{"id":7673,"date":"2021-07-20T16:25:48","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T15:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/?p=7673"},"modified":"2026-01-07T13:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:42:30","slug":"sound-advice-bootstrap-tech-platform-alec-dobbie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/sound-advice-bootstrap-tech-platform-alec-dobbie\/","title":{"rendered":"How to bootstrap and build a tech platform from the spare room"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello and welcome to the show notes for episode three of Sound Advice, get year one in business right, brought to you by Sage.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re bringing you real stories from some brilliant entrepreneurs. Sound Advice is all about finding those practical tips that you can take away and use for setting up your small business. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to be there for you, to help you through challenging times and give you a little lift when a problem seems too big to solve on your own.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie is the co-founder of FanFinders, a performance marketing and consumer intelligence company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Alec became a dad for the second time, he was bombarded with ads for all kinds of products and felt overwhelmed, so he created Your Baby Club in 2012, which curates content from top baby companies on the FanFinders data platform, cutting out the spam and the noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based in West Yorkshire, FanFinders started life as a side hustle in Alec\u2019s box bedroom, but quickly the self-coded data platform grew to serve five million parents on two continents, signs up 40,000 new members a month in the UK and 100,000 in the US, and has a market share of 66% of mums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did he do it and what did he learn that you can apply in setting up your small business? Whether it be commerce, product-based or otherwise? Navigate our show notes to find out\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to strength-test your business<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to attract talent to plug skills gaps<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why you don\u2019t have to meet your co-founders in person<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can scale a side hustle and <\/em>keep your full-time job<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t have to know how to code \u2013 but you can learn<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to retain customers by getting the fundamentals right<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Test and measure and don\u2019t be afraid to find a specialist<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be selective about what your product or service does<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find a mentor, sure \u2013 but sports biographies and podcasts also help inspire ideas<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why exercise helps to keep business focus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understand the nuance of each market to sell to it<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t expand if it doesn\u2019t make sense \u2013 learn to say no<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set your success metrics early<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embrace failure \u2013 it\u2019s a learning exercise<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to incorporate automation to build an effective customer service<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why creating tech is an achievable aim for a non-technical small business owner<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to hire a good cultural fit<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create an interview activity or test when hiring people<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Download your free small business toolkit: a guide, business plan template and cash flow forecast template so you can boss your business<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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How to strength-test your business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Thanks so much for coming Alec. Do you mind telling us a little bit more about that journey? What were you doing before? How did you make it happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. For the previous sort of 15 years or so, I was a professional software guy. I worked as a contractor working for big companies doing short-term contracts, writing code, writing websites when they appeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the business came about in between child number one and child number two being born, when I noticed what was happening to my wife\u2019s and my email accounts. We were getting an awful lot of email from an awful lot of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were getting sent a lot of gifts through the post, little teddy bears and samples of things, and discounts and stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I looked at the space with a technical head on and thought, \u201cthere\u2019s a better way than it\u2019s been done now\u201d. But both from a business perspective and from a technical perspective, it seemed that it was disjointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a lot of like a 1950s feel to it. It hadn\u2019t quite caught up with the digital age and we thought we could do a better job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, myself and one of my founders, Raph \u2013 who is a creative guy \u2013 started to create our first website. We thought if we do this, will it work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we put something together which will attract consumers, because if we attract consumers, we figured there\u2019d be a business for brands behind that. So we put the first site live in probably late 2012, early 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then we realised quite quickly that we were quite good at doing the website stuff, because we\u2019d done this for ages, but we were less good at all the other bits. It turns out I can\u2019t sell for toffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We would put a few brands on there. We got a few things that were easy, like off-shelf things that were available to anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did a few like Google Ads to kind of drive people to the site to see if it would work. And it did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the main state it did work, our numbers were really small. We\u2019d attracted a few hundred people, but it showed us that there was a business there and we could do something with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then, we went on to try and fix those gaps that we\u2019d identified and what we could do, and we had like the creative stuff and the technical stuff covered, but we didn\u2019t have any experience really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to sell double glazing years ago, but didn\u2019t bother in actually selling things to brands and knocking on the doors of huge FMCG [fast moving consumer goods] companies and saying, \u201cDo you want to come and work with a little side hustle start up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so we went out and we attracted a brilliant marketer and a brilliant sales guy, who are now my co-founders to join us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to attract talent to plug skills gaps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I have to stop you there. You attracted a brilliant marketeer. How did you do that? Because you were still such a brand new company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure anyone that\u2019s listening, that has started or is going to start a business, wants to know how you get that kind of talent so early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. Part of it is that we had a tech stack we\u2019d written, so we\u2019d done a big chunk of work towards it. So we could say to these people, \u201cLook, this isn\u2019t a nascent business that has nothing behind it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is more than that. This is more involved than that. We\u2019ve built some interesting things. We\u2019ve got something that looks like it can do it.\u201d So for those guys, it was quite plug and play in some ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They could see what we were doing, and they could see quite easily how their talent would fit into this, and how their skills will be additive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t straightforward. There was lots of conversations. It took a long time to do to get them to table, but we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First it was a case of sharing. These guys who are co-founders, without them looking back seven years later, there\u2019d be no business. We\u2019re just but a website with no money coming into it and no consumers coming into it, and it wouldn\u2019t be here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And how did you find them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because am I right in thinking you didn\u2019t actually meet these people in the early days and you managed to kind of track them down all online. How did you manage that process?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. Taking those few questions there. I mean, firstly, we met via different routes. Our sales guy I met on a car forum actually. I was asking a question and somebody said, \u201cActually, there\u2019s this guy who kind of knows about this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we got talking and that\u2019s kind of how one thing led to that. And the other, I think we put an advert out saying we were looking for a co-founder for marketing and we got a huge amount applying, lots without the relevant skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got an interesting collection of people, but not lots who could actually do it. And Neil, our marketing co-founder, he\u2019d done vaguely similar stuff like marketing online before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he actually had practical skills and was looking to work in something like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Download your free small business toolkit: a guide, business plan template and cash flow forecast template so you can boss your business<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why you don\u2019t have to meet your co-founders in person<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Getting on to your second question about how we met. Well, when you start a business unless you\u2019ve got a huge amount of investment, you don\u2019t have lots of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we didn\u2019t meet, we did lots of Skype calls. There weren\u2019t the tools there are now, there wasn\u2019t Slack and things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we would do Skype calls and we\u2019d meet and we would talk a lot online. I think it was two years before the first five of us met altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve met individually most people, but not everyone had met, because we were just saving money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hotels and airfare and trains and everything are expensive when you\u2019re trying to set up a business and the money can be better spent on other things in the business rather than on moving you around and feeding you and things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And how tricky was it to do things like business planning when you\u2019re all kind of in different places? Did you just get really good at meeting agendas for your Skype calls?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or how did you make sure you always kept momentum going when you don\u2019t have that sort of face-to-face, bumping into each other sort of environment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To start with, it was even trickier than that, because we weren\u2019t all working full time on the business, as well as having those issues of not having water cooler moments just to discuss things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There wasn\u2019t the ability for us all to talk at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was doing the coding stuff to start with. I was doing that in the evenings and weekends around a full-time job, because I had the kids and the mortgage, and that doesn\u2019t go away just because you\u2019ve set up a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got good at scheduling our time and making sure we were using our time and not wasting things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It meant we had to be very specific with what we were doing, how we were spending money, how we were spending time to make sure we were spending it in the correct way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can scale a side hustle and <\/em>keep your full-time job<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And we hear a lot in 2020 about the rise of the side hustle. And then this is a classic side hustle story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I think what\u2019s not always clear is when does a business owner take the leap from the side hustle to the main hustle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did you decide to quit your job and was there a particular moment or kind of Eureka moment that made you decide to do it then and there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It was largely driven by numbers. The other people involved, we effectively did it for the ability for them to work nine to five, like sales and marketing people need to work more nine to five than I did as the code guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I think I came on full time last because I could do it around work and it\u2019d still work. And it just came down to finances because we bootstrapped, we\u2019ve never raised any money. So it was when we could afford to do this, and when it made sense for the business to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there\u2019s questions about how \u2013 because we all paid ourselves less than we were on before \u2013 how can I survive? What\u2019s the smallest amount I can survive on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think it\u2019s one of those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You read business books saying you should set up a business in your twenties when you\u2019ve no commitment and you can rent the cheapest bedsit in the world and live on noodles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s all good in your early twenties, but when you\u2019re in your early thirties with kids, you can\u2019t expect them to be doing the same thing. It just makes it a trickier thing financially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we were driven to that thing by what we could afford to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I mean, were you saving on the side for a long time? How much did you kind of want to have as backup income savings before you took a chance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I did have a small amount of savings we were putting it in, a couple of months effectively. So I had a couple of months runway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as a contractor previously, it wasn\u2019t a strange situation, because I was used to moving from job to job every three or six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it was perhaps less scary for me than it would have been somebody else who was more used [to it]. If you\u2019ve been at permanent work for 10 years then it\u2019s probably a trickier thing for your mindset to do than if you\u2019re used to more flexible working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Download your free small business toolkit: a guide, business plan template and cash flow forecast template so you can boss your business<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t have to know how to code \u2013 but you can learn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And obviously you did this as your job, you\u2019re a web developer, you know about code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think that it would have been possible to start this kind of business if you hadn\u2019t been so technical? Was that the cornerstone of your differentiator?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

No, I think you could do it a different way, but at the time you\u2019d have to have somebody technical on board to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d need a technical person to get to where we are and for FanFinders as a business now, it\u2019s a huge differentiator because we\u2019re a tech business first that does marketing rather than a marketing business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used somebody else\u2019s tech to get there, and now we\u2019re doing exciting stuff with AI and machine learning and things that you couldn\u2019t do if you weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But going back to your question, I think if you were doing it now, there\u2019s a whole load of solutions you could use that wouldn\u2019t mean you need the coding skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a whole load of non-code things out there, that I think you could use to at least get to the first year or something, to get like an MVP [minimum viable product] out, to get that point that you can actually prove there\u2019s something there before you need to start properly coding it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that wasn\u2019t a thing when we started, when we cut the first code in 2012. There wasn\u2019t a quickest solution in doing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So back then you needed a coder, but you didn\u2019t need to be the coder, you could have found somebody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For any Luddites out there, MVP means minimum viable product. Just going to spell that out in case anyone\u2019s not techie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I was fascinated, Alec, when you were talking before about how you brought in talent, but you didn\u2019t have the money to pay them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you made them co-founders. Did you make them equal partners? Was it difficult to give up equity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I mean, they\u2019re all equity partners with me. I never saw it as a tricky thing personally. There\u2019s a saying isn\u2019t there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s much better to have a smaller portion of a big pie that\u2019s actually somewhere than all of nothing. And without those guys, we would have been all of nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I have no qualms or questions about it. I think people are sometimes selfish in these things, that they think I should have this huge share of it. That\u2019s not beneficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And also, if you\u2019ve got five brains on something, you can come up with a better thing than one brain usually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019d be nice to think we\u2019re all Mark Zuckerberg, but we\u2019re not. We\u2019re not all that visionary guy, we need other people looking at things and other people\u2019s inputs and thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to retain customers by getting the fundamentals right<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And tell me where the business is today. How big is Your Baby Club? What are the metrics of success that you measure?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve signed up over five million parents between here and the US. We create different data points where we link consumers to brands and we do millions of them a week. We have 28 people mostly in the UK, but we\u2019ve got some in the States as well now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next few years, we\u2019re going to be pushing more into the US. We\u2019ve made that jump over the pond, we\u2019re pushing more there now, tricky as it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Five million customers and only 28 staff, that actually boggles my mind. That\u2019s just crazy. That just shows you the reach of a digital business and how lean you can be. That\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. Lots of what we do is virtual. We don\u2019t touch things. There\u2019s nothing physical to touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I imagine trying to do this 20 years ago would have needed, five to ten times more people or something it\u2019d be much trickier. It wouldn\u2019t be anywhere near as doable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019ve got to ask, although I know that it can feel a bit like revealing the secret sauce, but how did you win that many customers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What were your digital marketing tactics? How did you get them to stick around?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the holy grail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about having a thorough approach. You\u2019ve got to be clear and concise. You\u2019ve got to get the fundamentals right in what you\u2019re doing from a website perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve got to have clear information, you\u2019ve got to have nice titles, you\u2019ve got to have really good imagery. You\u2019ve got to be as clear as you can be, so the consumer understands what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If something\u2019s too complex, people stop doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at the same time, things have an inbuilt need for some complexity. If you\u2019re selling something you have to take people\u2019s credit card details, but you want to make that as easy as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in what we\u2019re doing, we sometimes have to collect pieces of data from people \u2013 like when\u2019s your child born \u2013 so we can service those things properly. And in doing that, you\u2019ve got to be as clear and upfront with the consumer as possible and that goes to all of your marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From your email, to the stuff that you might do like Facebook or Google Ads, or to things when you\u2019re doing outreach with influencers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about clear, concise, clear flows going from here, to here, to here, so there\u2019s no break in the chain for the consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sign up something like 66% of all mums in the UK. And if you\u2019re going to do that, you have to have dotted your I\u2019s and crossed your T\u2019s; you can\u2019t be flashing the pan and be a bit rubbish about what you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though it\u2019s easy for me to say that now seven years on, but If I was to go back in time there\u2019d probably be things I would change and we\u2019d look at things in a slightly different way, because you learn as you get better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And lots of it, if you look at the design side of the site, it\u2019s kind of got cleaner over those periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s less big pictures. Our logo for the baby club used to be a picture of a baby. Now it\u2019s the words \u2018Your Baby Club\u2019 because it\u2019s just easier for a consumer to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the application of science in design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subscribe to Sound Advice: get year one in business right and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to our podcast<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Test and measure and don\u2019t be afraid to find a specialist<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And did you do lots of different tests to see what worked? Because presumably, everyone\u2019s business is going to probably be radically different to yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s the process that you follow when you tried\u2026 I don\u2019t know, you mentioned Facebook Ads. Do you kind of run A, B, C tests?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We do. I think if you\u2019re starting from scratch doing this, there\u2019s a whole range of things you\u2019d want to do. One of them is maybe not doing them yourself, possibly do them, possibly get an agency to do them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do get an agency to do them, make sure it\u2019s not the people that did your website, go get a specialist who does this specific thing. For us, we test lots. I mean we run quite a lot of adverts and we\u2019re constantly testing what works better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found some things with images. A good image can make your ad four times better than a bad image and good\u2019s a very nuanced term, because good doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the best design thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019re slightly more homemade things that sometimes work better than the entirely polished Coca-Cola style advert. Because we\u2019re talking to people here, and we\u2019re not a big brand, people don\u2019t know who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, we might have market penetration in the UK, but we\u2019re not Next, we\u2019re not one of those brands that\u2019s a household name. Our advertising has to take that into account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any other small businesses, their advertising has to be about them and where they are not, and they shouldn\u2019t be trying to copy the big boys because it\u2019s not going to work for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But also you\u2019re different. So the whole point is that you\u2019re not all about the hard sell. A lot of parents are coming to you because they want to get away from that kind of glitzy ad in your face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can only be a good parent if you buy this product. So it\u2019s kind of, you want that more homemade, \u201cThis is curated for you, I\u2019m a parent too,\u201d vibe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, absolutely. And it\u2019s got to feel personal as much as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, there\u2019s nothing more personal than your children. So we\u2019ve got to feel that we care as much as they do. It\u2019s tricky to get right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve got to test. You\u2019ve got to throw a lot of stuff at the wall to get some things to stick. You\u2019re going to have to test a large amount and sometimes it\u2019s not going to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re doing this, there\u2019s an opportunity when you\u2019re setting up a new business that it doesn\u2019t work, or that advertising channel doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think I see people sometimes try too hard because they\u2019ve invented something that they think should work. And sometimes it\u2019s not going to work, or it\u2019s not going to work in this channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way you\u2019re wanting to sell it isn\u2019t going to work, but there is another way it will work. It\u2019s just testing things and working out, which are the good things or which are the bad things for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be selective about what your product or service does<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d love to hear some of the mistakes that stand out in your mind that you made along the way, but you learned a lot from, because often when you speak to successful entrepreneurs, it can seem like the journey didn\u2019t have a single bump in the road, but there always are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there one mistake that stands out in your mind as, \u201cThat was tough at the time but we came out a more resilient business as a result\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think one of the bigger things for me personally was trying to work out what we should put in the product and what we shouldn\u2019t put in the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because, you want to tick every box on the list. You\u2019ve got 100 things and you want all 100. When, in reality, there are going to be like three out of them that are going to move the needle completely, and more than everything else. And it\u2019s how to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for me, it was listening to my co-founders and I think I found it hard as a technical person to interpret their needs into the thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it\u2019s how do you take the ideas of the business and make them into technical product, and how do you listen to people? I don\u2019t think I was that good at listening when I started. I think I\u2019ve got better at listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think for me, it\u2019s a skill that I needed to learn, because I was used to be boxed off in a little room, tapping away on the keyboard, and I wasn\u2019t doing that anymore. We were running a business together. We needed to work out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of my journey has been about learning and listening and working with people and finding the right people. And when you\u2019ve got the right people, listening to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

How do you do that listening? Do you do structured one-to-ones? Do you just have a very open door policy? How do you make sure that you get those insights?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We do both those things actually. We\u2019ll have one-to-ones with our relevant managers. I have people reporting to me, we have one-to-ones. And we have an open door policy where anyone can talk to anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not massive fans of super hierarchies. We have a couple of non-execs and they help mentor some of the junior staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And some of our junior staff are doing mentoring with outside organisations to help them too, because I think you never stop learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we want to continue our journey together to try and make this thing better, and that means that we need to allow everyone to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Subscribe to Sound Advice: get year one in business right and enjoy it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to our podcast<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Find a mentor, sure \u2013 but sports biographies and podcasts also help inspire ideas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And do you have a mentor? You mentioned mentoring from outside organisations, but is that something that I don\u2019t know, you manage to find time for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I have a mentor. Mentors are really useful, but I don\u2019t think you have one mentor forever. I think you have mentors for periods of time and you work with some people who give you great advice, and then you move on as you grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because some of it\u2019s not business. Some of it\u2019s about business, but a lot of it\u2019s about people and it\u2019s about how you do things. I\u2019m wet behind the ears; I\u2019ve never done this before. So how do I get better at this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My questions for the mentors I\u2019ve worked with are often people-based. How do we manage this situation or that situation, rather than where do we steer the business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the steering of the business is done by the board. That\u2019s effectively our founders, and we have a conversation together, we have an idea of where we\u2019re going. So we can do that together. But how you manage the personal relationships and things has worked for me, my mentorship\u2019s been fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s so interesting actually, because I was speaking to a different founder recently, and he\u2019s always struggled to find business mentors, because he feels really confident in how he runs his business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now he\u2019s being mentored by Kevin Keegan, the former football manager, and he loves it, because it\u2019s a perspective that\u2019s completely different to his day-to-day experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And suddenly it\u2019s like bam, that works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Exactly. When I walk my dog I listen to lots of audiobooks and often biographies, and it\u2019s not always the business ones that I find the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s listening to somebody\u2019s life and you\u2019re listening to somebody else\u2019s story of their life, I think actually that bit there is really useful. I can pinch a bit from this tennis player\u2019s biography about how I can apply it to my business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Is that quite a big tip then for founders to make sure that they read and they get as much different kinds of content swimming around the grey cells as possible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I listen to lots of podcasts, I listen to lots of audiobooks, I read, no one knows it all, and we can all take steps to improve ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think it\u2019s really important. It\u2019s those things that I don\u2019t think I did when I was younger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I exercise regularly, I try and meditate, I try and read. I try and do these things that I think are going to make me a better me and in turn, me being a better me helps the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We give all our staff Headspace accounts if they want them. We\u2019re trying to support people in Audible accounts, so they can all listen to books and they can all do this, and buy them books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we want everybody to try and make themselves better if they can, because I think it\u2019s the healthy mind, the healthy body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Download your free small business toolkit: a guide, business plan template and cash flow forecast template so you can boss your business<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why exercise helps to keep business focus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot in the press about how running your own business has many rewards, but it can be so stressful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there\u2019s periods of such high intensity. And it\u2019s a lot of responsibility, even if you have co-founders like you, it\u2019s still a lot on your shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you feel like meditation stuff helps you keep an even keel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I think it does. It can be a bit of a lonely road sometimes. I see myself as responsible for everyone\u2019s mortgage who works for me. And that\u2019s a chunky responsibility to have. So I think you need to do these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me meditation is good, but it\u2019s the gym\u2026 I can go and it\u2019s just me lifting some weights and things. It\u2019s a simple process, but it just takes me out of the day-to-day and allows me to concentrate on something else that I find really good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s one of the things I found hardest in lockdown when it was shut, because I\u2019m used to transporting myself somewhere doing something and then coming home, and I\u2019m one of those awful early morning people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was at the gym six o\u2019clock this morning. And it gives me structure for my day. I\u2019ve done this, and everything else sort of falls into line better after it. So without it, I find it really tricky and I think I\u2019ve found it mentally quite tricky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understand the nuance of each market to sell to it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You mentioned earlier that you\u2019ve got people who\u2019ve joined the club from the States. And I remember from years writing about entrepreneurs just trying to break the States that it was always called the graveyard for British firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How have you found going into the US, how different is it, and what have you learned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I see why people say that. We\u2019ve not found that, but we were very touchy feely with what we were doing there. Because like you were saying earlier, with a business that\u2019s based on the web, you don\u2019t need to be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We didn\u2019t need to set up an office there. We could set up a website there without touching anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then we can do adverts there and get people to come to our website so we can sort of test and see if it goes. I think that the lessons are \u2013 just because in America they speak the same language as us, don\u2019t treat them as culturally the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans aren\u2019t the same as Brits and how they take things. So you can\u2019t just translate things for language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t just spell \u2018colour\u2019 to \u2018color\u2019. You\u2019ve got to be much more in depth than that. You\u2019ve got to understand when you\u2019re writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a lot of content now. We\u2019ve got 60 bloggers in the UK, and a similar sort of number in the States. And we were trying to work out if we can just transpose one to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not that straightforward, because what\u2019s acceptable to talk about in Britons here isn\u2019t acceptable in the States. And legislation aside, there\u2019s lots of different nuance in the detail on how that works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I think you\u2019ve got to take a holistic view of going to America. You can\u2019t just say, \u201cI\u2019ll take my English language thing here and put it there and it will work fine.\u201d Because it won\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve got to put more effort into it then, find some people to help you do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But presumably the size of the American market that could overtake the UK business, right? What\u2019s the scale of the opportunity for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, in terms of parents who would sign up. We sign up, like I say in the UK, something like 35,000 mums a month. And I when I say mums it\u2019s 95% mums that sign up for our service, not dads, which is interesting. We tried to target dads because I\u2019m quite passionate about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the States, it could be four times that. There\u2019s four times the popular, so it\u2019s\u2026 in theory, at least it\u2019s four times the business opportunity. So, the States is definitely a bigger business than the UK for us. But it\u2019s the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I was saying earlier about us being a tech company because we build the tech ourselves, we can build it so it helps here or in the States. So we built it in the way that it can be effectively used in both locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t expand if it doesn\u2019t make sense \u2013 learn to say no<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And would you move to other English-speaking nations? Are you looking at places like Australia, New Zealand, or is it very much the two prongs of the business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For this as a business, it\u2019ll be very hard to manage if they\u2019re too far away. There\u2019s such a huge time difference between here and the other side of the world. And they\u2019re quite small in terms of a populace, when your business is based upon babies, you need there to be quite a few babies born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we\u2019re going anywhere, we\u2019d probably look into Europe, France or Germany or somewhere like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar sort of size population-wise, and near to us for time zones. But they\u2019re not on our radar for now. It\u2019s the States that we\u2019re concentrating on. For a small business like ours, there\u2019s enough to be going up for a very long time before we need to look anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think that\u2019s one of those business lessons I\u2019ve learned is, you have to say no to lots of things. There\u2019s always lots of opportunity, do you want to do this? Do you want to do that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spoke to somebody who wants us to do it in China. Should we go to China or not, because it\u2019s just too far away and we\u2019re small we can\u2019t manage it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should concentrate on cracking the things we\u2019re good at here and cracking things we\u2019re doing now, rather than trying to stretch ourselves too thin and trying something, but not doing it quite well enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When I speak to founders, it\u2019s often the point when they\u2019re saying no to things, because they can\u2019t manage that many different projects at once, that they usually start thinking about raising investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that something you\u2019ve ever considered? Does that hold any attraction to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A little. We never say never, we haven\u2019t today. We might in the future, but at the moment we\u2019re quite keen on being in charge of our own ship and driving it where we want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we\u2019re probably not going to in the immediate future, but we don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a fair answer. You don\u2019t know until you know. But it\u2019s just one of those things where you kind of wonder is it always enough to have to fund growth through cash flow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure it always is. It depends what you\u2019re doing. And it depends how quickly you want to go at something too and what will the opportunity cost of not doing it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some businesses I think it\u2019s an absolute necessity to do it. Otherwise, you\u2019ll not be able to get the scale we need to be able to do that thing. But for other businesses, I think you can spend an awful lot of time chasing money that you could be putting that time into your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And especially when you\u2019re small, could you spend that time in a better way than courting venture capitalists and actually doing some business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could you be doing more sales? Could you be doing some more marketing? Could you be developing some more code at that point that makes a difference rather than you need to chase somebody because you need two million quid or someone else\u2019s money in the bank?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think there\u2019s one right answer, but I think in a lot of cases, it can be that you\u2019re chasing the wrong thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set your success metrics early<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alec, one of the things I love about you, is that you have been so honest about having failed ventures in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you talk to me about failure and kind of getting things wrong, and how that has contributed to making you a better entrepreneur?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think people glaze over this stuff too often. For me it\u2019s working out something works and what that means. And I think if I had my time again, I\u2019d be very definite about what success looks like if I was starting something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it has to be metrics driven. Success means selling a hundred things, for example. Or, in six months\u2019 time, I want to turn over \u00a35,000 in a month \u2013 or whatever the thing is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because otherwise, you get dragged into something and it\u2019s very hard then for you to identify whether you\u2019ve been successful or not, because once you\u2019re emotionally involved in a business, it\u2019s part of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s very hard to remove yourself and go, \u201cActually, this thing is not working,\u201d because it\u2019s you then. So what you need to do is before you start, you say, \u201cActually, these are the things I need to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now you don\u2019t need to be pig headed with the numbers. You don\u2019t need to say, \u201cI said, I\u2019d do five grand in revenue in a month. And I\u2019ve done 4,800. It\u2019s clearly rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can be slippery either side of that and say, \u201cWell, actually that\u2019s nearly \u00a35k. That\u2019s fine. We can do that.\u201d But what you can\u2019t do in that instance is turnover one grand and go, \u201cActually, it\u2019s working.\u201d It\u2019s not because we set out six months ahead earlier what success looked like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if it doesn\u2019t look like this, then there\u2019s nothing worse than wasting several years of your life, pushed into a venture that was never going to work because you were too short-sighted to see it yourself because you got involved in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then you liked it, and you always wanted to make it work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas in reality, people should say, \u201cActually, it only works if it looks like this.\u201d And I think it\u2019s a tricky thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Download your free small business toolkit: a guide, business plan template and cash flow forecast template so you can boss your business<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Embrace failure \u2013 it\u2019s a learning exercise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Did you do that though? Were you in the position where you felt like you\u2019d wasted a lot of time on something that didn\u2019t work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A bit. I think I had some slightly hare-brained schemes that I\u2019m not convinced would have ever made money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think you can get hooked up on\u2026 we have a thing called success bias. If somebody asks you about the Silicon Valley companies, you\u2019ll go like Google and Facebook and these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You won\u2019t hear about the tens of thousands that are out there that have gone completely wrong and have hit the wall and never succeeded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think every time everyone sets up a business, it\u2019s going to be a success. When actually most of the time, when you set up a business, it\u2019s going to be a failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, there\u2019s nothing wrong with it failing. It\u2019s just a learning exercise. There\u2019s something wrong with failing and not knowing it\u2019s failed. That\u2019s the mistake that we shouldn\u2019t be making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to incorporate automation to build an effective customer service<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s great advice. And Alec, we touched on this earlier because we were talking about the scale of an online business and the fact that you\u2019ve built in a lot of automation, but I\u2019d like to talk about that a little bit more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you use AI [artificial intelligence] and machine learning. How did you incorporate those into the business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve tried to be process-driven from day one, in that we have this process of, first we will speak to a big brand customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we\u2019ve got to go from seeing them to get to working with them, to working out quite what they want, to getting the thing on to our website, to getting consumers to look at this thing that\u2019s on our website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a process there, and we kind of built it into our software, so it enforces that a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then we built it into our sales CRM [customer relationship management] systems. Going on, we\u2019re just doing some AI and machine learning bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we\u2019re trying to do is, we\u2019re trying to work out how both in email marketing and the stuff on the website is to show people the stuff they\u2019re interested in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because at the end of the day, that\u2019s what you want. If you go to a website, you want to see the things you\u2019re more likely to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you go to like a news website and there\u2019s thousands of pieces of news, if it can have an inkling of what you want to do, and it can demonstrate, then it makes sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know various bits about our consumers because they give us details, so we could say, we have a consumer who lives in Oxford who likes red prams. Who\u2019s got a baby this age. We could go, \u201cThere\u2019s a cohort of people that look like this.\u201d You\u2019re much more likely to want to read this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our thinking is, let\u2019s show you the story first, and let\u2019s show you this thing for a bit of user-generated content, that\u2019s all about what you\u2019d want because we\u2019re helping you surface the right thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for us as a business, that can only be good because as well as surfacing content, we can surface adverts. So we can surface things that are financially suitable for us, based around modelling consumers that look like what they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though, I think there\u2019s a question there about looking a bit creepy. People thinking, he knows too much. But if you do it well, then people shouldn\u2019t notice. Your consumers shouldn\u2019t notice too much. They\u2019re just coming to your homepage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you came to my site (we\u2019re just doing this at the moment, so it\u2019s not live) but if you came to our website and I came to our website, we might see slightly different things, but that\u2019s fine because we\u2019re slightly different people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the same in our email marketing software. So, if I know what customers are interested in, I can send an email that\u2019s more likely to be the things that they\u2019re interested in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you\u2019re more likely to open it, which is good for me, but it\u2019s going to have the things you like in it, which is good for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it also means that we\u2019re not wasting time sending people stuff they don\u2019t want. If we can see that you aren\u2019t unlikely to want something, then I don\u2019t need to fill your inbox with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average person gets, I think it\u2019s about 121 emails a day. If we can cut that down so that instead of sending you two a week, we\u2019re sending you one a week, but the one a week is much more relevant, then that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if we can use clever computer stuff to do that, then that\u2019s a good use of everyone\u2019s time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why creating tech is an achievable aim for a non-technical small business owner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Who\u2019s creating that tech? Are you building that or did you find an agency? I\u2019m just trying to get a sense of whether it\u2019s an achievable aim for a very small business or whether you have to be a lot better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think it depends on your abilities, team\u2019s abilities. We do it internally. I don\u2019t touch the code anymore, and haven\u2019t for several years now, and I\u2019m not sure my Chief Technology Officer would be particularly keen if I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I did use to work for him, he was my boss in a previous life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You hired your boss. That\u2019s cool. You have to tell us about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I wrote the first version of our software, an agency wrote the second version, then the third version we wanted to bring it in-house, and we wanted to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when you\u2019ve worked as a developer for a long time, you\u2019ve met an awful lot of developers. And I had to think about who could work and then I thought this guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, I went off and had a conversation with him, and it turns out exactly at the same time he was looking for work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it was just one of those fantastically coincidental situations where both sides are looking for the same thing. And I hired him, and because he used to be my boss, and he was fabulous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a good boss. And he was a good at his job technically. So, there was no need for interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because when you\u2019re hiring people who are going to be seeing you in your organisation, you want them to be a really good cultural fit, and you want them to know you\u2019re going to get on with them and everyone\u2019s going to get on with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you\u2019ve worked for somebody before then you\u2019ve answered most of those questions already. To go back to what you were saying about who does the software. We do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve got a team of a team of four now in our tech department who are doing this. So can you do this if you\u2019re smaller? Yes. But if we were doing it ourselves, any one of those four people could do it, it would just be slower if there\u2019s less people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More bodies generally make it slightly faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I think there\u2019s tools out there to do it. And I think as we progressed in 10 years\u2019 time, if we\u2019re having this conversation, I think the sort of AI stuff will be much easier to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I suspect there\u2019ll be sort of no coding things around it that completely non-technical people can use to some degree over there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to hire a good cultural fit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And Alec, you said earlier that you have 28 staff and that you kind of went from this background of sitting in a box and just coding on your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019d love to know how you became adept at recruiting. Because you\u2019ve mentioned that you hired your boss, which obviously, you know them inside out, you\u2019ve worked with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve mentioned that you\u2019ve looked on a car forum and found someone that way, but what\u2019s your process when you\u2019re trying to find great people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve not always gotten it right. What we\u2019ve found over the years and where we are now is, we have a slightly longer process than we used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll advertise a role, and we\u2019ll get a load of people apply, and then we\u2019ll shortlist it down to three or so. And we\u2019ll have really short calls with those people, like 15, 20-minute calls with one of the senior team, myself or one of the directors, to try and get like a cultural fit on that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we feel this person? Can we get on with them? Do they seem like our sort of person?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing technical, nothing about their ability to do their role. Just, do I think they\u2019ll fit in, because you\u2019ve got to\u2026 It\u2019s like a family, you\u2019ve got to try and get the people that you\u2019re going to enjoy working with because you\u2019re going to work with them a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could spend a long time with them each week and you want to make sure that you\u2019re all on the same page about everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to identify cultural fit, which is why we kind of do it by feel, by people talking to them. Once we\u2019ve done that, then arrange a longer more formal interview. The normal stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell me what you did for the last few years? How do you think that apply to this? How would you do this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then we have some testing we do after that for anyone who is successful and we give them some tests. Now we found that some people won\u2019t do the test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, if they\u2019re not willing to spend half an hour to an hour of their time, while applying for a job, then they\u2019re not coming to work for us because they need to\u2026 If somebody\u2019s not willing to do that, then what else are they not going to be willing to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s times where we need to be flexible with work, but there\u2019s times where you need to just stay a little bit longer, or there\u2019s a deadline or something has occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you\u2019re not willing to spend an hour doing some tests for an interview process for a job you think you want, then probably you\u2019re not going to do those things either. So some of the process kind of weeds people out all by itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Create an interview activity or test when hiring people<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the test? Is it a personality test or is it like a Myers-Briggs or something?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s sort of a mixture of a personality test and skill-based things for the role they\u2019re doing. So developers get tested on code and some of the marketing people on different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s different depending on the thing. And we don\u2019t hide on the test. The test is just a way to compare people a little bit, just to get something else out of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it doesn\u2019t work particularly well, but it gives you just a bit\u2026 The more information you\u2019ve got on somebody, the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we do that, and then after the test we ask the people who we want to see to come in again, and will come in, that doesn\u2019t happen anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re remote, so Zoom. We ask them to prepare some small presentation on what they\u2019ll do in their first, usually first three months of the role, if they were left to their own devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we\u2019re hiring a marketing person, if we\u2019d left you with the marketing for our business for the first three months, what would you do? How would you tackle this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not something they\u2019re going to do in their job, because we\u2019re not going to put them in this actual scenario, but it gets them to think a little bit about what they\u2019re doing. And it gives us an insight into their problem solving and their structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, it\u2019s not an exam. It\u2019s not to get it right. There\u2019s no wrong answer. It\u2019s just so we see a little bit more about how that person works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they could come up with a long answer and it still be an absolutely fine interview and I hire them, because we can see how they\u2019ve gone down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like when you have your maths teacher make you do the workings at school. And if you got the answer wrong, you could still get the marks on it, because they could see how you just made one slight mistake on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s exactly like that because it\u2019s not about getting the best mark, it\u2019s about being able to think in a certain way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bex Burn-Callander:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s genius as well. Because even if the person doesn\u2019t end up getting the job, that\u2019s probably quite useful insight, just stuff that you could do with the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that sounds terribly cynical. I\u2019m a terribly cynical person, but you know win-win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alec Dobbie:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We believe in hiring clever people and letting them get their stuff done to be absolutely frank. We don\u2019t micromanage, and we don\u2019t want to be on top of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to delight people and let them go off and do their things. And I mean, that doesn\u2019t mean you get complete carte blanche because the world doesn\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019m sick of, in places of work, seeing people be\u2026 with the boss always over their shoulder, checking every last thing. And it doesn\u2019t make anyone comfortable, and it doesn\u2019t provide a better workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing wins in that situation. You\u2019ve got to be good with how you\u2019re hiring, and you\u2019ve got to be good with how you treat people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Audio transcript may have been edited for legibility and coherence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like what you\u2019ve read? Subscribe to Sound Advice!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can listen to more startup stars in conversation with Bex by subscribing to Sound Advice on Apple Podcasts<\/a> or wherever you like to listen to our podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We would love for you to join our community and share your insights and stories. Perhaps you would make a great future guest on Sound Advice, let us know on Twitter @SageIreland<\/a> using the hashtag #SoundAdvicePodcast or in the comments below, and we will get back to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can follow Alec on Twitter at @AlecDobbie<\/a> and visit FanFinders.com<\/a>. Make sure you check out the FanFinders blog<\/a> which is packed with lots of honest and insightful content on how to start and grow a digital business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Join 1.5 million subscribers and get the best business admin strategies and tactics, as well as actionable advice to help your company thrive, in your inbox every month.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe now<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fan Finders CEO Alec Dobbie talks about how he started his business and shares various tips from setting success metrics to building a team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1161,"featured_media":8566,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"_sage_video":true,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,165],"tags":[132,332,153],"business_type":[5],"lilypad":[],"context":[],"industry":[],"persona":[232],"imagine_tag":[230,234],"coauthors":[439],"class_list":["post-7673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growth-customers","category-strategy-legal-operations","tag-start-business","tag-sound-advice-podcast","tag-startup-stories","post_format-post-format-audio","business_type-small-business"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-ie","author_name":"Bex Burn-Callander","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2022\/04\/Blog_Header_Image_3.jpg","imagine_tags":{"230":"Small business","234":"Start-up business"}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice Ireland","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/8566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"business_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/business_type?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"lilypad","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/lilypad?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"context","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/context?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"imagine_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/imagine_tag?post=7673"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-ie\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}