#17 - Gary Fox of HostButlers
#17 - Gary Fox on stress testing your assumptions, telling good stories and the true cost of bad customers.
On this episode of The First 10 Podcast, I talk to Gary Fox, entrepreneur and founder of HostButlers, an AirBnb management company. Gary also runs the excellent Entrepreneur Experiment Community, bringing together business builders who care about creating the future they want to live in.
Key Points
Make sure your business matches your personality
Test, test, test your assumptions to remove bias that impedes you
Don't hide behind your laptop
Timing is critical for some ideas to succeed
Bad customers are a huge drain on your business so let them go asap (80/20 rule)
When you read, understand why you are reading
Show Notes
Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Contact Details
Transcription
SPEAKERS Gary Fox, Conor McCarthy
Gary Fox 00:02
That's the mistake a lot of people make when they're trying to get media in early stages. They just blast out what their product is product release. No one cares. No one cares what your product is literally no, not even your mom. No one cares. It's what's the story. And if you don't have that in your business, you need to find what that is.
Conor McCarthy 00:24
Hello, Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the first 10 podcast where I interview Business Builders on their first 10 customers who they work, how they found them, how they talked to them, and what effect they had on their business so that you can learn what worked and what didn't. My guest today is Gary Fox, he's the founder of host butters. Get ready to take a lot of notes today, folks, because Gary shares an awful lot of detail in this podcast, including not hiding behind your laptop and getting it to meet your actual customers. The importance of starting a business that suits you and your personality, the timing of your business and the role of process in your success. We talked about testing your assumptions and figuring out any biases that might be getting in the way of understanding your real customer needs. We talked about the power of telling a good story and what to do with bad customers. We talk books, we talk habits, talk about the venture funding cycle. We've talked about an awful lot. It really is a value packed episode. So please enjoy this conversation with Gary Fox. Hey there first 10 podcast listeners. I'm here today with my friend Gary Fox. Gary, first of all, thank you very, very much for taking the time to be with us today. To tell us a little bit about your business story so far and what you're working on at the moment.
Gary Fox 01:35
That is such a massive expansive question Connor. A big one to start with. Hey, thanks, guys. Great to be here. And so what am I doing? Am I do the entrepreneur experiment podcast, I think that's how we connected. I'm also working on a new venture, which is kind of under wraps at the minute but we can probably talk a little bit about it. It kind of pivots from my current business. And then my current business is host lovers, which is an Airbnb management service here in Ireland. So we manage property for Airbnb landlords. Very cool. So obviously, first 10 customers is what we're all about. And I know even before host Butler's, you had all kinds of other businesses on the go do want to go back in time a little bit and tell us about those early businesses and what it was like finding people to believe in them. Yeah, they're they're random. To be fair, there's a blue blue. Out of that. We did know there's loads as in like, just did it just I mean, it was just good crack, I used to work in a phone shop. And when I was 16, I got a part time job and a phone shop. And from that show my age, but it was back in the day where you just literally take on the power really simply. So I learned how to do that pretty quickly. placed in screens mics are different, very simple, like Nakia 3310s 6310s. Like they're very simple, literally four screws, bang, get in, play around with the bits. And generally sometimes as simple as blowing the dust off the mic. And we didn't like I didn't like them. So I learned how to like just buy software package from the UK, which will unlock them. And so basically, that means simply means if you're on Vodafone, you then are locked in a sim free to use on any network. That was a big thing back in the day. And I was pretty straightforward to do. So I bought the software, literally from the UK to do that. And then started doing that just like as a mixer among my mates. And then we started doing the markets on the Saturday and Sunday. So we go to different like markets around Ireland. So I'm from tip originally, so a lot of markets like Clara market and stuff like that, literally, a car boot sale essentially is what it was. And we'd be doing phone repairs, phone sales, phone unlocking, we'd be making crazy cash like you were 1617 you making maybe 345 100 quid on a Sunday. Wow, out of the class. And like I was just and I think that's the essence that we probably lost a bit too much is in like we're also focused on like, you know, overthinking everything or is just do something that's a bit of fun, especially when you're star I says to every single young entrepreneur reached out to me it's like just start something, it really doesn't matter what it is anything at all, if it's just something so simple. Because the stuff you learn from that it's just very basic. Like it's very basic, buy it for five, sell it for 10 I think there's a massive over complication of a lot of kind of business, hygiene, a business sort of niche, too much information. You're bombarded with all this stuff.
Conor McCarthy 04:15
Hmm, yeah, I agree. I think it's, it's easier than ever to build an amazing research document, or or to write a very lengthy business plan, when you could just maybe get a stall at a farmers market and start talking to people. But then you also have something that people really wanted. I could imagine people seeing your, your services and kind of going Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to do that for a while just people seeing your, your services and kind of going Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to that phrase. I'll just do it right now.
Gary Fox 04:43
Yeah. Yeah. And I never really thought about it, you know, I mean, because we would just do it. And if people want it is great. And if they didn't, well, it just went back in the box and just off to the UK or we just got rid of it some other way. And there was no real overthinking of us and and I'm I'm saying this because I'm the number one critic All of this now I'm sitting in front of my laptop, overthinking everything, researching all this stuff. When I think back to what I used to do, it was just being in momentum being in being in perpetual motion of just doing stuff, doing stuff, doing stuff, buying, selling, buying, selling, buying, selling, trading. And from that, that's the entire grounding you need really is just, it's too easy to sit behind your laptop now and just be this anonymous face. And of like, all just, you know, do this thing on the internet. No, no, it's me. And, you know, there's, there's an element of we do that, because it's easy. And if it fails, oh, well, there's no shame in it, you know, you can kind of be anonymous and doing it. But I think there's also why that's great. I think it's unbelievable, people can now make their income from their sitting room, I think that's class, there's also an element of you have to be in it, you have to believe in it. Because if you have too many outs, if you have too many kind of ways of pulling yourself back out without any kind of without any kind of fear with any kind of failure, then that fear of failure would always remain within you. And you'll never overcome from that. It's just by getting out and starting. That's suddenly the Path Appears and you're like, Oh, well people actually want this. I thought they wanted dosh they actually want this, well do more of this.
Conor McCarthy 06:09
Hmm. That's very wise advice. That's almost like something I should be asking you at the end of the podcast, I gotta wait to see what you have at the end of the day, I guess. So obviously,
Gary Fox 06:19
I always say this to people, I'm like, Okay, do you guys have for you, it's gonna be really boring. is not the advice you want. Be consistent and just start?
Conor McCarthy 06:30
I know it is. It's the vegetables of of motivation, isn't it? It's like, this is just what you need. And and in many cases, you know it already, you just need to go and do it and not talk around it. So when it came to host collectors, you must be some business that you can talk about. What was that? Like? In terms of the first 10 customers like, what did you What did you have in place before you approach those customers, if anything,
Gary Fox 06:57
so that was shaped by previous business, which didn't go well. And that's important to talk about as well. And we had, like a tech startup for video is basically going to be an online video marketplace for e commerce that didn't go well. We did old cliched stereotypical mistakes. We had a very basic product really had no product been honest, got into an accelerator programme, got funding, and then fell into that trap of like funding funding is the answer funding is the answer. We were in that bubble of like, circling the true enterprise, Ireland, and NDRC and all these places, and just stuck in this self fulfilling cycle of like doing proposals and pitches, funding and proposals. Last, all the fundamentals I've learned along the way about go to the customer figure out what they want. Give them that, give them more of that, on ego. So we fell into that and from that we were overly reliant on external vendors who were overly reliant on external software developers didn't have the skills in house eventually ran out of money and had to shut it down. And I said right, my next business is going to be entirely reliant on myself probably really bad advice, but it's entirely like what I mean by that is it would it would it would succeed and fail on my hard work, it would succeed and fail beyond everything between two hands, my two hands would would dictate everything that happened in the business. And if his success is because I worked hard, I made the right decisions. And it was down to me and failed exactly the same. It was down to me I didn't want to be reliant I also wanted to remove any excuses for myself whereby Oh didn't happen because you didn't get that round of funding are down we were going to be the best new product in town you know when you could you know, you know I'm sure you people like you pointed and I you know I do as well are you like let's just get on with it man, just stop talking about it. Just get on with it. Like it's just, it's it was almost the thing and it was the time when tech is so hot and it's general session. So it was it was like a very obvious path to take but from host folders then everything was bootstrapped. So like 500 quid, built a website over one weekend built a website on Squarespace which is still classes still use it if you're if you use social media you can use Squarespace is second there's no excuse not to build your website there and build a built an online presence and then just started getting that out there just started plastering it everywhere going Oh, look, the had a bit of a strategy to it. It wasn't just Helter Skelter, the web summit was going to happen back when it happened to balls bridge, so it was in the RDS and there used to be this massive there's the same every year there's just this massive scramble for for accommodation like he couldn't get a hotel room. I mean, just when Airbnb was just kind of star now and it was kind of the hot topic. And so that those two combined, so like timing is important, like the right idea at the wrong time. will never be the right idea. If you know what I mean isn't like the right ad today. If it's not the timing, it's never gonna work. Just the right fit at the right time, rode that wave of Airbnb he was just able to jump on that. And I knew that to be a load of new hosts, people used to do it just for the weekend for webs on which she made like maybe five grand for a weekend you know if your house crazy money. So as loads people starting to do it, and I've kind of seen that happening. I was like, I bet there's loads of Airbnb hosts. Now we're going to jump on this make like, four grand for the weekend, and then go home. This is pretty handy. I wouldn't mind making like a bit more money. But Airbnb is tough, because there's a lot of, you know, like physical work involves, you know, cleaning, preparing, meeting, dealing with how do I turn on the Wi Fi? How do I flush the toilet? I know there's a lot to it sounds like right, they want that, but without the kind of hard work of actually doing it. So I was like, right, that is a service. I'd seen it in the States. So brought that idea back in the back of my head, and I was gonna turn it around. I was like, right, I'll test it for the web some a week. I'll test them for a month or two, if I get like five clients or launched as business. So launch just got my first line for the web summit weekend. So worked out as in like a garlic one client, like a mess. On a quit, maybe probably less, probably less than look back in it probably 50 quid, but like it was the best 50 quid ever met. Because I just I remember sitting there waiting for the guests. Like, I had no idea what I was doing. Like, I wasn't even an Airbnb host myself. That's the thing. People always like, Oh, you know, you have to be an expert in your area. Now you don't, because you can learn it as you go. I was like, there would cross from spire for them. And they pulled up outside and I was all excited. And I was bringing them in like, and sure I hardly knew how stuff worked myself, but I was just showing them around. And it was great. It was like the best 50 quid I ever and like that first bit of money you earned from the idea, just sweetest money ever. And from that, he decided I'll just keep it going, Barry and she still is good friends. And so it's funny how life kind of screwed. But he then decided to keep going, and I kept going with him. Then it got a couple more, a couple more. But to your point about the first 10 I thought my first 10 looked like me, I thought they were like, he was gonna say young, young ish, tech savvy, you know, online. Because we have these biases within us. And I think that's the key thing. When you start a business, we have these biases within ourselves of going Oh, my customer, I know exactly who my customer is, even before you've launched the business, you have these preconceptions of who they are. And I heard as well I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna do loads of cool Facebook ads, and I'm going to do loads of like, gonna be active on Twitter, and I'm going to be here, there and everywhere. There weren't there at all. I think there weren't there at all. So I got a couple of clients just through kind of one or two from Facebook. And then I got a couple of clients and then word of mouth was what gave me the first five anyway. And then from that I tested. That's what you have to do you have to test your, your preconceptions of where your customers are, what they look like. So I did loads of different things. I ran an event for Airbnb hosts, I was like, well, who are my clients? Okay, Airbnb hosts, well, obviously, give them something so I ran a big event going how to be a super host got in like an accountant, an accountant and then an Airbnb, sucrose and then a travel blogger to give like a professional opinion of how they feel and what they see when they go into like places and what they write about and what makes a good stay versus a bad stay. And that works really well I've got some clients from that also got a lawsuit from that but we'll skip on the next bit. And then from that the travel blogger was like oh, this is actually really cool story. Do you mind if I pitched this to the Irish Times? And I was like No, of course I don't and we did an interview I think it's like email or by phone but I was pretty relaxed anyway and I had no idea I thought it was going to be like a little sidebar like a little column going oh cool new idea and but about three or four weeks later and you never know what's going to happen so don't if you do get media don't get all excited cuz you never know what's going to happen I know they don't go oh Gary, you've got to be on this page. It's going to be this big because stuff changes you know, deadlines change and stories change but when did the centre up and step aside and on the front page the actual hours times the headline mass was three stories. Two main stories on a business story in the business story was mine. Wow, like wow, okay, I picked it up locked into the business I think it was on a Thursday because there was a whole business section. I can't remember what it was but it was a whole business section you open up the business section on on the second page is a full page about my business and about Airbnb and about AV B hosting. And back then Airbnb was sexy. It wasn't a bearish like slate and Airbnb is a cool new idea that allows people to make money from their homes and that's what's the angle. So again, timing is important if someone was writing that article No, they wouldn't be writing about how cool Airbnb is. So again, timing and freedom Not to get her in a very roundabout way to your question. The next 10 customers just flew in. Because my customers read the Irish Times. I'd never knew that. Wow, from that date this, I still get people ringing me going. And here's the next gym. And this is the one secret everyone should do. Where did you hear about me? Those words are unbelievably powerful. And that the words no one asks, Where did you hear about us? Oh, until this day, people say in the Irish Times. That was six years ago. Because for years and years and years, when you would Google Airbnb, Dublin, dark times article will come up, right? Cause I was in the Irish Times, people automatically assume there are times he's the real deal. Like I was as wet behind the years, didn't know what I was doing. But the Irish Times conveyed this this image of, well, he's the real deal. He's the guy I need to be dealing with, if he's in the Irish Times, he has it all figured out. So the social proof that that gives you is huge, and social proof for your early customers, especially your first 10 will be huge, because you won't have anything to give them. And people will always ask you, especially in your own company. Oh, who else you dealing with? Well, how many? How many customers you have people just ask me that all the time, especially in the early days, how many customers you have, because people want to feel like they're with the best. They want to feel like this guy knows what he's doing. You know, you don't always have to say the truth. But you know, it's kind of hard when you're young. But if you're a young company, you can point to and go, well, we're in our times this week is the best young startup or we're in. We were on today fam last week, or we run the business post on from the Irish Times. We then got the trickle down effect of all the other media looked at the Irish Times. And for about a year after. Anytime there's an Airbnb question for any media, we would get it because they'd be like Airbnb, Dublin, is gone the Irish Times. And then we can run like today FM business post. Like we got a trickle down effect of all the rest of the media. And then we got more customers. Yeah, because our customers weren't on Facebook weren't on Twitter, not as much as active there. But they were reading the Irish Times. And then from that, more word of mouth. So it was a cyclical effect, then have we identified where the customers were. And I just kept going after traditional media that I just kept going for media opportunities within traditional print, radio, anything to do with traditional media I kept getting offers. I was we did loads of it. Because again, the timing was right. People were into it. Airbnb was an interesting story. I think that's the mistake a lot of people make when they're trying to get media in the early stages, and they just blast out what their product is product release. Yeah, no one cares. No one cares what your product is. Good. No one does. Literally No, not even your mom. No one cares. It's what's the story, then, and Mark Littell sent this to me, and that's stuck with me for so long. He's like, what's the moment? The moment you're like? That's interesting. Like, would you sit in the pub with your mates? Or in a cafe? or whenever, whatever we do in the real world, would you sit down and you're Maiko, I read about this cool thing. And if you don't have that in your business, you need to find what that is. You need to find What's the story? Like what is my story? Why is this interesting? Because from that, people will be interested and that's the secret of, of any company trying to get exposure or trying to get word of mouth or trying to get anything. do a really good job. Be the best way you can do but also have an interesting angle.
Conor McCarthy 18:48
Wow. Okay, there's there's a lot there. Thanks for thanks for sharing all that. Yeah, I mean, to start at the very end, yeah, have an interesting angle. Someone I read recently, where someone is kind of saying like any, any messaging you put out in the world about your business, it just has to be clear and compelling. Like clear is, is is easy, compelling as may be harder, but more important to your point, you know, a story. God, we sink into stories so easily, it can take less than five words and you've got a story on the go, and people love to hear a story. And so that's, that's really, really important. And I'm glad I'm glad you said that. Because Yeah, there's there's a, I sometimes say to, to freelancers, coaches, etc. It's like, imagine there's a cocktail party, and one of your clients was talking to a stranger at the cocktail party. What are they saying about you? Like you're not in the room. They're not obviously not going to repeat your, your unique, you know, your positioning statement or your value privacy? What are they What are they actually going to say? Because the words they use the story they tell themselves and tell other people about you. That's what your businesses that's actually what you're selling. So yeah, figuring that device is super important. And and also, I love how The Irish Times, am I correct in saying you would maybe not have gone down the focus on the Irish Times audience route? Normally
Gary Fox 20:07
non millionaires, I would have been considered to be honest, I would have kept plugging away and plugging away and plugging away. And our girls probably would have been quite good anyway, because we just got into the right market at the right time. But I would never have actively pursued the Irish Times as an outlet because a it's it feels so hard to feel so difficult to get into Irish Times. Yeah, there's this barrier. And to be fair, it is you do need some sort of like link in and then you need to need to be compelling. But I've never done that. So definitely test your assumptions. Don't just keep plugging away with Facebook ads, or Instagram ads, just because easy. You know, like doing paid acquisition, you'd need to be turning over a lot of money if you're going to rely on paid exclusively.
Conor McCarthy 20:50
Yeah, yeah, it's a good point. And I think it's, again, it's very seductive. Because you get to sit behind your laptop and maybe just craft campaigns and got that instant dopamine hit, we can sit down and come up with a business idea. We can have an Instagram Live or an Instagram, Ronan in the next 20 minutes. And oh, god, look, I've got a business. that's grown. Yeah. And there's all these guys on YouTube pre rolls, telling you how they built a $2 million business just using YouTube pre rolls, you know, people telling me, people are selling you something that you need something for a reason? Yeah, just just test your assumptions. That was the biggest thing I said, test your assumptions. Be careful about how you think about your customer and who they are. And as soon as you get customers, they're your best resource drill down and find out where they came from. Find out what they are, who they are, what they can consume, and then do more of that.
Conor McCarthy 21:42
Hmm, I like that. And, and you also in there, you talk about trust as well, because I think getting in the Irish Times brings this huge trust profile, people can go well just goes in the Irish Times. I trust it. I have no idea what the business does, but I trust that it's an Airbnb thing. And that alone is huge. And maybe as well when it comes to word of mouth. That's that's what that's basically what it's granted it is like if a friend says to me, oh, you should check out this blog post butters like Yep, absolutely. I'll do it now because my friend Satish just is there
Gary Fox 22:12
exactly. You've hit on the something really interesting there as well. The trust because Airbnb was struggling with that. Airbnb struggled with trust in the early stages, people were like, someone's gonna come stay in my house. When I'm not there. That sounds that sounds royalty, like, I do want the 800 quid I'm going to get for the weekend. But that sounds ropey. I don't want to do that. But by having me come in a third party who is going to handle that dirty work of like, meeting them vetting them? They were the problem. Yeah, people love that none trust element. And in any business, you have to have trust you have to have that's why marketing and branding works so well. Because I was going to give Apple as an example. I've had a bad experience last couple of days. Apple of like, you know, you trust you know what's gonna work, you know, you just want it to work. And life is so full of so many decisions you have to make, which makes decisions 1000s of times a day, you don't want more and more. You want a very easy decision going tick. In those times tick. He's got our limited and we've built around that. And it was funny, you said that once I was in the Irish Times. I didn't build more on that the trust element. I put my face on the website, put my phone around the website, put our address on the websites great for our limited company number on the website, put our insurance details on the website. Because again, Airbnb had a lot of fly by night, people come and go and come and go because it was easy for a while until it wasn't one problem. Oh, I don't have a VAT return, you know, oh, they're gone? Well, I don't have an insurance out. They're gone. I'm using unread document and cleaners unregistered cleaners, you're gone. So I went complete opposite way, then whatever they are using. And some people use that as a weakness against me. Some people will try to undercut me or target me or go after me and be like, Ah, you know, that guy's expensive. I was like, Well, yeah, because we pay our taxes because we are people who were registered on paying their p 13. p 16. You know, yes. Come in, look at our office, we pay rent in Temple Bar. We got like an office in the bar. And again, it was literally a shoe box. You I think it was maybe 10 by 10. You know, it's just like a rectangle didn't have a window. It was Oh, sorry. I had an internal window. It looked into someone else's office. Whatever is the best feeling in the world a because I had a base I had a headquarters. And people also knew we were real. Like we're their base there. Do you know what I mean? I was like, yeah, this is this is who we are. This is what we do. And build our trust and you need to stand over what you do because you can't just be hiding behind the internet or hiding behind anything because if you need if you want to have a property Business is going to sustain over 510 15 2030 years, you're gonna have to build trust.
Conor McCarthy 25:05
Hmm. I love that. And in your talk to as well, when it comes to trust, like you talked about creating your own opportunities, in the sense of you hosted a live event where you brought along speakers, and you're very much positioned yourself as it's the kind of impresario thing, you know, you I'm, I'm putting on hanging up my shingle to say I'm in this Airbnb universe, I'm a trusted source. Look, I'm bringing together experts. So I'm the I'm the guy and host bucklers is the company you can you can trust to do this. So that's also something that I think a lot of people skip over is like you can, you can arrange an event and invite people to it, it's it's probably one of the oldest ways of getting people together to see what you have to offer. There's nothing wrong with that at all.
Gary Fox 25:53
I didn't want to be selling, I don't want to be hard selling people. I've worked in sales roles. It's soul destroying, I didn't want to be selling, I wanted to have a product that was so good. I was like, I don't mind if you do it. It's literally and I built it up in that way. I was like, Look, this is what you're going to earn. This is what I'm going to take everything was so transparent. I was like, okay, you're earning? Let's just use quick math. you're earning 1000. Now, it if you put this in Airbnb, you can earn 2500, I will take 20% of that. And you're still gonna be 800 quid ahead. Okay. Give it a shot. And so many people said that, because I was like, I didn't sell them on like, Oh, go me because we did it like this. What we do is their service, we and then social proof. Well, we manage that block over there. We manage those blocks there. We manage this, this is our go here, look at that. That's our profile, have a look at it. Goodness. And then once the cameras like we had customers, like the very first subsidiary moved away, because he didn't own the apartment, so he moved with us. But our second customer was with us up until the middle of coach. Wow. You know, so we had rarely lost customers, because we just we're very consistent. But what we did, it was a beautiful business model. The better dated the better. We did, it was Win win. And I kind of had it all set up like that. But I was like, Look, this has to be very transparent, because I'm big on transparency big on setting it up. So it's very obvious. There's no one there's no one hoodwinking anyone here, there's no one kind of it's all very, very transparent. And using that, then because then if you do want word of mouth, you do on social proof, and you do on trust. Can't be like, you know, taking a few quid here. And then oh, yeah, no, we didn't do it that way. We did it this way. And then we did this way. We did it that way. You as soon as your business starts to scale, all this stuff falls on its face anyway. Because you're like, we can't stand over what you did. Because last one there was this with this guy. And last one was that with that guy? And it's like, it's just not worth the grief. Like, it's just it's not you're building a proper business, it's just not worth the hassle.
Conor McCarthy 27:57
Did you get to a point where after 10 or maybe 20 or 30 customers, it started to get easier in that sense. It became a process of of not just managing the business, but as well as attracting customers attracting more customers. It definitely does.
Gary Fox 28:11
It definitely does your first 10 are probably the hardest. And so I love the concept of your whole podcast first 10 are probably the hardest. And you'll fight hardest to get them and you should also find hardest to keep them that's the biggest thing I think people can overlook that sometimes people get on to the hype train of like, I've got 10 now I need 100 now we need 200 that's grind. Yeah, but there's no point if you're filling the bucket at the top, there's a giant hole at the bottom. If you're not making sure that the initial customers you have because so hard to sign up a new customer, no matter what you do, and it takes time and it takes effort and there's a ramp period. And there's a time whereby, you know, they're getting on board especially on like a service like ours, you know, we might make money for you know, you'd probably be three or four months ramped up before your property making money, you know, probably be neutral in the first month. The second one, make a little tournament make more, you know, as you as you build up, the properties became more popular. And the more effort you put in, the more money you got back out and for them as well. So there was no point in US churning and burning because we'd only be kind of making proper Good morning by the third or fourth month. Hmm. So if they were like kind of had enough now they're just hard to deal with, or they're just not nice to deal with. And the inverse is true. Don't take on that customers. And I always used to say that the people that used to work for me, I was like, you're gonna be dealing with these people. So in the end, you decide to appoint June. I mean, you do want to have customers you gotta be overly picky and choosey. But if people were unpleasant, we would get rid of them because life's too short. And there's plenty more customers because it's the 8020 rule. The ones that are sucking up 80% of your time to drain problems, questions, being unpleasant, like just someone is rude or unpleasant to people. They can be unpleasant to me. That's fine. is to come to the boss and they're like, Look, this is shared dirted I'm like, that's fine. Okay, Grant, fine. But if there were consistently unpleasant to the guy to work with me, I'm like, yeah, we can, unfortunately is not going to go work out with us. We're just not on the same page. Thanks for everything, you know, we'll serve you out your 30 days, and we'll go our separate ways, because life's too short. So don't get blinded by that either. You know, you have to have to respect for yourself because as soon as you respect yourself, that's kind of the mistake you make in the early stages, you'll do anything for anybody, you'll be like, no problem, no problem, you have to do that you have to be a bit of a Skippy at the start. There reaches a point whereby you have to start respecting yourself as well, after your 10 2030 customers. You know, you have to have respect that you're you're you're dealing with, because people will respect you, if you if you if you show the respect yourself, respect people work for you, they'll suddenly go, okay, because people will push, people will push you to see, where's the bike points? At what point can I push until they're like, stop? I have to respect yourself. And definitely respect me to work with you.
Conor McCarthy 31:00
I love that. I'm glad you said that. It's not something that comes up very often in these conversations, to be honest about the idea of bad customers and being willing to say, No, thanks, you're taking up way too much. Emotional headspace, emotional headspace,
Gary Fox 31:14
and also financial headspace because we were a time based business. And I only realised this, I think when I started having people working with me, and I got a team around me, because I knew I was militant on the figures, I had a simple spreadsheet, again, keep it simple. I had a Google Doc spread money in money out. And I would work out the time that we're all spending per day, or work out where we're spending that time, because ours was a simple business, right? We would have X amount of clients, we would have X amount of guests coming in on a specific day, we might have 20 guests landing in Dublin, we'd be checking them in, I know exactly how many people are going to be staying that night. And, and we only physically could service so many people, you know, we couldn't service. It's not like an infinite business, you know, it had its problems and the fact that, you know, if we had 50 properties, okay, that's probably 25 per person, you know, so you have two staff members working any time off, let's say simple maths. Again, they're paid 20 euros an hour, when you factor in all costs and everything. And we're making that say 40 euros an hour. Okay, great. That's one customer per hour. But if you've pain, because you dread ringing constantly going on a 40 minutes in the phone dealing with a problem that that's not even a problem. Well, then that's where minus 40 now, because you haven't able to deal with that customer. So it's very simple math. And you have to, you have to think about that. And I think we don't Stephanie solo entrepreneurs, you don't think but then you start hiring people. And then you're like, oh, wow, we're losing money on this person, because we're spending all the wrong time and all the wrong places.
Conor McCarthy 32:51
Mm hmm. Okay. Yeah. Like that's, that's a really tangible way to break down the cost of, of a bad customer. And you said a moment ago that you never wanted to sell. And I love that. I think that's the dream, because sales is something that a lot of people fear or feel weird about feel icky about? And do you what would be your advice to people who, who do have to do some kind of selling? What would you say to them?
Gary Fox 33:17
You have to understand your customer? This sounds very basic, but you have to know their pain points and know exactly, because the more we did it, and you asked about does it get easier when you get more customers? It did because we had so much expertise in Airbnb hosting, there was literally, I will I'll touch for now because it's only when you say I've seen it all. Someone dumped on the roof. It's, it's, we had an extensive database of scenarios, right? And the more scenarios you experienced, you're like, I never knew someone could physically do that. That you kind of go price. All right, well, we filed out in the locker under unusual and unexpected. But we know because people would be like, Oh my God. You know, is it not all parties and you know, Rangers and stags and hands? I was like No, because we just don't allow them. We don't. We have very specific rules, all our properties, very specific rules. We overdid the rules. Because if you overdo something, then you kind of find your ideal science somewhere in the middle. Like we were sticklers to a point. But when you medicine, we're like, Look, have a good time. Enjoy yourself just respected. Yeah. So you get the customer you deserve as well. It comes back to what we talked about. And it's the same for Airbnb guests. People always thought, Oh my God, is it like, people see that one terrible news story in Atlanta by this guy threw a party for the house and people are like, we we used to host like nearly 200,000 people a year. You know, and it's like, of course, there's like 1% and I'd say it was 1% like, yeah, you have all sorts of craziness like people, you know, people it's like a hotel room like people to come into Dublin and have have fun. Have a good time and get off some weird stuff. 1% Right, the 99% sometimes you go into a property like this day, honestly, and like the majority people are somewhere in the middle, right? It's already kind of messy, kind of clean a little bit. Like just lift it, right? The one percenter like, good, Jesus, what happened here? And then there's like, probably 10 to 20% of people who just like, take out the bins, you know, clean the floors. Oh, where's your clean and stuff? I need to clean before I go, you know? So like, Yeah. Because take the 1%. Yeah, I got that. 1%. Yeah, sales go back to your question. We then could answer nearly every question. Because we knew the pain points any potential customers were having if they were already or Airbnb hosts? Well, we knew why they were coming to us, they were sick of the house, and they were sick of the grind, they were sick of the process, because it is a process and we have the process down to like, diminish down to the euro. We had processes for everything. Because we're a small team. I kept it small, it was bootstrapped. And we had everything in a streamlined process. And we just knew in this situation, ABC, we should never and it says to the people that worked for me as I was like, Look, if you do something more than once, chalk it down to the process, put it down, put it down in the sheet, right five steps. Because if we need to keep replicating this, we're just wasting time again. And we're just way racking your heads isn't worse time to go, Oh, my God. Yeah, use all these templates. We used to have templates for common questions, templates for common common problems. Every every, every apartment, we'd spend a good bit of time having a document a living document that answered any question about the department, you know, common issues, common problems. So like, the sales process came very easy, because it wasn't really selling. We just answered questions for people. That's what sales is really, I have a problem. You potentially have a product that can fix it. Tell me how it fixes it. Okay, fixes a grant. Yeah, that's kind of what it comes down to. Business is just problem solver. That's all it is. starting a business is problem solving. for yourself a problem solving for customers. That's all it is at its basic point. That's all it is you're solving a problem for customer. And easiest you can do that. And the simplest, and most transparent way you can do that, the more successful you'll be.
Conor McCarthy 37:15
That's brilliant. I love that. Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. And just as well as giving the customer the confidence that yes, these this is the right choice. They they see that all they know it all. Yeah, I feel better going with them. Any, would you recommend any books or like I follow your newsletter? So I know you're a big reader, what books would you recommend to people going out trying to find the first 10. And it can be it can be a business book, or it can be a book just about how to understand people better? It can be anything really?
Gary Fox 37:30
I think this sounds so cheesy. so cheesy alerts turned off. Now if you're allergic to cheese, you have to understand yourself. Saying that out loud, sounds terrible. You have to understand yourself before you go out and start understanding all these other people understand what makes you tick. I only wrote about this, I think last week, the week before, understand what business you want to make. Because sometimes you do things you're like, I have a great idea. And you're a chronic introvert, and you've had this idea for like a comedy club, you know, here like, Am I made money for a while, but how are you gonna do that? You know, so just make sure the business matches your personality type. And that's very important because and you can evolve with a business, you can absolutely evolve with a business. But if you hate people, well, they don't. This is my pet peeve, right pet peeve, you go into a retail store, and the person couldn't be more annoyed at you. Because they hate their job. It bugs the life out of me. Doing my number one pet peeve is hanselman used to deal with money you hand someone 10 quid and your change, you put your hand out for the change and they'd look at you and slap it on the table or on the counter. eyeball? Yeah, it's like, there you go. There's a little bit of power for today on like, depressing? Not sure. Because as far as businesses, as we both know, it's bloody hard, right? It's super, super hard to be days you hate it. It's either you're on, you're elated or you're devastated. To find some way of being in the middle. That's a whole other different story. But make sure you're starting a business that you want to do and then feel comfortable with. If you're feeling uncomfortable every day and feeling fraud every day the business is going to be very tough. So to answer your question, make sure you know yourself and make sure you kind of have a base level of what are my motivations? What do I want to do? I think if you have good control over yourself, the book I'd recommend just as a general read for everybody is atomic habits. I've recommended this a million times to everybody because good processes, good habits, good routines, in your business and in your personal life will lead to a happy place. There's kind of like it's called I know what we talked about the very start the consistency of doing things well every day, again, the problem solving and doing it well every day. That's kind of good business. That's how you keep people over like six months a year. The other great books that have been would be losing my virginity by Richard Branson, his very first autobiography, it's a super read. It's a just a good story. Like he can pick that up. You don't have to be into business. It's just a good story kind of reads like a movie. My favourite kind of books are are nonfiction to read like fiction. And that's one of those you're like, wow, this is a right read. This is a crack and read. And and then there's luck. I'm a massive reader, because there's tonnes of books I recommend. The biggest advice that gives someone is understanding what you're reading for. Are you reading for pleasure? Are you reading to solve a problem? the right book at the right time we talked about earlier, but the right business at the right time, the right book at the right time, because you can read, I can recommend any book to you. And people always, like, messaged me about books. And now I know to go, what do you need it for? Like, what are you reading? crack? Are you reading because you have a problem but your own personal productivity reading? Because you don't want customers to read because you don't have some marketing or finance? or What is it? Because I recommend atomic habits to you. And you'd be like, my habits are perfect, then it's no good to you. That's the shift book. Yeah, you know, and just just read, read, read around yourself read read, read stuff that you would normally read as well, I think that's something important don't just get stuck in a relative reading business books, you know, because after a point, they all kind of reinforce the same story, you know that there are variations on the same theme. You know, the E myth revisited is one of those books that everyone recommends, and it's super. And that's also one I recommend. It's, it's hard to read. It's very cheesy. And essentially, to boil it down into one sentence, build a business that doesn't destruct if you're not there. yet. That's a good lesson. I think we all learned the hard way as well, because we we trap so much knowledge in our head. So those books I would highly recommend, but just just like just Tom's reading this out there just just do a bit of time and research. Right. What am I reading for? You know, what's the problem? I want to answer?
Conor McCarthy 42:05
Yeah, yeah. And read, read. Yeah, read to answer about to find a solution to a problem you're having read to understand, don't read to read, I guess, delete, just take off the ice guard in 52 books this year was the point because I burned out.
Gary Fox 42:21
Like, I have gone on to the next one that already digest them as well I, I know to digest, so I underline them, underline them, and then go back and pull out the bits that I want to just remember again, because my memory is awful. And I just go in and I recommend a read. And then pull out into like a little Doc, pull out all the kind of quotes and all the kind of cool stories that I liked. So then I can go back and go, Oh, what was that recommendation about like discipline? Or what was our recommendation about? You know, look, sometimes read a street sign sometimes just read a story I read I read fiction before bed. And I'll read any old rubbish. Because I'll read new airport thriller kind of stuff like Yeah, no, man in 60 minutes to save the world. That kind of stuff. Does that just shut my brain down? Yeah, struggle to kind of wine my brain at night and I won't be business during the night. I'll just read anything sports or anything, just to kind of wind down.
Conor McCarthy 43:12
Yeah. Okay. Yes. Good recommendations in there. Just to go back to something you said like this. Choosing the kind of business that you want to start. I think that's really boring, because at the start of this conversation, you talked about starting a venture backed business, and it just didn't fit. And it was I mean, there was a lot of work, etc. But it maybe wasn't a fit for you as a person as well, which made you turn on to host Booker's. So. Yeah, really kind of, I suppose interrogating yourself, you know, what is? If you're going to bootstrap something, is that the way you want to do it? You know, or do you want to go down the the venture backed route, and that is a whole other type of game that you're playing? But doesn't Does it suit your personality? Because Yeah, if you're the timid type, I don't know how far your gardens playing some of those games.
Gary Fox 43:56
Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, I think he kind of gets sucked into the TV version of an entrepreneur, the TV version of shark tank, or you know, we're very immediate, very led still by the sexy. They just got 100 million euro raise. It's like, oh, okay, well, kind of entrepreneurs messaged me like, Oh, can you give me your advice about fundraising and like, don't be like, what are you raising it for? Just tell me that. Yeah. phase four. is a 200 grand to build a build a factory deadly? Is to underground Do you think you should raise 200 grand and you think that's you're flying your kite of like, we'll go with matters waste of time. I think a lot of people's raised because they think that's where they need to be or we need 30 staff we need this we need that. Whereas in truth often you might you might you might be okay. Just MVP in a doubt yourself. And doing it slower. Yeah. Like people are mad to really be Do press releases about Oh, they've just raised a million. They've never generated a euro. Hmm. Like, when you read these stories, just just just look at what they're doing look at the company and go, Oh, there is 2 million what's what's their turnover? Like, it's pretty easy to pull them out here like a quick Google search, you can pull them out on the company's turnover for the year, zero reported costs, just enter the mind, probably net negative half a mil raised a mil, so that's going to give them a runway of maybe six months. Yeah, okay. Cool. Like, don't look at fundraising as the be all and end all of what your business should be about your business about making money. That's what it's about. That's what business is about, you know, otherwise, you'd be working at a charity.
Conor McCarthy 45:43
That was a that's a Peter Drucker quote, I think what he's like your businesses, other people's money, and he wasn't saying it in a kind of crass, he was just like, it's all about the customer and what they're spending their money on, and they're gonna spend it with you. But it'll be for a good reason. I think I just had a great idea for a reality TV show where it's like, a day in the life of an actual, like, venture backed entrepreneur, and it's just a screen capture of their of them going through their email. Yeah, because I think you'd see very quickly that it's like, it's just shocking, it's probably terribly boring, or it's terribly stressful, or it's, you know, it's some huge range of, of random tasks that you would not imagine that don't end up on the front page of we just raised 10 million.
Gary Fox 46:28
Yeah, you're, you're essentially going from raised to raise all your friends are in this business, I couldn't push. And I have such respect for them, because they're literally living on a life of such stress, like literally closer raise, start a raise, that's a days like, today is Tuesday, closed around for a million, they've probably already been trying to raise the next round for the last six months, I just couldn't do it, you know, it's a very different skill set. And again, comes back to what we talked about earlier, understand what your skill sets are, look, if you're trying to start a fucking rocket ship to Mars company, you're gonna need some outside bread. But if you're starting, you know, most businesses can be started on your own with a really horrible, ugly MVP. And that's where 99% of entrepreneurs should start, because you'll realise maybe after six months, though, what you're doing was an awful idea. Or what you're doing is actually a great idea if just tweaked it 10% over to the right. And so I think Yeah, just know, we can know it know what you want to do know yourself, be honest with yourself, don't just start some because it's cool.
Conor McCarthy 47:38
Love that I would add there. But I always have my last question of what advice would you give to someone just starting out to find their first 10 customers? or advice, succinct advice, I
Gary Fox 47:48
suppose. On advice, look, it depends on the industry as well. Yep. And what you're going after, my advice is probably what I talked about already, is just to stress test your assumptions. So have an idea of who your customers are. But then go out and stress test data in a various different means. So put together your basic where you can point people to whether it's a website, or whether it's something simple. I'd always start a website, because it's the most logical people kind of tend to jump to social media. And it's here, it's difficult to keep up that cadence of posting all the time. And so I would start a website, point people to that have an action that you can people can take, don't just like send them to a second website, which nothing is part of the action you want them to take, is it buy? Is it subscribe? Is it download? What is it? And then I would test your assumptions, who customers are? Who are they? What do they look like? Try traditional media, try social media, try going farmers markets, try literally selling it one to one to one, try everything. Because you never know what's going to work. You're you unless you've already had a business in this area. You just don't know what's going to work and just be consistent. That's the only bit of advice you need to find your first 10 you might find them in a week, you might find them in a year. But if you're going to do as businesses in for the long haul, so just be consistent. And just keep churning it out every day that says don't get disheartened after like one customer or don't get hired after zero customers, because it's going to take a good bit of time.
Conor McCarthy 49:29
I love that. It's Gary Fox, bringing the bringing the real, real advice to real one at the coalface advice to time flew and I could talk to you forever about this stuff. Because you've been through it all you've seen a lot. Thank you very, very much for your time and for sharing everything there. And I'll obviously include all your all your details in the show notes. I would recommend that people check out your podcast, the entrepreneur experiment. It's brilliant. and sign up to your newsletter at Mr. Gary fox.com. And yeah, thank you. So So much for spending some time here with us.
Gary Fox 50:03
Thank you, Connor, that was really enjoyable. Thanks so much.
Conor McCarthy 43:22
That's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that there was something in there that was actionable and insightful for your business. Do check out the show notes for more information on what we discussed, as well as ways to contact my guest. And it would really make by year if you could help me grow the podcast by leaving a rating or even a review. Helping you identify and create those first 10 customers is what I do. So if you like what you hear on this podcast and want more information, including a bunch of free resources on how to find your first customers and grow your business, do check out www.first10podcast.com, or find me on Twitter @TheFirst10Pod.