The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Soho House Founder: How I Built The World’s Most Exclusive Club: Nick Jones

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Nick Jones is the founder of Soho House, the worldwide exclusive private members club worth an incredible $2.8 billion. He’s rewritten the rulebook on hospitality, and his business covers restaurants, hotels, events, and so much more! If you want to know not just how to build a business, but invent a whole industry, this is the conversation for you. If you want to know how to maintain worklife balance while making billions, this is the mentoring you needed to hear. Nick is so calm and collected in his thoughts it’s strange to think it all came so close to crashing down, and his business was born out of his first initial business failure when he had nowhere else to turn. Because when you get knocked down, sometimes that forces you to come back in a whole new way. Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

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 Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. I wasn't experienced enough. I was too young. You're just branded thick. Nick Jones, the founder and CEO of Soho House. With an empire of private clubs around the world. It's the most see and be seen type of place. Not everyone gets it. Your upbringing is particularly compelling to me because you were somewhat counted out. I'm hugely dyslexic. People didn't understand that. You're just branded thick.

Wow. There was not much choice for me. You've created a business which brings a lot of people joy. That first Soho house on Greek Street, why did it work? I wanted to prove that hospitality could be done differently. I can't think of a time where I was thinking about making an aspirational brand. I've always been obsessed about the member and that was always my number one thing. They've created that If you don't make mistakes, you're not pushing yourself you're not taking yourself out of your comfort zone

Maybe I was trying to prove to my family that I could do this and I think that's an invaluable lesson At what point does that desire to prove something need to be contained? Because it might come at the expense of like life balance. A very good question. And I think... So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening. But if you are, then please keep this to yourself nick thank you for being here um i have to say i'm a big fan of the the business you've created and the i know you don't like the word but the brand you've built

um for for many many reasons that i'm excited to get into maybe because i'm a marketeer but maybe also just because i'm a customer someone and someone that loves the the Soho House brand but where I wanted to start with you is where I always start and your your sort of origin story your upbringing is particularly compelling to me because by many accounts and even your own you were somewhat counted out is that true well my childhood was I don't think I'd say I was counted out I was you know in a nice middle-class family where I had two older brothers and a sister younger sister mum and dad um but my two older brothers um were you know they were the sort of stars they were the They were great at school.

They were good at sport. And I was a bit not so good at sport and not so good at school. And it was a sort of different sort of childhood, I suppose, that they had. And, yeah, I think it probably put me in good stead. But at the time, it was probably quite tricky. When you say not so good at school, what do you mean specifically? Well, just really bad at exams. I'm hugely dyslexic.

And so I find spelling really difficult. I find pronunciation difficult. I find all sorts of things difficult at school. I mean, I've since learned that dyslexia is the greatest thing to have and but at school it isn't but i was lucky enough um but my mum was all over it and it was discovered that i was dyslexic at the age of 12 which is very young for a lot of people are still discovering you know contemporaries of mine are still discovering a dyslexic right now in at the age I am which is 58 so I I was I was lucky

and I got support and I sort of got through school by weird things like they they'd give you extra hours on your exam but I didn't need that i only needed half the amount of time anyway to fill up the paper because i didn't have enough information so to get another hour was just another hour just fiddling around with your pencil so um yeah the perception towards dyslexia today is is it's quite a common thing and people understand it a bit better but back then i'm assuming people didn't really understand what it was or there was a stick was there more of a stigma yeah i think so you're just branded thick and you know because you couldn't read or you couldn't um write i mean my handwriting is still very not, I try and avoid handwriting at every possibility. So it's still really bad.

And I think, yes, people, because people didn't understand it there, but people understand it now and people talk about it and they should talk about it. And it's, to me, it's, you know, if you have dyslexia, you look at things very differently because you have to look at things differently you have to simplify things and by simplifying things I think that gives you a different perspective on things when I say counting I mean more in the sense of um you

didn't believe that you would be a success when you were older because of the because especially when you're at that young age you assume that those that are getting the best grades and spell the best and do math the best are going to be rich and successful. And then there's us, there's everyone else. So at that young age, you didn't see, you didn't envisage you would be a quote unquote success. I didn't think either way.

I was just sort of thinking of just getting through school and I wasn't really planning that if I was going to be a success or not a success and I think that's a interesting um how you define success um and I don't think success has just been successful you know running a business or creating a business I think it's it touches all sorts of things was there um when I was reading about your parents dinner parties that seemed to be the first uh inspiration for what you would later do in hospitality and restaurants and creating experiences for others was that the first sort of spark of inspiration for you yeah um I I was while my brothers were on the sports field I

weirdly liked doing the supermarket shop with my mum. You know, I found supermarkets fascinating. I found food fascinating. I then found the whole preparation of how to give people a good time, you know, fascinating. And, you know, I loved watching how you could create an environment where people had a laugh and fun.

And was that what your parents were doing? Well, not all the time. I mean, occasionally they did it. But when they did do it, it was, you know, I loved to be part of them trying to create a fun evening. And I think that's probably where I suddenly realised that, you know, hospitality was the route for me. Because I, you know, we're going back a long, long time.

You know, this was, you know, I'm 58 now and I was sort of 13 at the time. And I was, I used to, you know, go to the local sports club and work behind the bar, you know, clean the glasses. And weirdly, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the interaction with people. I enjoyed seeing people just have a nice time. And back then, people were not going into hospitality. I mean, it was really at the bottom of the ladder of industries that people went into. So I thought that was an opportunity.

It's funny because I've sat here with Jimmy Carr and lots of comedians. And when I hear about their sort of inspiration for becoming a comedian it tends to root back to them being younger and it being the thing that they would see create the most joy in their home so in the case of Jimmy Carr and Russell Howard and a few of the other comedians I've sat with they tell me the story about like the thing that would make my parents the happiest was when I would tell jokes so that was this sort of psychological reinforcement that led me to be a joke teller for the rest of my life and when I was reading about those those dinner parties that your parents had I was I was and also confounded by the fact that you you know you said in your

own words um you didn't feel like there was a lot of conventional opera um avenues available to you because of your dyslexia that that was the the combination of factors that caused you to well and and i really had to i mean when i was at school i because i wasn't good at getting exams i had to rule university out i had to um there was there was not much choice for me you know there was a person with very few O-levels, as they were called then. And I think I got an E and an A level. I scraped through on economics, I think. And, you know, with that, there was really not a lot of choice. And, you know, my careers master at school sort of said, I think it's catering, Nick. So when my careers master said that

I've I sort of thought and also the fact that I thought there was real opportunity in this and my my dad owned a small um insurance broking company and my brothers went into work there and I think my dad was keen for me to go and work there, but I didn't find insurance very exciting. I still don't. And I didn't find that world of working in the city and insurance and being an insurance broker interesting at all. So I did have that as an opportunity, but I really felt I wanted to try hospitality and catering. As you started your journey into hospitality and catering, did you start to at any point figure out that you had some kind of area of brilliance? There was something you were good at compared to others? No, I remember clearly the first, no, the answer to that is definitely no.

My first day, I worked for Trust House Fort house forte i was a management trainee and it was a five-year course and i i applied to the savoy management um training course to start with and they i i remember it to this day the interview i had um and i just froze i I couldn't speak. I was so nervous. I absolutely froze. And because I was a pretty shy kid. And, you know, I was shy at 17 when I was going through these interviews, and I just was, I just got stage fright. I just couldn't, my mouth, no words came out my mouth. And I didn't get into the Savoy management course, but then I applied for Trust House Forte. And luckily, when I went for the interview, I was able to talk and I got onto a five year course. And my first part of the course was a year in the kitchens.

And it was at St. George's Hotel in Langen Place, which is just here in London, off Oxford Street. And I arrived and the chef looked me up and down. And he called me a nickname, which I'm not going to say on this, it began with a C. And he threw a sack of potatoes at me, which landed in my belly. And he said, peel them. And so I went off to the area where you peel the potatoes. And I hadn't really ever used a knife before. And the first one, the first potato, I cut my finger and I thought, oh God, how do I hide this?

And the water I was putting the potatoes in was getting redder and redder and redder. And I thought, oh no, this is my first day. And the nickname stuck. And I was really sort of learning on the job, which I think is a really great way to learn anything. And I kept making mistakes, but I was determined to sort of fit in to the kitchen because it was an environment,

because I came from this sort of cotton wool, middle-class background, and then going into the kitchen into the early 80s, where, you know, it was long hours, and they, you know, someone who comes in with a slightly posh accent, and, you know, they, it was, but it was a good moment.

It was a good moment for me. Was it, what was it about that because that sounds pretty horrific sound and i've having worked in a kitchen my my mum had a restaurant at a very young age i started working there at seven super high stressful people always complaining it's hot in there um that and i mean people weren't throwing things at me and calling me the c word but it wasn't it was really unpleasant so i'm wondering what in that context like despite of all of that tickled your fancy do you know what it was it was i was coming out my shyness i was learning how to get on with people and you know i was i went to a private school i was surrounded by people who went to private school, which is 7% of the population. And by going into the kitchen, you really learn to really get on with everyone.

And I think that's an invaluable lesson. And I really became friendly with a lot of the chefs and would go out with them at night. And I just enjoyed it. And even though it was hard, I just enjoyed the environment. I enjoyed creating food. I enjoyed the buzz. I enjoyed, I didn't mind the heat. I didn't mind the fact that it was long hours. I just enjoyed it. If I'd spoken to maybe your colleague or someone that was maybe above you and a line manager at that time and said, what isn't it good at? What would they have said to me? I'd like to think not peeling potatoes or making porridge, but, you know, getting on with people and being part of a team and getting stuck in.

You said earlier that dyslexia was um is actually a great gift can you explain why um why you've now come to believe that that is a real sort of superpower for you well i i i wouldn't say it's a superpower but i i i talk a lot about dyslexic because i really want people to feel that if they have if they get the tests and they're dyslexic i don't want them to ever feel bad i want them to feel good and go well this is a huge opportunity because I think when you look at things differently and the reason one thing being dyslexic I have to simplify everything all the time I have to I have to I want something on one sheet of paper I don't want it on four sheets of paper I want I want everything to be scaled down and simplified.

And I think we live in a world where everyone's overcomplicating things always. And, you know, and it doesn't matter what area of the business I work in now, whether it's the designers or the chefs or the tech people, you know, it's all overcomplicated. And I spend a lot of my time just editing down and and and simplifying it and I think dyslexic being dyslexic has made me do that you know because it's the easy route because complication panics me and confuses me so I spend a lot of time simplifying and I think when you do simplify things people understand it they get it they like it yeah it's so true someone once said to me that a phrase i always forget which is um if someone's ability to simplify something also correlates their ability to truly understand it and typically when you meet these like salesmen that are um trying to blag you in some way they purposefully over complicate something and sometimes they don't actually

understand what they're saying but distilling it to simplicity gets it closer to truth and it's it's also a sign that the person communicating it really truly understands the essence of the idea or the concept you by 22 you started your own restaurant chain well i went around lots of departments within trust house 48 from front desk to bar to housekeeping. I was a housekeeper at the, you know, cleaned the rooms at the Westbury Hotel in Conduit Street. I was a barman at Brown's Hotel in Albemarle Street.

I remember clearly, you know, serving, being the barman, and I remember making cocktails for George Best. That was a highlight of, you know, he was such a nice guy. And I suppose at that time, I always thought the determination was to open something, to open my own restaurant. This is, you know, I want to learn this. And then I ended up doing marketing at Trust House Forte.

And then I was marketing manager at Grave of the House in Park Lane. And it wasn't because I was brilliant at it. It was, you know, I was cheap. You know, I didn't just cost a lot of money and that's what they were looking for at that precise moment. But I always, when I was working there, I was always working on a plan to, you know, not work for Trust House Forte, which was a big, big hotel company.

And I was thinking, you know, I want to get out of this at some stage. I don't want to keep going on the ladder when, you know, you keep getting, hopefully I would have kept being promoted into other jobs, but, and then it would have been too difficult to leave. So I thought I want to go when I'm still relatively at the bottom. And then then I I went and tried working in fast food restaurants or sort of casual restaurants you know so I went to work to Maxwell's and Covent Garden as a night manager I then I then went um to work at Pasta Mania as a sort of junior manager and then during that time I was building my plan to open my first restaurant, which was called Over the Top. And that opened in 1988. And it was, you know, I was too young.

I wasn't experienced enough. It was terrible. The design, which is something I'm obsessed with now, and I love design, you know, and that was my first design outing. And it really was terrible. The food was, you know, really bad. You know, my friends had to come, you know, and that showed, I really knew who my friends were

because they would come and support me in the restaurant. But it was a good experience of getting something really wrong it's not cheap to open a restaurant how did you how did you fund that well i i my my dad put a bit of money in family friends put a bit of money in and i got the bank to put some money in um so i was lucky you know i was given that chance to be able to open my first restaurant um and it's something, you know, you know, we do a lot now. I love people doing that. When anyone comes to me and wants to be an entrepreneur and start something up, I really make time to see them and help them. And, you

know, I was lucky I was given an opportunity. And yeah I learned a lot that I guess would increase the pressure if you've got family betting on you yeah I I think I I never they never made me feel like that um you know my dad you know um I think he was proud that I was trying to do something. I was trying to do something on my own because he had his own small business. But he never made me feel like that. And the other shareholders, you know, I think in their head, when they first came and tried the restaurant, they sort of probably knew that it wasn't going to lead anywhere.

But actually, you know, the company is still the same company as it is today. It never went bust. We hang on in there and, you know, eventually opened Cafe Bohème in 92, which was really all the experience of getting over the top so wrong. And let me explain what over the top was. It was, you either chose a burger a piece of chicken a bit lamb or a steak and over the top of it you could choose one of 10 sauces

but the sauces were terrible and and and it was just it was just bad and um you know uh it it it just sort of taught me you know how to manage a business with little cash and with no cash, how to pay the staff every week, how to use initiatives to try and get more customers in. And I think it taught me at a very early age, you know, marketing restaurants is not the way to solve a restaurant. You just have to make the restaurant good because the customer is so clever they know what good is and they know what bad is and it taught me that very early on there was no way that you could you don't you can't fool a customer they they they they know and you could walk into over the top and you could sort of feel you know you could sense that it wasn't good enough.

But what I learned at that time was it's sort of, I didn't feel it was a failure. I just thought I was on a journey of learning. And I really, even now, encourage all our people that making a mistake is not a problem. You know, if you don't make mistakes, you're not pushing yourself, you're not trying, you're not, you're not, you're not taking yourself out of your comfort zone. And so, you know, I really encourage people to think that, you know, failure is not what it sounds like, you know, okay, it's just part of the journey. What did what did that process teach you about feedback i asked that because in my first business i was i had this was a tech business and i was

very romantic about this hypothesis about the way that i thought my customers would behave and about the solution that i thought that they would care about and i spent too long not listening to their feedback and ultimately that was pretty fatal and i just wish earlier i'd been less romantic and stubborn almost about what i thought the customer would want and and listen but i'm wondering what that first failure taught you about the importance of what feedback you listen to and how you listen to it well i think feedback's key um and people be not it's funny, being a Brit, people are funny about complaining, aren't they? In restaurants, they think it will offend you. They think, well, I'm not going to, I can't complain to Nick about I had a bad meal last night because he might be, that might upset him.

But to me, you know, you can only get better by getting really honest feedback. And I'm lucky now because I have members who all have my email address and and and you know they're they if they're not happy they they email me so I think listening to feedback is super super important did you listen to it and over the top well I could just see it because there wasn't many people to give feedback to I wish there was more customers in there giving me feedback. But, you know, people did give feedback. But I didn't have the tools to be able to get it better. I didn't know, you know, I started going down a sort of,

because we kept running out of money. So, you know, you kept cutting the team down. So there just wasn't, you know, at the end, it was sort of just me in the kitchen serving. And we even set up a delivery service to try and boost the sales, but that didn't work. I was so really inspired by you saying that the customer is smart. And also you alluded to the fact that the best marketing is word of mouth.

Yeah, absolutely. That really is at the heart of what you even do today, is a belief in the customer's own. Yeah, I'm very lucky that we have fantastic members who are loyal and and you know they they you know I if anyone says that we've done okay or I've done okay it's for thanks to our members and um you know our members of the people who pushed me from doing Sower House you know the original Sower House on Creek Street where yeah it worked there were hairy moments you know when i thought it really wasn't going to work um and you know it would go quiet or it would go

you know i remember the first year we opened in in may it suddenly gone quiet we'd opened in january i thought oh god that i thought it would last a bit longer than this. And a member turned around to me and said, wouldn't it, we're all down at the Cannes Film Festival. That's where your members are. So I suddenly thought, well, next year, I'm going to go down and create a pop-up down there. And this was pre-pop-ups. This was in 96.

And so we rented a boat in the harbour. And I remember, in fact, I remember clearly because there was a lady who still works for us to this day, Veronique, and her and I had to fill up this lorry full of stuff in London to drive down to, I didn't drive a lorry because I couldn't drive a lorry, but to go down to the south of France, Cannes, and we opened this boat, and it was like a temporary club for the 10 days of the Cannes Film Festival. And members, you know, if they weren't in London, they could come to the club in the boat in the harbour. And that, we did that for lots of years, and it was, I think our members really enjoyed that. And that sort of taught me again, wherever the member was

going, go, so you know, because if I hadn't, you know, I was, I didn't understand the film business or the media business, I was in catering hospitality. So I was, I was, I was sort of new to this. And, you know, when I first created the first ever committee at Sower House, you know, I was really knocking on doors and and phoning people cold calling them saying do you mind and and you had to sort of explain what you were trying to do to get them to come on the committee and that was where our first 500 members came from and and I think there I've always just listened to the member you know they kept saying well no it's great this one why didn't you do one in the country and I go, let's do one in the country then. So off I go, I phone Savills up and I say,

any hotels for sale? I didn't have any money, but I thought, well, I'm going to go on that route and see how I could get somewhere in the country. And I remember stumbling across Babington House and and I remember it was it was on the market for um you know a million million and a half pounds um this was back in a long time ago and and um I remember driving up the drive and as soon as you drive up the drive at Babington, you sort of fall in love with the place. And I fell in love with the place and I thought, oh my God, how am I going to get planning permission to turn this into a hotel?

And how am I going to have enough money to buy it? I had just a small amount of money just to put the deposit down. And luckily, the people who were selling it, they, they, they said, we want to stay here for the summer, we, you know, we want to, we want to exchange, and then we will complete in nine months time. And I thought, yes, you know, and then it gave me nine months to, to find the money and get the planning permission and raise the money with our members to to to pay for the completion and also to pay for the refurbishment and i i sort of just remember even before we exchanged the agent phoned me up and said you know um a higher offer's

gone in so i was sort of being gazumped. And I thought, well, I don't have the money anyway, so I can put another couple of hundred grand on it. And so I increased my offer. I got Babington House and, you know, I was able to raise the money. And we raised the money through our members. You know, lots of members put sort of five grand in. And that's how I was able to get the money

to open Babington House. So it was led by our members, sort of the members helped invest in it. You know, they luckily have all got their money back, plus, plus. And, you know, then that was got their money back plus plus and um you know when that was the second thing we opened that first soho house on greek street why did it work you know i was running the restaurant downstairs cafe bohem that was my survival cafe bohem was

you know it was the same company as over the Top. It was me doing everything totally different to what Over the Top was. So the food was edible and nice. The service was good. The atmosphere, you know. In fact, I was in there last night and it was, you know, it made me very happy because it was packed and it was fun. And when the building came available above Café Bohème, which is on Greek Street in London,

the landlord phoned me up and they said, well, do you fancy taking the space above? And I go, well, what on earth for? You know, there was no plan to do a private members club. My plan was just to survive and make Cafe Boehm work after four years of attempting over the top. And I still do this today. I always look at everything.

When people phone me and say there's an idea, I always go and have a look. And so I said, okay, well, I'll go and have a look. So I wandered around the offices and it was a small door, you know, on Greek Street, 40 Greek Street. And I thought, hmm, hmm. And i hadn't been to a private members club you know i wasn't i wasn't part of a groucho club i wasn't i wasn't i wasn't part of that that that well it was only the groucho club although there were all those clubs down in

palmar i wasn't part of that maybe that's a good thing yes and i and i i looked around and i said oh god this is like a home away from home and and and you know god this is this could work how could i'm you know this this this is an idea so but i didn't have any money so um again and um i went to see um my landlord which is paul raymond Raymond um and I went to see him and he said well you do you want to take it and I said well yeah I'd love to take it but what would you invest because the family investment and for over the top they had had totally enough they they they were out you know the banks were trying to pull out of you know trying to get their loan back it was that bit of it was you know just it was it was it was that bit of the family help was done finished and so I thought well how am I going to raise the money for this because it's going to be separate

I'm going to have to do this separately to what cafe bohem is and so i went to see paul raymond he said i'm not investing i don't invest in other people's businesses and then it was when i was leaving he said well what happens if i put the money in but just added it to your rent so you ended up with a higher rent you know a percentage of the money he put in was added to my rent and i thought well to do the fit out to do the fit out um I thought okay well that sounds like it can work so I set up so a house it was it was simple to come up with a name it was a house in Soho the logo was pretty simple it was it was it was so simple it was three buildings, three floors. And I owned 100% of it because the Café Bohème,

you know, my family didn't want anything to do with it and the other investors. And I thought, well, you know, when Sewer House works, I'm going to transfer everything back to the, you know, the same percentages as it was as when it was over the top so I merged the two companies so I didn't want um I didn't want to be a success on one hand in on on Soho and and they were suffering on Cafe Bohème and over the top so we merged it all together and and we found the members and and and you know a lot of the people who open so a house in 95 still are part of so has to work um you know the guy pierre who was a server in

in in um the blue dining room the blue room in the in the restaurant now runs North America for us. And Marcus Anderson, who runs our membership, part of our membership team, who was a server in one of the dining rooms. The guy, Marcus Barwell, was a barman in the Circle Bar. Now he's managing director of cell house design. So it's lovely seeing, you you know people who were right there at the beginning still be part of a company now and it it but it was it was a journey as well it was if we were moving into this sort of new area of membership understanding membership understanding looking after people and and just listening to your members, because I'm going back

to your original sort of feedback question. So the feedback, which comes from our members, has sort of really helped us where we are today. Was Café Bohème successful when you embarked on the Soho House journey upstairs? Yes, but it was having to be on top of a disaster of Sower House. So it was quite a lot of, it was a lot of sort of, it was the same company. And so, yes, it worked. Cafe Bohem worked. It gave me the confidence to do something else. It worked because it, you know, it was 30 years ago. So, and there weren't many places,

I don't think there were many places which were opened at eight in the morning and closed at three in the morning. And you could go in there and eat whatever you wanted or just have a coffee or just have a drink. The kitchen was always open. You could, you know, drink jugs of beer or you could have a steak treat or and we had jazz

in the afternoons it was really creating it sort of really created a real regular following within soho and it was the the turning point really of the disaster of over time so when you look back then on that so house a lot of people I'm sure started very similar style businesses around the time. I'm trying to figure out why Soho House went on to become what it is today. What were the factors that, in your view, you talked about customer feedback shaping everything, but...

Well, I would give that accolade to our members. I would say it was the members who pushed me. And when we opened in New York, because I think we'd opened the electric house, we were about three then, and someone said, well, you should open in New York. I'd love this. And I thought, ooh, yes, maybe.

So off I go to New York and determined to open a sour house in new york first of all look in the district of soho um and couldn't find something going came close it was difficult learning permitting it was it was just difficult and um i remember we found the warehouse it was an old electrical warehouse and meatpacking and meatpacking was a very different place to what it is now um it was run down it was you know it was it was full of sort of it was full of really interesting life and and And I remember we found this warehouse and I thought, okay, I'm going to get the warehouse. And again, we had to raise the money to do it.

So it was a question of trying to, how do you get raised money in New York? Because it was a bad time in the UK. I think there might have been a recession going on. So the banks were, we're not lending you money in New York. So I thought, okay, well, I've got to start raising money again from our members and from people in New York to put money into the Sower House in New York.

And everything was nerve-wracking. The week I was flying out there to try and get the permit to be able to allow to open a club in the in a warehouse was 9 11 so i arrived on i think it was a monday evening and i was nervous because it was this big big meeting on the thursday where in in front of a local community board to see whether we'd get permission to be able to open up a club and have a license and in this premises and I was having breakfast um on the Tuesday morning then 9 11 um and I was having a boiled egg I remember it and as I was hitting my boiled egg

I heard this big bang and I thought, what is that? So I ran out on the street and I looked up and I could see one of the twin towers with smoke coming out of it and I asked

there was a guy sweeping the street and I said, what happened a guy sweeping the street, and I said, well, what happened? He said, well, a plane went into the side of it. And I said, well, was it just a, what did it look? He said it was an airliner, so it wasn't like a private plane. And I thought, oh, my God. So the first thing I did was phone Kirsty, my wife,

because she was in news then. She was a news presenter on ITn and i said i think i think maybe you should get into work is there something going on here and and then and then i was still out on the street and i saw the second plane go in you saw it yeah well you it was coming in from the the river so you didn't actually see it coming, but you saw the impact of it coming in. And then, you know, that day was, it made me really fall in love with New York. It's sort of the resistance of the people, how they cope with it, how they, it was amazing, the people of New York that day and that week. And anyway, weirdly, the community board still happened on the Thursday. And I went up and did my presentation.

I said, I don't know why I'm doing this. It seems irrelevant. It seems not something we should be doing. But, you know, you're running the meeting. There was a lot of other points on the agenda so I was just one of them and we got our permission um and that's how New York started but it was a big big sort of um race to find the finance and I was calling everyone I was I was calling everyone I did more show rounds of that that that that warehouse building you know running up and down the stairs showing people around trying to be enthusiastic and then you know I was sort of getting to know people in New York and I put together this hard hat dinner um where I I don't know how it happened and I don't know how it happened

and I don't know why it happened, but, you know, the really well-known people turned up to this dinner. And we had just had a six burner on the sixth floor and we cooked some chicken and we laid out the table in the building site with a white tablecloth. So it was real grit and glamour.

And these people just turned up. And I remember David Bowie being there. And I remember I was so nervous. And I started talking to him. And he said, this is a great idea. Can I buy it? And I said, well, there's nothing to buy at the moment, but can you invest in it?

Yes. And so he was one of the investors of Sower House New York, which was fantastic. And then momentum came and we raised the money. Everyone sort of before that was saying a private members club wouldn't work in new york you know it the the people wouldn't pay a membership fee people treat their restaurants like private members clubs and the velvet rope was the big thing in new york um And I wobbled so often about, should we charge for membership?

And I was so nervous opening Sour House New York. And I remember the opening party, and it was raining, and they hadn't finished putting the roof on. And people were staying in the hotel, and there was no water. So we had to borrow the showers at the local gym people had to go down to the local gym um for hot water we had water but it

was no hot water and it was just this roller coaster of an experience opening in new york where we didn't quite have enough money um and you know the team you know my we were carrying sheet sheet rock or it's plasterboard over here and sheet rock over there up to the floors to try and finish them we're putting the ceilings in and and it was a it was a it was a it was a journey but then eventually we opened and it worked it's sort of people sort of took to it. Why bother? You know, like you had a great business here in London. You know, things are going well.

Why put yourself through all that pain? A very good question. And I think I could have just carried on doing things in London, but there was an ambition in me. There was, you know, there was this thing about being a Brit and going to New York and trying to take the thing which I loved in London and see if it worked in New York. And it was, and at points it nearly took the whole thing down. But I really felt at the time that if it did bring the whole thing down, at least I tried. At least I gave it a go.

And I wasn't going to be sitting in a rocking chair thinking I didn't give it a go. So I think there was a sort of inner something in me which wanted to see. And maybe it was sort of going back to my childhood when my brothers were so good on the sports field or or good at school I was trying to prove a point because I because I sensed that a lot even when you had this you know successful cafe for you then to take the risk of taking upstairs with an unknown idea just because someone said it's available and it's that you know some people are more like the I don't know they stay within the zone of comfort and they just harvest, but you have this hunting sort of predisposition as well, even when things are going well.

So, well, there's something inside me. Maybe I was trying to prove to my brothers, my family, that I could do this. And, yeah, I do always look at things in a positive light. I do look at things, you know, if I look at a glass of water, I'd say that's half full, not half empty. And hospitality,

I wanted to prove that hospitality could be done differently. And I think with Café Bohème, where we opened it all day and it was chameleon it just kept changing to the time of day it was and putting jazz on in the afternoon and just sort of making it much more customer focused where you would go out 40 years ago and kitchens would close at 2 p.m and you couldn't eat in the afternoon and I think that was something I felt I was onto something to be able to make it better for the customer and that sort

of took me back to when I liked helping my mum and dad when they had people around for supper and I loved seeing rooms full of people having a good time in Cafe Bohème and I loved laughter I loved people connecting with each other I loved people enjoying themselves and I think I just thought why don't I just carry on doing this. At what point does that desire to prove something need to be contained because it might come at the expense of like life balance you know this question I've asked myself a lot it's like when you are successful in one thing you have more opportunities to go and do more things and then you might end up being pulled so much by your ambition and your desire to prove

a point or your insecurities that you then end up compromising all of these other things like friendships and the other things that make life fulfilling yeah Yeah, it's a balance I've never quite got right. And I'm super lucky I have an incredibly supportive wife, Kirsty, and she sort of really went on the journey with me. And I know without her, you know, you wouldn't be asking me onto this podcast and um you know so she's been a great support um and my kids you know were sort of part of you know they they had to come to work they you know when I was doing the

rounds on a Saturday morning or during weekends I'd have push chairs and toddlers they you know when I was doing the rounds on a Saturday morning or during weekends I'd have push chairs and toddlers and you know they were just part of what was going on and it had to sort of merge into one thing and what I've successfully done is try and de-merge it and have you know a when I'm at work I'm at work and when I'm at work, I'm at work, and when I'm at family, I'm with family. But that's taken a long time. So the balance is something I think all entrepreneurs suffer. When you say it's a balance you've not got right, what was the indicator that you didn't get it right?

How do you know you didn't get it right? What was the symptom? I was always knackered. I was always sort of pretending not to be. I was always sort of, you know, yeah, it was, yeah, I was internally coping with all the pressure where I could, but I wasn't doing that very well. So I think it was sort of a combination of just realising that this was all consuming.

It was really dragging. And I was very lucky. I had great friends who are still my friends from when I was a kid. And I didn't see them enough. And you sort of, in our business, hospitality, it is weekends, it's nights, it's days, it's all the time. And when you take it to a different country, then you have to think, well, the days just got longer. And it's got five years you know go to New York got five hours longer and so yes it does take its toll. What is that toll you said about

coping with pressure? Well I think you know I sit here today and I think I'm lucky because I think I got a great you know I a great relationship with my kids. You know, it's my favourite thing is being with the family and being with them all together. So, but I think at times when you're trying to prove yourself, I'm trying to prove that I could work in New York, in America. I was trying to prove that we could open sewer houses in other parts of the world I I think it it it it it was hard but you know you suddenly then do

realize that you have to sort of balance it is was there was there points in your journey that it was particular so the pressure becomes so much and you almost feel within your being whether it's your health gives out or your mental health or you get anxious where you think this is not sustainable. I never thought it wasn't sustainable because I'm always such a positive person

but I think, you know, Kirsty was great. You know, she kept saying, you know, we don't need any more. This is, we don't need another house. The world doesn't need another house, Nick. You know, you don't need to be on a plane all the time. What are you trying to prove?

And there was a stage where I was buzzing around everywhere, flying here, flying there, and thinking it was all making a big difference. But really, and I think the pandemic taught me that was the fact that there's better ways of using your time and what are those better ways of using you well you know instead of buzzing around on a plane all the time and spending 12 hours in a city and then going to another city or doing one night in one you sort of where you know the teams are clever enough to put on a bit of a show for that that that period of time so you're not

actually seeing really what's going on and it was just smarter ways of doing it and and and also having a lot more trust in the senior leadership team and letting them get on with it and thinking that I didn't have to be everywhere for it to work. And actually, often, it worked much better when I wasn't around. And I mean, I, you know, because they were able to just get on with it and not worry about what I was thinking all the time.

That sounds like great advice for a younger version of Nick at the start of this Ohio House journey. What else would you say, now in hindsight, you wish someone had, maybe they said said it but you'd wish you had known about how to achieve get to where you are now or further um but in a more effective whether that relates to health or finance way what would be that advice you'd give to that nick starting out on the soho house journey well i've always been obsessed about the customer, the member, and that

was always my number one thing, and the people who work for us. They were my two obsessions. And the advice I think I'd give to a young, young, young Nick would be, you know, let them take more. Don't think you have to, you know, your team, you know, put it more onto your team to get on with it. And don't try and do everything yourself. And also, you know, there's a point when you can prove yourself that you can, these things can work globally. And, you know, there's a time when, you know,

you have to really properly delegate and let other people get on with it. Because one of the things that Soho House is known for is this quote-unquote brand. And I know you don't like that word, but this very, I think I would say it was an aspirational brand. People want to be a Soho House person. How much intentionality, I don't even know if that's a word,

has gone into making that brand aspirational? I can't think of a time where we had a time where I was thinking about making an aspirational brand. I think it, that's, and if that's people's perception, great. I'm really, I'm, I'm, I'm, that, that sounds good. And I, I, all I concentrated on what our members wanted and they've created that.

They have created the, the, the, the, the, the fact that, you know, there's a desirability to be part of Sowerhouse.

And yes, we, and we, and we got a brilliant team, brilliant membership teams globally. We got people who really care, people who have been on the journey for a very long time. And I think with their help and with every house, we have a determination to make it better than the last house. You know, we always start with a fresh piece of paper. We don't think, well, you know, let's just keep repeat, repeat, repeat. We go new, new, new.

How can we make it better? What are we going to change to make this better? What are we going to change to make it more efficient? What are we going to change to make it better for the member? And I think our members really appreciate that and they see that and they talk about that and that's probably what's created what you have just described what does hospitality taught you about life everything I sort of think you know um it should be the national service people should go and do a year in hospitality,

because I think it teaches you so much. I mean, I spoke earlier about me going into that kitchen and really learning how to get on with people and from different backgrounds, different countries, different, different, everything. And I think it really teaches you, you know, to be part of a team. And there's a customer, there's all your, you know, people you work with in the kitchen, or the person cleaning the dishes, or a person, you know, cleaning the rooms, you all have to work together to make it happen. And I think so, it really takes the shyness out of you. And it gives you an ability to get on with people, which I think is a really useful tool. I think it's better than a maths degree, I think, getting on with people.

I think you learn, you know, just useful practical things like making a bed or keeping the place tidy or clearing a table of plates. And when you've got a family gathering or something, you can suddenly clear the plates and stack them up or you can make a cocktail, which is really nice. Even if you're not in hospitality anymore, you can still make a cocktail. You can still make a bed. You can still hopefully get on with people. You can still clear a table.

You have to become quite organized in your mind and i think hospitality is a very rewarding industry for that hospitality is quite a it's quite a broad term but at the crux of it what do you think it is that you're actually selling to people what are they buying from you well i think what we want our member to do is flourish you know we want them to flourish socially and we want them to flourish, you know, at work. And I think creating memberships and that word community of people who are sort of like-minded and they all have a creative soul and you put them in one house, you know, that is like, you know, they bump into each other, they talk to each other.

I've seen businesses created. I've seen relationships created, friendships created, ideas created. And I think when you put people together in a space and that is pretty special and to see that happen in different countries and different cities, to see members sort of really using the fact

that you go into the house, you can just go into the house on your own, just wander down there and you'll bump into someone, you'll start having a drink with someone or a cup of coffee with someone or you and you're sort of you you're in the house you're part part of that membership and i and i you know people do it you know a lot now and you know you can do it digitally and they use algorithms and they use all sorts of things and i think you know being part of

so house and you know those 500 members I talked to you about earlier, you know, they're still part of us. They still pay their membership. They're still here. They're still part of it. They don't give it up. And so on one hand, the original founder members of 27, 28 years ago,

and then on the other hand, you've got, you know, huge under- 27 membership going into our houses huge you know it accounts for 22 23 percent of our overall membership you know under 27s and it's it's seeing in a room you know the most successful script writer in one corner and in another corner there might be the struggling scriptwriter who's still trying to write, you know, their first script or, you know, a really well-known artist or an artist who hasn't sold a new painter, who hasn't sold their first bit of work.

And, you know, and taking that and trying to think, well, how can the person who's done it help the person who wants to do it and you know that's why I'm so passionate about our mentoring scheme you're where you know there is so much creativity in the world and there's so much creativity you know and and creativity is not owned by the middle class. It's everywhere. And to be able to offer mentoring to people who are less fortunate, who might not be able to afford a membership or might not know what door to knock to get that opportunity is sort of one of the favourite things that we're doing,

my favourite things I'm doing at the moment is seeing it happen so going back to what you were saying about creating people in a room who all help each other they all feel like they're looking out for each other they all want to help the person who who's down on their luck or who is is is is is is starting out or they want to help the, you know, they want to create an idea with another bunch of members. And I think that is special. And it goes back to seeing people in a room having a great time. And if our members can flourish in their lives, if Sarah House can just make their lives just a little bit better

then i think that's a good thing are you naturally shy person i think so because it's funny because when i i meet entrepreneurs there's various different types of entrepreneur and um once in a while i meet an entrepreneur and a founder that's created a really great business but it's quite i think the word is unassuming as in they're not very self-promoting you know you ask them certain questions about what their brilliance is, for example, and they don't necessarily point at themselves. They tend to defer it to others. So it just made me, it's curious because it's kind of unconventional to meet an entrepreneur

that feels so unassuming, in a sense, in terms of not having a huge ego, I guess. Because the question I was going to ask you and my head was going, he's probably not going to, he might defer this to something else is, you've created such an amazing business and it's such a wonderful brand. And it's admired by people that are customers

and that aren't customers just for the business. But I can't seem to get you to tell me um why you out of everyone else that was trying to do this were successful because i got the ambition piece i've got that persistence and that that persistence that comes from that childhood sort of maybe chip on your shoulder, but I know there's more. Well, I can only tell you what I think. And what I do think is, you know, I love what I do. I'm lucky.

I get up every morning. I have a skip in my, you know, I'm skipping around. I'm looking forward to getting to work. I have a skip in my, you know, I'm skipping around. I'm looking forward to getting to work. I have a fantastic team around and, you know, I care deeply. And if that all adds up to it working, that's the reason why. Because it was never, for me, a money play. It was more a thing that I wanted to try and make hospitality, you know, and that is a, I used to say catering, but I've upgraded it to hospitality and to make hospitality a sort of area where you can change it. You can, you know, when we opened Babington

House, you know, it was the first country house hotel where you could get know when we opened babington house you know it was the first country house hotel where you could get breakfast when you wanted when there was no rules it was it was it was you know your your bedroom at babington house probably nicer than your bedroom at home so people would come down and go well nick you know um you know where do you get that tv where do you sky that's new i'm gonna put sky in my houses or i'm gonna where do you go? Sky. That's new. I'm going to put sky in my houses or I'm going to, where do you get those sheets? And so I'm not trying to avoid your question here, but I'm just trying to, again, answer how I feel and why I do it.

I did get something more from that, which is just your care, how much you care and your passion and your care seem to have a relationship together. And that's that's so important because a lot of people would be launching it for money and then therefore they'd care about something else whereas you really seem to care centrally about the customer experience more than anything else well i think i always say to our team is sort of if if our people are happy and the members are happy then sort of everything else will look after itself because your places will be busy and if you if you're smart and you're cost controlled it it it everything else should be fine do you think you're a success i well i i think i said earlier but success you can judge

success in lots of ways um you know i'd much rather be judged as a father than as someone who runs a business and you know i suppose you'd have to ask my kids that professionally do you think you're a success i people tell me a lot and i i suppose i have to listen to them in in in in in in their eyes i'm i i i've i've done all right. In your eyes? I'm still there. We're still growing. Sales go up. It's a good business.

In your eyes? I think so. I think if I was to be honest. I couldn't sit here and look at you in your eyes and say, no, I don't see what I've done as something which isn't successful. Because it works. And when things work, I presume that's a success. eyes and say no I don't see what I've done as something which isn't successful because it because it works and when things work I presume that's a success and so what's next then for for you I mean tremendous business all around the world and it's becoming so much more than just

houses what is the big next mental challenge ambition Well, we're recently public. And, you know, we went public during the pandemic. I'm enjoying that challenge. Really? Yes, I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying dealing with, you know, and I view all the analysts as smart. And, and I think it's making us a better business. And I think, you know, so there's a journey on that. You know, we're only 12 months into it and people understanding that it's a subscription, recurring income, that, you know, a third of our revenues come from membership

and our hotels, our bedrooms are always nicely full and we don't have to use what other hotels have to use to fill their hotels, like booking engines, et cetera. So I think that is an interesting future on how to be properly successful as a public company. And there's so many more places we can open houses. You know, we haven't even touched Africa. We've only dipped our toe into Asia.

We're going to Latin America later this year to open in Mexico. So there's a lot of exciting new houses opening and being a public company and just trying to get better every day we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest leaves a question for the next guest and um the previous guest has left you a question they have written they obviously don't know who they're writing it for but here we go um if you could go back in time and change one specific moment in your life what would that be and why oh um

i would definitely have come up i definitely would still would have done over the top i i i would have done that um one specific thing um i i i think i would have i would have done that um one specific thing um i i think i would have i would have tried to get my life at my balance between life and and and family a bit better why because you know running at 100 miles an hour over time doesn't always sort of you know achieve everything so i think i think and i've i've talked on the behalf of many entrepreneurs and many ceos and who just get a bit obsessed and and about their their world their business and i think you know you you're slightly better of it if you're not so if you have a more balanced view yeah i was actually talking to one of my friends about this last night that you'll know um that runs one of the big big uh companies in this country

that's a billion pound company and he was we were having the same conversation about just trying to remember amongst all of this ambition that the like the actual most important question is like are you happy yeah and and that's one that um i've definitely lost sight of for many many years of my life in the pursuit of building more and more and more yeah and then eventually loneliness or some other kind of consequence will show up and remind me that i've misprioritized but it's a it's a great subject now isn't it and i think people come out the pandemic and they think there is you know we want our lives to be slightly more balanced and i think i think you know that wasn't the case

25 years ago or 15 years ago or when you started your business it was it was you know it was that mission and i think balance is good well thank you nick thank you so much for your time the generosity with your time. And thank you for creating a business that I love and that I'm probably at every week at current rate. And thank you for being a member. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think most of our team as well,

I bought memberships for them as well. And you've created a business which brings a lot of people joy. But the thing that I actually love the most about your business, which is I think is a bit of a dying um human Maslovia need is community and everything whether it's the industry I worked in social media or whether it's other things or even remote working now seems to be taking community away from us which seems to be so

integral to like the human being a human and so house and the brand is bringing that back and i think that's why i would personally bet on that because i think um regardless of how the world changed and technology and all of that we're still going to always um love and have a desire for community so yeah i agree i agree the human connection and people getting together and laughter and ideas and not doing it digitally doing it in in a physical space is great to see. Thank you. Bye.