Why Getting Into John Lewis Still Wasn't Enough | Phil Staunton
What does it actually cost to build a hardware brand from inside a design agency?
In this episode of Why Design, Phil Staunton shares the belief that sits at the heart of his work: that product design is only as good as the honesty you bring to it.
Not just the honesty with clients about what their product needs, but with yourself about what you do not know yet.
Rather than staying comfortable in the consultancy model, Phil chose to put his own money into a consumer pushchair brand, take it to John Lewis, and learn everything he did not know about retail, merchandising, branding agencies, and the gap between a product that is well designed and a product that sells. That decision led to some of the most expensive lessons in this conversation, and some of the most useful.
This conversation is not about building a successful design agency.
It is about what happens when a designer bets on their own conviction and what it teaches them when some of that conviction turns out to be wrong.
Don't just listen. Go beyond the podcast.
Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
What You'll Learn
- ๐ธ Why spending 126,000 pounds on branding before validating your messaging can destroy a launch before it begins.
- ๐ฆ How the economics of a design agency change entirely at the boundary between eleven and thirty-five people, and why most agencies stay stuck in the most difficult middle.
- ๐ช What John Lewis buyers actually evaluate when they decide to stock a new brand, and what happens on the shop floor that no one tells first-time consumer hardware founders.
- ๐ง Why forty-two post-launch product changes that cost real money moved zero additional units, and what that reveals about the difference between designer instinct and customer reality.
- ๐ The minimum viable approach to validation before tooling: how a fake buy-now button on a basic website outperforms any focus group or agency market research.
- ๐ง Why ignoring alarm bells on hires and new client inquiries never, in Phil's fifteen-year experience, works out.
Memorable Quotes
"We wasted a lot of money on branding. I think we spent 126,000 pounds with a branding company. And it just bombs."
"Never once have I kind of gone, yeah, okay, it'll be all right. I've got a bad feeling about it but I'll offer that person the job. Never has it worked out. It's always been a shit show."
"Set up a website with an ecom platform and get people to actually click buy now and then send them an email saying, really sorry, it's not quite ready yet. If people click buy now, they're genuinely prepared to spend money."
"I made way more money running a design agency that was under 10 than I did when I was trying to run a design agency that was 18 people. And I was a hell of a lot more stressed and I was doing a lot more work."
"I am a startup guy. And that's the bit that gets me excited. D2M doesn't want or need me. It doesn't need that kind of startup energy. It's a mature business. And that just isn't me."
Resources & Links
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube & Amazon -> whydesign.club
Join the Why Design community -> teamkodu.com/whydesign
Follow @whydesignxkodu on Instagram
Watch full episodes -> YouTube.com/@whydesignpod
Follow Chris Whyte -> linkedin.com/in/mrchriswhyte
Explore D2M Product Design -> design2market.co.uk
Connect with Phil Staunton -> Phil Staunton
About the Episode
Why Design is powered by Kodu, a specialist recruitment partner for the hardware and physical product development industry.
Through honest conversations with designers, engineers and creative leaders, we explore not just what they build but why they build it; the beliefs, decisions and responsibility behind meaningful work.
About Kodu
Why Design is produced by Kodu, a recruitment partner for ambitious hardware brands, design consultancies and product-led start-ups.
We help founders and leadership teams hire exceptional talent across industrial design, mechanical engineering and product leadership bringing structure and clarity to one of the hardest parts of scaling.
Learn more -> teamkodu.com
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) This is the first innovative pushchair brand in
Speaker:20 years, the first new brand of pushchair
Speaker:that we're going to stop.
Speaker:I think we spent ยฃ126,000 with a
Speaker:branding company and it just bombs.
Speaker:Phil Staunton has spent 20 years in physical
Speaker:product development.
Speaker:He built D2M product design from a back
Speaker:bedroom into one of the UK's most active
Speaker:product design consultancies.
Speaker:Over 1,600 projects shipped.
Speaker:He also made his own hardware product, raised
Speaker:three quarters of a million pounds, got it
Speaker:into John Lewis and had the head buyer
Speaker:tell him it was the first innovative new
Speaker:pushchair brand in 20 years.
Speaker:Phil's pushchair had more engineered features than anything
Speaker:else in John Lewis.
Speaker:His bill of materials was double what Bugaloo
Speaker:was spending.
Speaker:He got it into 11 stores.
Speaker:He had buyers across Europe in the room.
Speaker:And between his first batch and his second,
Speaker:he made 42 engineering changes.
Speaker:Our first batch of products, we made 400
Speaker:units.
Speaker:We then made 42 changes before we ordered
Speaker:our second batch of products.
Speaker:We had to order it really quickly because
Speaker:of the John Lewis stocking requirements and whatever
Speaker:else.
Speaker:I don't believe that any one of those
Speaker:42 changes any of our customers noticed.
Speaker:And then we get to part the story
Speaker:that Phil says has an easy answer and
Speaker:a harder one.
Speaker:Yeah, it's an easy answer and there's a
Speaker:harder answer.
Speaker:This episode is about the gap between design
Speaker:excellence and commercial reality, about what happens when
Speaker:a product earns the best possible validation from
Speaker:the market and still runs into the hardest
Speaker:possible truth.
Speaker:We put all this design effort in.
Speaker:We had all these patented features.
Speaker:And customers genuinely would just buy product because
Speaker:of the color or who they'd seen pushing
Speaker:it because their neighbor had one or whatever
Speaker:else.
Speaker:And as a product designer, that was just
Speaker:devastating.
Speaker:This is Why Design.
Speaker:Phil Staunton, welcome to Why Design.
Speaker:Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker:No problem at all.
Speaker:Pleasure to be here, Chris.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:We've been talking about this for some time
Speaker:now.
Speaker:And we've finally, it seems like months and
Speaker:months later, here we are.
Speaker:It's nearly a year since we first said
Speaker:we should do this.
Speaker:Yeah, it has been a year like that,
Speaker:though.
Speaker:So it's finally great to take it down.
Speaker:I'm stood up today for a change.
Speaker:But let's dive in, shall we?
Speaker:So Phil, you've spent the last 20 years
Speaker:or so in physical product development.
Speaker:You've built and grown D2M into one of
Speaker:the UK's best known product design consultancies, shipping
Speaker:over 1,600 projects.
Speaker:And you've built your own hardware brands that
Speaker:landed in John Lewis.
Speaker:But before we dive into your background in
Speaker:too much detail, let's go back to a
Speaker:moment where everything shifted.
Speaker:You're standing in John Lewis, Oxford Street, with
Speaker:your pushchair brand on the shop floor.
Speaker:What's the exact moment you realized you've actually
Speaker:pulled this off?
Speaker:Yeah, I think the exact moment was probably
Speaker:about two months before that, when we sat
Speaker:in Victoria at John Lewis headquarters with the
Speaker:head buyer for Nursery, one of her team,
Speaker:and she was like, yeah, this is the
Speaker:first innovative pushchair brand in 20 years, the
Speaker:first new brand of pushchair that we're going
Speaker:to stock.
Speaker:And we're excited to do so.
Speaker:We want to build that launch campaign with
Speaker:you.
Speaker:We want to do a big rooftop party
Speaker:on Oxford Street stores, part of the launch
Speaker:and everything else.
Speaker:And I think coming out of that meeting
Speaker:with my team was just like, oh my
Speaker:goodness, we've actually landed this.
Speaker:And this doesn't happen.
Speaker:New brands do not get into John Lewis.
Speaker:New brands and pushchairs definitely don't get in.
Speaker:So, yeah, we were over the moon.
Speaker:And I really couldn't believe it at that
Speaker:point at all.
Speaker:What made you decide to innovate in pushchairs
Speaker:then?
Speaker:And how many other brands did you have
Speaker:to pitch before John Lewis said yes?
Speaker:I was for good questions in that.
Speaker:So, we picked pushchairs because we'd already done
Speaker:a couple of pushchairs.
Speaker:We had good manufacturing contacts out in China
Speaker:as a result of a couple of client
Speaker:projects we'd done in this space already.
Speaker:We'd also done some golf trolleys, so we
Speaker:could really see the similarity.
Speaker:We built up some real expertise in terms
Speaker:of wheeled push products.
Speaker:I just wish that was a bigger category,
Speaker:but there we go.
Speaker:And we thought, it's about time we put
Speaker:our money where our mouth is.
Speaker:But it's also a hugely commercial decision, so
Speaker:I don't mind sharing candidly with you and
Speaker:your listeners.
Speaker:Product design agency is tough, right?
Speaker:It's constantly kind of famine or feast.
Speaker:You're constantly trying to keep the team, particularly
Speaker:if you're an agency that's reasonable size.
Speaker:As we were at the time, we were
Speaker:18 people at the time.
Speaker:Trying to keep 10, 12 designers constantly fed
Speaker:with work is really hard.
Speaker:And we're like, what we need here is
Speaker:a different revenue line.
Speaker:We need something that actually we can scale.
Speaker:We need something that is not just going
Speaker:to be this kind of rollercoaster.
Speaker:And that's why we decided to develop our
Speaker:own products at all in the first place.
Speaker:And then, as I say, push chairs, because
Speaker:we had some experience there.
Speaker:Also, genuinely, I was really interested in designing
Speaker:push chairs.
Speaker:They are not easy, and I don't like
Speaker:easy product design.
Speaker:We've always done technically complex stuff.
Speaker:There's mechanics in there in terms of the
Speaker:folding mechanisms.
Speaker:There's textiles, and we've got a textile team
Speaker:at D2M.
Speaker:So integrated textiles and hard goods we're really
Speaker:good at.
Speaker:There's metal work, there's plastic work, wheels, bearings,
Speaker:all that stuff that I can get excited
Speaker:about as a kind of technical, functional product
Speaker:designer, basically.
Speaker:So yeah, that was all the reasoning.
Speaker:And I can't remember the second half of
Speaker:your question now, Chris.
Speaker:Oh, it was how many brands did you
Speaker:have to pitch to, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, we did a couple of consumer shows,
Speaker:and we pitched to some of the smaller,
Speaker:independent retailers before then to kind of cut
Speaker:our teeth and learn what it was like
Speaker:to pitch in front of a buyer, kind
Speaker:of get our answers down to kind of
Speaker:standard questions, make sure we could supply good,
Speaker:ready answers and actually we were ready to
Speaker:supply John Lewis.
Speaker:And actually when it came to it, we
Speaker:weren't.
Speaker:But we thought we were at that point,
Speaker:having done a few independents.
Speaker:So we were probably in about six small
Speaker:stores.
Speaker:We've probably done something like kind of three
Speaker:or four consumer shows by that point.
Speaker:And yeah, so that was the time we
Speaker:thought, okay, you know, let's go for this.
Speaker:And was it your own branded product, or
Speaker:did you kind of white label it and
Speaker:brand it?
Speaker:Mr. John Lewis?
Speaker:Well, actually it's a hybrid.
Speaker:And there's an interesting story there, because it
Speaker:really shouldn't have been in the end.
Speaker:So we decided rather than designing from scratch
Speaker:that we would start with a push chair
Speaker:that was manufactured by a factory we had
Speaker:a good relationship with.
Speaker:But there's lots wrong with the design.
Speaker:And we're like, okay, we'll redesign it.
Speaker:But what we'll do is we'll keep the
Speaker:frame, we'll keep the folding mechanism.
Speaker:We'll upgrade it to premium.
Speaker:We'll look at the textiles.
Speaker:We'll bring in some new features.
Speaker:We had these kind of wheels that took
Speaker:out all the bumps and a suspension built
Speaker:in which were quite clever and all this
Speaker:kind of stuff.
Speaker:So, but actually in the end, there were
Speaker:two fundamental flaws with that logic, even though
Speaker:it did save us tooling cost.
Speaker:Actually, fitting around their existing chassis cost us
Speaker:more time than it would have taken us
Speaker:to design from scratch in the end.
Speaker:And also we lost orders because people were
Speaker:like, we love all the premium features, completely
Speaker:see how a premium buyer will buy into
Speaker:that, but your folding mechanism, some of your
Speaker:moldings or whatever, they're just not premium enough.
Speaker:They just feel like a mid-range push
Speaker:chair because obviously it was.
Speaker:And we hadn't anticipated that actually the buyers
Speaker:particularly would be that discerning.
Speaker:I'm not convinced that too many end customers
Speaker:that would look at the quality of a
Speaker:folding mechanism molding and go, that isn't good
Speaker:enough.
Speaker:I'm not spending 900 pounds on that product.
Speaker:But certainly the buyers when they reviewed it
Speaker:from distributors in other countries and whatever were
Speaker:like, no, that's not high enough quality.
Speaker:It's interesting, isn't it?
Speaker:Because John Lewis is a quantity retailer.
Speaker:They didn't have a problem with it at
Speaker:all, but we did certainly lose other orders
Speaker:because of that.
Speaker:Oh, interesting.
Speaker:Yeah, and I guess it's one of those
Speaker:things that you might not necessarily go in
Speaker:fully armed without that knowledge if you approach
Speaker:it for the first time and then you
Speaker:might assume that.
Speaker:Yeah, good enough is good enough in a
Speaker:lot of cases.
Speaker:The actual end user, so long as it
Speaker:works away, they're not going to pull you
Speaker:apart on the mold quality.
Speaker:I would have thought so.
Speaker:I think equally, there's a bit of a
Speaker:lesson in that as well in that we
Speaker:went in in premium, so our product was
Speaker:900 pounds.
Speaker:Bugaboo at the time, depending on what model,
Speaker:it was 850 to 1,000.
Speaker:Stocker was maybe 1,000.
Speaker:There was some high-end kind of eye
Speaker:-candy models that were retailing at more like
Speaker:1,600 and stuff.
Speaker:Mima was about 1,200.
Speaker:We pitched it in amongst the premiums, but
Speaker:I think we shouldn't have done.
Speaker:I think we should have gone mid-range,
Speaker:more volume, and not had that level of
Speaker:discernment from the buyers.
Speaker:If we'd gone to those buyers and said,
Speaker:this is a 750-queer push chair, they'd
Speaker:be like, okay, that's top of the mid
Speaker:-range, but it's not premium, and they wouldn't
Speaker:be there measuring us against those other brands
Speaker:that had taken basically a bog-standard push
Speaker:chair, if you like, and pre-minized it.
Speaker:Whereas we didn't.
Speaker:We took a kind of mid-range push
Speaker:chair and then put a whole lot of
Speaker:genuinely useful features and upgraded the textiles and
Speaker:stuff.
Speaker:Our bomb cost was about $200 on that
Speaker:product.
Speaker:The Bugaboo at the time, their bomb cost
Speaker:was under $100.
Speaker:Us was a significantly more expensive product to
Speaker:produce, even when you take into account volumes,
Speaker:and they're not that high in premium push
Speaker:chairs.
Speaker:There's not that much of a discount in
Speaker:it.
Speaker:But as a customer, you're getting significantly more
Speaker:for your money with our product.
Speaker:But being in that premium price point did
Speaker:just open us up to a whole lot
Speaker:of scrutiny that we could have avoided, could
Speaker:have not chased margin and chased volume instead
Speaker:to hit our numbers and gone from there.
Speaker:But equally, there's loads in that market that
Speaker:was just really tough at the time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But there we go.
Speaker:And you mentioned that you obviously were taking
Speaker:it to trade shows.
Speaker:You met potential buyers there.
Speaker:Were you taking a prototype to trade shows,
Speaker:or were you taking essentially the finished product
Speaker:and you were pitching that to the buyers?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So because we were working from a mid
Speaker:-range kind of existing push chair, we were
Speaker:able then to actually get effectively factory samples,
Speaker:albeit potentially with some prototype parts, that then
Speaker:looked the part for those trade shows and
Speaker:those consumer shows.
Speaker:We raised $750,000 with investment in total.
Speaker:So we went into tooling.
Speaker:And because we weren't tooling the whole thing,
Speaker:we could go into tooling quite quickly.
Speaker:So relatively rapidly, we were actually sharing sample
Speaker:product as opposed to prototypes.
Speaker:And it's very, very hard to get a
Speaker:prototype push chair to work like a final
Speaker:product, look like a final product.
Speaker:So we had to get there quite quickly,
Speaker:really.
Speaker:Yeah, we've dived deeper than I expected to
Speaker:on the opening question.
Speaker:But it's super, super interesting.
Speaker:I'm guessing, so what you're saying is, is
Speaker:the key lesson there, or I wouldn't say
Speaker:regret, but key lesson, it isn't necessarily that
Speaker:you worked from an existing product.
Speaker:It's more about where you pitched it then
Speaker:because you're limited by the premium-ness of
Speaker:it based on the donor chassis.
Speaker:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker:I certainly didn't realize until I'd gone in
Speaker:and done the project that actually if you
Speaker:pitch it premium, and it seems obvious, right,
Speaker:but I wasn't thinking about it, you're going
Speaker:to get a whole load more scrutiny than
Speaker:if you pitched it at kind of mid
Speaker:-range.
Speaker:And that did make a huge difference.
Speaker:I think there's lots of other lessons in
Speaker:it as well, but certainly kind of chasing
Speaker:margin and going, we want to make the
Speaker:maximum we can per product early on.
Speaker:It's certainly not something I ever advise my
Speaker:clients to do.
Speaker:It's like you've got to get market penetration,
Speaker:you've got to get volume, you've got to
Speaker:get that factory relationship in a good place,
Speaker:and you're only going to get that as
Speaker:in when you've got some volume going through
Speaker:there.
Speaker:It's easy to get back to investors and
Speaker:go, look, we've sold a lot, we haven't
Speaker:made much margin on that, and we've got
Speaker:mechanisms for improving that margin over time than
Speaker:it is to go to investors and go,
Speaker:look, we haven't hit our numbers, we haven't
Speaker:sold much volume at all, but we've made
Speaker:loads of money on each product and they're
Speaker:like, well, and?
Speaker:We weren't in it for a quick return,
Speaker:Phil, what we wanted to see is volume.
Speaker:And if you can prove the volume, then
Speaker:arguably they put more money in if necessary
Speaker:to kind of then find those kind of
Speaker:ways of improving the margin.
Speaker:Of course, you've got volume as well, and
Speaker:you can then negotiate with your manufacturers and
Speaker:you can squeeze the margin there anyway.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that was a big lesson
Speaker:really.
Speaker:Amongst a whole lot of others, we wasted
Speaker:a lot of money on branding.
Speaker:I think we spent ยฃ126,000 with a
Speaker:branding company, and it just bombed.
Speaker:So we launched that brand and that messaging
Speaker:that they came up with.
Speaker:Cologne, a massive international trade show, 30 buyers
Speaker:from all over the world in the room,
Speaker:and they just came up to us after
Speaker:they went, love the product, don't understand the
Speaker:brand, don't understand the messaging.
Speaker:Oh, really?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that was a big well-renowned company.
Speaker:We'd taken references, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And yeah, it was horrible.
Speaker:The amount of equity I'd given up to
Speaker:raise that money to do that branding, and
Speaker:then it was, yeah, not good.
Speaker:So what would you...
Speaker:I guess you've been down this path a
Speaker:few times, have you?
Speaker:It's kind of launching products, but what were
Speaker:the key lessons or kind of takeaways from
Speaker:that kind of experience of the branding that
Speaker:you could share with others?
Speaker:Yeah, I think just because the company's expensive,
Speaker:just because they say they're good, don't believe
Speaker:it.
Speaker:And I think the mechanism I use now
Speaker:with our clients is say, look, use minimum
Speaker:viable branding in the same way that you
Speaker:do minimum viable products.
Speaker:Don't go all out and spend an absolute
Speaker:fortune to do everything and all your brand
Speaker:guidelines and whatever early on before you started
Speaker:selling something because inevitably your messaging and whatever
Speaker:will change.
Speaker:And what we thought was going to land
Speaker:and resonate with our customers didn't in terms
Speaker:of the brand.
Speaker:And I think I'd also say, you'd be
Speaker:very, very cautious of any branding agency that
Speaker:sits there and goes, no, no, no, we
Speaker:know what we're doing.
Speaker:It's like, I want the data.
Speaker:How many of our target customers have you
Speaker:run this messaging past and how many have
Speaker:said, yes, I'll buy a product that says
Speaker:that?
Speaker:Or how many have said, I prefer that
Speaker:kind of logo to this one?
Speaker:And the problem is, a lot of the
Speaker:time, certainly with my experience, the guys doing
Speaker:the branding, there's a lot of arrogance there.
Speaker:As a product designer, I wouldn't ever tend
Speaker:not to say to our clients, it's got
Speaker:to be this, this is right, I know
Speaker:I'm right.
Speaker:It tends to be, we're going to do
Speaker:the market research, are we going to prove
Speaker:it?
Speaker:If the client doesn't want to pay for
Speaker:that, well, that's up to them at that
Speaker:point.
Speaker:Clearly.
Speaker:But I would always do branding now with
Speaker:the target market involved at every step of
Speaker:the way to make sure that you don't
Speaker:end up, yeah, ยฃ100,000 plus down the
Speaker:line and it doesn't work.
Speaker:Well, I guess, you know, when you think
Speaker:about the professionally trained storytellers, aren't they?
Speaker:So they're in the business of hopefully kind
Speaker:of bringing you on a journey and getting
Speaker:excited about it.
Speaker:So if you're personally invested in the product
Speaker:and the brand, it can be easy to
Speaker:see why you might get, yeah, swept up
Speaker:in that.
Speaker:Yeah, they were, they were absolute masters at
Speaker:that.
Speaker:So every time we hit a kind of
Speaker:a milestone where they were revealing something or
Speaker:whatever, it wasn't just our PINGO, PDF and
Speaker:email, it's like come in for a meeting
Speaker:and then a lot of nice coffee and
Speaker:they've got blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And then it's all on huge boards printed
Speaker:around the room and, you know, all of
Speaker:that just, you know, it's all curated to
Speaker:make you think this is great and not
Speaker:question it.
Speaker:Whereas actually, you know, what would have been
Speaker:much more helpful in retrospect was something that
Speaker:was less showy and more focused on and
Speaker:actually functionally working with the customer.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm just getting visions of mad men
Speaker:now.
Speaker:Oh, awesome.
Speaker:Well, let's dive into the actual first question
Speaker:I used to ask was, Phil, why design?
Speaker:What drew you down this path, you know,
Speaker:all those years ago?
Speaker:What kind of pulled you into ID?
Speaker:Yeah, it's a really good question.
Speaker:So I was passionate about two things really
Speaker:when I was kind of choosing A levels
Speaker:and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:I was passionate about building models, so ready
Speaker:controlled aircraft, boats, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:Passionate about building little mechanisms and motors and
Speaker:battery arrangements for ready controlled boats and all
Speaker:that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And yeah, kind of just loving that and
Speaker:love DT in school and naturally, I guess,
Speaker:found that an easier kind of subject.
Speaker:And the other thing I was really passionate
Speaker:about, which I kind of didn't tell anyone
Speaker:because it just wasn't cool.
Speaker:And I'm still not sure whether it is
Speaker:cool or not, but I think it's cooler
Speaker:than it was.
Speaker:You're going to commit it to a podcast.
Speaker:Yeah, I was just really passionate about nature
Speaker:and wildlife, basically.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And I looked at careers in both and
Speaker:if I wanted a career in wildlife, then
Speaker:basically I was going to get paid tap
Speaker:and safety in a couple of buttons.
Speaker:I was going to have to volunteer for
Speaker:10 years on probably no pay.
Speaker:And everyone else in the industry was 65
Speaker:in a wax jacket and a male and
Speaker:white.
Speaker:And I was like, yeah, actually, I'm not
Speaker:really, I'm not for that.
Speaker:So I went into product development and product
Speaker:design instead.
Speaker:Yeah, and now it's minus the wax jacket.
Speaker:It's, you know, middle Asian white blokes as
Speaker:well.
Speaker:Predominantly in the industry design.
Speaker:Yeah, it is a deal.
Speaker:I didn't manage to get any greater diversity
Speaker:in terms of the type of contemporaries I
Speaker:was working with.
Speaker:But I did at least manage to get
Speaker:decently paid from the outset.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:I'm looking at your qualifications, you know, it's
Speaker:classic, kind of maths, physics and DTA level
Speaker:and then industrial design and technology degree from
Speaker:Loughborough.
Speaker:It's like, you know, if we were the
Speaker:other way around, I was interviewing for roles,
Speaker:I'd be able to open my client book
Speaker:for you because it's, you know, that's the
Speaker:classic foundation what we look for, you know.
Speaker:So, yeah, great kind of starting point.
Speaker:To talk us through kind of those early
Speaker:days then, you know, coming out of university,
Speaker:did you know what you wanted to do?
Speaker:Was there kind of a, obviously, it wasn't
Speaker:nature at that point, it was going to
Speaker:be design, so...
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, I was very clear.
Speaker:Yeah, very clear from from age of 14,
Speaker:15, you know, having decided I was going
Speaker:to do design rather than kind of conservation
Speaker:or anything, I was like, right, okay, what
Speaker:items do I need to do?
Speaker:Exactly like you said, where's the best university
Speaker:in the country?
Speaker:And I went and made sure I got
Speaker:a first from that university, basically, and then
Speaker:made sure I got a job, did everything
Speaker:I could to kind of do that.
Speaker:And then, you know, I think even in
Speaker:my yearbook at kind of sixth form, kind
Speaker:of leaving, I was like, I'm going to
Speaker:start my own kind of agency.
Speaker:It's probably because I'm just really not very
Speaker:employable, don't lie being told what to do
Speaker:and tend to think that other people are
Speaker:making the wrong decisions.
Speaker:So, I was always aware that I probably
Speaker:wasn't going to be able to work for
Speaker:anyone else for too long.
Speaker:At least, yeah, you were able to reflect
Speaker:on that.
Speaker:And I acknowledge, I think funny people go
Speaker:through life wondering why they're not progressing because
Speaker:they just don't work well under authority.
Speaker:I think that softened quite a lot now
Speaker:and I think having spent 15 years running
Speaker:my own show, having exited the business kind
Speaker:of at Christmas, I'm very excited about not
Speaker:having to be the person in the room
Speaker:all the time that everyone looks to, everyone
Speaker:wants to start the meeting, who takes responsibility,
Speaker:who's constantly worried about cash flow.
Speaker:Well, you know, until a couple of years
Speaker:ago when things really took off at D2M.
Speaker:So, I'm quite looking forward now to that
Speaker:and I'm certainly much more open to work
Speaker:for someone else.
Speaker:As an arrogant kind of, you know, 20
Speaker:-year-old mid-20s or whatever, I thought
Speaker:I knew better and, you know, I wanted
Speaker:to be steering the ship, I guess.
Speaker:Yeah, no, it's funny how things, how perspectives
Speaker:change over years as well and just we
Speaker:evolve as managers, as leaders, as employees as
Speaker:well.
Speaker:So, I've definitely become more zen as I
Speaker:get grey hairs and, you know, I think
Speaker:I interviewed Will Butler Adams from Brompton last
Speaker:year and one of the things that, I'm
Speaker:going to sound very AI now and I
Speaker:say one of the things that stuck with
Speaker:me but seriously, one of the things I
Speaker:said is like, well, did anyone die?
Speaker:You know, if you made a decision, did
Speaker:anyone die, I'll get hurt.
Speaker:If not, then, you know, that's fine.
Speaker:Just learn from it and move on, you
Speaker:know.
Speaker:And so, yeah, whenever kind of, I've got
Speaker:someone in my team that's, you know, worried
Speaker:about making a mistake or they've maybe put
Speaker:a typo on an email, it's like, no
Speaker:one died, you know.
Speaker:Next week no one's going to remember that
Speaker:typo or, you know, whatever you've done, it's
Speaker:fine.
Speaker:So, I'm definitely getting more zen.
Speaker:A few years back I might have lost
Speaker:the spot because I was obsessed about detail.
Speaker:Before we dive back in, this one is
Speaker:for founders and CEOs building physical products.
Speaker:If you're thinking about hiring a VP of
Speaker:product, chief product officer or head of R
Speaker:&D, this is not just another hire.
Speaker:It defines how your roadmap is set, how
Speaker:your teams are built, and how your company
Speaker:competes.
Speaker:At Kodu, we specialize in securing senior product
Speaker:and engineering leaders for hardware businesses entering their
Speaker:next stage of growth.
Speaker:Focused, discreet, high-consecurities.
Speaker:If that decision is on your horizon, find
Speaker:me, Chris White, on LinkedIn, and let's talk
Speaker:again.
Speaker:Well, yeah.
Speaker:So, we'll talk, so you kind of start
Speaker:in D2AM.
Speaker:Obviously, we'll talk about kind of where you
Speaker:are at the moment, but in a moment.
Speaker:You grew D2AM from nothing, essentially, at a
Speaker:fairly young age as well.
Speaker:You turned it into quite a serious operation
Speaker:where you're developing products not only for clients
Speaker:but also for the business.
Speaker:What was the first decision, you remember, that
Speaker:made it feel like a real business?
Speaker:Was there a moment there?
Speaker:Yeah, I think when we employed our first
Speaker:member of the team, and it wasn't just
Speaker:me in a back bedroom, and that was
Speaker:only about three months after starting it, and
Speaker:it was an incredible kind of growth rate
Speaker:initially.
Speaker:I'm not sure, in retrospect, I'd take much
Speaker:credit for that.
Speaker:I think there's lots of good tailwinds at
Speaker:that point in the industry and whatever else.
Speaker:So, I'm not arrogant about it, but it
Speaker:did grow very fast.
Speaker:It was 2010, wasn't it, when you started?
Speaker:2010, I was 28 or something, and got
Speaker:our first clients very quickly.
Speaker:None of that really felt like a proper
Speaker:business because I was still working in my
Speaker:back bedroom or whatever else.
Speaker:We then moved into shared offices.
Speaker:It was really looking at CV and going,
Speaker:yeah, that's the person we're going to interview,
Speaker:and then going, okay, we're going to offer
Speaker:them a job.
Speaker:At that point, it was like, oh, actually,
Speaker:this is working, this is bona fide.
Speaker:I had some help starting the business as
Speaker:well in the shared offices that we weren't
Speaker:paying for and some kind of capital to
Speaker:start it.
Speaker:Not as much as I said we needed,
Speaker:but nevertheless, it was still something.
Speaker:At that point, it felt kind of real,
Speaker:really, and someone else's mortgage was dependent upon
Speaker:me being able to bring in enough work.
Speaker:Yeah, it does make it real.
Speaker:What triggered that first hire then?
Speaker:Was it just demand from the clients or
Speaker:were you?
Speaker:Yeah, it wasn't even a designer kind of
Speaker:hire.
Speaker:It was basically kind of office manager.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah, so many inquiries coming in, so much
Speaker:to kind of handle in terms of proposals
Speaker:going out.
Speaker:I was doing the design work and it
Speaker:was like, it doesn't make sense for me
Speaker:to be, well, I can't spend all week
Speaker:dealing with proposals and new inquiries and then
Speaker:all weekend doing five days worth of billable
Speaker:work, that's not going to happen.
Speaker:It was obviously cheaper and easier to hire
Speaker:in an office manager than it was to
Speaker:hire a designer first off.
Speaker:Within two years, we were four designers and
Speaker:a part-time kind of proposal writer and
Speaker:stuff as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, it did grow very rapidly.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm reading Buy Back Your Time at
Speaker:the moment.
Speaker:I don't know if you've come across that,
Speaker:but literally the mantra is look at the
Speaker:tasks that you perform on a daily, weekly
Speaker:basis, which ones are high-value tasks that
Speaker:you do exceptionally well and that only you
Speaker:and the business can do exceptionally well and
Speaker:then delegate as much as humanly possible, employ
Speaker:people who are awesome at those not so
Speaker:high-value tasks because otherwise, yeah, you just
Speaker:find yourself being busy all the time.
Speaker:Yeah, and that is the story of D2M,
Speaker:that is the story of the 15 years
Speaker:of building D2M.
Speaker:We recruited a designer, probably a guy you
Speaker:know, Rupert Worries relatively rapidly and I was
Speaker:like, this guy is just so far above
Speaker:what I could do design-wise.
Speaker:That's the type of person I want to
Speaker:employ.
Speaker:I don't care that he's way better than
Speaker:I am or I feel kind of inferior.
Speaker:But he's working for my clients and helping
Speaker:me build my business.
Speaker:Well, great.
Speaker:And I look at the guys now and
Speaker:I tried to do some CAD this morning
Speaker:because I'm still kind of finishing off a
Speaker:kind of project.
Speaker:So I was like, this is just a
Speaker:waste of time.
Speaker:I'm just light years behind my team.
Speaker:So I just popped into the office and
Speaker:briefed one of the guys on it and
Speaker:he needs six hours later.
Speaker:I've got something that would have taken me
Speaker:probably the best part of three days and
Speaker:it's much better.
Speaker:And that's what I've done the whole way
Speaker:through and I guess having delegated for 15
Speaker:years, eventually got to a point where I
Speaker:had a team that didn't really need me
Speaker:and actually then realized that they'd be better
Speaker:off without me, in fact.
Speaker:And I was actually kind of holding them
Speaker:back in some way.
Speaker:But I only achieved that and only managed
Speaker:to move out of the business and not
Speaker:very many people do actually manage to found
Speaker:the business, grow it and get to a
Speaker:point where it can survive without them.
Speaker:But that delegating and that employing people much
Speaker:better than I am was the only reason
Speaker:I managed to actually kind of do that
Speaker:pretty.
Speaker:Yeah, so it's awesome.
Speaker:Like I say, especially in a small kind
Speaker:of creative services business, creative problem solving business,
Speaker:you often find the founder, I'm in the
Speaker:same boat here, it's like we do things
Speaker:really, really well and to our standards and
Speaker:it's very difficult to let go.
Speaker:But you can condition that muscle, can't you,
Speaker:to delegate and once you do, that person's
Speaker:awesome at that and...
Speaker:There's been a lot of the way that
Speaker:work also though, I have to say.
Speaker:When we were kind of 18 people, it
Speaker:was really hard to employ middle managers to
Speaker:a point where we actually shrunk the company
Speaker:and said we're just not going to try
Speaker:again.
Speaker:So we had, I think, three kind of
Speaker:studio manager, design managers kind of in a
Speaker:row and don't get me wrong, they weren't
Speaker:all bad at all, but it didn't work
Speaker:in the way that I thought it was
Speaker:going to and some of that was probably
Speaker:me and me needing to grow and get
Speaker:more zen.
Speaker:You're so afraid.
Speaker:But equally, I think it's very, very hard.
Speaker:I think that's one of the reasons that
Speaker:I wouldn't start a design agency again is
Speaker:because there just is not an abundance of
Speaker:middle managers.
Speaker:I've been to quite a lot of business
Speaker:talks over the years, one recently, a guy
Speaker:that runs kind of farm attractions so a
Speaker:completely different sphere, but he's really successful and
Speaker:doing very, very well, making lots of money.
Speaker:But one of the reasons is that he
Speaker:basically spends most of his time raising middle
Speaker:managers, putting them in place and then taking
Speaker:his hands off that bit and then raising
Speaker:the next one.
Speaker:It's all very well, but in an industry
Speaker:where 90% of the businesses are five
Speaker:people or under and therefore don't have any
Speaker:managers, there's just no pool of physical product
Speaker:design managers to draw on.
Speaker:It just makes it very, very difficult because
Speaker:basically you're having to train someone who has
Speaker:kind of cultural impact on your business who
Speaker:is unlikely to have experience in physical product
Speaker:development.
Speaker:I just found it very difficult and equally
Speaker:we tried to kind of raise designers up
Speaker:to become managers and designers, some of whom
Speaker:didn't want to and we said, well, we
Speaker:think you've got that ability and others who
Speaker:wanted to, who didn't have that ability and
Speaker:it has just never worked for me at
Speaker:all really and that's been one of the
Speaker:challenges and one of the reasons that we
Speaker:didn't pursue a growth trajectory beyond.
