206: Sure Shot | Dee Coakley and Boundless

0:11 Hey there, I'm Pete, Townsend in this is money, never sleeps. We look inside the minds of entrepreneurs, and at the crossover of startups, Enterprise Finance, technology and Life, as we know it on the show this week, we've got I'm Deke, okay? And I'm co-founder and CEO of benglis D. Founded boundless in Ireland, 2019 with Emily castles. And boundless is the operating system for your international team. In short boundless is Global Employment, Made Simple benefits, share options, and payroll. And one need platform in this episode D riffs, with Owen, Fitzgerald and me on the snowball effect of the diverse International experiences and relationships that made boundless such a no-brainer for her to co-found the shifting mindsets and societal changes that have made remote working and distributed International Teams.

0:57 Scalable reality. Now, D is thinking about the next Next steps to grow the boundless business. So let's just get on with it with d, Coakley from boundless. All right, here on money, never sleeps. Thanks for coming on to the show. It's great to do this with you. I'm so glad we met thanks to Jean Murphy when we had that Dublin startup ecosystem, pre-Christmas gathering at Izakaya. The gene came back from New York and he said, let's pull everyone together. So Gene is a an Uber connector. He's great at bringing people together. I've got so many ways cancer him. Over the years, he is big big shout-out to Gene.

1:37 He was actually one of the few that we did a video podcast with way back in the day about Third, and ten episodes ago and I saw him when I was in New York last week. Do you do that transatlantic trip much D to New York? I do. And I'm actually very close to Gene and his wife, Jess. So, there are there, my people when I'm in New York, I stay at a hotel that's on their block and I usually see quite a bit of them. I only go a couple of times a year. Last year, I did a trip to Atlanta went to San Francisco and to to New York, but I don't spend a huge amount of time in the US, but I love New York. Yeah, spend. I'm hoping to spend maybe a couple of months there this year at some point. Okay, a couple of months, is better than three and a half days because it's just put you through a Time. Warp and I lost my voice Tuesday night in New York City, and I didn't find it again until I got home to Dublin on Friday. So that was that was unfortunate but it lasted just long enough for us to do an awesome textures web 3 event at Union Square, Ventures with our friends from Genesis block on Tuesday night so that that was great.

2:40 I got to have breakfast with Jean on Tuesday morning. At Pershing Square right underneath. I think it's the parks Park Avenue Bridge right by Grand Central Station, and iconic old restaurant. That I Gene told me had you know been in plenty of movies but I did get a cheaper bagel with smoked salmon that I had. Last time I was there, he was only 22, there's only $22 instead of $25. Well yeah you York is pretty pricey these days. It is going with Euro It is definitely definitely. But so yes, like I said, big shout-out to Jean and but you know, really interested in your business and glad that we met glad that we have that initial first chat and that with digging into your profile.

3:27 The just finding some really interesting nuggets there that I wanted to dig into. And but before just to inform those who may not be familiar with boundless. Can you just give us a quick insight into the Bound was vision and what it's all about, sure. So boundless is an enabler for building International Teams and it's a platform that companies with workers in countries where that company might not have established operations, they can use boundless to very quickly and easily gets it off to employ. Those people handle, their payroll handle their benefits. And I always say when we're hiring, we We don't have a really hard time hiring because all of our team are going Mission focused.

4:14 Most of our team live in a country. That's not the country. They grow up in. I think all of our team have lived like me, have lived in multiple countries and its really nice to do something very, you're enabling that reality for lots of other people. And, and that's really our mission is to be an enabler for for that kind of location. Flexibility, and the kind of lifestyle choices that people make. Like so my co-founder lives of a mountain in chamonix. She's a few minutes walk from a ski lift. She's from Ireland but for her remote work was an enabler for that kind of lifestyle and that's really important to us. Awesome. That's Emily. Castles. Yeah. Yep.

4:54 Awesome and it what, what really was compelling about your whole story D is that you have deep first-hand experience the problem, you're solving, right? You've lived there do you've lifted, I sure do to the extent that my ex colleagues. Say they Hurley laugh that I now spend my life doing this because it used to drive me crazy. I always say, I spent 10 years in Co all roles will be to be SAS companies and I always say this was the problem that made me curse the loudest. I was infuriated problem. So the last company I was with a really great interactive video tech company called accent mr. An Irish company we built a team to be co-located out of our head office. In Dublin.

5:40 But as is always the case with tech companies people were from lots of different countries and over time, people were requesting moves back to their home countries or they got sick of the Irish weather and wanted to go to somewhere with its earlier climate and it really fell to me to figure out how to make that happen and it's extremely. I mean these problems are really complex, really complex. Once a worker is in another country. As a company, you have to comply with the employment laws and the tax laws of that country doing that. As a foreign company particularly for a smaller company is really tricky. But you know huge beasts of companies with tens of thousands of employees, also struggle with this problem. Definitely the meaty one.

6:27 Definitely. Yeah. And I see that I live that problem every day and that's probably a story for another day that you might be able to help you with the, but it's, you know, when you have distributed teams, Global Workforce, no matter whether Or, you know, 30 people are 300 people or 3,000 people, it's just it can be such a massive headache and creates so many unnecessary costs for the business which are just passive cost that you just don't need. That can just completely drag down the bottom line, that's the thing, it's not core, you know, that was the thing that really frustrated me when I was a CEO, all when I was dealing with these problems, I'm just Source, lawyers in, France, and Germany and look for accountants in Croatia and Spain. And it, it wasn't driving the business forward. I mean, sure, having having the right people is so hugely valuable to any business.

7:16 So there's a big value upside in solving the problem, but it's not core to your business. So we always say all of that, that stuff that heavy lifting, and the nitty-gritty that no one is interested in, we take on all of that. So, yeah, no, it's been my spend my days worrying about these problems. That I hated so much before I found it this business, What I was going to say is you've probably had like a front row seat and terms of how working has changed now in the past four years, is it just that now you can remote work better, you know, does that mean more people are doing it or are, you know, which is driving as they want to work in a different country or the ones to work for particular company, regardless of where that is, well, it's a real mix and it's been really interesting.

8:04 We founded the company in 2019 and over that time, it's all yours. Few years. But the use cases that we're solving for those. Been a real shift. We've seen different waves of demand for different reasons. As we, you know, first went into covid and remote work was brand new for everyone as people were settling into it. And now as a becomes, a more long-term thing and there are as being a real, from our perspective, a perfect storm of situations and realities and one is the fact that the Genies out of the bottle Battle on remote work. Pretty much anyone. That's a knowledge. Worker has no experience remote working, some former capacity. And that means that most people will argue, they can do their job remoting to some extent.

8:55 And when I say most people, I mean people that do desk jobs and that that's not going to change that's here. And it's here to stay, secondary to that. We've all had, an existential crisis as we were in lockdowns and we all are a lot of questions about our lives and what we want from our lives. And lots of people have relocated from the city to the country. Lots of people have changed careers and done something different. That questioning has meant, that a lot of people have been on the move, but very related to that is that attitudes have changed and people desire and expect flexibility when it comes to work and they want flexibility, in all of it Fork, all of its forms.

9:40 We often say people when they're starting a job people at interview, stage before, going for a first stage interview, and we see this all the time when we're hiring, people will say, you say, this is a remote job. How remote is it? I need to know that it's fully flexible and a lot of people will not even go for an interview until they know that. And I often say it's not that they necessarily intend moving country, but they want to know they can. People want to know. They want that assurance and it tells you something about an employer. It tells you something about how open they are, how flexible they are and if a company is really rigid on location, it, perhaps tells you something about the rigidity in relation to other matters and employees, love to hear that they've location flexibility. Now, you know, the real world operates in such a way that full location.

10:36 Flexibility is rarely viable for a variety of reasons because of time zones. It's because of practicalities, the problems that we solve even customers, using an employer of record or are using some solution like that. Quite often they won't have access or wanted the ability to do that for every country in the world, it will often be a list and cost Reasons from an employer's perspective. It's super low cost to have someone in Denmark. For example, her employer taxes are only about 1.25%. It's a fixed cost, even Furby, Boom, very high salaries.

11:17 It ends up being a very low cost. But if that employee wants to move to France or a lot of Southern European countries, those employer taxes are going to cost. The company could be 40 to 50 percent of the salary. Well, and he's often don't realize that when they're requesting moves. They think, how hard can it be? They're just being awkward. Why? You know, why won't they let me do this? And quite often line. Managers aren't given exposure to the Realities at prior to know. And it's just a no. So, and no was communicated to the employee. They think the up the, the company is just being awkward, but it can often be down to very practical reasons why it's not possible, but that's not a dude. Never would have appreciated that because obviously you see all the talk of digital are no visas to allow people to go work, remotely in different countries. And lots of countries are kind of bending over backwards to encourage people, but obviously, there's that kind of hidden, you know, cost to an employer, which would probably prevent some of that happen.

12:15 Yeah. Yeah. And there's also the fact that depending on the type of role that you do, if you work in a regulated space. So we have quite a few customers that are in the financial services space. So we have quite a few, VCS private Equity Funds. But the individuals that work in roles that are regulated, so people in investment type roles. We can't employ them but we can employ the admin people or people who might be in marketing roles or related areas for for a venture capital fund or private Equity Fund or a bank. For example, if someone is in a role that will be subject to regulation, if they move to another territory there, there is a real chance, the financial services organization would then need to be regulated in that territory.

13:01 Which opens up a whole can of worms. Or if people are in sales roles, there could be the risk of creating a permanent establishment in a territory. So, often employees aren't aware of that. Either, that, you know, I've been there, I've been Persons had to establish, and she's and countries, and then backtrack and unpick at all as a Leisure stage and it takes years. When I say, it takes years, you know, I've had it before an employee moved to a country. We established a permanent establishment. Got accountants involved were registered with the tax authorities within months. They moved to another country and it took me about eight, you know, 18 months later I was still having to deal with the local tax authorities, file taxes, pay A, a corporation taxes in that country because there are obligations.

13:50 You can't just shut down an entity overnight. It takes time. Yeah. Chris speaking of changing jurisdictions D, it looks like your first one that you did might have been around about the time that I was also at Boston University Weiss. Yeah, back. When and so I don't suppose you were, you were Dublin City University at the time and it looks like he did an exchange program and I was there at that point in time. Rice. Yeah, pee-yew. I live. It was a Howard Johnson hotel at that point. Now it's a bus in University or a building right by the sickle sign. Oh yeah. In the Howard Johnson, I lived in the Howard Johnson, it was so awesome. So I was an Irish students coming from Irish University and you know, Irish universities just run very differently to us universities.

14:37 So, it's going on this Exchange program and I was very excited to see what it would be like. And we don't have dorms here, you know, we don't have that out. Culture. So I was super excited about staying in college dorms and see what that experience was like. And then I got there because they guarantee accommodation to overseas students and first-year students. They had this overflow accommodation and it was all International students. And two, floors of the hotel was just students the rest of the hotel operated like a regular Hotel. It was chaos. We didn't have any security like the dorms HUD, so we just have parities. Every We we all in our friend, you all our friends had room keys for the car.

15:20 Key cards for our rooms. It was it was chaos. I don't know how the hotel Toleration us but I guess we were confined to two floors. We weren't Obsession other guests people, so it was a lot of fun. That's great. I parked outside that many times because I was in the school of management which was right next door to hojo's. I had a lot of guys called it, which was a stone's throw from Fenway Park. Yeah, I must have Matt. Did you go to at least one Red Sox? Game. When you were there, I have to admit I didn't, which is crazy. No, I was. I was extremely busy. So I had a, you know, studying I had a very busy social life and then I worked at a pug. You might know. Clear. He's Irish Pub bike. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I worked course.

16:00 I worked in an Irish Pub. Yeah, I remember that. That was relatively new when you were working there. Maybe it was? Yeah, it was because they clear it had the famous clock out front. That was reminiscent of the Cleary's clock on O'Connell Street. And ultimately Exactly. And I went back a few years ago and nothing had changed. The menu was exactly the same. So I'm we're talking about 20 or a gap here. Many was exactly the same. Some of the staff hadn't changed. The dagger was exactly the same. It was brilliant. It was such a trip down memory lane no that's great. And you when you you came back and you got into with the beginning of your career with sanctuary in big-time right?

16:45 That was mainly around entertainment industry, and Merchandising and Licensing and all of that did that give you a certain? What kind of start did that give you working in that industry from day one. So I knew when I was a student I knew I wanted to work in the music industry. I always paid music growing up in a very musical household with my dad, and my brother musicians and that was my real passion. So I wanted to work in record companies artist management. Along those lines. So I did that for about seven years, it was so much fun, I learned a huge amount, it's a very chaotic industry met up with an old work colleague last Thursday night that I hadn't seen for about 12 years and yet, it hasn't changed.

17:30 Still still a crazy crazy industry. It's, but I learned so much. The company I worked for a sanctuary was very, very multifaceted. It doesn't exist anymore. It was bought out by Universal Music, quite a few years ago. But the organization had grown through acquisition, they die poed raised funding to acquire broad range of businesses and the group owned record companies, artist management companies merchandise recording studios, music Publishers book, publishers, really multifaceted. And I did a management training program with them where I had the brilliant experience of spending a few months hopping around different. Companies, which was super cool.

18:16 I learned so much, I often think obviously amazing to work in a creative industry, but a lot of like, the stuff where I really learned a lot was around the licensing and IP end of things, which I got really involved in and was a founding member of a trademark and rights Protection Organization, a trade body. But yeah, that that and also working in an organization and music is so different. Now, Now back then it was about CD that was about record sales and the discipline of manufacturing businesses and I worked in the merchandise and of things as well, which is a really complex business because we had a touring division, who had some people in Asia.

19:02 Some people were in the US somewhere in Europe, and they were on the Move every few days, and you had to track the stuff that they were selling and anticipate what the stock needs will be and what country You need to deliver them but that time brand licensing was not what it is. Now we can't forget, one of my colleagues was super smart and she went and did a deal with Topshop and a deal with H&M, which at the time was revolutionaries. Well, we're doing a brand licensing deal, what major High Street retailers and we have the rights for a Motorhead and Guns and Roses. So we did deals with them for for t-shirts and clothing with these brands on Them.

19:45 But that, that was very new at the time, it was also the time. I don't know if you remember this, but we were selling ringtones and phone screen. See anyone under 40? Probably listening to this or certainly under 35. Think people used to pay for phone ringtones? Yeah. Yeah. Why isn't it just a quote, Arctic Monkeys going back to? Like, what was it? 2006 is that there's only music so there's new ringtones. Yeah, it was very Window of time and people used to pay for green savers for their phones. If this is back when there are counties our phones, but yeah, we did a lot of that. So, yeah, I really enjoyed.

20:25 It was a lot of fun. Yeah. No, it's a great great. And that's where you got some of your planning and strategy and execution and operational bones. Yeah, term sure. You know, getting things going on, I worked at a music marketing agency at one point. And I remember the CEO saying to me, someday you'll be a great Ops leader. You could be So or something and I was really offended because I don't know how to work in a box that sounds really boring. But I was actually offended because I think I wanted I had Notions about doing something a bit more creative but I was far more suited to the Ops. So you know I was good really good at execution. Yeah notes and it's a good combination the creativity and well, as well as the operational strength.

21:09 So it served you well and you made a, you know, before your next phase kicked And you made a little bit of a creative stop with silver Wishbone. I do it. So I had a window of time, I decided to leave music this year. I turned 30, it's a bit of a cliche in the music industry. A lot of people leave the ER they turned 30 and I knew I wanted to do something else. I wanted something, I was more ambitious than then what my career in the music industry was was giving me and I just felt like I wasn't able to get to where I wanted to be in music. So I just took a jump and then I had a two-year period where I guess I was trying to find my purpose and figure out where I go and I knew I knew I wanted to move into at that time I was saying online mobile or online, which what?

22:01 We're now, we'd probably called Tech because I could see a music. There are huge opportunities in those spaces and I didn't have experience in digital as we called it then. So, I thought I'd get that experience. A probably then start a music text. Start up soon as I got into Tech. I realized it's where I wanted to be. So had that ambition but didn't know how to get there. I didn't have a network, didn't have any experience in that space. So, for two years, I do a few different things. I did a one-year contract with UBS Investment Bank and I did a one-year contract at Bob Geldof startup private Equity firms. That was really interesting as well to see. It was just a real startup. I was employee number two, how we're Mondays at that place when I didn't like them.

22:47 So yeah. And then on the side and it was when I look back, you know, it's you have that kind of energy when you're younger, that goes like this, so crazy. I did so many things at once. I did a project management qualification, I didn't accounting qualification. I and I started silver, Wishbone, and online jewelry retail business is real. I wanted to build a website. That was how I used a website builder. I used Yahoo web. Okay, that's old. School was quite a few years ago. Yeah. So I am very into jewelry. I love jewelry. So, I built this online jewelry retail business. I didn't build a business.

23:28 That's that's a liar built a website, but but you got, you got it going. It was, it was up and running. You got customers. I had customers, I had Some customers who were people that weren't even in my personal network, but almost immediately. As soon as it was up and running, I realized this is about packing boxes. Go to the post office. So I knew yeah, I knew it could never be a huge business but I realized what I enjoyed was. Setting it up, I enjoyed the research piece deciding on the pricing sourcing, the product of that was fun and then once it was up and running, I was like. So maybe that's what gave me a bit of an insight into startups and how they At the early stage, the setup stage figuring stuff out is actually so much more exciting and interesting than the status quo, definitely, definitely. And I saw the silver Wishbone.com is now owned by a woman named Shannon, who is a freelance writer in Florida, so, at least stayed and creative hand looked in so long. Yeah, yeah.

24:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a very good name, is a very good name and that kind of led to your next step with Mesabi and then returning to Dublin with busy simply with axon Isa as you. And doing some Consulting in there as well, that gave you kind of a multi-discipline multi-faceted kind of experience across a number of different startups at different stages and that must have been extremely valuable. Yeah, so, you know, as I said, I had these Ambitions to get into Tech and the job at Mesabi was actually saw an Advertiser and lying, which is so unusual for a role like that because own monster a Monster. Yeah, yeah, we're jobs and it was just Just I feel so blessed.

25:10 I got that job. It was just perfect for me. And I got such brilliant experience and the founders are just great guys. I haven't, I haven't seen them recently but did spend almost a whole day with them. A couple of years ago. I was the first their Sixth and four. I was the sixth employee was five Engineers when I arrived in, they had no live products, no money in the bank. No customer is very definitely. No pre-revenue, but amazing. These were extremely talented Engineers, really? Really smart guys, and they just knew they needed someone that wasn't an engineer. So they advertise for a commercial manager but I didn't really know what a commercial manager was and they didn't really know. So I just came in and I did all the stuff that was not writing Colt and they've been gone for 48 years. They've been building for eight years but obviously it was an extremely limited market.

26:07 But this Was the year the iPhone launched. Okay, so suddenly they had this, there were commercial opportunities for people that knew how to build ups. And there were not many people that you have to build up. So that, you know, the people at our core were extremely aware of of somehow we were doing even though we were in like this six-person company, we the ability to take payment in up because the guys had done some early mobile banking stuff and that was at the time we meet with feces and they'd say you're taking the payment, you're handling the payment yourself within the app. We say, yeah. And then they take what about all the people that will never buy anything on a mobile phone? Which yeah, of course, the big loads of people never put their payment card details. It's all about felt that all of these very different now.

26:49 So it was just a brilliant experience, you know, we raised multiple rounds of investment. We grew the teen were initially serving customers in the UK. We were based in London, started serving customers in the u.s. really long sales Cycles. Very long, we were selling to Transit agencies. We were doing ticket. Ting. For at that stage tray, it was trained. Operator, is now they serve all kinds of Transit agencies but yeah, brilliant, brilliant experience and I just got to really, I mean, you know, I had a decent job skills going in there, but it was the first time I'd been in a senior leadership role where I got to own function.

27:30 So I was responsible for finance, legal April. I oversaw all of the the goal setting. At an organizational level. I worked really closely with the founders to define the direction that we will go in and then to figure out how to get the team to come along with us. That was that was probably the piece of it, that, that I really enjoyed the most, but we went from, Six people in a crummy office to, you know, move into these great officers and lead a team of about 50. They have about 300 now. So I've grown a lot since that time. But it was cool, it was really cool experience and I loved it and I you know I mentioned that I thought I would go and do something in Tech and get enough experience to go back to music.

28:17 I'd say I was there ten days and I said like this never going back to music. This is for Carol and to be This is these are my people nice, but you still play an instrument. I mean, I mess around. I'm not. Yeah, okay. Probably. I couldn't subject and girls do it, but why would I play the guitar? I used to play the flute growing up. That was always my instruments. That realize I was in orchestras and stuff, they don't do that anymore, which is a shame. But I'm sure I always say whenever I retire. Yeah. Yeah you look like hell. I'd love to learn the cello cello, so I think I will go back to playing more music. Yeah. Yeah, I picked it up again when my kids started playing so you know, and it's amazing how when you see your kids changing chords on the guitar that you're like. If they can do it, I can do it.

29:03 You know, if that's pretty awesome but the seems like a real snowball that was building here and then what was the impetus to return back to Dublin? Say it wasn't necessarily that there was a draw back to Dublin. I think I was just overwhelmed and I was there 12 years, it's such an amazing City owes their last week. I love Today maybe it wasn't even armed and I just wanted a change. I wanted to go somewhere different and I had a network in Ireland's so it seemed like the obvious Place. Yep. And that that next first stop was was busy employee. Yes in Ireland. Yeah. Well where I met? My co-founder Emily. A simply was a great experience. I was at some drinks that are very kind people that enter your see.

29:44 Back when Andy receive was down at the digital, hope they gave me a desk to work from and I stood all the Working events that they had and I was at drinks. And I met Gerald Ford, who's the founder of the simply, who was a brilliant person, absolute genius products, genius met him, and the whole team were there at some drinks. And I, you know, I spoke to Jared. And I'd say within five minutes. I was like, I'm gonna work for this company. Yep. It's right away. You meet. So, you know, you go to so many. I'm sure you're like we are at so many startup events. You so many people and I mean this is harsh but I'll be The vast majority of people when they describe what their startup is Eagle, your Holland, yeah, laughter, real job for that. I know.

30:32 Well, that's why 95 percent of startups fail, right? Yeah, yeah. So, but jarrod's describes what they were doing and, but simply is a workforce management software to it's used by the hospitality sector again. They were super early, they were running trials, but they've never, they were pre-revenue. I always say that was easy. It feels a little bit disingenuous saying their pre-revenue because I joined and I just I said you have send out invoices. It's just none of these people have paid you. They were like yeah well you know we do they kind of felt like they didn't want to ask for money because they felt like the product wasn't good enough, but it was these people were using the product all the time. So my first week I just made a few phone calls and then brought Revenue it was the easiest you're right.

31:16 I've been carrying my drawing pre-revenue but all I have to do is to make a few phone calls and the revenue revenue stars are coming in. But yeah, the It's a great business, it's a great product, it's used by a lot of cost. Two coffees. Now in the UK, pretty much every part I was with some friends. Last night, we walked by a bar and I pointed in the window and I said that simply you know you see behind the counter. You see that the clock in clock out on an iPad. So yeah, it was, it was a good one to join but I could tell when I talked to Jared about it I was like this is you're solving a real problem and you know what you're talking about he was from the restaurant trade. He said he'd owned restaurants himself. Okay, got it.

31:56 And then it looks like after be simply that you were doing some Consulting and that you went into ax and ISTA probably on a advisory Consulting gig and then they ask you to stick around for a while, exactly. I actually met Claire McHugh and Darrell Ward back in 2015, 2016. I was I was looking at a start-up project and I went to go meet them. It was somewhere off of somewhere above. What was it now? Our street. Yes. And for the office was talking about so she talked to them about the project, they showed me, what they had built, all this interactive video for QVC, the the TV Shopping Network in the US and I'm like, whoa, this was mind-blowing and it was probably a hundred times too expensive for the startup that I wanted to build back then.

32:43 Yeah. It was amazing and it's so cool that you're involved with that. Yeah. So that's real Enterprise sales, you know they have big customers. Hi. I value contract. So yet it was good to get that mix and interactive video, I really liked because again, it was, it was media was a little bit closer to that creative Industries, where I've been with music and, and the super team. A lot of people are very specialist skills video engineers and data scientists really smart people. Oh yeah, definitely. I was floored by what they showed me was amazing. And then what was the trigger point to launch boundless, you know? I later, I mean, I probably I should have started a start-up years earlier on, people used to always say, to me, I need you going to start your own or more often than not.

33:31 People used to say, I assume you're going to start your own paying very soon, but I wasn't brave enough. You know, I was, I really had a lot of friends that were started to Founders. I had seen startups, destroy people's mental health, I had seen far more companies failed and have success. I was definitely very scared of it. But I reached a point where I needed, I was over a Jew. I was a sea wall for 10 years, my probably over stayed in that role and I wanted a big leap, a big jump. I wanted something that was a huge Challenge and the CEO role was the obvious place to go, but I sure as hell didn't want to be CEO of someone else's baby.

34:15 Yep, because that sounds like all kinds of complicated. So I knew the next I think joining oxidized I knew the next thing. Would do will be my own ping, but I didn't know Applause. And then this problem I had experienced when I was asked back Sinister and it it seems like too big problem to solve, it seemed far too complex. There was a lot of legal risk involved. You needed funding, to establish all of these entities internationally. I wasn't convinced that it was possible to deliver a cohesive quality customer experience throughout of service providers operate.

34:56 In the model that we Now operate the XD, customer experience was rubbish. They were awful to support was terrible. As you know, a lot of them still, it's that kind of experience and I didn't know if it could be done. Well. So I guess it was a problem that gnawed away at me. And, you know, I always had like no book, right of different ideas and it was always there glaring at me, but it took me time to say, yeah, I'll give it a go. Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. It again. It just seems like the snowball Gathering momentum and that the network you built the experience is that you had the confidence that that gave you. The the leadership, the thinking, the planning, the execution strategy, all that stuff combined into one. Do you think that if you hadn't gone through that and you had started a 10 years before that you would have been able to get the attention of All-Star investors like check Warner from out of Ventures.

35:56 And Julie, Maples from Firefly Ventures, who were the key investors in your seed. Round, it's really hard to say because there are lots of first time. Founders, who maybe don't have a whole lot of work experience behind them, who do amazing things and raise huge sums of money, right? There are people that you could have been that one. So I don't know if I would have been that one. I think so much of it's about psychology, right? I'm not a sports book, being a start-up founder. I do see the parallels. I know a lot of people would read sports biographies and stuff to learn about the mindset of athletes or coaches and it is similar, you have to believe that you can win.

36:38 And I didn't believe that before it took me time to build that belief and for me, and people are different dry spot. Will give you. That belief is different for different people for me. Well, gave me that belief was D risking and saying, well, I know you do. I know how to hire a build a team. I know how to ride a finance function. I have really good background in the legal stuff. I, you know, I know how to raise investment. I get the startup thing. I have a network. So for real, all of those things were Dee risky. Yep. By the time I can't and it's still it's so bloody hard. It is still so hard when you have that background and experience and you have all of those things. So I'm constantly in all of people who are new to take or very young Founders.

37:26 I'm just like I've no idea how you do it but for me building having that arsenal of tools D risking was the thing that allowed me to go yeah. Like I could Do this. What I said? I'm so terrified that it was going. Yeah. My fear was like, I just did this fear that, you know, we'd never get any customers or we'd get like seven customizing, it won't be able to get any more and it would just be this damp squib and it would be that identifies all know how, you know, how did I think I could start a copy? Why did I think I could do this? And that it will be really embarrassing. I'm really happy to say we're beyond that point. You know, we have, we have enough Revenue in enough customer, is that it's not Thought Morty embarrassed. Yeah, you know what you guys are doing really well, and but it's like it's the repetitions because I feel that myself, you know, in the last year now, I've been through 1,000 deals, looking at 1,000 deals for techstars. Okay.

38:23 And that, that just, that is mental muscle that muscle memory. And it gives you a great deal of speed efficiency, confidence, execution, ability and just improves your leadership. Abilities is Beast. It's what people describe as got feeling right. But got a feeling of course, is based on all of your prior experience. I used to work with this man and like, my old colleague I met last week that I haven't seen for years, we were talking about him and I was telling her how he used to amaze me. He is such a character rail, you know, Ace and London. Giza had probably left school very young like I say he left school at 14 or 15.

39:06 No formal education. Education, but you I will come in to propose something to him will be a brand licensing deal or something. And I will command. I got off, I've got this amazing opportunity. I found this partner and I just quickly view out a couple of details and he got no more work. I've been busting my bully whole thing and he got no and he would rhyme on a list of numbers. He would be able to in like a made it without taking out a calculator. Pen and paper. He go you know that that couldn't partnership that kind of deal. It's going to look like this. You'll sell this many units of this territory that money within that territory. The costs are going to be this.

39:48 Your profit rates going to be your margins, go to be whatever. It's not going to work. Can't make that work and ice cream. I'd walk out of the room like frontal going. How does he know? I do buddy. He's been doing this for years and you know, because he spent so much time looking at sets of numbers, he just knew the numbers. He's? I'm amazing. I see a phone while we always joke about it because she's the Savior. She obviously hasn't closed, got for no reason. So do I, I've produced so many Financial projections of financial models for so many different companies at this stage and so many different types of businesses will look at something and I'll go you know I reckon that's going to be it's going to be about two hundred, ten thousand Euro and she'll go okay and she you know, whatever it is when evolved her having to go and do all this research to all these calculations. You have to do the calculations, she'll come back to you. Like I've spent two days at this, it's two hundred and twelve thousand Euro, okay?

40:45 Always being little you're a little bit easier around and you do you just like numbers is where it's very noticeable. I think you're right. When you were talking about deals, probably the same thing. You just get this. Gosh you're like that's probably going to need about a million for that or really crazy cat. You know, you can't just rely on gut instinct and say I reckon this is for around terms of ARR. But yeah, you do get real fresh. You do dinner. And it probably comes back then too, you know that piece you're saying about the kind of fear being first-time founder and being ready. What's interested in terms of what you're doing obviously with boundless is that it it seems like something that, you know, should have been solved or someone should have been solving in already. But actually really it takes someone who knows all of the Nuance to it, because I'm sure people have looked at it from the outside and think, oh, well, you should be able to do this.

41:32 And, you know, maybe someone not from the background would say, oh yeah, I could build a platform but Wanting to all of the ten different knock-on effects of that. They need to look at in this particular thing and like that, you know, your experience of all of it has gotten you to the point that, you know, the ins and outs of, you know, problems down the line in particular areas. So whilst you're coming at it from a, you know, first time founder piece, you were coming at it with a deep kind of knowledge of the challenges of what you're trying to solve. Well, what you've described is exactly what's happened. On our space got extremely busy once covid. Hit and Once particularly when there was that explosion in remote working and funding going into the remote workspace, there were a huge number of people who opportunistically decided to build a startup in this space. They just saw an opportunity and the only founder in the space from an Ops background.

42:26 So what most companies in its face did was they just looked at it and said, I can just piggyback these existing service providers I can piggyback on their infrastructure, build a tech front end that the customer uses, but I doubt Source, the actual employment, and the payroll and so on, to third parties, but I've been a customer of these third parties, they so bad. I decided to devote my life to building an alternative. But I knew that because I'd been a customer, but I think Pause and I chewed in the space that you can solve all problems would take. You just automate, you build Tech. In my mind, the tack on a good Tech user interface and great product experience, that's table Stakes.

43:11 You have to provide that, but you cannot eliminate what's behind that you're doing. You're doing with hate your problems. You're dealing with people's benefits. There's a big human element to pop. We do. So you need all of that at the back end and it needs Needs to be high quality. So yeah, it's the fact that people have taken that approach of just being very opportunistic and not actually understanding the problems, not understanding the customer. It's given us a really big opportunity to differentiate and be the apps. People that really understand problems and can can see your, from the customers perspective and builds the products that they really need, and provide the level of support that they need. Awesome.

43:52 Awesome. I love it. How are you thinking about your next round? Given that your seed round was roughly 18 months ago. How's that going to shape up? So we really interesting me. If you talk to me for five months ago, the answer to this question would have been very different. Obviously the word you know. The world is changing all the time and we've seen it. We saw a lot of change last year when it comes came to fundraising markets and the realities of being out there and fundraising we have just A couple of very large customers and where we've started to realize that actually, we are in a position now to do Enterprise sales. So we are in a very nice position of having enough. Funding through through sales, customer is large customers, paying annually upfront to support us in the growth that we want to deliver at this year.

44:44 Wow. So right now, we're not actively fundraising. Okay? Now that's a good position. A great position to be in and I keep keep saying I'm not, you know, closing the door to ever raising Venture money again, but I want to work with VC's that are coming to me that have conviction of what we're doing. That see the opportunity and really want to work in a partnership rather than being out there chasing the money, which is a great position to be in but it's made me think so differently in myself and Emily. My co-founder keep saying a perspective on things is just totally different now and there were going after much larger customers We do sales How We Do marketing is all going to fray different this year and I'm very excited about that. It feels like a fresh start, is what it is, exciting. It's nice and I got imagine that someone like Jack Warner, like I mentioned, she's not going to be the type of VC with her long-term view that will try to get you to do another round. So they get evaluation pump for their fund know. I have breakfast with her last Friday in London. She's super excited.

45:45 Super excited about the Enterprise sales opportunity, extremely supportive. So yeah, with the, we have Have we have not we're not overfunded a lot of companies in our space, raised hundreds of millions, the now, trying to figure out. If it to make their margins work, we've had those fundamentals working all along. So the world is our oyster, their money Pat's we can go down now which is great. Awesome, awesome. So we'll move to the point of this discussion D where Owen asks his last final famous question that we asked everybody on this podcast. Oh and over to you buddy? Yes. And thanks again to you've shared those that are just. Is there anything people wouldn't expect to know about you? I should have prepared an answer for this. I didn't do anything. People wouldn't expect to know about me.

46:27 I, um, I'm a big Yogi and very into yoga and meditation and I have when I go on vacations, I will often do yoga holidays. I do, like, when I travel for work as well, always find a yoga studio near my hotel and it makes you feel like a real local. Hmm. You know, and go for a yoga class locally before work, it's something I love to do to know if that's done. If that's what you're hoping for. No, that's awesome. I was just thinking this morning I do meditate myself as well but I meditate standing up while I'm walking, there is a way to do this. Is guys she was out you mean, and I went through a class thanks to Paul Smith who's who's a good friend last year and it works and I do it for 5 minutes every morning and it totally clears. My head kind of like a whore sleeping standing up. You know gonna have to research that and hope I don't go into any word on the street.

47:18 Exactly. No sure, I'll share it with Edie but listen. Thank you so much for joining the show. This has been fascinating to figure out more about you and to hear the story from you firsthand and it all it all Blends together so well, and I can see why you guys are totally just killing it with with boundless. So, keep going. This is such an awesome story. Thank you. Thanks so much. Both of you. I really enjoyed us. Take care and have a good day. Thanks. That does it for this week, folks. Thanks the D Coakley for opening up. Her mind to help us figure out why she does. What she does. You can learn more about the cochlear and boundless in the show notes on our website money never sleeps.

48:00 That. I thank secona, Brophy, from create sound for mixing and editing. This episode, Conan is an excellent medium and to get in touch with when you're thinking about launching your own podcast. As for me, I'm an early stage, startup investor focused on where fintech meets crypto and crypto meets web 3 and I run the techstars web 3 accelerator. There are plenty of links in the show notes on money, never sleeps that IE and how to get in touch with us. So please don't hesitate to reach out finally you till next time. Thanks for listening. See you