Why Working Less Saved My Startup

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My information was to work 200
hours a week to sort it out, but

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there's only so much you can
achieve.

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So what I actually did was stood
back from it and I cut down my

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hours.
I did about 5 hours a day and

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just tried to solve the problem,
and I spent the rest of the day

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kind of going for long walks and
letting it settle as opposed to

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frantically bashing the
keyboards thinking that solved

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the problem.
This is Money Never Sleeps.

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Sharp riffs, big ideas and real
insights from smart people.

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I'm Pete Townsend, general
partner at Nario Ventures.

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Let's go money.
Never sleeps well.

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So Ollie Walsh, welcome back to
Muddy Never Sleeps, your first

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time on the new format.
Ollie is the founder of Pipit

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Global, recently exited to KENTA
last year.

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And as my friends from Fundrex,
Alan Mini and Des O'Donoghue

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said to me years ago, that with
every startup founder journey,

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there are 30 days in a month.
There's 29 bad days and one good

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day.
That generally keeps you going,

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right?
So they've given everything that

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you've been through.
Tell me, when were things

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objectively the hardest for you?
Not financially, but mentally.

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When I suppose it ebbs and
blows.

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So it's 29 bad days and one good
day.

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I mean, your question
immediately brings me back to,

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to, to relatively early in our,
in our story, the company was 12

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years old and we sold it.
So probably a year 4, three or

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four.
You know, we'd, we'd identified

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the, the three biggest risks to
the company. 1 was losing a key

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member of staff, one was losing
a key client and one was losing

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a key bank account.
So we're as a fintech company,

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you're always at risk of being
debanked because the banks don't

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like fintech.
So any excuses, all they'll,

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they'll debank you.
And all three of those things

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happened in an 8 week period.
We lost one of our directors who

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was a finance, we lost one of
our key clients and we lost our

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key UK bank account.
And it was, you know, disaster

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city.
And it wasn't anything like the

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company was funded at the time
we'd recently been.

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So it wasn't like we were short
of money, but it's just hit the

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fan in a big way.
Part of the learning in, in, in

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self-care, I suppose as a, as a,
as an entrepreneur was, you

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know, umm, I think that, that
my, my inclination was to work

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200 hours a week to sort it out,
but there's only so much you can

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achieve.
So what I actually did was stood

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back from it and I cut down my
hours.

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I did about 5 hours a day and
just tried to solve the problem.

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And I spent the rest of the day
kind of going for long walks and

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letting it settle as opposed to
frantically bashing the

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keyboards thinking that solved
the problem.

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So kind of that was and, and the
problems we resolved them.

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They were difficult suppose, but
we moved on and we we continued

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was that that's that that period
jumps out as a particularly

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difficult sleepless nights type
type period.

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But then you know, you're,
you're raising funding and the

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last month, the last week, the
last day of getting things

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signed is traumatic because
things change and people try to

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influence deals.
And you can do that, the funding

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and you can do up the exit as
well.

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What was it?
60 day term sheet took 42 weeks

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to close.
It's it's not a straight line

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from A to B did.
You feel burnt out when you were

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in it, when you were in that.
I have to do everything I can to

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get this sorted out.
And what were the signs?

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Was it physiological?
Was it mental?

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Was it a combination of the two?
No, I didn't feel like I was

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burnt out, but no, like, like I
said, I finished up at KENTA in,

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in October, I think.
So I've had two months off, not

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not working at all.
And it's only really when you

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get at the far side that you
realize kind of, you know, like

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literally I say, my wife said to
me, like you never really

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acknowledged that you were
stressed.

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You know what, looking back to
this, you're in the middle of

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the the hustle.
Your mindset is I can solve this

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problem, but it's not until you
really step back that you

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realized, you know how fraught
it was and how frazzled you were

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and how and and how stressed.
You were, but at the end of the

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day, you didn't fall down, you
didn't fall apart, and you kept

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things you you had a support
stack there for you.

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There were things like Tai chi
and you have your peers with

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your founder groups, you have
mentors that you worked with.

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You have you had the board,
right?

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How would you rank these in
terms of how did you keep your

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sanity in terms of what mattered
the most?

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Well, each of those things
provided a different solace, I

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suppose.
Or support, I mean, the Tai chi

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practice or a morning routine.
I mean, for me it's Tai chi

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whether it's yoga or walking or
cycling or swimming or whatever

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your routine is, is, is to have
that time for yourself.

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So, I mean, I've, you know, I've
been practicing Tai chi for 23

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years, but I've, you know, I
have a daily morning practice,

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uh, which is really important to
me.

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Uh, I do have a peer group,
which is a, a facilitation peer

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group.
So it's like a power 7.

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It's called it's, it's seven
business owners that meet for a

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full day every second month and
you share your problems and you

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help other people solve theirs.
For me, my wife was a big part

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of my support structure that
can, you know, that's kind of a

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personal choice thing.
Some people don't like to bring

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the problems home.
There were problems home, but

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for me, you know, that was
important.

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And then a good friend of mine,
Mark, who's a, you know, I've

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been friends since we were 12 in
school, but you know, he's a

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local business owner, but he's
he's outside of that group.

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So I kind of tapped him up and
said I need to meet you every

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every week for a coffee just to
vent.

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So he was at the wrong side of
the vent every morning for about

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two years having a coffee in
town.

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But, but all of those things
combined and, and yes, I had a

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mentor as well and I had a
business coach too.

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And you know, the, the board
were very supportive, including

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your good self.
Of course, I do know many, many

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horror stories about business
owners or founders dealing with

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boards who are not supportive,
who are, are, are working on

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their own agenda as opposed to
companies.

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Umm, so I was looking that in
that as well.

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I'm with her, with her VC with
new ventures and Kenya says on

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the board as well.
I mean, he was very, very

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supportive.
So, uh, so it's not like I as a

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one man forced my way through
this.

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I had the team, the support
group, my mindfulness practice,

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Wellness practice, family,
friends, umm, all to lean on.

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Yeah, it it sounds like the key
is just don't be lonely, you

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know, don't just take it all on
your shoulders.

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Exactly, exactly.
And even if you know, I mean

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like I had a team, but even if
you're in a solo solopreneur and

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you don't have a team and you
don't know the board, you need

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support structures because umm,
I don't been, you know, using

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base camp and chit ChatGPT and
business tools.

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I mean personal support
structures for you as an

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individual.
Yeah, yeah, no, just talking to

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ChatGPT all day can get a bit
lonely.

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You hear what you want to hear.
Exactly.

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You had the right approach here.
You weathered through the storm.

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But a lot of founders don't.
Is there something that founders

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systematically misunderstand
about resilience and about what

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it means?
I would think resilience isn't,

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isn't a isn't a single event.
I mean, it's, it's, it's an

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ongoing series of your plan
going Askew or full on

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disasters.
So I mean that resilience builds

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over time.
It's it is a muscle.

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You build it up by by using it.
The longer in the game kind of

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the more resilient you get.
But there is, you know, there's

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this kind of fail fast kind of
mentality around kind of the

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modern business world.
And I think a lot of people who

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say should fail fast maybe
haven't actually failed and

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tried it.
Yeah, you know, people, it

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wasn't my first startup.
There was, there was several

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before that where we got to the
point where we had to pull the

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plug.
So it doesn't always work.

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And you know, I'm sure you know
the number of us, probably 95%

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of businesses don't work or 95%
of startups don't work.

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So you know that, that, that,
that resilience is built up by

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previous experiments in
business, previous startups.

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But you also need to be
realistic and, and that is

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about, you know, being strategic
about having a plan and not just

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waking up in the morning and do
whatever, whatever you feel like

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in, in terms of your, your daily
plan and your business plan.

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Having that experience and
knowing that things don't always

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go right and that instead of the
first time that things go wrong

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in your business that you're
currently working on, you

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realize that I've been in
business before and things

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haven't always gone my way.
And you persist and you go

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forward.
And that it seems like

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resilience is more about having
that knowledge and having that

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experience than having a tough
outer core or a suit of armor on

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you at all times as you're going
to battle in the startup world.

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You kind of have expectations, I
suppose that you know deals

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aren't necessarily going to get
signed and the tech is going to

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take longer to build than you
expect these kinds of things.

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What what you don't necessarily
expect is, is people that you

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know letting you down.
For example, a big sucker punch.

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The Hard Things About Hard
Things is a book that I've

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always recommended to founders.
Ben Horowitz, but.

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It's a great book about his
journey through, you know,

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working with his founders and
the company getting to a point

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where his his team aren't ready
for the next stage, for example.

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And the best quote out of that
book, I don't even know it was

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in a book, but it was something
he said, was that when I was a

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founder, I slept like a baby.
I woke up screaming every few

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hours, you know?
So yeah, that that's Ben

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Horowitz.
He's sharp wit.

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But you know what is one thing
that you would tell a founder

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who feels like they're just
about holding it together?

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A support group is key.
If people you can rely on,

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people who aren't involved in
your business in any way that

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you can kind of bring your
problems to.

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And an important part of it as
well is that, you know, we're a

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diverse range of businesses,
diverse size of businesses and

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revenue on teams, but we all
kind of have the same problems

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or those problems evolve over
time.

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Or you can see that your
problems aren't distinct to you,

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which is important, but also,
you know, you're kind of in

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there.
And this is my problem today

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that I need help with.
And then the next person has

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their issue they're trying to
solve.

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And when you're helping them,
the, the act of helping somebody

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else kind of resolves the issue
in your own mind as well.

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You know, so, so it's not just,
you know, an hour of talking

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about life problems.
So whether it's a facilitated

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group or you just organize your
own group or or whatever, we do

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it, but certainly a peer group,
I would think is is is vital.

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Any warning signs that you
ignored that you don't think you

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should have?
There was issues that I saw

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calming that I just didn't have
the capacity to deal with there

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and then, and because of that
they got much worse than they

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have to be.
Yeah.

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You know, so you know, there's a
problem, you can see a problem

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coming or, or, or an issue that
is there's going to be hard to

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solve now.
Hard things, but hard things.

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Dealing with it now, it's hard,
but it's it's easier than

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dealing with it in the future.
Absolutely.

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Problems never resolved
themselves.

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No, and I think that's a benefit
of experience, is that knowing

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that that festering problem,
well, if you don't treat it

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properly, it's going to become
awfully smelly if you don't do

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it right.
If success for you isn't just

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the exit, what does it look like
now after you've survived the

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hardest parts?
A country of full process.

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Now as an entrepreneur, you
know, we started the company.

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That's what you referred to as
the the Founders poem.

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And the last time we talked, you
know, started the company, got

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the initial funding, got the
first client, got the second

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client, got the first
transaction, got the VC money,

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got our platform live across 50
countries in emerging markets,

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build a team and, and eventually
exit this.

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I mean, it's, it's full circle
in terms of that entrepreneurial

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journey.
The exit itself isn't the only

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success.
Each of these steps is a

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success.
Every transaction success, every

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new customer, every new partner,
every deal signed when myself

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00:12:57,240 --> 00:13:02,160
and the two Co founders were in
a meeting and we hadn't done a

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transaction in the middle of the
meeting, Rory the CTO says, oh,

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we just did a transaction.
We know OK, brace And it was

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like an hour or two later
because we were in the middle of

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doing something, we realized, oh
hold on, we just did our first

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transaction.
We're now officially post

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revenue.
It was a huge moment and we

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nearly missed this because we
were so busy doing something.

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So, you know, not missing those
didn't successes, not missing

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those daily successes is, is, is
a vital part, also part of the

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self-care that it's not all bad
news.

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You know, good things happen.
Standing back now, it, it wasn't

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just the exit, it was a success.
It was.

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It was every step from from the
day we formed a company to the

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day we sold us.
Where, where, where, where

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those, those, those one day a
month, that was a good day.

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Yeah.
So the exit is the outcome.

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The success is earned.
The exit lash out for founders

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in a few words.
Take care of yourself.

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Absolutely, 100%.
Yeah.

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Ollie, thank you.
Appreciate you coming back on to

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00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:04,320
do this with me.
And for everybody out there,

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00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:07,720
please do like and subscribe
wherever you get your podcast

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00:14:07,720 --> 00:14:09,320
because it helps others to find
the show.

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00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:12,240
So thank you.
And Ollie, I will talk to you

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00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:13,400
again soon.
Thanks Pete.

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Money never sleeps well.