The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - E19: Luke Massie - I Have Nothing To Hide

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

In this chapter I had the privilege of sitting down with Luke Massie, owner and founder of Vibe tickets. Luke has recently been swarmed with bad press due to his business declaring bankruptcy, to which he then chose to buy back him self. I sat down with Luke to hear his side of the story and to ask him why he thinks he's being attacked for his business decisions.

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you

that listen to this show let's continue people are annoyed because they think the people that invested have been burnt and then you've just bought the business back. At that point, shit was real. Sounds like a fucking nightmare. It's absolutely horrible. It's the most vulnerable I've ever been in my life. This is actually the first time I've spoke about it.

What's the truth? Luke. Yo. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Fairly last minute. I've just got back from New York, and I was thinking, I'm coming to Manchester. I want to make the most use of my time in this city.

And you are one of the more, if you don't mind me saying, one of the more renowned young entrepreneurs here building an incredible business an incredible way with an incredible reputation so I thought I would call on you to have this conversation with you I think there's a huge amount of things that will relate on I hope there's some things that we have different views on as well but I'm sure that's definitely gonna be the case 100% but thank you so much for coming you know thank you for having me on here's where I want to start in and I do this sometimes as a challenge in 30 seconds can you tell me

Luke Massey's story from now from birth till now and the reason I do this is because I think it helps filter out the moments that are of most significance do you reckon you're up for that challenge? Of course, always. Okay, so I'm going to stick 30 seconds on the clock. Yeah, cool. So young lad, born in Preston, one of five, grew up in a council estate, father wasn't around, been through school, went to college,

didn't go to university, set up first business, set up another business, set up another business. Constantly challenged. Favourite sayings, why not? Came across a big industry. I'm now challenging the big operators in that space. And day to day asking, why not? Perfect. Exactly 30 seconds.

Tell me about that first business. So my first business was a company called Mortgage Claims Direct. which, believe it or not, had nothing to do with mortgages. How old are you? So I was 17 when I founded the company. So the company came about, I was at Cardinal Newman College in my first year of doing my A-levels, so I was doing my AS. Based in Preston, and that was 9 to 4 every day day I was there five days a week the college was yeah so I was doing economics finance and sport actually at the time and I was working at a law firm part-time in the evenings to make some money so I used to finish at four and then run around the corner to start work at half four till half eight every night I'm gonna sorry to interrupt

that yeah why so I needed to make money. So my mum is unemployed, has been ever since I was young. Even when I was at school, I was making money buying and selling sweets. I needed to make some cash to even just go out with my friends at the weekend. I've always been that person. So I've always made money, whether it was a milk round, whether it was a paper round, whether it was buying and selling sweets, et cetera. So even even though i was at college i didn't see that as an opportunity not to make cash do you think if you if you said your dad wasn't around yes for a number of years

yeah um do you think if your dad had been around and your mum um had been employed you would be who you are today uh well probably not um i think my outlook on things would be different i think my attitude towards challenges would be different i think um you probably get hardened all the time to to challenges and uh i think that starts at a very young age i think in an isolation i think being an entrepreneur you come across challenges every single day i think most people would crumble at those challenges because the big decisions that you're making have not just happened here and it happens right now. This is combined over five years, ten years, whatever it may be. Going back to the first business, I was working on the phones at a law firm, but there was actually a part of the law firm which was a lead generation arm to the business.

And basically, I was the annoying young lad at 17 ringing up asking if you'd been missold PPI. But it was at a time when the banks hadn't lost. So every person we were calling would convert sort of one in 20. And it was really hard. It was really hard work. And then something happened. The banks had lost. It was now legal that the banks had had to repair people had been

missold ppi it was you know one of the biggest scandals ever and um our conversion rate went from 1 to 20 to literally 50 every other person i was calling we got a hit so i managed to save up 3 000 pounds and thought i can do this myself it's an unregulated business the barriers to entry is so low we don't have to be a solicitor firm we can be a lead generation and and and act on behalf of our clients we keep 25 of the money that's that's come back it was a brilliant model so um i created my own script i convinced two of the the top girls to come and work for me i said i've just raised this this investment i managed to um lie to a landlord in preston got an office space i was meant to be 18 to get a tenancy.

Set up this call centre and called it Mortgage Claims Direct. And the reason for that is one of the biggest challenges I had at the law firm was when I was ringing up calling from a PPI company, they didn't give me a chance. Whereas if I was calling from Mortgage Claims Direct, a mortgage is really important to everyone. They give me at least 30 seconds on the phone, which allowed me that foot through the door. And we saw that our conversion was much higher than everyone else's.

The three grand I had, I worked out I had basically six weeks' worth of money. I was paying these women full-time whilst I was still at college doing my A-levels. Still to this day, I'm fortunate enough for it, but we ran out of cash. For two weeks, I had to say to these women, this investor's waiting to send the check to me, et cetera. You know, yeah, the money's coming in.

And fortunately enough, some of the claims started to come in, which gave me cash flow. So we managed to scale that business to 12 staff. And I sold the business for £94,000 a week before my 18th birthday, which sort of set the ball in motion, which is, wow, you know, there's ways to make cash here. It's incredible. Running a business at 17 years old where you have 12 staff is pretty incredible.

I genuinely, I worked in call centres from 16 to 20, from 16 to 20, roughly, from about 16 to 19 years old. And I genuinely think the call centre experience is one of the most valuable... 100% agree where you're going with this.

Valuable skills I developed. Being a 16-year-old, calling up people at random, out the blue, at 9am at night trying to sell them double glazing or fascia boards or conservatories

really teaches you something which becomes a real valuable, transferable skill as an entrepreneur. Completely agree. And it also sets you up for one of the biggest things in life that people don't like which is failure which is that you know stepping out of your comfort zone picking up the phone speaking to a stranger that is real life and you know i talk about this a lot but

call centers are the modern day workshops they are the modern day factories and yeah if you think about everything that requires mastery it's a it's a process of like practice makes perfect so like david beckham he learns to do amazing free kicks by continually kicking the ball at the net for years and years and years and if you think about what call center work is you sit there you pick up the phone you try you learn oh shit that didn't work with that type of person yeah 10 seconds down, you know, the phone is down. 10 seconds later, the phone is back up. You're trying again.

I think there's a huge element of self-awareness though to that. When I would call, I knew that the likelihood of someone buying from me based on how I looked was very, very low. I knew that if I was a Steve or a Steven, it made a huge difference. I knew if I was, you know, more articulate and, you know, those little things. But also... Personal, yeah. Yeah, I think self Steven, it made a huge difference. I knew if I was more articulate and those little things, but also... Personal, yeah. Yeah, I think self-awareness is a tremendous thing and I think self-awareness is something you can't teach.

Yeah. Understanding what people think of you. So anyway, moving on. So you did that, you sold the business, you're 18 years old. What happens next? Made a few mistakes. What kind of mistakes? Went and bought a car that I shouldn't have done.

What car? RS5. Nice. £1,000 a month car insurance. And still then going back to see my mum in a council estate. Wasn't the best decision. Also gets the wrong attention. I think at the end of the day, looking back now,

it was a really poor decision at the time. I always wanted that car. I went into Audi. And for me, it was my money. I've made it it that sort of thing but that that money could have been used a lot better um but those are mistakes that i made at an early stage which meant i've not had to go and do those now um so yeah um and then yeah i also started to invest in other businesses friends had come up to me with an idea of a loft converting

business for example so i invested in Preston loft conversions. And I thought that if I could invest little bits of capital into three or four businesses, that would generate me 20,000, 30,000 pounds a year per business. And I wouldn't have to work again. And it was that because I'd had one success, I thought that would work for everything else. And that was another huge mistake, which is you can't spread yourself too thin, but at the same time, stick to what you know. Don't go into markets that you don't know about. So where did Vibe come in?

So Vibe was founded when I was 20 years old, but it wasn't a business. So people talk about Vibe was founded in 2013. It's five years old. Yes, it was formed five years ago. That's because I incorporated the name. I knew it was a very very good brand at the time but I didn't know what it was so I had four tickets to see Ed Sheeran that

I bought on my card and we bought for me and my friends we bought four tickets 100 pounds each they gave me the cash I put in my bank and I made the purchase for these tickets something came up in the social calendar which meant we couldn't we couldn't go to the event. And my mates were asking for the cash back, basically. So I went to Google, typed in selling tickets, and there was a number of sites that offered me the option to sell these tickets. There was Get Me In, Viagogo, Seatwave, StubHub. It was a pretty crowded market. They were all offering the same service for the same fees, et cetera. But the problem I had as a consumer at the time was two major problems. First of all, they all charged me a selling fee.

So in order for me to get the £400 back, I had to list them at £500. And knowing at the other end there was a buyer going to pay a fee as well, I just didn't think that was morally right. But if I'm being completely honest with everyone, the biggest issue I had with it was that all these sites would only pay me the money after the event because they wanted to control the process. Now 20 year old lad can afford to give their mates back 100 pounds each and wait for six months it just wasn't feasible so i thought you know this is this is shit uh went to twitter you know anyone at our age when they've got a problem goes and rants

about it i tweeted the fact that i had four tickets to see ed shearing hashtag manchester hashtag ed shearing and literally within sort of four or five minutes, there was genuine Ed Sheeran fans tweeting me. Hi Luke, I'll take the tickets. They could see that I was a real person. They could see that I invested in my Twitter profile. So I got chatting to one genuine Ed Sheeran fan. I tweeted him,

screenshotted him my confirmation of purchase, shared with him my PayPal details so he could send me money as a stranger but it would be covered. And I managed to get my money stranger would be covered. And I managed to get my money back within 10 minutes. And it was at that time where I questioned, as I always have in life, my why, is there was a need here on a buyer and a seller's part, but the current operators in the space weren't fulfilling that need for either of us.

So I started questioning, if I've done this, surely there's other people doing it. So I started using things like TweetDeck and checking how many tweets there were. And just on Twitter alone, there was between 15 and 25 million tweets a month with the keywords need tickets, want tickets, spur tickets. So that's when the light bulb moment happened for me, which is if I can replicate what I've done, then I can help thousands of people. So we set up basically the hashtag good vibes. And's how vibe was born vibe tickets was a free resource anyone who wanted a ticket or had a spare ticket would tweet us and we'd just retweet it and within the first six months we grew to 60 000 followers we then grew to 100 000 followers and this was a you know an amazing time for us because we had people from the industry itself

from ticketmaster using our hashtag and using our Twitter handle. And it was insane. And that's how I actually met my first investor, who basically used Twitter to sell some Formula One tickets. And was like, I want to know who this lad is behind this account because he's just saved me a fortune. This is such a good idea. So at some stage you think, I'm going to turn this into a company and an app um well again i didn't i the idea was planted in my head so um completely randomly but

the guy who ended up being my first investor said to me um matt newin um said to me this is really cool wouldn't it be brilliant if every time someone tweeted you you made a pound so at the time just to give you an idea of figures it it was just me in my bedroom, but we were doing between 3,000 and 5,000 tweets a day, retweets like connecting people. And just to give you an idea of volume, that's probably between 3 and 5 million pounds worth of tickets every single day. So we were causing nuisance in the resale market

because the big four resale of spending money on user acquisition, on SEO, on PPC, to try and get people to these sites and we're just taking it all on on social because we remove those barriers to entry we just wanted to connect those people so it was at that time that uh you know this guy who was obviously a lot older than me a lot more savvier than me sort of presented this idea and that's when i thought ah a marketplace so it's brilliant that all these people are using twitter but a i don't own the customer

b i can never monetize this. And C, if I'm going to build something of value and I want to pivot and change the product, I'm going to have to own it myself. And that's when I went back to him with a business idea and said, look, I've listened to what you've said. You've planted this idea in my mind. I can't get it out of my head now. I think I can build a Vibe community. And that's when the idea of Vibe came about. And I wrote my first business plan as such. And on that day, he wrote me a check for £200,000. think I can build a vibe community and that's when the you know the idea of vibe came about and I

wrote my first business plan as such and and on that day he wrote me a check for 200,000 pounds a physical check a physical check for 200,000 pounds he said will this be enough to get you anywhere so you you make this uh mvp this kind of like you know minimal viable product to prove the concept and then you raised you raise again yeah we we carried on raising but I mean this is another thing that uh people ask me about. How do I raise capital? Our MVP was the Twitter account. We could prove that even though we didn't have a product,

that thousands of people were using this as a genuine alternative. I guess you can prove the need. Yes. Then there's that, you've got to prove the execution. Yes. The idea, right? And this is where I think, for anyone who's listening, who's trying to raise capital, really needs to consider this this because the amount of people that come to me asking for investment

from myself or access to my investors um you know are typically raising between 100 100 000 and 200 000 and when i actually ask them why why are you raising this money nine times out of ten it's to prove this idea that i've got in my head when they could actually go and prove the idea that they've got in the head without the 200 000 pounds or without 100 000 pounds they could create a facebook group or they could create a twitter account and just prove the need and then it's a different scenario which is look i've already demonstrated the need i now just need capital to make this happen so here's the thing so um you start and i my first company was like a tech company very very interesting a lot of the sort of parallels between it because i realized the need was there um one of the ways i realized the need was there was when we created a facebook

group that did the same thing it was so active it was so active in fact that i knew that if this facebook group um was a website and i owned it it would probably be worth hundreds of millions of pounds at scale so if we took it to more universities yeah facebook group was just for manchester so i tried to create the website didn't work whatever but um one of the things i learned from running a tech company was that like money runs out quick and one of the one of the interesting things is especially when it's like a pre-revenue tech company as a founder you look at the bank account and you know, it's like an hourglass. The more time that passes, the lower this number gets.

Yeah. And it's almost, in some respects, like a bit of a runway. This aircraft has got to take off before the end of the runway. Yeah. And if it doesn't, it falls off the fucking runway. Yeah. Investment, what it does is it extends the length of the runway, but because it increases the overheads, it increases the speed of speed of the aircraft yes so the aircraft's now just going faster down the fucking

runway there's more overheads right yeah so um how does that feel as a tech founder dealing with that like constant ticking down of the bank balance how have you dealt with that very very good question steve and um no one asked this question so thank you for asking exactly um so first of all in the first year it's it's it's terrifying you know you you're on you think you're on something um you've now brought these people in they've bought into the vision you've convinced people who have got families and dependents to come and join this operation and come and join this vision. But you also know that it's part of your strategy to actually make an impact in the industry by going in with this different monetization model.

So for people that don't understand Vibe is that not only is our offering different as a product, but our commercial model is different as well to the industry, which is we completely separate ourselves from resale. We're offering a different alternative. So yeah, the first year for me was turbulent. It was so hard to get in my head that I'm going to have to keep going out and raising capital here

and trying to pivot and trying to understand where we're going to generate revenue. And I sat down and we built a very, very good advisory board and a huge influence on that was Richard Branson without sort of trying to bring him into the story, he was one that said, you've got to look at this bigger picture.

If this is your game plan, you need to make sure that it's part of your strategy and you execute very, very well. And you met him on, was it Virgins Pitch to Rich competition? Yes, Virgins Pitch to Rich competition. So I was down in London. Did you win that?

Yes. Well, no, I was actually a finalist. We won capital, but Richard then singled me out and identified me as someone that he wanted to mentor and been to his house several times, spent time with him on that. And I think he saw what I was trying to do with Vibe as a challenger brand and the world against it.

And you were doing good with the world as well, which is in line with... Exactly. We're trying to build something that's right. People all the time question Vibes' model. I can tell you right now that if I turned on monetization tomorrow and charged for this service, we would be profitable within six weeks. But it's not the right thing to do.

So we're going about it a different way. And the external pressure is that it's very, very difficult to stay strong to what you're trying to achieve and what the strategy is. There was three finalists we all won cash and then mcreeber the plastic roads guy ended up winning the actual competition but um i think he won more cash and some prizes from jc decor some of the partners etc um that is a fantastic business by the way um toby's a brilliant founder so he was a he was definitely a deserved winner. And he is making a global impact to Plastic, so fair play to him.

But yeah, the following day, Richard invited me to his house. Fucking hell. I think he just liked Vibe. And it was at that point where Richard Branson said to me, look, Luke, Vibe isn't a ticketing business. Don't think of it as a ticketing business. You're in the business of connecting people, and data is your currency. Right.

And that's when things clicked for me, which is, okay, Think of it as a ticketing business. You're in the business of connecting people and data is your currency. And that's when things click for me, which is, okay, how I've been packaging Vibe, how I've been selling Vibe, how I've been trying to convince people, it has to change. Vibe is about removing those barriers and it's about challenging any company that deliberately positions itself

to exploit the customer. That's where Vibe can go as a brand. And that really started to excite me, but also the investors that I'd previously visited, which was, look, you've been thinking about Vibe as a ticketing business. The industry's very, very competitive. It's going to be difficult to demonstrate

a model that's going to work. How about looking at this from this position? And that's when the real cash started coming in. But how was it? To go back to the question, how is it being a tech founder who is presumably always raising money? Even when you close a raise,

you have to then basically start thinking about the next raise, right? Yeah. So what I'm trying to get at is I understand from my perspective what it's like, especially as a startup. In our first year, our bank account just went one way. Yeah.

But what does that feel like on a day-to-day basis? How does that impact your life? Do you come to peace with the idea that... As I said, I think you need to accept that this is the strategy and this is what we're playing for and you do it right.

The model that Vibe's doing isn't new. What impact has it had on you, though? Very, very stressful. But you've got to take that burden on as a founder, I think. How has it changed you on a personal level? How is Luke different because of those things now than he was three years ago? Wow, that's a really good question.

This is what we're going to do on this podcast, by the way. Yeah, no, that's a really good question and no one has ever answered that. And that's probably because you're a founder yourself. I think it's made me... Vibe's positions where you know we've got 20 odd staff there's there's 80k about to go anywhere you know whatever and we won't go into details but the burn rates you know chugging on you've got three days of capital left and it's like you've got investors there and they're riding on the their investors you know they're waiting to get to a point where

it's best to negotiate their position. Of course. But you become hardened to it. And I think you then start understanding things from a different perspective. And what you've got to do is you've got to take the emotion out of it. You've got to take the,

these guys are trying to screw me over. You've got to take the emotion out of, I'm really worried about everything else. You've got to go, this is the product. This is how we're doing things. This is why we're so successful. and the alternative is turn on monetization and slow growth or turn on monetization and go out against everything you've said and force something

stick true to what you have and it'll come good and and that's the only advice i can sort of give to people that are embarking on it in your first two years um what was your worst moment your toughest moment let's say the moment you, maybe not the toughest moment for you, but the moment which most people would consider the toughest. So for us, it was probably when one day on the way to work, 6 a.m. in the morning, we get hacked

and someone emails all of our clients really personal abusive things. We lose all of our clients. There's 70 people here. They lose all their clients. So we know we've got no money. But, and the sort of cherry on the top of that cake was that it was our team building day. So everyone was on their way to paintballing we

pulled up at paintballing on my way there at 6am i started getting calls our investors have received personal abuse from our from our email address and getting there and telling having to tell the whole company to turn around we're going home and we're going back to the office there's no clients there they're all wearing their like tracksuits and stuff are sitting on the desks them seeing me in the glass room, like on the phone to all these brands. Just pacing, yeah, just like trying to save it. These brands telling me that I'm a fucking bullshitter.

What was your toughest moment in the first two years? Probably, well, it's happened over the course of it, but I think the hardest thing for me has been thinking that something was when it wasn't. And what I mean by that is, quite publicly, recently, there's been a situation with Vibe where I was backed into a corner by someone who was my mentor, someone who did write my first investment check.

And I signed my first shareholders agreement at age 20, raised this capital, and at the time, didn't take independent legal advice. And throughout that period, I've thought that something was, was that it wasn't so let's give that context then so recently in the press as some people would have seen there was a story the headline is um vibe tickets go um vibe tickets goes into administration bought back by the founder yeah so you're well known for raising from the crowd yeah so you i'm not familiar with the process completely, but from what I understand

that this is a platform, I think it's Crowdcube? Yes, we use Crowdcube once, yeah. So are you going to have to correct me on all these things? Yeah, no, it's good. Just from the external perception, it's quite good to start there

with the ignorance. You raised on Crowdcube, you raised from other investors as well. The business goes under. This is just a public perception based on press. It says Luke Massey has bought the business goes under this is just a public perception based on press um it says luke massey has bought the business back people are annoyed because they think the people that

invested have been burnt and then you've just bought the business back yes what's the truth um so basically what happened was we had um a sort of very difficult um structure in the old company um and again touching on that without going into the sort of specifics of structure in the old company. And again, touching on that, without going into the sort of specifics of the details, but we had a very, very restrictive shareholders agreement, which meant that I couldn't take on new capital or I couldn't take on new debt without investor director consent,

which meant I constantly had to go back to a person to get their consent to do something. And it got to a stage where, again, we had agreement on the table for more consent to do something. And it got to a stage where, again, we had agreement on the table for more capital to come in. And there was a situation that was engineered, which meant it was favorable to that one person who was holding the cards. And it actually got to a point where the rest of the investors said, well, we're not continuing to invest in this vehicle unless some of these documents are changed. And it then forced

Vibe into a position where the company ran out of capital the company ran out of cash which meant it was insolvent and for those that don't understand that process it means that once a company is declared insolvent it means that as a director i have a duty by law to think of creditors first not shareholders and that was very very difficult considering that i was the biggest shareholder and i was also one of the biggest creditors having put my director's loan at the beginning and you And people don't understand that. So I had to take the correct legal advice and I had to take the correct independent insolvency advice. And it was told to me, look, if this company doesn't get capital very, very quickly,

the company is going to go under. So I went back to the shareholder base and asked for some short-term capital until I could get this deal over the line. And the money wasn't forthcoming, which meant that I had no other option. So the company was placed into our administration, and I wasn't willing to give up on this. There was no way. So I frantically ran around, put some money together,

and put a bid together to the independent valuers of the business to say, look, I'm the founder. I'm willing to take this on. Here's my offer to the business. And my offer was conditional and it was he makes the decision so it's the insolvent practitioners they put an independent value in so they say okay we think this business is worth x um and take everything into consideration and it's um you know it's a vigorous process and you know sounds like a fucking nightmare it's not it's absolutely horrible it's the most vulnerable i've ever been in my life because I'm now not in control of my own company

and it could have easily been taken away from me because of this process and for people to come out in the press to say that this was forced and this was no one would want to go down that process never mind the age I am but no one would want to go down this process how does it feel?

I was frustrated, I was angry angry i was so close to coming out and saying you know you guys don't know what's happened i've not even come out and made a public statement yet but going back to what happened is you know my my offer was conditional and i went in with an offer and my offer was declined my first offer and i was so surprised that i couldn't understand surely i'm the only person that's tried to buy this business and it became apparent that the one person that tried putting the company into administration had made a bid for my company now people can take that however they want but it then it then may have been a very very original shareholders who had let the

business go under also tried to um buy it back not only that this said person actually tried contacting key members of staff prior to it going into that. Now, this hasn't come out. This hasn't been demonstrated because I don't want to go over the past. But the situation that was portrayed was the fact that the headlines... Contacting key members of staff as if to say, like, I'm going to buy this business and then I'm going to hire the people and then I'm going to run it myself type thing. You could take that, you know, however you want. Yeah, exactly. You know, that however you want. Yeah, exactly.

That's the fact that people don't know about. So I've gone in with this offer. My offer's declined. Couldn't believe it. We've had a significantly larger offer, Mr. Massey. At that point, shit was real. This is it. I'm no longer in control of my company.

Someone else is buying it. What can I do? So I sold some more personal assets. I sold some Bitcoin. I'm ringing around friends that I know people that i can you know rely on i said look i need to get more cash together to buy this business i was told that i had two hours to improve my offer my script together some more cash and put my offer in and my offer was conditional on a i took on the going concerns of the business things like sales force that are operational to the to the success of the business but also that every single member of the staff was moved over.

I didn't make one redundancy because my team was so important to me. The first priority I had to do was to save the company, to get the staff. So that very day, the transaction completed, Luke Massey buys the company back. That same very day, because of one of my investors was on the stock market, they had to make an announcement to london stock exchange which then all the press got onto it and the announcement to the stock exchange was just factual the company went into administration luke's bought it back so the the all not one media outlet in the northwest rang me for a comment they all just printed that the company's going to administration luke massie's bought it back that was really disappointing for me because not one of them rung me up to ask for comment now so so this is so this is now

spreading around manchester and you know the headline was true the fact was true luke massey did buy the company i did yeah okay but why and what's going to happen and what's happening next was never never documented and you know what it shouldn't have been documented at the end of the day this this happens but because i was a public company i gotta be honest with you first time i saw the headline i think screen someone sent me a screenshot or i probably got sent it being honest with you nine times in in a very and probably in the space about seven days just like because you know what this entrepreneurial community is like people send stuff around and so the first thing i saw was and i didn't read it properly because it was just it was just a something a headline the first thing you think and because I've got like personal

experiences of people doing this to screw me as well was that the first thing you think is that the business has been flipped you've shaken off people and debts and you've started again and screw people that's what the headlines portray completely agree and anyone if you saw that for social chain you'd think the same thing because nobody nobody knows you your character yeah they they know the personal brand they know the tweets whatever they don't know character yeah um and that's the difficult bit is that but then i changed once i like once i read i actually took the time to read some things i uh very quickly realized what what happened and understanding how shareholder agreements

are written and the past my own personal past i completely understood yeah and that's why i messaged you just to say look i appreciate that and you know for those listening you know you sent me a text just you know keep your head up luke these things happen you'll shut off and and to get that from a fellow you know in brackets entrepreneur someone who's going through the challenges that you're going through that that that helped me through it but you know again it's it's that you're talking about character i think that hurt me the most which was people are actually questioning your character people are coming out and saying that you know you're screwing people over and this is the thing is once I'd saved the company and I know, okay, now I'm back in control of things,

the first thing I did was pick up the phone to my lawyer and say, I want to give shares back to the crowd out of my own shares. Because that's what I was going to do. That was the right thing. But before I could even come out and comment, first of all, I had to take the right tax advice because what I didn't want to do was give shares to people

and then they would all be landed with a tax bill. So I had to do things correctly. And when I could announce it, I was relieved because I was like, look, guys, this is what I was trying to do. You were all so quick to come out and judge and they were so quick to write the headlines. It was just, in that moment, I learned a lot. I learned a hell of a lot about how things are set up,

how things are perceived etc and what people want you to happen like yeah and i wouldn't i wouldn't like to say that people you know do want to see you fail but evidence backs that up you know and that's the thing and of course they do you know especially people that are in the local community were trying to champion entrepreneurship that's really really bad you know at the end of the day if this was to happen in the states i guarantee that people would have been sending me very different messages and you know the press would have been different let's just take this down to the fundamentals and like i i genuinely believe don't know if this is a good thing to say don't care um i think 99 of human uh agenda is selfish in some regard so when

you're winning it's say you start winning and i'm just tom dick and harry watching it's in it's in my um i'm incentivized and it's in my to my advantage to back you agreed to align yourself with that and then when you fall because you're joining me as someone that's not done anything and it's also good and it makes me feel good to watch you fall and to also take the opposite side and say oh that prick he fucking he fucked up have you seen that massive always knew always knew that was gonna happen that always happens that's why i'm not doing it you know that's the same it makes me feel good as a bystander to think well you know i wasn't uh inferior to luke in fact in fact luke was never going to succeed so we're all the same here do you know it's that kind of like it's a

it's just the way you know people are chameleons and when agendas and motives change they change one of the disappointing things was the Sunday Times wrote a piece not last Sunday, the Sunday before which was the first page of the business section which was my face

the image that was used that went on all the billboards because I was the face of VOOM and the headline was Branson's favourite goes under The image that was used. You're joking. The image that was used that went on all the billboards because I was the face of Voon. And the headline was Branson's... You're joking. Yeah, exactly. Branson's favourite goes under. Really?

Now, first of all, I haven't gone under. Second of all, I've acquired the business back and things are actually fine. To the consumer, to a Vibe customer, they would never know what's actually going on. But because Vibe is such a public business in this area and because, as you said, we've rightly raised capital, it was blown up.

But for that to be such a personal headline, that was aimed at me. That's me. That's not the Vibe Limited. I mean, bearing in mind we're separate entities. That was quite hard, but it was a lesson. It was a huge lesson for me. And I can't wait for the day that we get to that stage

where that reporter's asking for comment, and I can go, no. Would you? I don't think I'd give him a comment no because he's betrayed me to be something that i'm not and you know where was you where was my comment when you asked what was going on because what he could have done this is this is a real talking issue here is what he could have done he's taken what's happened painted a picture of what's happened, but then asked what I would have done differently. Because this is an interesting story for the startup scene, which is not just from the founder perspective, but also from the investor perspective.

Because this could happen if you're too restrictive. This could happen if you force your founder into a corner. We'll find ourselves. We have to. So there's lessons to be learned here from founders, which is make sure you get independent legal advice. And again, I don't want to go over the same points, because is make sure you get independent legal advice. And again, I don't want to go over the same points because it is what it is. You can make your own judgments on it.

The end of the day, vibes now looking forward and it's a positive road for us. I really want to go back to that point about that reporter. That reporter calls you vibes fucking taken over the world. I work for vibe. Fucking everyone works with vibe, right? He calls you,

he says, Luke, can I have a comment? Um, I honestly believe in that moment you should say to him a hundred percent. Yeah, because that is, that is, says, Luke, can I have a comment? I honestly believe in that moment you should say to him 100%. Yeah. Because that is, if you walk around with that grudge and that resentment to somebody who made a decision based on his own bullshit, defects and whatever,

his own agendas to make money and just to capitalise on a headline and get clicks or whatever. If you walk around with that grudge to that person, I think you're losing still. Yeah, no. And do you know what? I think because it's still yeah no and you know what i think because it's still raw because it's still raw because it's still raw and that's the thing this is actually the first time i spoke about it you know i've made comments in in i came out set the record straight i'm giving my shares back to the crowd since then i've not said anything i've just cracked on forgive all these fuckers you know and that's the i've not said anything and i've got a business to focus on i've got an incredible team i've got an incredible opportunity here um with the business i've got super super supportive investors that have not just backed me but they backed me through

this whole process as well and you know they're confident that i'm going to come through this as a stronger leader but also vibe is going to come through with this as a stronger stronger business and i generally do hope that in two three years years' time, I look back and when people say, what was the turning point? It was this. It was I had to shake off that negative, toxic cap. The last six months of my life have been managing the investors,

not managing the business. It became a business itself. And this is the problem. And I've learned from that, at the end of the day, naivety. One of the comments that was on LinkedIn was, Luke's young and naive because he's not come out and said something. Okay, fine, you can be entitled to that opinion.

I was young and naive at 20, signing a shareholders agreement, which pretty much meant that I couldn't make the decisions on behalf of the company. The other thing is that that shareholders agreement was never challenged at any investment round I've ever been through, including the Crowdcube round, who have their own lawyers looking at things. So no alarm bell was ever raised for me that something's wrong here

until the final raise when the company was running out of capital. What did it feel like to go on the internet, log in, and see someone you don't know talking shit about you? Really tough, but not because of the talking shit about me. What was the worst thing you read? Luke Massey had this planned all along. Really?

As if this is like premeditated, I want to screw people. That is ridiculous. Bearing in mind, everyone's been giving shares back. You know, that's it. You know, apart from the guy that puts us in this position anyway,

and the very small few that were following him. So to have that, it was difficult. I mean, it was new ground. It was new territory for me because I've always been portrayed in the media as a good guy doing the right things at the right time. This is the thing though. And when it was, you know, and that's...

Does it not cut... So the thing is, the reason why that headline was written by the Sunday Times is presumably because you're as a brand big and vibe is big and vibe going under is not really a big big as big a story as you know connecting it to someone as big as richard and then um connecting it to yourself like part of the the danger i guess of building a personal brand where you're known as much as just as much as your business is known is When you do when things do go bad

You'll be fucking dragged into the pits if nobody knew Luke Massey as an entrepreneur there would be fucking no story there Really? They would really not be a story there but if you think what people like is they like the The the rise and the fall they like to cover the Whitney Houston going to the top and then the Michael Jackson falling. You know, that's, do you know what I mean? Yeah. So it comes with, it's one of the real dangers and one of the things that I'm quite scared about, I'm genuinely scared about with entrepreneurs

building their personal brands, is you will rise big. And I've seen this in entrepreneurs that I followed. You'll rise big and you'll rise young and you'll be clapped all the way up, right? And then they're waiting. The same motherfuckers are waiting to boo when anything goes wrong.

And I've seen friends time after time, their companies go up and then down and the impact it's had on some of them. And it's really fucking tough. Like mental health issues, like especially the real young ones. I'm not talking about you because you're much more mature. Old now, aren't I? Old compared to some of these young entrepreneurs. like mental health issues like especially the real young ones i'm not talking about you because

you're you're much more mature now aren't i old compared to some of these young kids i'm talking about 18 year olds and i've literally got messages from 18 year old kids asking me how they're meant to deal with this when they've gone bust yeah but this is what i'm saying you know and hopefully the process i've been through i'd like to shed some like positive light on it you know which is lessons were learned and and if i can pass that on to the next young founder who's raising some capital, who might not have the resources or the money to get the correct legal advice,

I could just maybe point him, look out for this, look out for Dragon Tag, look out for these points. Three things then. Yeah. Three things. I'm 18 years old. Yeah.

I'm Luke, I'm an entrepreneur. Yeah. I'm wanting to start a business. Correct accountant that can give you the correct advice. Okay, so that's number one correct lawyer right okay in fact no

number one would be a co-founder because the that you'll know with Dom if you have someone who can share that burden someone

I didn't even think about that it's ridiculous like a co-founder someone who you can you're in the pub with things are down what because

no one it's such a lonely place it is such a lonely place and if i have a co-founder i can go what about this what about this it's not on a none other than it is real context so even being you now we can talk about our our issues and our challenges and there might be the same issue but in different context so the advice that i give you might work for vibe but it might it might not work for social chat and vice versa you know and and it then becomes familiarized um advice so your text to me was brilliant but in context it wasn't if that makes sense which is luke well that's really hard steve when people

are writing about me you don't mean it's like but what you're saying is right and and i think having a co-founder to share that responsibility to because it's sanity as well which is what i think it would be even 20 times harder if you was the only founder and you've no one to bounce that off so first of all you get sucked into the bullshit that can become your your uh your what's your reference point i see that really bad like i see founders coming to me going look i've actually got this it's worth you know we're touching a million now in revenue what's the next step and i said go and find a co-founder like even we're three years in i don't care like go and find the guy that you can

share but he's worth five percent ten percent twenty percent equity believe me in the long run like go and find that guy go and find that girl you know and um and also co-founders need to understand what they're getting into as well which is so many people talk about their co-founder and the co-founders have no value no value whatsoever and and that's that's another thing that's interesting we were having a conversation before this and you know that does happen so yeah get a co-founder get the right documents in place from a legal point of view even between you and your co-founder it's like going into a relationship and and having a mortgage or whatever it is it's like set the foundations right from day one because the only purpose of a contract is for

when things go wrong and shit will go wrong and the crazy thing is especially when you're young you you a you just you're so eager to just give it a fucking go that you don't want to spend so much you just want to get the fucking money in and the thing putting the drone the contract signed and you think from here on in we're just going to build a billion dollar company i'm going to retire with with a fucking jet everything's going to go fine. We're never even going to need to look at that contract again. But I'm yet to run a business. I'm yet to run a business.

I've probably raised investment in some way, maybe 13 times. And the contract, every single raise, I've looked at it and thought, ah, God, I wish I'd done something different.

Yeah, exactly. Especially the first couple, the first investment, I thought, fuck, I fucked myself. Insane, isn't it? Second one, I thought, I fucked myself again. When this all came to, I looked at it, I was like'd done something different. Yeah, exactly. Especially the first couple, the first investment, I thought, fuck, I fucked myself. Insane, isn't it? Second one, I thought, I fucked myself again. When this all came to,

I looked at it, I was like, Luke, you signed that. My current investors are amazing. Yeah, no, exactly. But I mean, I looked at these, I was like, Luke, you signed that. That's mad. Like, seriously.

But you didn't know better. No, but this is what I'm trying to say. And people, this is what the press could have run. This press could have, look, this has happened. Luke's come through it. He's managed the process.

Let's put that behind us. That's not a story. No, I know. No one's getting clicks for that. Yeah, exactly. Luke's come through it. He's managed the process. Let's put that behind us. That's not a story. No, I know. No one's getting clicks for that. Yeah, exactly. Luke's come through it. He's managed the process. It's Richard Branson's favourites gone under.

It doesn't make it right. And this is why I don't take it all so personally. And I know those same people that are going to fucking tear me down are the ones that are going to build me up. How are you going, for those listeners, how are you going about mitigating that you know are you going into every situation analyzing or you just going fuck it why not like you know to a certain extent are you going do you know what is this a correct use of my time is this correct for what i'm trying to get across and

could this be misconstrued how give me give me a more specific example so like so you took it so you get invited on to go on to tv what how do you value that so how do i make the decisions yes so been asked to go on loads of tv shows if you if you ask my team or you ask um anyone in the company we've been mtv have asked me to go on a show called um how i got rich and i look at the what they want me to do and it's go on a helicopter show your rolexes no fuck you yeah um i probably had that exact offer with the title change 10 times no fuck you yeah um i'm looking for things that will bring value in some respect to things i care about there's two things i think there's a responsibility it's not who i am exactly there's a responsibility if people are following you and following your

brand expect something and for you to go and do that is here's what i don't want to do 18 year old steve bartlett wrote in his diary i want to be a millionaire before i'm 25 i want to range over to be my first car i want to work on my body image and the fourth one was i want to have a long-term girlfriend long story i did all four of those four of those things but upon doing those things i realized that those weren't the things that are going to give me happiness and fulfillment so at that point when i was 25 years old and i looked at my diary how do you explain that to an 18 year old so this is what this is what i mean like so i get there i realize that money and stuff aren't going to do it for me and i look back down the age ladder let's call it and i see 18 year olds and 19 year olds they're looking at footballers and they're looking all

these things i don't want those fuckers to make the same mistake i did do you think that's an influencer issue i don't i talk about i talk make the same mistake I did. Do you think that's an influencer issue? I talk about it on every channel, on this podcast, every single fucking episode about how... Stop thinking that something is it's smoke and mirrors. Yeah, stop chasing after pleasure thinking it's happiness. Because there's this thing called the hedonistic treadmill, which is when you chase the Lamborghini, you get a Lamborghini. I've sat at my friend's Lamborghinis a week later.

They don't like their Lamborghinis anymore. Because you adapt and then you're looking for the next thing and they probably sold things like their name and morals to get it as quick as possible and so my thing is

I'm never going to get there ever I'm never going to get to this place there's not a destination there's no so I have to create a life where I'm already there in every sense of the word

I've got enough now I'm happy enough now if I died today I've done enough I've been nice and all now. If I died today, I've done enough. I've been nice. And all those things. So I've stopped pinning my fulfillment on a future extrinsic goal

of getting something or achieving something. And I've built my life to where I want it to be sustainable now. I want to speak to my mum more. I want to give to charity now. I'm not trying to cut down the rainforest and then donate to the fucking, the rainforest. I'm going to build a business, which within the rainforest, that helps the rainforest, you the rainforest i'm gonna build a business which

within the rainforest that helps the rainforest you know so it's just a change in my perspective and i share that perspective i don't share my car with i don't share what i'm you know i don't share how i travel or the the nicer things i try not to share the extravagant things because i don't want to trick anyone into thinking that matters yeah it's a journey I've been on, and it's an interesting thing I wanted to ask you as well, is what's your relationship, I probably tainted this answer, but what's your relationship and motives when it comes to money? What do you want from money? Security.

So I think one thing that I've craved throughout my life is security, knowing that I can look after my mom and and that's it as long as there's a level of security i think looking after my family i think you know and not just security but even down to my day-to-day decisions and you know i'm a long-term relationship uh i've got a stable relationship and that's something that i've craved from a young age which is you know i was the old you know elders i was looking after my brothers and sisters i was trying to add stability ever since i was younger i was the one you know trying to support my mom through tough times so i think that stability is is is a massive thing for me because i as an

entrepreneur to want stability is quite insane because even as we operate stability isn't the best for yeah exactly so my life in terms of vibe in terms of how I approach things, is so unprocessed. To a certain extent, it's like the creative mind. And then I go home, and Luke Massey at home is stable, craves that thing. I go home, I still go and see my mum frequently, do the food shop with her, that sort of thing. And that, I think, is how I've been able to stay grounded to a certain extent.

Not that I've gone on and achieved things that I want to yet, but I think it just puts perspective on things. I still go into, you know, the Ingle Labour Club in Preston where it's two pound a pint and people playing darts, that's Friday night, you know,

and that's, because that's who I am, that's where I'm from, you know. You talked about going home to your partner. Yep. What's the deal there? She's your girlfriend? Yes, so Frankie, I've been with Frankie since I was 20 years old um christ you know really good girl again brought stability

she you know she's got her own business her life is is busy as well she's got her own beauty salon does she understand yes i think she understands the does she understand i don't know i think she she understands business to her yeah it's tough it is tough because she'll come to me with her problems I'm like that is your problem like let me explain

the real problem it's so funny every time I ask that question to an entrepreneur it's the exact same response I say you've got a partner

does she understand they go yeah she and I go does she understand they go no she fucking doesn't nice

she's really smart. Yeah, she does her own thing. She's going to listen to this. No, but my... If anyone's listening to this and single, just ask Steve real quick. So my thing is, I have got to understand that they'll never really understand.

And I will cause immense friction trying to get them to understand. That's a tweet. In my past relationships, And I will cause immense friction trying to get them to understand. That's a tweet. In my past relationships, I've caused such immense friction by trying to get them to understand this thing that I can't even use words to explain. Yeah, yeah.

I can say it's really fucking hard. You don't know what's hard. You're using your reference point of what hard means to you. That's the thing. You go back home and tea's on the table and it's like, how's your day been? It's like...

Do I even bother? What do you mean? Do I even bother even bother telling how do i explain that you know it's yeah it is insane but the same time if i was to ask and i do what's your problem is it's like well this girl came in and wasn't happy with this or what you know it's i can't even relate to that yeah exactly exactly so you know for me it's um yeah it's that stability and it's you know without getting the violin or anything. But when I was growing up, I never had a proper Christmas

that everyone was around the table. And then I found this girl and I'd go around to her house and that was the family. And I felt myself, well, this is what I wanted. They say behind every great man is a great woman

or they say behind every great woman is a great man. I'm sure. It's one of those, at the end of the day, I think it works for me. Stability, you know, at home, in home life. I think then it gives you that rock.

So when you are going through these turbulent times, you've got that other person that's going, yeah, but Luke, so what? You know, it's like, and then it's like you've said, you've got to then live in the moment and reflect and go, do you know what? Look where I actually am. This is what, you know,'s like and then you it's like you've said you've got to then live in the moment and reflect and go do you know what

look where I actually am this is what you know what's the worst that can happen I go back to living in a council estate you're not scared of it

I've come from that it's fine we'll go back my mates still it's not a problem you know you're not scared of the bottom

because you're cool there that's what I'm saying it's like you know just go for it sort of thing but I noticed in your bio

it says giving it a real go that's all I'm doing yeah like people say to me that is all I'm saying. It's like, just go for it sort of thing. I noticed in your bio it says, giving it a real go. That's all I'm doing. People say to me, that is all I'm doing. I might fail and fine, but I tell you what, I'm going to just keep learning, keep giving it a go. Why? Why is it worth trying? Why don't you just go get a job at somewhere nice and comfy

with no fucking stress? You can clock off at six. You can just chill out. You'll know how how much money's coming you don't have to fucking worry about any bank balances or anything nice cushy life you'll go got holidays every night every quarter yeah and you know a lot of my friends with instable jobs and stable issues have that and i don't think there's anything wrong with that because i don't think everyone is no but for me i think it's um again all i've ever done in my life is ask why and i think what i'd do if i did that is but i'd be asking myself every single morning why why am

i going and doing this and i'd then probably get to the answer which is it's giving me money or it's allowing me to go on that holiday so then i'd say to myself well how could i do that anywhere by doing something i wanted and i'd always keep coming around back at that same question. It'd probably come back to freedom, being able to live life on my own terms. However I do things might not be the right way, but I'm going to give it a go in Luke Massey's way. But think about this, Luke. All this fucking pain, all this stress,

all this bullshit. You're asking me a question that you don't know the answer to. No, I know the answer to it. You do know the answer to it. So I know why I tolerate all all the bullshit so why do you tolerate bullshit because there is no other fucking version of steve bartlett there is no other there's no other version so it's it's not for me it's not even a choice it's i'm going to spend the rest

of my life trying and and also you could ask a guy who's in a stable job on something to kill you so it's all about alternatives would i rather be in a cushy middle ground somewhere earning stable checks and just you know coasting through life you know not really challenging myself or would i rather um take the risk and go for it i'm someone that is so deeply connected to my own mortality like the way that the big one of the big things i say to um people when they're trying to figure out how they should live their lives right is you know there's an expression live every day as if it's your last bullshit do not do that that's fucking terrible advice if you lived every day as if it was your last you would definitely have an addiction what if this was an hourglass this kind of whatever it is here and i put it on

your desk right and? And it poured down how many days you had left, 40 days, right? Would you be, ask yourself this, would you A, be holding the grudges you had right now? Would you B, be doing the thing you do every day when you wake up at seven o'clock in the morning and leave at seven o'clock at night? If you could see the sand pouring out of the hourglass into the bottom and you say it had 50 years i think people would live a completely different life i think they would take more risks i think they would forgive easier this is why i was talking about forgiving that guy do you think people scared though do you think people scared of right well i've got this this is my comfort zone here's

the great thing yeah this is the great thing with the hourglass it tells you where you're going to end up regardless you're going to die like it's the real it's the great this is reality deal with it like no matter what so what's the the thing to be most scared of i think in probably life is death right so people are scared that they might not be able to pay the bill you're gonna die that's the the most scariest thing is going to happen yeah and steve jobs he was he really inspired me with his commencement speech where he said like you're already naked and understanding that i'm gonna die has given me all of the fearlessness to go for it regardless all of these fuckers writing about you they're gonna die too yeah

they're all gonna be fucking forgotten every and and also one of the things that's really liberated me is really believing that i'm really not special that i'm insignificant to the world i don't matter and therefore all of my problems and my shit doesn't really matter anyway it's a game i've got this hourglass on my desk the sand is pouring i'm just going to use my time as however i want i'm going to forgive people i'm not going to do petty things i'm not going to worry about what people think about my hair if they want to talk shit about me on my deathbed and this is like what i call deathbed thinking which is the book i've been talking about a lot is um am i going to care about jenny that doesn't know me tweeting me telling me i'm a fucking idiot which happens 10 probably 10 times a day I'm not gonna care about that I'm gonna care about my mom

and what I did and how good I was and so trying to live my life now as if you know I'm on my deathbed and the hourglass is um taking away has given me why the fuck would I go do that call center job I did for for 12 hours a day um if the hourglass was there yeah making money for to pay the bills for me has never been, never made any sense. Well, I think that's what I mean

by the why, isn't it? It's like, questioning that why. Imagine just paying the bills till you die. Well, that happens,

doesn't it? Like, that does. And people are cool with that, and that's the thing. They're cool with that. By the way, there's nothing wrong

with people in closeness. listen, there is, the thing that it's wrong for everybody to do is do some shit for the rest of your life where you tolerate some stuff you hate.

Definitely. I couldn't agree more with that. If you love being a fucking school teacher... Love it. Amazing. You are more successful than... Well, that scenario is, if you wasn't being paid for this,

would you still do it? 100%. That's the question I ask people. I did it for two years without being paid. Exactly. I was a kid in Moss Side, trying to build a business, shoplifting food,

trying to, you know... And the money hasn't impacted me in any way. kid at Moss Side like trying to build a business shoplifting food like trying to you know um and the money hasn't hasn't impacted me in any way no it's good to see it is good to see and I think there's a there's a lot of people that follow you um and are influenced by you and you know I'm not just because I'm satty but I think you are someone that people should listen to and be influenced by the correct influence you know Love island starts next week and people are influenced by the wrong things um definitely and i think you're in that position now where you are paying back even this podcast i think you know you you're spending your time now i'm spending time now trying to to give back and i think that's that's that's important and

the journeys i've been up for even the last six months i think it's really important because if you can just help that one person um you know you were telling me about another business that you've been involved in and it was someone that was actually part of your competition I mean that's just insane I want to take it back to that thing you said so you said you know why don't you just go get like the middle ground

you know whatever something you know that's comfortable why doesn't Luke Massey go do the comfortable thing I don't know I'm trying to find it it sounds to me like you've had a lot of time

to think about this because you've probably been asked it a lot more than me this is the first time I've been asked it and I probably don't really have the

straight answer to it I think for me what is making Luke Massey what's driving him I'm talking in third person this is another hard question I don't know I don't know

I think what was driving me to get up and do the milk round when I was 13 years old I don't know i don't know i think what was driving me to get up and do the milk round when i was 13 years old what you know i don't know i think for me it's settling or thinking that you're there or i don't know it's such a tough one i think for me it's just an internal drive and what do you want your life to look like say in 10 years time what does your let's say 20 years time what does your life look like? I can't see it you can't see it? that's what probably scares me that's probably what drives me and it's not that enough is enough

for me it's that because I've craved stability all my life it's probably getting to that place where even if this failed or even if this failed everything would be fine and I don't know whether I'll ever get to that stage like you're saying

and maybe you're a year ahead on that do you know what I think as well? I think because because I think we're still both learning you're saying and maybe you're a year ahead on that do you know what i think as well i think because um because i think we're still both learning you know you're learning i'm learning it's we're both we're on this cycle and this is the thing and um you know it's our duty to pass it on just as we're getting past you know i think it is this is my observation from like this conversation um i think you're right in the sense that I've gone a little bit further down the cycle because of the types of issues I'm dealing with. So you're dealing, as you said, you spent the last how many months dealing with investor stuff. I'm spending less of my time dealing with that kind of thing.

And when you're dealing with investor stuff, like raising, it's every waking hour of the day and it's urgent and it's so important. So you don't have the headspace to think a little bit longer and i think i need to put you know fast forward a couple months i've got some key staff coming into business for me it's just stepping back operationally even if it's just for getting you know the head out of the clouds and just seeing things from a different perspective i think will help things and i think that's what it is so i think i just had because there's managing directors running the business i think i've had a lot of thinking time and i remember key moments when um one real moment which made me think about why the fuck i'm doing what i do every day was that when we got a real offer to buy the business from a very big media company like there's a billion dollar probably 100 billion dollar media company

and i went home that night um as a 24 year old and i thought okay so if i sell and i accept this offer then what do i do yeah and that was the moment where you start to really realize like what would the money do for me versus taking this purpose from me and then um really you know thinking what would i do tomorrow would i start another business do i could just spend the money um would do i want more money realizing that you know like the the motive for me to get loads more money really isn't the thing so why am i doing it then because 18 year old steve when he started and he wrote in his diary it was all money okay so last question um dinner table there are six seats you're sitting in one of them i'm sitting

in the other i get to. There are four other seats. Dead or alive, you can invite anybody to this dinner party. Who do you invite to the table and why? You or these questions. Who are the first people that pop to mind? Mum. Your mum. Fine, nice. Even if she won't understand it.

It's really interesting that you'd bring her. It says a lot about you as well. I think even though she won't understand it it's really interesting that you'd bring her it says a lot about you i think even though she won't understand it or that there's other people even if there was the most famous guy in the world there but um yeah my mum on that i'm gonna dive slightly there so your mum has been this incredibly important influence in your life as you've explained and everything you've said has kind of touched back to that in those in those tough moments where people are talking shit and you know that they're and you know from your mom's perspective those are people talking shit about her son is that one of the things that really gets to you the most no because i protect her from it she doesn't even know no she doesn't see that i mean my mom doesn't have uh because she can wifi Yeah, my girlfriend sees it. I think...

But she knows the truth. Yeah, and she's extremely supportive and she knows that I'm... My actions have always said who I am. So she knows you. Yeah, exactly. And how I go about things day to day, how I support things,

you know, anyone who knows me, even without seeing those headlines, sent me a message because they know me as a character. You know, they know me as a character. You know, they know whatever's going on, Luke, don't really need to know the detail.

It'll be cool. You know, that's the sort of thing. They know you. Yeah, they know me. And it's, so yeah, I think it's becoming hard on Twitter and just, you know, but from my mum's point of view,

she doesn't understand what I do. And, you know, my mum is, you know, she's an alcoholic. She's, you know, she's in that place where it's i'm just a son and it doesn't matter what happens i'm still a son and i think she she's she you know she's she's happy for me so um yeah it's about about protecting her and um and knowing that i think my mum blames a lot of things that have happened in our life down to her um especially external circumstances.

Is she hard on herself? Well, yeah, and I think that was, you know, one of the reasons for turning to alcohol. That was her sort of probably escape and still is to a certain extent. And have you dealt with that your whole life? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, definitely. Your whole life? Yeah, my whole life.

So it's, for me, it's, so when I was younger, I was very aggressive towards it. You know, you could probably tell in my character, I was younger, I was very aggressive towards it. You could probably tell by my character. I was confused. I didn't understand why. I would come home and one day you'd get my mum who was up and the house was clean and then some days you'd get my mum who's been in bed for three days because she's depressed and she can't face the world.

And I just couldn't understand it because I didn't suffer from depression and I don't suffer from depression. There was confusion, anger. As a young lad, you're still trying to figure yourself out. You're going through puberty, you There was confusion, anger. As a young lad, you're still trying to figure yourself out. You're going through puberty, you're growing up, et cetera. And there was all this. And also, which is worth pointing out,

you'll have seen my personal brand and personal message. When I was 17, 18, 19, and I was trying to start this option, you'd see me in shirts and ties and suits because I was trying to portray this picture, thinking that see me in shirts and ties and suits because I was trying to portray this picture, thinking that I was this... And it actually got to a stage where I started thinking, do you know what? What am I hiding from here?

Why am I embarrassed? This is it. And it's probably a massive part of my story. It's what drives me. It's who I am. So why hide from it? And it started becoming real then. The tie line came off and the shirt came off. And now I'm just cool within myself. And you started becoming real then. And, you know, the tie line came off and then the shirt came off.

And now I'm just cool within myself. And you talked about depression then. Yes. And you said, so we live in a world where the depression, anxiety, all these things are both the awareness of them are increasing, but the data says that they're increasing as well. Yeah.

And in founders and young founders like myself and you, we go through so much bullshit. right so and also exactly one of our biggest things is um we take on the responsibility of everything that goes on so i'm talking there about protecting my mum from things i make sure i go out of my way to understand to make sure that she doesn't hear the bad things because that would hurt but you you do it for your staff. You do it for... You're the umbrella of everything. You are everything. And yes, sometimes you're in the press

and you're in the limelight and it seems like you're the front man. But guess what? That is the tip of the iceberg. And you're dealing with that. You're dealing with it. No, but you're dealing with it 24-7. When you know...

But everyone's doing it. Everyone's got their own battles. Yeah, but listen, your battles are unique right and they're proportionally bigger same as i'm talking about myself as well when i say this but they're proportionally bigger than you know wondering worrying about what jenny said about your hair at work like um and you know after this conversation when you look at your phone or your emails there'll probably be some bullshit there for you to deal with you know there's almost i always used to have this kind of like email anxiety especially when i was yeah you wake up in the morning you don't

want to see your email you don't want to see your email because you know you're fresh there's going to be some fucking bad news because every day there is right um going back to the point about mental health have you suffered with anything um oh one thing i would say is i'm probably cold in terms of some relationships. Emotionally? Emotionally, because something bad's coming. Something bad's going to happen. So even from a young age, you become a heart. So, you know, when my mum had, you know, serious depression when I was younger,

and, you know, even child service agency nearly came in at one point. It was that bad. I protected my brother and sister. So I made sure that they knew they were loved and things were fine and mum was just going through a bad time. So that then was straight away from an early age and you know as i said i think then every challenge you go through then it's it just toughens you up the toughening up thing though i mean that's like conducive with this is i'm asking this because i'm interested for me right so i used

to think you know i'm tough i'll get i'm hard and you hear these stats about men and you know male suicide these kinds of things and you think steve maybe maybe you're not super fucking superman yeah maybe you too are susceptible to these things and when i think from the age of 18 to 24 building my business i thought no i could never get anything i could nothing no mental health issues could ever touch me now i've changed my mind yeah now i think after reading so many books i'm like we're probably going to take care of myself yeah we're probably the most vulnerable when you think about it you want you know we are because we and we also convince ourselves that we are um immune and we just we close down we don't share as much on the emotional side because we

have teams and if you was to ask frankie my partner she'd probably say that that is the number one issue that she has with me which is i don't tell my problems and then she'll she'll see it and it's like what yeah like you've been going through that and it's like well yeah but it's not your issue you know my girlfriend turned around to me and she said in the car i fucking work i mean i could turn a bit she went are you depressed and i wasn't i get are you bipolar because one minute i'm buzzing and i've just done you know don't deal i'm fine the next minute my world's changed you're just you're a million miles away sat next to somebody exactly and yes yeah um but that's interesting i think it's just one of the things that i'm really again this is being a little bit a little bit further down

the path is i'm really focusing on taking care of myself because i now believe how do you do that mentally so there's a number of things so there's a book i've got to recommend which i read this week called lost connections and it's all about um debunking the idea that mental health issues are anything to do with a chemical imbalance and it's not what um what's wrong with you it's what's happened to you and that it goes through all of these environmental rather than natural yeah and and it shows go through all these major studies that prove this even so it goes through everything from like nature right nature and us as animals being creatures of a certain environment they show a study where prisoners who face out

onto green grass are 25 less likely to get depressed than prisoners that face out onto concrete that's one thing right then there's other things like your um we're social animals we're tribe animals that's how we evolved and survived today so we've got incredibly lonely in this connected world to the point now where the average american when they're asked how many people have you got that you could really count on if you needed to and like depend on and talk to in those moments the the most popular answer now is zero 15 years ago it was three we're becoming more and more isolated in this like crazy connected world they show all these studies they show that um people who have close friends and family and talk to them and socialize are um significantly significantly less likely to become depressed so i've got a question for you

then which is you know if you don't mind me saying off the record prior to this sort of podcast it was you know you were saying to me that you've got very very few friends and you're extremely busy etc and you said you haven't got yeah exactly and you sort of said to yourself you know you were saying to me that you've got very very few friends and you're extremely busy etc and you said you haven't got yeah exactly and you sort of said to yourself you know you even said to me and admitted i feel like i'm a bit of a social recluse now you read this book and one of the things is that you know we're a tribal and we're socializing do you think that that's what you need to do do you think you need to let people let a few more people into your circles the romantic relationships bit is exactly linked to that. So I 100% do. I, and this is why, and it doesn't come naturally to me.

You'll have to come to Preston, honestly. You'll find a good girl. It doesn't come naturally to me, right? So what I want to do, naturally, is go home tonight and go on my laptop. Because that's comfort zone. That's not what you do. I think I'm good alone. Depends what you're searching at.

You know? Half 11 at night, I don't know. It will be my emails. I promise you. But what I've done tonight is i messaged my friend i said listen i'm doing this podcast and then let's go for a drink he i don't want to do it no he knows that he i've called it i told him on the phone i was like i don't want to fight i don't want to go see friends he knows i don't want to fucking do it he knows i'm doing it because i now believe that i should do these things it's better for

my mental health it's better for my um business. It's better for my business, therefore. It's going to make me a much happier person in the long term. I believe in it. So I'm doing things because I believe in them, not because they're habitless. Back to this table. Yeah, so back to this table. Elon Musk's got to be on there for me.

He's just a guy that is just challenging everything. He is, for me, the entrepreneur disruptor. He is, something's not right, I'm going to do something about it. And that's it. And you know what? He might not get them all right, but do you know what? And do you know what he's actually done? He's taken the blueprint of what Richard Branson did,

and he's made it better. Putting that car up into space, doing whatever he's done with Hab. He's just taken what's already existed and done it better my thing with Richard Branson sorry Elon the reason why I love him is because he was willing to spend

all of his billions from PayPal on fucking electric cars and space travel things that are bigger than him he's not trying to make money this guy is trying to change the world he's not an entrepreneur he wants to build a legacy

that is trying to get up here he wants to change the world. That's his number one, like, agenda point. I can't say that. Yeah. If I'm being honest with myself, I'm not... But the reason why he's in that position is because he's bought himself that time and that position.

He's bought himself that respect. That's why I consider him great. Yeah, exactly. And my one motive... Because that's what money gives you, is that choice. So if you can get social chain and social

you know group to where you think it can and I can get vibe where I think it can be will them be in position in 5-10 years time where we can

do things that we want to do and our agenda can change so you know again he's got to be on the top of the list for admirers

you know as an entrepreneur so my mum Elon Musk you you're on the are you on the tailwind you to be on the top of the list for admirers as an entrepreneur. So my mum, Elon Musk, you, you're on the table. Are you on the table, man? You're not on the table? I'm cooking already. Right, you're cooking.

Okay. Let's go for music. Something in music maybe. Music. It's got to be Kanye West. Kanye West. We're not going to get to eat anything. Yeah, exactly.

Stop talking. Yeah yeah he's just outside thinker rightly or wrongly I love him but I do think he's a bit of a false no that's what I'm saying rightly or wrongly

I think he's a genius he is a genius well they say don't they like about genius and insanity they're so close together and I think he is 100%

but if you had Elon Musk Kanye West your mum my mum wow that is insane last one one I think he is on there. 100%. But if you had Elon Musk, Kanye West. Your mum. My mum. Wow, that is insane. Last one. Stephen Hawking.

Interesting. Stephen Hawking, definitely. He left his mark on the world. There was a few funny jokes, obviously, when he passed away. But yeah, he's a genius. I mean, I've watched his films, the two different ones. The guy was a bit of a player back in the day

he had like six or seven different and he was a geek yeah he was the original guy weren't he so yeah Stephen Hawkins Elon Musk

Kanye West and my mum how do you want to be remembered I've just stole that from the Trudeau it's going to be so bad how do I want to be remembered there's a guy that had

morals no as a guy that had beliefs and stayed true to it whether it was right or wrong and I want people to know when I've had a discussion with him or they've met me is that everything I've said there and then is actually what he believes

you might not agree with it and that's cool i am cool with that but you know where you stand with luke massey you know he's honestly speaking from the heart and he he's not got an agenda he's not that's who he is you know and i'll give the right feedback at the right time and you know it's not it's just if you're asking me for something i'll give it you and you know honesty and that's why i think because of what's been said in the podcast that's why i've so close to the heart so passionate about it um so yeah i think just being a man of his word amazing on that point um thank you so much for the time thank you really appreciate pretty late now what time is it super late at night 11 o'clock so um but i gotta get some food but thank you so much for coming on and people can

find you on Twitter and everywhere under Luke Massey everywhere and obviously they can find Vibe tickets everywhere so it's been a real pleasure and I'm sure we'll continue these discussions

off the mic so thanks man thanks Steve