it's easier to be brave when you have a safety net. So if we think about the likes of, you know, the staircase that you bought for 25 K or the amount of money that you've invested in the help bank mission so far, what can you tell people who you're preaching to go out there and take a risk on their dream?
Yeah, well, risk is a really interesting subject and it's something I've thought about a lot. Um, I think that risk is, is. a negative word and it shouldn't be, it should be a positive word. So if you have the chance to take risk, you're lucky. I, I think there's an interesting nuance around risk. So when I was younger, I, I didn't take a risk.
I had no choice, which is actually really good. Like I sometimes say to people, if you've got no money, you've got nothing. You've got a competitive advantage. You don't even realize it. You know, like if you've got nothing, your risk level is lower. It's people in middle class that get trapped. most of the time, they have enough that they're comfortable that they don't want to take a risk.
And, and often those are the people I meet who never made that dream happen and live with the worst thing you could ever live with, which is regret. And so, you know, I'd rather take a risk and not live with regret. And so I think, however, there are different levels of risk when you're young, you should definitely take as much risk as you can, right?
Because your costs of living are low, your expectations of life, you know, as far as having a fancy hotel room when you stay somewhere, you don't need that, right? But when you're young, you just don't need all this fancy shit. And so, um, as you get older, the pressure builds, especially when you have kids.
That changes the dynamic. Like I, until I had a kid, I didn't know, but like that really changes your, you go very unselfish when you have a kid. It's all about the kid. So when you don't have a kid, you know, you have so much freedom. But I think, I think there comes a, there's a middle ground where you, maybe you make enough.
And you can have an okay life that you learn to not take as much risk anymore. And that's where I think it's dangerous. But I think on the other side, like what now I know, like if the more risk you take, the luckier you get, it's got nothing to do with hard work. So people are told the harder you work, the luckier you get.
We could get into conspiracy theories why that's in the subconscious of everybody, but it's not true. It's not true. I made the most amount of money when I wasn't working hard, right? I made the most amount of money when I took risk and hired up people to do certain things, right? I made the most amount of money when I work less hard.
Right. So this thing we're taught subconsciously, I don't even know where it comes from, like the harder we work, the luckier we get. It's wrong. And I think the honest truth is the more risk you take, the luckier you get. And if you live by that, then what happens is, I, and I do this now, I, I seek out risk, I'm looking for it, and if I don't feel like it's risky, I don't do it.
Like, I've launched a book, it's risky, what if no one buys it, you know, Simon Scribd, no one cares about your book mate, it's in the bin, discounted to five pounds, no one cares. You know, there's a risk there, right? It's a personal brand risk. If I don't release it, I'm never going to have that. That's never gonna happen to me.
I'm so I think there's something about it. I really like taking that risk and leaning into it. And I think that's partly why I'm successful. And I've built up muscle. It's a bit like going to the gym is a muscle. It's a risk muscle. And you have to build it up if you want to be successful. And the way to build it up is remember where it came from, right?
The original design of the feeling of fear is came from this concept of like a lion is coming towards you, you feel fear, and you have to survive. And that fear makes you run faster, think differently and survive. And so it and it gives you an adrenaline and an excitement in life that makes you feel alive.
And so Uh, and gives you superpowers. So I'm always trying to turn on the fear muscle, and it's getting harder as I've built up my tolerance. But, but I think, uh, once you learn to control that superpower, you don't see it as a negative anymore. You want to feel it. You want to take risks. You want to feel fear.
So there. On this note, whilst I appreciate you've had your fair share of hardships, I'm also aware that in terms of the social hierarchy, you sit at the top of the food pyramid as a cis, white, straight, 50 year old man. So I'd love to get your thoughts on that as well in terms of, okay, you take risk, you build the entrepreneurial muscle.
You, I've heard you say, you know, if you have nothing, you have nothing to lose, but of course we will have different tailwinds and headwinds that work for us and against us. So. Do you recognize those? What do you say to other people that are in minorities or in other communities? Yeah, thanks for making me walk through a minefield suddenly with this one.
Yeah, I think what is going to be very tricky for the past half hour, Simon. Yeah. So, um, well, let me first of all say that, you know, luck is definitely a skill, but there is a caveat to it. Uh, and I've studied luck in general, which is pretty interesting thing. Like, Did I get lucky or was I unlucky? And it turns out that my unlucky things turned out to be lucky things.
And my lucky things turned to be, turned out to be unlucky things. So like 1 percent of your life, I don't care how hard you work, you will not be able to affect it, but basically where you're born matters. Right. Statistically, we know that if you're born in Silicon Valley, the chance of you getting your startup funded are much higher, right?
So, you know, like where you are born, you can't hustle to get born in a certain location. It gives you certain advantages. So absolutely, absolutely, that's true. But let's also not forget, you know, I was a homeless man and men are low on the list of rehousing. And I would argue this is probably right. First of all, there shouldn't be homelessness in 2024.
It's ridiculous. We've created it and I blame the banks for that. But that's another subject for another time. But, you know, bottom line is that, you know, I was not given any priority as a white male. It's like, well, you're a man, you know, what are you doing homeless? I'm like, I'm 15 years old. I, I'm homeless.
I'm like, well, you know, pregnant women, women with babies, with people, women with children and women come first. You won't get a home for two years. Hmm. You know, now I'm not playing a violin for myself. I'm just explaining that sometimes, you know, what looks like an advantage can also be a disadvantage depending on your luck, luck cycle.
Right? So, but I look at it now as thank God I didn't get caught in a social system, because I know now that if I was given a house and given some money, the rules are you're not allowed to work, right? So I would never started a company at 15 years old if I'd been given the so called privilege. Right? So, so, you know, I was born in England, in a country where in theory there's a good social system, but because I was born a white male, I was last on the list to get any help, right?
So was I, am I lucky or am I unlucky? Right? It's a minefield, this subject. Which, you know, making me walk on it, but I, I, I think that it's really interesting. There's, one of my favorite stories is a story of, uh, two young men, uh, two boys that are born into a family where their father is a drunk and one grows up to be really successful and the other grows up to be a drunk.
And there was a documentary done on them. Why was one successful and why was one a failure? Why wasn't one a drunk? And they were both asked the same question. Why do you think you are where you are today? And the one that is a drunk said, well, I'm here today because my father. is an alcoholic. And the one that's really successful was asked, why are you here today?
And he said, I'm here today because my father was an alcoholic. Yeah, exactly.
I love that, Simon. And well done on navigating that minefield that I made you walk through there. I would kind of summarize that for the listeners here is so much of it is the stories that we tell ourselves. And this almost goes full circle back to those fears and those blockers that have shocked you the most when you go out there interviewing strangers on the street, which is like, Are you getting in your own way?
And which parts of the story that you're telling yourself are serving you or going against you? So Simon, you've come out of it alive on the other side. Well done. I love to hear that. All right. I've got one last question that I need to ask you before we move over to the audience Q and A. Um, again, shout out to everyone on live if you're still with us, I appreciate you tuning in and I hope you're enjoying this conversation with Simon.
All right, last question from me is, I've had a teeny teeny taste of my phone blowing up just by letting my followers know that I'm interviewing you at the moment, Simon. How on earth, on a practical level, do you tune out the noise? I can't imagine the amount of notifications that you get on a constant basis.
Yeah, I don't tune out. So I think when you're doing something you love, I don't mind it. So you know, uh, I, uh, my neighbor was Ricky Gervais. And one of the things he said to me once, which I really love, I said, how do you deal with fame? And he said, um, Simon, uh, if, if I, if I want alone time and I don't want to be bothered, I just don't go out.
You know, so, so, uh, I have a lovely home and when I need time for myself, I just, I just do that. But otherwise, you know, to be honest, I really like people and I actually like going on my phone. I reply to all the comments on the social media posts myself. I enjoy it. Um, I enjoy trying to understand what people need.
and doing what I can to help people. Um, I think that I have a big team that helped me also. So I don't, I don't feel overloaded and I don't feel overwhelmed. Um, I, I, the only thing I feel sometimes is damn it. How can I help more people and scale up what I'm doing? You know, and that's why I built help bank.
com. I wanted to build a system that could help people that wasn't just me. And it's, you know, I, I never feel tired because I'm doing something that I really think is important. And I get a lot of energy back when I see people having a better life because of what we're doing. And that's why I always tell people, like, you know, a lot of people, I can't manage a lot of people.
They say, right. It stresses me out. I'm like, well, you're don't manage people, manage purpose. You know, like, if you have a purpose, it's a completely different energy. Work takes on a completely different meaning. And, you know, um, I say all that, my phone number leaked on the internet. So I, I, um, I had to change my number, but during the time of that.
being leaked on the internet. I used to get 200 phone calls a day. That was stressful, especially as I had to keep the phone, uh, because I was using it for lots of personal banking stuff. Uh, but I changed it now, so that's okay. But there's always moments and I, and I, you know, there were people knocking on the house, my house door quite a lot, but I put security in place now, so it's a bit more private.
Uh, so there are things you need, precautions you need to take. And I'm learning this because, you know, I hate to say it, but I'm getting famous. So it's like, I'm learning to, to, to be a bit more careful with management, but that's more around making sure my family is safe. And me personally, I, you know, I don't, I don't feel overwhelmed and I really like people and I really don't, I don't feel like, um, it's too much, although I do, I can only do so much in a day and I do manage my day quite carefully.
I do, I exercise, I spend time with my son, I do things with friends and I, you know, I do my work, but I tried to give myself that balance. So I, so I can, I can sustain this, this, this work. I love that. So I think a key lesson there is do what energizes you can sustain that momentum. Because, you know, I think there's so much around time management and not enough around energy management and as a leader, as a founder, whatever mission you're on, you've got to sustain your energy levels to keep going.
So, you know, I guess that's the argument for do what you love, because at least, you It can continue to energize you. Not everybody agrees with me on that, by the way. You know, again, a lot of people don't think, Oh, you've got to do where you can make money. But you know, at the end of the day, if you do do something you love, you won't, it won't feel like work and you can do it better than anyone else.
Every business I've ever built, I've enjoyed it. And I think that's why I've been successful in them. Yeah. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, Simon. All right, well, right on cue, just as we're approaching quarter two, so I've gathered a few questions from my followers. I'm sure you've had a load come in on your side on live as well.
I'm just going to set up my phone while I do this. I'm going to try multitask. I'm going to ask you the first question from one of our listeners and then I'll sort out my phone. I need to do one thing after the other. All right. So from Cosmin Golasz, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. He's asked a fantastic question I've put at the top of the list here.
Simon, what is one piece of advice that you wish you had received when you were starting out that you believe could make a substantial difference for new entrepreneurs today? Lots of things. Um, if I'm saying one thing, I'd probably say, you've got to think why not think big. There's a misconception that a small business is easier to run than a big business.
Build a big business. It's a lot easier to run a big business than a small business. And I've built both and I've learned the hard way. Uh, but I realized that the bigger the business, The easier that life becomes. So a lot of people get stuck in small businesses and they, you know, if they stop, it all stops higher, bring people in, give them equity, share the business with people.
Don't be greedy. I'd rather have 10 percent of a successful business than a hundred percent of a failure. I'd rather have 10 percent of a business than having to work all the hours, God's saying to never stop. And if it's you stop, it stops. Right. So everybody working on help bank has equity, for example.
And I, and I want to build a platform bigger than LinkedIn. Um, why would I. Build just a Simon Scribd social media channel. That's boring. You know, it's too small. You got to think, think big. And if you do, you'll be free because you can bring in talent to help you run it. If you have a small business, you can't and people don't think that they get again.
Some weird, I don't know where this stuff comes from, but people think running a small business. I'll keep it small. It makes it more manageable. No, it traps you. Go big, you know, don't create a job for yourself, you know, build something that gives you freedom. Yeah, what I would argue is, yes, you've got the thinking big, but just linking back to your point before on how much of the fear factor holds people launching their own business to begin with.
It's another level of risk tolerance to then take a small business to a big business. So but it's also a lack of knowledge, again, who's teaching people this stuff? If you've started a small plumbing business, who's taught you how to scale it? Nobody. School didn't teach you. And there's no, there's no, that's the problem.
And so it's more fear comes often from ignorance. Yeah, people are fearful of change because they don't know what it's really going to mean, right? People are fearful of crypto and blockchain because they don't really know. It's called a scam because people don't understand it. You know, like, I think it's, it's, um, I think educate yourself.
And understand that, you know, the top 100 rich people in the world, they, they didn't make their money in property. They made their money starting a company where they own equity in that company. And in the ideal world, you don't have to work at that company in the long run. Right? And if you build a business with that in mind, you're building a business to have freedom, not building a business to just have another job that traps you.
Mm-Hmm. So it's just ignorance of how money works and it's ignorance. And around building it, but once you understand how to build it, and once you've done it, like for me, like bringing in talent into my company, it's so liberating. You know, like if you bring in people that can do things better than you, like I would hire hired a good accountant.
I've got a good CEO. These people make my life better. And, and the business scales infinitely better than me just thinking small. So, but I didn't know that, um, in the early days. Other than just not thinking small and having those bigger ideas and aiming for a bigger business, what's one tip that you can just share here now on the podcast?
Appreciate people can go and watch a three hour YouTube video and buy your book, but while I've got you, is there one thing that you can share to help people go from that small business to big business? Well, I think it's, it's really cliche and people won't listen, but I, this is the truth. Have a purpose to your business.
It's beyond just making money. You know, don't just fill a market gap. Have purpose, have a passion, solve a problem in the world. Don't just make money. Money is a made up thing. We've fallen for it as the first virtual reality. It doesn't make us happy and it will not sustain you in going every day at something that's hard.
It needs to be a mission. It needs to have a goal bigger than you. And the other thing I'll say to people, and this is actually what my book's all about, so if I tell you this, you don't need to buy the book. And it's basically like, if you want your dream to happen, help someone else's dream happen first.
The kindness and generosity side is totally underestimated as far as making your own life better. When I was young and I was blowing out birthday cake, I was probably eight years old, my granddad said to me, Make the wish you're about to make for someone else, it will come true. If you blow those candles out and make the wish for yourself, it won't come true.
And it stuck with me, you know, like, it is about helping other people. And if you can, if you can think about it that way, you'll be happier. Shout out to Grandpa Squibble. I love that. He's the OG inspirational speaker at five year old Simon's birthday party in the late 70s. I love that, Simon. I'm so tempted, you know, I'm so tempted to do like a three hour conversation on each of these, but I'm going to move on to the next question here.
From Cien Solon, has caught your attention on LinkedIn as well. Founder of Launch Lemonade, talking about AI. She's doing amazing stuff on there. She's asked, I mean, it's a pretty big question, so I'm not sure how much we can encapsulate this one, but she would like to know, Simon, what is your life philosophy?
If you can distill it down into just a sentence or two. Well, I, um, basically a lot of people think you should live, give and take. I'll help you. If you help me, that's what people believe. I don't believe that's true. That's not how we're built. We're meant to do give without take. That's my life philosophy.
I will help someone if I can, and I don't need anything back. And I think everyone should live this way. Now, a lot of people would say, I can't afford to live this way. You can give four minutes each day and help someone without any expectation of anything in return. You can listen to someone's small business and post it on your Instagram stories.
It won't cost you anything. You can get in a client today and change someone's life. Give without take. Help people in any way you can, even for minutes, liking their posts, putting a comment on anything to try and make someone else's life better today. And that's what I live by. I live by give without take.
I don't, someone offered me 10, 000 to help them for one hour and I said no and help them for free. Now, you know, maybe you could argue I can afford to do that, but who wants to give away 10, 000? No one doesn't want 10, 000. I don't care how rich you are. You know, the point is, it felt good to help that person without an agenda.
We're naturally that way, you know, like we used to live in tribes of 5, 000 helping each other. And we've lost this. We've forgotten that we're meant to live in communities where we help each other. Yeah, absolutely. I think especially I'm tuning in from London as well at the moment. I definitely feel that more than, you know, living in other parts of the world where This is like a city of almost 10 million people, and yeah, what's my community, what's my tribe, how are we helping each other?
I think also just to mention that helping each other can become really addictive. So just to add to your mission there, Simon, is it gives you a confidence boost. Like walking up to strangers, helping them out, it makes you feel good, you want to keep doing more of it. So replace some of your unhealthy habits with, with that one.
Well, that's what one of the things we're doing with help bank is go on help back every day and help someone for four minutes will literally make you sleep better. Yeah, yeah, don't need medication all this half the time. It's like, it's just not doing that one thing that we're naturally meant to do, which is just give someone a bit of help today.
It is. It's a slightly slower release of endorphins and the dopamine hit you get from LinkedIn. We're trying to avoid that. But the dopamine you hit you get from us is it takes time. But when someone you help a month later says, Oh, thank you. My life's better. And, you know, now I can take my kid on holiday for the first time.
Or, you know, like that, that is a real human dopamine hit. It's not artificial. And it's naturally in us to see that someone in our tribe is happier having a better life and people need to do it and try it. And most people think they can't afford to do it. That's why I say, you know, take four. That's my kind of hashtag, maybe go for it, you know, like just take four minutes and help someone and try to build it up more and more and more.
You will sleep better and be happier for it. Yeah, and I imagine a lot of people would be surprised at just how grateful and how thankful people are to get that help and then how much they pay it forward. I think a lot of people have the fear that they're going to be the ones missing out by helping others.
But actually, when you see that impact that you have and the knock on effect of it, I think a lot of people would be pleasantly surprised. Don't have any expectation of anything in return. That's where the problems come. That's when things like no good deed, God's unpunished kicks in because people did something and they were expecting something back and it didn't happen.
And that's the mistake people make, you know, just do it purely from your heart. Do it with no expectation. It is a revolution in my mind, this idea, and I don't know how it's become a revolution because it is actually how things used to be. The problem is the tax man doesn't like the idea because the tax man quite so I help you and then you help me and we do a transaction.
It's very taxable, right? But if I help you and don't charge, there's no money coming into the tax man equally. Now you can afford to help someone because you haven't had to pay me vice versa. So what I mean, like, so it's actually not in the capitalistic systems best interest for this to take off. But I genuinely think it's how we're naturally built as people.
We're meant to help each other. And it's not all about what you can get out of it in that moment. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. All right, Simon, we're coming up to the top of the hour. I've got one final question that I want to end this interview on, but before I do, are there any good questions that are coming in on your side on the live that you'd like to have any questions for me?
I mean, most of the people on my life know me and I've asked a lot of questions. I'm looking now, any questions? Most of my feeds filled up with people telling me their dreams. So I've asked them, um, Is there a dream
coming through that you'd like to make happen? Uh, I'm reading, I, well, I actually met someone yesterday who told me a dream. I haven't put up the dream on our channel yet, but I really like it. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, I just, I just find that humans have all the ideas to the world's problems in their brain, but I don't know where it all comes from, but all the solutions to all the things that are going on in the world that are bad, we have the solutions.
And yesterday this young lady was talking about, she works in a coffee shop behind the till. And I asked her a dream and she was like, Oh, my dream would be to help everybody be self contained and be able to grow their own food. And initially it sounds like a crazy idea, but actually as I grow food in my garden now, it's amazing what you can actually grow.
And so kind of giving everyone the opportunity, even if you live in a flat to grow their own food and have that experience. I really got excited about her idea. So, that's actually what I've been working on this morning, like how to help her idea come to life. And I think those things, those sorts of ideas that I wasn't really thinking about that.
But then I'm like, that is a really good thing to do. That is such a great idea. What comes to mind as well, I've got some affiliation with the VC industry. And it's funny because, you know, my, my role is a founding VC scout member for Ada Ventures. And it's funny, you know, these scout programs are set up, you know, within the industry, but they're set up to.
To maximize the deal flow with the opportunity and find these, these cool ideas. But like how many of them are going into cafes or pizza expresses or supermarkets and asking them be unpacked behind the counter? No, no. I need to switch up my scout strategy. And the interesting thing about the demographic that I, I tend to talk to, you know, like.
They don't just want it, they need it. I think that's a very key element to being successful. You know, if you want to be successful, you really need to need it. Um, Instagram just suddenly, uh, closed. Crash, you're trying to break the internet, Simon. No, I know, it just has a timer on Instagram. Um, I noticed it stops off.
That's funny. That must be a new thing. I'll leave it. The, the, uh, yeah, I think the, the, the, the, the, I can't say normal people, but people that are out there in the world are totally underrepresented. The Tesco worker and the Ocado delivery driver or the lady in the coffee shop, or, you know, the person sweeping the street, like these people work so hard.
And if you just give them the opportunity to make their dream happen. They're going to do it. You know, uh, Exactly. Simon. Thank you. First of all, for making my dream come true. A pleasure to have you. I'm very aware of how busy you are and all the people you're trying to help. So thank you for making me one of those people.
I really appreciate you coming on my show. My final question to end this interview on what a lot of people want to know the number one question that I definitely got in my DMs, my comments. Is Simon, what is your dream? So I have a couple of dreams. First of all, I want to update the education system. I want to give people access to financial knowledge and how business works and give people another option when they leave school, which is to start a business of their own if they want.
I want people to understand that where they work, they should probably own equity if they can, and understand how selling time is not scalable. So my dream is for financial education to be mainstream. And I want people to know they've got more choices. Aapart from that, I think, I think I'd love it if help bank became a competitor to LinkedIn and people, if they need help, they can go there and get help that they need.
But that feeds into the education system piece, cause hopefully that help bank can also be the education piece if people need it. So, um, so yeah, that's my dream. That was absolutely amazing. Well, Simon, I would love to help you make your dream happen, which is making other people's dreams happen. It sounds like the world's best pyramid scheme.
Simon, thank you so much. What an absolute pleasure. I cannot wait for the TV show to come out next year. Everyone go and buy the book, watch the video, join Help Bank, and we'll obviously link everywhere in the show notes so you can go and help support our mission.
Strategy & Tragedy: CEO Stories with Steph Melodia is the best podcast for curious entrepreneurs and ambitious founders. Learn from those a few steps ahead of you in these candid interviews of the highs and lows of scaling and failing business.
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