Growth, Passion, and Private Equity Adventures with Simon Penson

Discover the fascinating journey of Simon Penson, a digital pioneer who transformed his career from journalism in the late '90s to leading the charge in digital media. Our engaging conversation reveals how Simon turned curiosity and determination into a thriving business, building and selling a network of content affiliate sites. You'll learn how Simon navigated the fledgling days of the internet, overcame challenges, and embraced opportunities, offering invaluable insights into the world of entrepreneurship and angel investing.

Simon emphasizes the critical role of mentorship and personal grit in building a successful business, highlighting how real-world experience often trumps perfect academic records. As we dive into his life stories, Simon opens up about the emotional rollercoaster of selling a business—an experience akin to watching your child leave the nest—and the necessity of finding new passions. He shares how letting go of control is essential for business growth and how this transition allows founders to experience both personal and professional fulfillment.

In a fascinating exploration of B2B growth and private equity, Simon shares his dual focus on scaling businesses and collaborating with private equity firms to accelerate growth. He offers a peek into his future plans, including taking on chair roles in businesses, emphasizing his commitment to continuous learning and contribution. Plus, Simon invites listeners to connect with him for more insights and interaction, with the exciting prospect of an exclusive gathering of podcast guests. Join us for this enriching episode, where Simon's passion for creating long-term value shines through every word.

Guest Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonpenson/
Guest website: https://scaled.co.uk/

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 Journey to Entrepreneurial Success
• 14:28 Lessons From Mentors and Determination
• 19:48 Letting Go for Business Growth
• 26:22 Creating Long-Term Value Through Passion
• 31:25 Business Growth and Private Equity Opportunities

Transcript

Nico Van de Venne: 0:00

You start off doing everything and end up doing nothing. In my experience, through our last exit, we built 280 people and by that point I was doing very little really. I was sitting on boards and making key decisions. That is about it and that is, I think, ultimately a really positive sign, because you also give up other people the opportunity and the ability to make change, all the things that they need to their careers. So yeah, very difficult process to solve, but it is inevitable and necessary if you are ever going to really realize any value for it.

Simon Penson: 0:44

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode. I'm your host, Nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, Simon Penson. Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, Simon Penson.

Simon Penson: 1:25

Simon is a career digital entrepreneur, having built and sold a group of content affiliate sites, then setting up an agency group. That business started life as a performance and content marketing agency, and Simon spent 10 years as a thought leader and expert in the space so many now look to. His expertise in sales and marketing. Business eventually became a full-service digital agency. Alongside this, Simon started Angel Investing in 2016, realizing that the early-stage world was in desperate need of not just cash, but people who had been there and who could help guide and support founders properly. Alongside that journey, he met three other angels with a similar worldview, and from that Hatch was born. His consultancy company called Scaled has been his focus over the last six years and he now spends his time helping and supporting B2B businesses grow fast and with less pain and sits on a small handful of boards.

Simon Penson: 2:37

Welcome, Simon. Now that's a major, interesting, lots of different kinds, of all corners of the world. Introduction simon tell us about your story, man, I'm really interested. I'm looking forward to what you're telling, what you're going to tell us yeah, it's.

Nico Van de Venne: 2:53

Uh, there's a bit to unpick, there isn't there, and it's definitely been a journey, not a straightforward one either. I think it's it's from there to say learn lots along the way, fall down many holes. The motivation now is to help others not fall down as many as I did in the, in the shortest description or possible, really. But if.

Nico Van de Venne: 3:13

I start at the beginning. I was lucky because I was born at the right time. You can't control that very easily. I worried because I came to the working world just really mid to late 90th when the internet was becoming a thing. I couldn't have controlled that, so I was lucky to have fallen in at that point.

Nico Van de Venne: 3:31

I was a journalist actually so written word word journalist working in print at the time. And that again was lucky, because I think you very quickly realize in the late 90s that there was something really significant changing with the way that people consumed information. We were producing these quite incredible food products and they were going away However good they were, however good they were. And, yeah, I also was fascinated with how things work and so I started building my own sites and playing with very early stage internet and CMSs that kind of stuff, and ended up building some awful looking sites, truly terrible now to look back at them but interestingly, they started gaining audience and so these terrible products I was building, digital were going that way.

Nico Van de Venne: 4:19

These brilliant products were going that way and so that really acted as I I said, as that kind of budging the mind shaft moment and um, so over the next uh, I don't know, this would have been sort of you know, by this point, 2000, 2000, to sort of 2008, that sort of played out playing this dual role of corporate world trying to help the kind of print publishing world become more digital, also continue to be a magazine editor as I was at the time and a long time that these sites were growing and growing and eventually they got to a point they built me enough runway to be able to leave the corporate world behind. So several of them failed. I may miss particularly one of them, so my mistakes they are deleting sites and not having backups and those kind of things.

Simon Penson: 5:04

So yeah, that's a good idea.

Nico Van de Venne: 5:06

Never done that, just learning the hard way exactly it really is After hours of content production another story for another day. But yeah, so they were very specialist niche content sites, basically very specific markets, and a couple of them did really quite well and they had done me the wrong way. I left the corporate world behind and eventually, actually a couple of them were acquired, and by this point it was some 2008 time, back in 2008. And I thought I've now got some money in my pocket and the opportunity to do something again. What should I do? Obviously, I'd learned all some money in my pocket and the opportunity to do something again. What should I do? Obviously, I'd learned all these skills from building audience over here and still got less use by actually trying to teach other business owners that this thing called the internet actually had some value Back then. It seems strange to say that, doesn't it by 2008, 2009,. But the internet still looked pretty different because the world of social media, for instance, was only just beginning Facebook, but was still probably the dorm rooms only, so it looked really quite different. But we went out there and we started trying to sell into other businesses in digital and particularly in content within digital Really hard sell. They had no idea what I was talking about and that kind of continued for probably three or four years. So we had to, out of necessity, actually become a sales and marketing personal organisation. Rarely happens now, actually, because a lot of people start particularly agency style businesses with a black book of contacts and they go out to their network and they build from that. We didn't have that and nobody understood what we were talking about, and so we had to market ourselves and become thought leaders and it was slow. We got to about 12 people by 2012. But thankfully we, over that sort of process, we started to build a bit of brand, we create an excellent network effect, we refined and defined our process and people really liked it and slowly the kind of the hamster wheel started churning and the snowball started moving downhill and we then grew pretty quickly and, long story short, we were, by this point, a group.

Nico Van de Venne: 7:14

When we were acquired in 2016 by Interpublic, which is a PLC kind of agency, hold to our group and at the time we were a decent sized business, probably completing 25 heads, and we took a deal what actually meant we had a longer run out, which people thought we were absolutely crazy for doing. Most people run away from that we ran because we really invested in back office and senior team, that we'd grow the business a lot further. We wanted to get benefit from that and yeah, that is exactly what happened. We grew over that three year period. It's in the 2020. We more than tripled. We got down trying to take almost quadrupled revenue and it was really successful exit. Lots of people did really well, which is a great thing to me Popped out at the other end of that and hadn't asked enough questions of myself about what happens next, quite frankly and went on that journey personal journey a little bit, but thankfully in the meantime I had starting angel investing, as you pointed out here back in 2016 and by the by sort of 2018, I'd met three other people that kind of shared this world view that actually angel investing very early stage, particularly at the time we were doing that to sas.

Nico Van de Venne: 8:23

Those founders were often met three other people that kind of shared this worldview that actually angel investing very early stage, particularly at the time we were doing that to sas. Those founders were often first-time founders and really needed to help as much as they needed the money, any experience and the yep they were just being thrown.

Nico Van de Venne: 8:37

People were throwing money at them and then they were fake and people were wondering why they were failing. We wanted to to change that. We started investing our own money and then we built a fund that exists and does very well today investing other people's money through EIS and SEIS in the UK and is launching other funds now as well. There are over 100 investments in that business now. A fantastic fund and obviously I was able to by the end. I came out in 2020, I was able to grow myself into that and yeah, I think that did a couple of really important things to me.

Nico Van de Venne: 9:11

Actually, I'm very happy that it pleased I had it, because otherwise my golf game would have got worse and my garden would have looked better and I sure I need the legs to go, but so I threw myself into this helping other people, and it really validated the lessons that I'd learned through building our last business, because we just survived it, quite frankly, day by day, and because when you see it reflected through others mirroring back you're like that's not the issue. You think it is because actually, if you do this happens and that happened and becomes very validating and I loved it. It didn't feel like work, it still doesn't feel like work and so that. So that purpose box, I think is a very important one to tick when you perhaps solve the financial questions. It's you still gotta have purpose in life and I really found it in doing it.

Nico Van de Venne: 10:01

And alongside that, as you can imagine, quite a few people from the agency world were asking me to help because of that journey and I had no interest in the kind of consultancy piece necessarily. I loved the kind of help and Scaled really came out of that really. So Scaled is now a bit of a broader sort of b2b growth consultancy, but started off in the agency world, still has a lot of agency clients and we were very careful with who we partner with because we we want to make sure that it was long-term fit. We're not set up for churn, want to make sure that we can get people through to whatever success looks like, whether that's legacy or building a kind of legacy business or whatever it is. Yeah, I've never loved that ever since, and continue to learn stuff every day. We're smart people, really ambitious, focused and driven people and, yeah, it's great to do it. So that kind of brings us to present day.

Simon Penson: 10:54

That's quite a story there. There's a lot of ins and outs going around where you've done a lot of different things, where. But what I do notice and I don't know if you notice it yourself probably, but there's a lot of flow in what you're talking about. Things pop up, you act on them and they become another form of success and just a kind of a flow. Is there a point where if you're open to sharing this with us, but is there a point in the past where you were at your success point, because I think you mentioned it when you stepped out at one point, when you got lost in that story?

Nico Van de Venne: 11:29

many. Yeah, there's certain happy, and I think you, obviously, when you play something back, it sounds like it's very strategic, doesn't it it was? I think it was like, say, it's very organic. Actually, I think that one of the things that I asked would be a strength is the fact that I can quickly see the inefficiencies in markets a little bit, and then I can understand customer pain, and I think between those two things, you can usually find opportunities to help people and you can help people build a business, and I'm predominantly been building people-based businesses and people there are is a new day. You know, you, it doesn't matter if you're doing it for 100 years. You're still going to come across situations that you've never come across, and some people find that really difficult. I personally have to say that, basically, one of the joys really waking up every morning is that the complexity of dealing with people and people's problems is really fascinating to me.

Nico Van de Venne: 12:22

Yeah, there have been almost too many occasions to count where it hasn't felt organic and it has felt really lumpy, and I've fallen down the hole and had no idea which way to turn and figured it out slowly. But the advice that an old mentor once gave to me always stuck with me, which was life is a bit like a hurdle race or business is certainly a bit of a hurdle race and the hurdles get bigger and bigger, and so your job is just to keep jumping them. And a lot of people, for lots of reasons, when there's no right or wrong, decide not to jump the next hurdle because it's too high, and I've always taken the view that I want to find out what's on the other side. I'm accepting of the grazes on the knees as I fall over it.

Simon Penson: 13:04

that makes sense yeah, one of the statements that I've heard in the past is entrepreneurship is, is um is high end sports. So it links to what you're saying jumping over the hurdles and and I absolutely believe that as well if I see, I see how much time I spend in the office and thinking about the business and all different kind of angles because, like you said, it sounds like you're strategically looking at how you will tackle that next hurdle or even that water pit that comes up sometimes as well. But it's funny how at some point you kind of I find it to be a little bit addictive, addicting, sorry At some point you're like when's the next kick coming? Because I'm going to jump, I'm going to land and I'm going to feel that new kick come in after jumping the hurdle. And that's something that I've noticed in the last four years.

Simon Penson: 13:59

I've been really actively building my business for four years now after Corona and, yeah, I understand what you mean. You do so many different things and something comes up and I'm going to do something with this. Oh yeah, why not? You don't think about it too much and you just jump in and then sometimes you're like why in heaven's name did I even start this thing, but there's a lesson in there and I think that's wonderful. It might sound difficult, but it's a lesson and you pick it up and you push yourself through it. So, as you mentioned an old mentor, is there some people in your life who actually stood by you and and helped you along the way?

Nico Van de Venne: 14:37

oh, oh yeah, absolutely, I mean, I think I've always, I've always been aware of my failings and weaknesses and because of that I've always had mentors. I had a couple through the agency journey and I have no doubt that I would never have got as far as we did without that because lived experience, for me, is the most valuable currency in the world when it comes to business.

Nico Van de Venne: 15:01

You're not in reinventing the wheel. You can pretend that you are, but you're really not. It has been done before and so many people miss that or don't like to ask or have egos that are too big to ask, and I've never been that. I'm like. I want to absorb it as quickly as possible because in doing so you hopefully don't trip up quite as much. Of course, sometimes and interestingly I've seen this a lot now through consulting and kind of network that I do you can take a boss to water, as they say, but you can't always make them drink and you can tell them this is what is going to happen, and if you do this, that'll have to be avoided by doing X and people still sometimes need to get through that pain themselves and then come out of the site and go yeah, do you know what actually, simon, you were right, but you need to find out.

Nico Van de Venne: 15:44

That's probably part of human nature. But yeah, I think the biggest outside of listening and really seeing the value in mentorship and advisory stuff, I think the other key component to all of this is just determination, willingness, sacrifice, and I do quite a lot of speaking at schools now. I'm trying to help secondary students understand the world of work and what it really takes a little bit, and that's really the number one message there is that you know you don't have to be the a grader. In fact, there is a lot of research to suggest that C graders end up employing graders right.

Nico Van de Venne: 16:21

Absolutely For what you do, I would say C grader right, and what you do have to have is determination and that kind of almost bordering on insanity ability to just keep moving forward despite whatever's thrown at you. That's it.

Simon Penson: 16:41

Very recognizable. A lot of people in my family call me one of the crazy ones, because it's funny that I think I had two uncles who were plumbers and they had their own business, but nobody else in the family had their own business. They were all employees, and I've been an employee for, I think, about 20 years, before I actually made the final jump to become an entrepreneur. And the difference between the two worlds are very clear, where, on one side, you're following the troops and on the other side, you're leading the troops without leading. That's what I enjoy about it and, like you said, the ones with the A's are walking behind me now Not all of them, of course, but most of them are.

Simon Penson: 17:21

And one thing that I've noticed in that story is that there's a lot of people who have learned to push through because they've had to.

Simon Penson: 17:30

Where you end up, or you start at the bottom of the ladder and you have to get yourself to the next levels.

Simon Penson: 17:37

You have to go through and you have to continuously prove yourself and do all these things and win a lot of different, from a lot of different angles as well, which teaches you to move forward and keep on moving forward and, like you said, the consistency every day being there every day, standing there every day, even when you're sick and not okay, you're still there and that's that's the key, and I've told so many people about this. It's not especially about what you did. It's good to know a lot of stuff Absolutely but you don't have to be a dumb person to start a business. But I sometimes compare it with getting kids, for instance. You don't need the user manual to make kids or have kids, but it would be very easy and a lot more help if you had a user manual, and I find that entrepreneurship is exactly the same. It's. You're also creating a little baby and you're putting it into the world and there are user manuals for it, but it doesn't say that you're actually reading them and using them.

Nico Van de Venne: 18:35

Yeah, reality to reality isn't there, and I think on that kind of theme, I also remember somebody saying to me when it came to decisions around exit, because you are building, particularly when it's your first business, you are it is like a child. And somebody explained to me that what happens during exit is that you go to sleep one night with the baby in the crib in the corner. You wake up the next morning and they're taking the baby but the crib's full of money and actually it's a joke in some respects, but actually the psychological kind of experience is very similar to that. You feel that kind of pang of guilt that you've decided that you can just literally sell one of your children. I think that entrepreneurs should prepare themselves for that down through the process of selling, because often you don't, because you're so transdictory running the business or selling it's not actually what it really means to you.

Simon Penson: 19:29

so, yeah, lots of, lots of lessons in there yeah, it reminds me where I tried to make the world aware of a couple of things with. One of them is found the readers. I found this word at some point a couple of months back and I was like, wow, this is smack on and it actually defines where founder becomes.

Simon Penson: 19:48

A micromanager is not open to change. It's a classic manager position the one that's sitting on the cart directing their people towards where they want to go and it's all about their idea and so on. When you're at a point where you're saying this little baby, at some point I'm going to make it go away in some way, where somebody else buys it or you sell it or whatever, and you come to that point, I think you need to be able to detach from the micromanagement, from all the things that you think that are the right way to do it. Otherwise, that won't ever happen, because you stay connected and ingrained in that one position. I've heard so many comments on my company has my name on it and they're saying this is not a good strategy to later on sell your company. This is not a good strategy to later on sell your company no-transcript because the brand became very well known.

Simon Penson: 20:54

So they still sold it. They have their name on it, but they're no longer the owner. So that's not the most important part. It's not what the name is, it's what its values are, it's its contribution to the business, to the sector and so on. That gives it value and that's what people buy. And if you're ingrained and a spider with your paws in everything, you're not going to be able to let go of that baby.

Nico Van de Venne: 21:19

It's one of the biggest challenges that I see on a day-to-day basis. The kind of growth consulting work is often early stage. Businesses are only the sum of their parts and usually that really means the value of the founder because they haven't delegated enough. Value of the founder because they they haven't, yeah, delegated enough. And that is a process, but it's also a kind of psychological process, if that makes sense, because you've got to coach them around the fact that they are now the problem as much as they are the solution.

Nico Van de Venne: 21:47

We wouldn't have got off the ground if it wasn't for them to this point, but now it's not going to get any further unless they start taking themselves out of the process. That is what building great, real, true value is that you start up doing everything and end up doing nothing. And in my experience, throughout last exit we built 280 people and by that point I was doing very little really. I was sitting on boards and making key decisions. That is about it and that is, I think, ultimately a really positive sign, because you also give other people the opportunity and the ability to make change, all the things that they need for their careers. So, yeah, very difficult process for some, but it is inevitable and necessary if you are ever going to really realize any value for it.

Simon Penson: 22:36

So for yourself. In that case, you end up with the baby crib, with a lot of money in it. Keep on with that image. I like that image where you're sitting there in the crib with all that money and you've lost a baby. In essence, what happened at that point? What kind of what stuff goes through your mind, through your heart, because you're only human?

Nico Van de Venne: 22:59

you know what? The thing that I always remember is the emails going quiet. I think that's one of the biggest shocks. Actually, day the day after, you're like I don't have 100 emails, so my inbox went waiting for answers.

Nico Van de Venne: 23:12

I have not, and yeah, it's a very interesting kind of psychological process that I think all founders should prepare for, and so the answer to that is having the what's next question solved, and I was, as I explained, looking to have that. Yeah, it's. It initially feels like a holiday, but with no email, but then, quite quickly, people tell me I can't not do anything, nothing forever, because obviously the person that you are is the reason it created and that doesn't go away after an exit or any amount of money. Quite frankly, that's why you see multibillionaires continuing to work, because that's who they are. It doesn't necessarily bring happiness either. It obviously creates a bit of freedom of choice, but otherwise it's a bit of a responsibility, money and that, as much as it is a blessing. And, yeah, my advice is to throw yourself in and try and find the thing that you really enjoy doing most quickly as possible.

Nico Van de Venne: 24:11

Fill that void, because as I said there's only so much golf you can play badly and gardening badly, and holidays, before you start questioning your reason to exist and all that kind of stuff.

Simon Penson: 24:25

So you were not the guy that was lying on the floor on the grass and seeing the grass grow with the scissors right there, like clipping off the one that's too large. You weren't there, yeah, okay.

Nico Van de Venne: 24:35

No, I can put you. I was saying to myself wait, it's all that.

Simon Penson: 24:39

Yeah, I think you're actually really hitting the nail right there by saying that you should prepare yourself, indeed, with the next step, and I think that's what a lot of when they sell. Forget that it's not only the money that's interesting, but it's what comes next. And I had a discussion last week with Liam Naden I think he is a South from Australia, not Australia, new Zealand and he had an interesting story to tell where he actually at some point was a millionaire because he had several companies and he was very successful. He lost everything from really overnight. He lost everything and then started back from the couch and he said the difference he made in life, because he's up there again now. He reached the top again.

Simon Penson: 25:27

But he did a completely different approach where he said in the first part of his life he went for the accolades, the financial success, the fame, let's say and then when he realized that he lost everything, he was questioning himself why does this happen to me? What do I do? And this and that? And he said at some point he made a switch in his mind saying whatever, I don't care anymore, I'll see what light brings, and he let everything go and then he just started basing his life on all the opportunities that came in front of him and he went into a certain flow and everything came to him and he started enjoying instead of reaching for. It came to him and that's something I was like, wow, this confirms something that I've been believing for quite a while and what I've been trying to make people aware of as well that feel the same for you it did.

Nico Van de Venne: 26:19

Yeah, it really did, I think. In fact, what you can't quite read that's right behind me is captures all of this quite succinctly. In fact it's probably the best, the best kind of capture of what it takes to build true value. Because I think that's the thing is that people often also forget that they're obsessed with building business but they forget that you've got to build values for somebody somewhere, or solving it if it's in a market for somehow and make things easier. Otherwise you don't have it even that's it.

Nico Van de Venne: 26:47

What it really says in a nutshell is pick one thing, become the best in the world at it, and once you're the best in the world at it, then you can expand, widen the aperture of what you're doing, see that over time, some combination, network effects and all of those kind of things take effect and build your sensibility and then you've got something of value. That is absolutely the thing for me. I think I found the thing that I to do, the thing that you're best in the world. Become best in the world of doing one thing. You have to believe in it because it become best in the world of doing one thing. You have to believe in it because it has to be very mission led and it has to come from here and not here and no, because if it comes from here, people will buy it from you because it's real.

Simon Penson: 27:25

You know, that's really nice to see. Yeah, yeah.

Nico Van de Venne: 27:28

And I think that was that's always been the case in the businesses that I've built is that I truly believed in what we're trying to do and see that it's going to really help people. If you take that view and you truly believe it, other people will believe it of you and then your conversion, your win conversion, is better than average and your attention is better than average and you can sell them more things because you're believable and likable and all of those things and you build the right culture and business that you operate. It also believes those things. Your why is very aligned across the organization, which is really important, and slowly you create that value, almost as a byproduct really, rather than a focus.

Simon Penson: 28:10

Yeah, I can feel that. I can understand what you mean. It's the most natural thing to do at some point. You're just doing it. There's no mind part. It's actually the way I started.

Simon Penson: 28:22

This podcast was exactly the same. I just said what do I love doing? How do I need to? The first question was how do I bring my face out there? Basically because I never liked sales, I never liked marketing. I love talking to people, I love coaching people, but all that stuff that is important, absolutely. I would have loved to have one of those old plaques it always reminds me of Scrooge somehow those old plaques saying financial advisor or coach or whatever, on the side of the wall and people would just walk into your office and say I need your help. Those days have gone, apparently. So we need to do it with these mediums and I love it Really.

Simon Penson: 29:03

I started the podcast beginning of the year by just contacting one person and saying hey, you know what you want to do an interview. I'll do it in English because I want to go outside of my country. And he was like I'll do it in English because I want to go outside of my country. And he was like oh yeah, this is fun. Let's try this. And now I'm. I think I've got 30 people I've already talked to in that time span and it's so much fun. It's these conversation I learned from you, you learn from me. That's the perfect balance, isn't it? And that's what you value. Your value comes automatically, and that's it's absolutely true. When it doesn't take any effort, it's just it's fun. That's the thing, isn't it?

Nico Van de Venne: 29:38

it's it's finding the fun in the business, and you need I think you need- that to be able to create the longevity that you need in order to build the value. And I think people underestimate us, saying you underestimate we can do in a month or a year, but sorry, I overestimate. We can do in a month, in a year, but over underestimate. You can do in a month or a year, but, sorry, I overestimate what you can do in a month and a year, but overestimate, underestimate what you can do in 10 years. And so that's definitely been my experience. For sure Is that you think you're we're not making progress or we can get that done pretty quickly, and you probably can't. But then, if you measure in much longer terms, the enterprise value that you're creating behind you is really significant. Yeah, it all comes back to doing stuff that you enjoy doing, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Simon Penson: 30:19

And every day is a new day, like you said before, and you never know what you're going to see that day, and it might be something absolutely great or it might be absolutely shit. Yeah, okay, that's life, and that's one of the things that I've learned as well is just push through. It's not, it might be hard, it might not be fun, but at some point you just push through. And on the other side, there's always the sun, always shines after the rain and that's. It's so simple, but it's so true and it also helps.

Nico Van de Venne: 30:52

Yeah, when one of my mentors had a particularly sunny disposition you'll realize that he doesn't want to explain this and he described life to me as a sea of shit punctuated by occasional islands of ecstasy. Wow, if you see it through that lens, then every day is a fun day, isn't it? Yeah, that's true. The only way is up.

Simon Penson: 31:20

Cool. So what are the projects that you're working on right now that might be very interesting to talk about?

Nico Van de Venne: 31:29

So I'm spending my time now.

Nico Van de Venne: 31:31

I'm spending my time in two ways really. One is to be scaled and really helping and supporting b2b businesses to grow and that, as I said, that has massive variation and it's fun to do every day and we've got a small team that I will now work with that really help and support that absolutely in the back office, because I just want to spend as much time as possible interfacing with kind of founders like this, and I'm also increasingly starting to work a bit with private equity as well, because they're they have right now they have lots of money and lots of dumb places. They want to spend it and so they're really leaning back into the market and they're particularly interested in the b2b space at the moment and so they come to people like me when they're looking at opportunity, want, want to understand it more deeply. They're not operators, they're financial investors and they're brilliant at that, and so I work alongside them in some of those deals and over the next year or so I would probably take one or two chair roles within those businesses.

Nico Van de Venne: 32:27

I think Again, because I feel like I'm going to learn some stuff at that, because it's a bit later stage, like they're properly funded. It's a bit later stage, like they're properly funded. It's a really solid journey between those two things, that's taking up most of my time now sounds.

Simon Penson: 32:42

It sounds exciting. Yeah, some good stuff going on there. I really love what you're trying to to bring into the world where the the founders that you're supporting in a way that your experience aids them in moving forward. That's a really great stuff going on there. There's a lot of people who need your services, I can imagine.

Nico Van de Venne: 33:02

Yeah, yeah, as I said, I think you have to be a certain type of person because you have to understand the value of lived experience. But for those that do, and the earlier they do it, there is undoubtedly a faster route to whatever success looks like, and that some people they're hell bent on exiting and understandably, and all that kind of stuff. Other people want to build legacy and they want to build a business that's going to go on forever and their name is going to be above the door and there's no right or wrong to that. And then there's obviously a thousand shades in between and I think how the kind of experiences that I've had through exits and mergers and investments that I've done because I spent a lot of time in M&A. Now the one area that I'm really intrigued about, and I think there is a huge amount of value in but a lot of negative press for, is the private equity investment space, because lots of people are private equity and I think there's all these kind of daggers and for us I found ready to put them in the back of the moment they step a foot wrong.

Nico Van de Venne: 33:59

My experience has certainly been very different and I think that the industry has changed a lot in recent years and what they can really do which is really aligned to what I my mission, what I care about, is really accelerate that growth journey. They can. They're very good at helping you run a new business from a financial perspective. They can obviously allow you to take some risk off the table, which again, psychologically, is really important, I think people making key decisions and, of course, they can obviously help you acquire things along the way, and that kind of model is very interesting from my perspective. So yeah.

Nico Van de Venne: 34:32

I'm really looking forward to leaning into that some more.

Simon Penson: 34:38

Cool, expensive. So, yeah, really looking forward to leaning into that some more cool. So, talking about a lot of people probably needing your service and you're probably going to be open to it where can people find you? What do they need to do to contact you, or is there any advice that you want to give them at this point?

Nico Van de Venne: 34:51

yeah, I spend all my time chatting to people. We are a finite resource, ultimately, scaled, I spend a lot of time chatting to people. We are a finite resource, ultimately at Scaled. I spend a lot of time chatting to people and occasionally there is fit. So, yeah, I would love to talk to people. It's what I spend my time doing and, as I've actually explained so, people can reach me either at simon at scaledcouk, or you can find me on the fence at LinkedIn. Please do honestly reach out, because I'm happy to try and help answer any questions and share some more stories and all of those good things.

Simon Penson: 35:21

Yeah, those help, especially if you don't have to go through the war yourself, and it helps. Thank you very much for your time, simon, I know that you're probably off to a new something somewhere this evening for you as well, so it's okay. But you're doing a to a new something somewhere what's evening for you as well, so it's okay. But you're doing a lot of wonderful things and I look forward to seeing you again at some point in the future.

Simon Penson: 35:43

I do an exclusive get together with all the guests from the podcast, so I will be inviting you to that as well. Meet some fun people there as well, seen that already someone has subscribed as a RSVP for September, so it's already filling up. So it's a lot of fun. We just had one last week, so I'll be joining you in there in the mailing list as well. And again, thank you very much for your insights and your experience that you brought to the table and for the listeners. Please feel free to contact Simon. I will leave his linkedin in the chat notes in any case, like I'd always do, and thank you very much everybody for listening, and remember to jump from heart, from head to heart my goodness, I am mixing them up from head to heart and feel the beat within. Have a great one everybody. Bye.