Hi, so welcome to another edition of the Top Shelf Podcasts. My name is John Nolan, I'm with Vistage UAE, and today I'm joined by David Cook, the founder and CEO of Contractors Direct. David, how are you doing? Awesome. Thank you very much for asking. Glad to be here. Well, it's great to have you. Let's start off by, you know, as Vistage are the sponsors of this, of this Top Shelf series of podcasts, I just want to explain a little bit about Vistage Vistage. It's an organization globally that launched in the UAE in 2023, and David, you're in my group in Vistage whereby a chair would bring in 12 founder CEOs to form a peer advisory group, that peer advisory group meets on a monthly basis, and we therefore then become an advisory team to each other, and we tackle the biggest issues, the biggest challenges, the biggest opportunities that the CEO is facing, and helped them, helped them on that journey. So, I'd like to ask you, David, how has your experience been with Vistage since you joined as a member? So, Vistage for me has genuinely been phenomenal, and I'll tell you why. So, when you're a founder and CEO, there are a lot of challenges that you come up against, some of which you can't really discuss with, you know, your other co-founders because it might be concerning them. It might be concerning, you know, your family or personal life, or something along those lines. So, you know, you don't really want to take work home and discuss that with your wife because she has no context. And like I said, if you've got any issues in work that surround your co-founders, who do you talk to, you know, and even if it doesn't surround your co-founders, but, you know, maybe there's anxiety or fear surrounding maybe the future of the business or a partnership or something along those lines, I think people look to the founder and the CEO as the leader and as a leader, you should, where you can remain positive, be realistic at the same time. And what Vistage does for me is, first of all, everyone around that table has been in their role for certainly an hour group anyway for a very long time. I think probably the youngest CEO as in holding that position is six or seven years. And in six or seven years, that, I mean, you get to learn a lot of stuff, you've made a lot of mistakes. And so the value that you can add, even if it's not letting someone know what to do it's more, this is what I did and it didn't work. That's been phenomenal. So we've, we've tabled quite a few of the challenges that I've been facing. And to get that amount of rich feedback and ultimately advice on how to potentially approach a challenge has been fantastic. Because up to that point, you only know what, I don't think the phrase is, you don't know what you don't know. And when you have a look at the decades worth of experience around that table, it's been phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. So I've been a huge advocate of Vistage in the five months, I think that I've been there. And yeah, great team as well, really, really nice group of people. Yeah, well, yeah, thanks for that really positive feedback. You were one of the founding members actually. So you were there from the very first meeting. So yeah, it's been great. And you're being a great member. You're contributing as much as well, which you have, you know, which you didn't mention there, but you contribute as much, I think, as well as the value of getting out back to yourself, you're being a great contributor because everybody, it's a two-way system, right? It's a two-way system, right? Everybody is coming with issues, everybody's coming with a lot of experience and complete different insights. Yeah, 100%. And, you know, the mistakes I've made have been thankfully not that often anymore. You know, but when you first start out, you think you've got the best idea, you're the best person for the job, and you know, you are the quintessential Swiss I mean, if you have to do everything yourself and to do realize, "Holy smokes, I'm actually not very good at this, this, and this." But like I said, it's not so much telling or helping people advising them what to do. A lot of the time you're sharing the things that you have personally done that didn't work. And so by process of elimination, you know, you come to the solution anyway. It's brilliant. Yeah, it reminds me of being a father. We hope that we pass on to our kids a lot of the states that we made, they don't make a lot of the stuff. So, look, let's segue into a little bit about you. I'd love to know what you do, Contractors Direct, what's it about, what's your role in there, where you come up with the idea for Contractors Direct. And of course, a little bit about the company. Sure. So, Contractors Direct is an online search platform where company owners and homeowners, they can visit and connect with pre-qualified contractors and fit out companies, suppliers that fit the project profile perfectly. So, the best way to explain it is if you have ever used a property portal like Property Finder, for example, when you first open it, there's 700,000 properties for sale. And the idea is you feed it information about the property you want in the location and then it gives you a short list. That's exactly what we did, was we set about finding the best fit out companies, construction companies and suppliers in the region, or, well, the UAE to start with. We devised a very rigorous due diligence process to make sure that those contractors could comply with our quality standards and our expectations. And then we listed the Mona platform and we made the platform very intuitive and easy to use. And we made those contractors free to access. So, you know, when you visit the platform, if you've got a 5,000 square foot office in DIFC, the challenge core, tell us that, you know, in the drop down filters, quick search. And then we will show you all of the companies that fit that profile that have DIFC experience and then you're free to contact and connect with them. So, that's one side of the business. We learned very quickly that a lot of the bigger, more complex projects, the clients were, you know, understandably very nervous about the success of that project. And a lot of them were asking, could we continue to support them outside of just connecting them with the contractors? So, could we support them with, you know, project supervision and tender management, etc. And so, the other side of the business was we built out an in-house team of pros or experts with significant experience to continue to support that client once we've connected them to the contractors and help them get the best deal from the contractors and then ultimately manage the project through to completion as well. So, it's a 360 service offering. So, where did you launch contractors direct? And just tell us a little bit about the growth trajectory. Where you are now? Sure. So, contractors direct was, I suppose we started our beta testing, if you want to call it that, under a different name in 2019. Because before we embarked on this, we wanted to make sure that the market would respond. So, we built a very, you know, rudimental platform on WordPress, put a bit of marketing spent behind it. So, it was tested in 2019, but it wasn't launched perfect timing until January 2020. And we had a fantastic three months until we didn't. So, yeah, right about April, I mean, you were here in COVID. I think everybody knows what happened in January 2020, right? Yeah, exactly. So, the first couple of years was certainly not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. You know, anybody listening to this that was in the UAE will remember that you weren't allowed to leave your house. You had to send an SMS to get permission to go and get groceries, you know. So, our type of business was very, it relied on, you know, a very buoyant real estate market and just a very buoyant economy. And so, we, you know, if you look at the growth trajectory, 2020 and 2021, certainly, you know, the revenue numbers were nothing to write home about. It was more about how do we stay alive? How can we be more creative with the products and the market that we have access to be able to bring some money in, you know, to keep the lights on? Because the cool thing was, is that very short window of time that we had before, you know, COVID really kicked in. The response from the market was insane. You know, it was like, wow, we've really touched a nerve and we're really solving a problem that no one has really attempted before. And whereas, you know, when we are cleaning up the contractor market, we're raising the bar on quality. So, we knew that it would be a success, but what we didn't understand at the time, no one did, was how long, you know, COVID would really last. But more importantly, how long the COVID hangover would last? Because it wasn't really until 2022, when companies got comfortable spending again, you know, and even then they weren't spending, you know, in the same league as what they were before. So, if you look at, you know, typical office renovation, if you're taking it from shell and core to a functional environment, you know, pre-COVID, companies were very comfortable spending 120, 140 dollars per square foot. In 2022, they weren't even getting to 100. You know, they were like, right, okay, well, the market seems to be adjusting, but we don't want to blow our budget or, you know, invest too much in space just in case, you know, something of, you know, we end up working from home again. So, 2023, sorry, 2022, we still finished in profit, which was nice. The year gradually got better, so Q4 in 2022 was great. And then that took us into 2023. 2023 was a phenomenal year for us, you know, for multiple reasons. Number one, there was obviously a huge spike in residential transactions. And that's, you know, come through in 2024 as well. So, we were picking up an awful lot of, you know, high-end residential work, which was wonderful. The commercial markets, there was new budgets and companies now were ready. This is 2023. Now, companies were ready and willing to spend good money on building an environment and an office to reflect the brand and made their staff comfortable. And we were, I think, I think we turned over three times more in 23 than we did in 22. Finished the year on a, you know, a good profit margin. And in 2024, the growth has continued. So, by the time, you know, the sun goes down by the end of August, we should have hit our revenue or exceeded our revenue that we did in 2023. And we're attempting to double it by the end of the year. So, the cool thing is that that will be aided by our entry into the Saudi market, which we're anticipating the launch will be in October. So, the press release goes out in September. And then the full launch will be in October. So, yeah, there's lots and lots of things happening. Lots of really, really cool things. We're rebranding. We've just done a, like, redesign of the website as well. So, when people, you know, using the platform, the communication and messaging is a lot clearer. And it's even more intuitive than what it was before. So, all of those things combined where our expectation is that our conversion rates will go up. And we can ultimately help, you know, add value to more people on more projects and completely de-risk as much of that project as possible. So, look, you mentioned, Saudi, and we're going to come back to that. And I'm going to come back to that a little bit later. But I actually just, while you're talking there about your experience through COVID, getting through COVID, getting through to where you are now, I would love to ask you, because some of the best companies, some of the best leaders, have come out of the toughest economic periods. A lot of the biggest tech companies now, I think, you know, I think the Amazon's of the world started in 2008-2009 type of time. So, what did you learn about yourself as a leader through those really tough times of COVID? Yeah. So, there was a few things that were very, very important to me going into this. So, as a leader, as the owner of the company, when you employ someone, a lot of the time, they're buying into you. And they buy into you first, they're buying to the business second and the package in the remuneration third, generally from what I've seen. Obviously, as long as the package in the remuneration is sensible for the role and responsibility. And what was important to me was anybody and everybody that had joined me before the lockdown remained in the business, because they were hired to solve a problem. And the role that they were employed to do was an important one. And when we came at the back end, they were still going to be needed. And what I wanted to make sure was, these people took a chance on me because it's a startup. It was only a few months old. So, they took a chance on me and they took a chance on the business. And I didn't want them to regret it because I felt responsible for making sure that salary still got paid so that they could continue to live in the country. Because we all heard those nightmare stories where 50% of workforces were cut, salaries were cut by 50%. And unfortunately, those people that felt victim to that, a lot of them couldn't stay in the country and they just had to leave. And I didn't want that to happen. They were loyal people to me and I wanted to make sure that I was being loyal to them. So, I found out more about who I was. I knew that if you were to ask people that have known me for a decent amount of time, I think they would say that I'm a genuinely caring empathetic person. I'm generous with the things I can be generous with. And I didn't realize how much of a core value that was to me until we entered that space. And I was putting my staff. I hate that. I was putting my team members. Sometimes ahead of my own kids. We always have food on the table. But it really, really was a stressful moment. But one of the other things that I think came out of it was I had a much higher value of every zero. Because when you've got money, when the company's doing well, you generally or, you know, I generally tend to spend freely. And whether it was going out for lunch with the team or whether it was, you know, bonuses or upgrades to the office, whatever it was, I generally tended to spend quite freely, not understanding just how much of the profit was being spent on things that weren't necessities, they were nice to have. And so, you know, when your income literally stops and you have a finite amount of money to get through to the other side, very, very quickly, you become extremely resourceful. And you start to put a very, very tight budget in place and have a look at what the necessities are. And you strip back the nice to have. So I think I re-appreciated the value of every Durham. And now I've taken that forward as well. You know, now that things are going well, I'm looking at more. How can I use the profit that we've made to make the company bigger and better? To make sure that the value that the client is receiving continues to grow. So I think empathy plays a large role and loyalty. I didn't realize that both of those were such core values until, you know, we went through that period. But I'm really glad that we weathered that storm because it was, you know, brutal. And to say that we almost drowned is an understatement. But the, you know, the team, I don't know if you can see, you know, walking around behind me. The team that we went into COVID with is the same team that we came out with. Okay, we're four times bigger now. But, you know, ultimately, you know, we made it through. And everybody that joined the team pre-COVID to solve a problem, they're now solving those problems and so. So it was a good move. Yeah, well, look, I think to launch a business, literally at the beginning of COVID and to succeed, be around today is a phenomenal achievement. Launching a business is challenging for nothing good times, right? And I think, I got to congratulate you on that. And I'm sure, you know, as tough as it was, it probably made you send it up in such a way that it was, you know, fit for purpose. And then easier to scale host COVID because you really, you really have to structure it in a way to put immediate crisis management. You basically started in crisis management mode. Yeah, exactly. And you know what they say that the devil makes work for idle hands. And one thing that the team and I were keen on doing was preparing ourselves as best we could for what post COVID looks like. So they were still traffic to the website, you know, albeit, you know, in the hundreds rather than the thousands. But we were still using that time to watch how people were using the platform. You know, in the few leads that we were getting through throughout 2020 and 2021, we were spending the time to really build relationships with those clients and ask the questions, you know, what was the problem that you thought we were solving when you first reached out versus the problem that we actually solved for you? What could we do better? You know, was the website intuitive? How could the website be different based on how you use it? And we were taking all of these data points and we were collecting them into a little black book knowing that, you know, when the storm passes and the money, you know, does start coming again, these are the fundamental changes that we need to make as quickly as possible. And I think that's largely why 2022, even though the economy hadn't recovered, as well as it had, our conversion rate was pretty good and our revenue was pretty good. But I think that was a, you know, a result of the diligence and the data collection that we did through 2020 and 2021. Because you can sit around and you can Salk or you can accept, you know, the current situations and you can make better use of your time. And I think we did that very well. Yeah, I think that's great advice actually that, assuming you accept the reality of the economic situation and just get on with it, the better. I mean, the one thing we can, you know, the macroeconomic situation we can't change, but what you can change is what you should be focused on, not what you can't change, right? 100%. Yeah, yeah. And also, you know, your environment, you know, one thing that I'm anybody who's known me for a decent length of time, I'm a tremendously optimistic person. You know, whatever the situation is, I know that it's temporary. And that goes for good and bad. You know, if things are really bad, I know that it has an end date. You know, this period of whatever is has an expiration date and then things are going to get better. But then it's the same when things are good, you know, and things are good. You can't take it for granted. It has an expiration date. And so you have to make the most amount, you know, the most out of whatever is happening today, this week, this month and this year, you know, and make sure that, you know, you're still living in an abundance mindset, but you're understanding that this isn't or may not last forever. So, you know, putting the plans in place. So it was, you know, 2020 and 21, it was tough to stay optimistic. But, you know, just talking about the future with other dreamers and starting to put the plans in place for what the business could look like in 2022, 23, I think is what kept us going and kept us sane. Amazing. I'd be really interested now a little bit about your planned entry to the KSA market with the Saudi. So there's a lot of companies in the buy that have, you know, that have definitely got great business models or certainly great businesses that they feel would do well in Saudi. Yeah. But I think a lot of people procrastinate hesitant to take the plunge, but you guys are clearly going ahead with that. I mean, what have you done to plan your Saudi entry? And I know, you know, be great to come back to speak to you here after you've been in Saudi, but, you know, will be also good to just for people listening to understand what you've done to plan your entry into Saudi and what you've learned even just to get to where you are now. Yeah. So it's a great question because this decision wasn't taken lightly. You know, there's this some, you know, tremendous success stories and there's some not so tremendous success stories, which is the polite way of saying it. I think one of the most important things for us was timing and also just making sure that the market was ready for what we've got because one thing that I was worried about when we launched the UAE was this is the first of its kind in the region, not just the UAE. Is the market ready for this? And, you know, thankfully, it was and as time has gone on, you know, we're four years old now, more and more people are used to shopping for contractors online, especially, you know, the caliber of contractors that we have. And so we needed to do essentially two things first of all, which was to test the market. So we built an English and Arabic version of the website. We essentially customized it to be very Saudi centric and Riyadh centric. And we launched a Google paper click campaign last year, which I think was April time, if I'm not mistaken. And we put $10,000 behind the advertising and we just watched. We waited to see what happened. And the wonderful thing was is that we got inquiries within minutes of the platform going live. Now, these inquiries, obviously, we didn't have a sweet or a pool of contractors in Saudi Arabia. This was literally just beta testing to see how the market would respond. So we had to call all of the inquiries. So everybody that submitted the inquiry, we called them back and, you know, we broke the news to them that, you know, it was a beta test. But what we found out that was interesting was a lot of the people that were submitting their information thought we were a contractor, even though the language on the website and, you know, the headline and all the rest of it was search for contractors connected pre-qualified contractors, you know, whatever the language was, they thought we were a contractor, not an aggregator of quality contractors. So that was interesting. So that that meant that we needed, there was a need to readdress the language that we use and also the adverbs that we use to be more clearer. So that was the first thing. The second thing that came out was the value of the project in Saudi Arabia from the inquiries we were getting were four to five times the size that we were getting in the UAE. So that was interesting. And, you know, all be at very high level, you know, we spent $10,000 and we were in receipt of inquiries that if they all converted, what would have, you know, generated in the ballpark of three to $400,000. So those numbers stacked up. When we spoke to the clients, those that spoke English, we now have an Arabic speaker, which is great. But those that spoke English, we were able to, you know, delve a little deeper, what are the biggest issues you face, what are the challenges, et cetera. So we got quite a lot of information on the landscape and the current challenges that people have when looking for contractors. And then we spoke to the contractors themselves. So I think we, maybe it was 15 to 20 contractors all varying sizes, varying nationalities. And then there was a general theme that ran through all of them, which was there is a particular project type where payments are always late, delayed, quite significantly, past 12 months. And maybe you'll get the first two payments to get the, you know, the wheels in motion. But certainly the trailing one or two papers, the final one or two payments were almost always late. And that put a huge financial strain on the company. Unless you build in to your price, the fact that the last two payments are going to be late and the last one may never come, which is ultimately what was happening with a couple of those contractors, which is, is wise, you know, the, you know, there is a, there is a certain project type that is gold. As far as those contractors are concerned, if it looks like this, smells like this and it's in this area, we want it. If it looks like this, we don't want it. Or we're going to, you know, uplift the price by 10 to 15% to factor in the painful collections process that comes with these types of projects. So we got all that information together. And then it was, and then we spoke to companies that have launched and failed and launched and succeeded to see what the, the main differences were. So the ones that launched and succeeded generally tended to be service-based. So they sold time for money. So they were project management, consultancies, architects, design agencies, you know, that, that, that kind of, you know, exchange of time for money. They were successful because they weren't selling a product. They were essentially selling expertise. So they would just pick in numbers here. They would, they would charge $100,000 for something that would take a hundred hours for the ease of, ease of numbers. And in order to get started, their payment terms were 50% upfront. So when they get 50% upfront, their entire overhead and some has now already been covered. So it made it very difficult for that type of company to fail, apart from project management, because that's monthly on retain. The ones that struggled the most were the ones that were selling products, which, which, you know, in, if you look at what we do, it was the fit-out companies. So the fit-out companies that entered the markets and some of them, you know, were lighting suppliers and some of them were flooring suppliers. They seem to have the toughest time. So if you're a fit-out company and let's say you're working to a 40% margin, you have to procure a lot of it, a lot of the products on day one. And so you might, you might get a, you know, a 25% down payment, but most of that 25% is going straight back out to procure all of the long new items, which means you're not yet cashflow positive. Then you reach the next milestone and you get another 25%. That now is essentially progress, labor, all of the stuff that goes with it. You're still not cashflow positive. Third payment, if it's paid on time, that's when it starts to become cashflow positive because you get a big chunk of change. And usually the only expense at that point is labor to get the project done. When the last two payments don't come or they're late, you're relying on that third payment to continue to cover the cost of all the labor until the end of the project when it's handed over, which often doesn't happen. And so you have to rely on the cash resources you've got, or money from another project, which is extremely dangerous. And so what was happening was a lot of companies were let to believe that the margins would be, and they are, if you collect all your payments. The, you know, the project values are greater, the margins are greater. But the reality was, is that the scope of the project and the payments and the value of those projects will be diminished by quite a large percentage because of the challenge of collections. And so what we needed to do was see, let me rephrase that, the safest approach for us was to make sure that the UAE entity could sustain half months worth of the cost of operating and advertising in Saudi Arabia without relying on any Saudi Arabian revenue. And we needed to get to that point first, because we know that we'll get traffic online. We know that we can get traffic offline. We know that there are contractors out there that would want, that they're willing to, you know, subscribe to our, you know, business model. It was, it was now more, how do we make sure that we can survive out there without going broke. And the only way that we could confidently do that was to make sure that the UAE was making enough money to essentially cover the 12 months worth of operating costs in Saudi Arabia. And that's, that's, that's where we got to. By the time we got to April, May of this year, we could continue to grow the UAE and we wanted to. And we now had the, the capex and also the subsidizing, not sure that's a word, but subsidizing revenue from the UAE to be able to cover the Saudi costs. So now, okay, at the end of the year, we may not be reporting, you know, fantastic profits if it turns out the Saudi doesn't generate any revenue for us. But equally, you know, we're not going to have that. We're not going to be leaving with, with our tail between our legs, with, you know, companies owing us a shed load of money and so we never shed a load of money as well. So the Saudi market has been very, very well thought out. We've, we've tried to cover as many risk points as possible. And we tried not to get bogged down with analysis. So, you know, paralysis and analysis, paralysis. And, and against what point where you're just like, right, you, you've got to, you've got to fire that start to pistol at some point, you know, and so we made the decision in April or May. And just by the length of time it takes to set up in Saudi, our tentative launch date is October. Yeah, very exciting. I mean, look, it sounds like you've put a huge amount of thought and effort, market research into that. So I think, I think that's great advice for, for potential other companies looking at Saudi, like it, it, it is a huge opportunity, but it is not, it is also a completely different market. And you have to figure out how you need to, you know, I do, I do think what you've done is a great example of going in there and learning through, through this sort of Google campaign that you did and, and, and the market research you got out of that. And that, that did you a lot of data, a lot of relationships for, for you then to be able to understand, oh, so what works in the UAE won't work there, what, and, and I guess you're going in there with a, to provide a similar service, but you definitely will have a different, different strategy, right? Yeah. And, you know, we're going in eyes wide open. The re-ad, are you just launching in one city or, or what's the plan? Yeah, so, so re-ad for us when we did our research, generally from what we saw tends to be where all the action is. And we, you know, the, the goal is to focus heavily and wholeheartedly just on re-ad for the moment. Because, you know, if, if you try and attack all cities, you're going to end up spending a fortune on marketing when really what you need to do is focus on one and learn the nuances of, of the country and that city. Over that 12-month period where you're, you're focusing on just that one city, refine and fine-tune your platform, your market communication, your business model, if, if necessary, build partnerships and try to finish that 12-month period with a 90 to 95% optimized and efficient platform and business model that you can then roll out into the other cities. Because it would be, you know, foolish to think that what works here in the UAE, we know it doesn't, but what works here in the UAE would just be a copy paste over there. You're better off trying to make it work with one city, first of all, get it as, you know, as optimized as you possibly can and then take that blueprint and drop it into the other cities. You know, because we're, we're a digital first company, okay, we serve the construction industry, but we're a digital first. So for us, it's a case of just flicking a switch, you know, and, and then we will be present in all of the other cities. But what we don't want to do is end up hiring four times the number of people, hemorrhaging four times the amount of marketing and advertising budget to find out that we're making mistakes in all of those cities and, you know, before you know it, you broke and you got, you got to come home, you know. Yeah, look, it's great insights as, you know, I've spent, I've spent a large number of years of my career in Saudi myself. So I know, I know it very well. What I think, what people don't grasp is, is, is the sheer, is fake, you know, the sheer size of Saudi Arabia. Like, it's very true. It's huge. So it really is three, you know, it is three different markets. Eastern, Central and Western, I come three different markets. And apart from the geographical challenges of, you know, if you, if you try to operate in all three, they've, they've all got unique aspects as well, culture in the business culture. And that, you know, it's very, very different. So it's great advice. And I do say to people or myself, often, it's like, look, look at it as a feature for markets and take it piece by piece. So you're doing the right thing as far as I, as far as I'm concerned. So look, I'd often now look into the future. How do you, you know, what's, what's your outlook for the business for contractors direct over the next few years? I mean, where do you see, where do you see the business going? How, how, how far geographically can you go? How far up the value chain can you go? What's the future look like? So when we were testing Saudi, we were testing a number of other markets as well. So we, Saudi Arabia Riyadh was the first one. Singapore was the second. Sydney was the third. Kuala Lumpur was the fourth. And there was another one. I can't remember the other one. But basically what, the idea behind what we were doing was that the business, the platform that we have created here was accepted now by the UAE. And would this platform in the way it's designed and built? And our service offering be, you know, adopted and accepted in other countries. Because if you look at the UAE, you could argue it's a relatively mature market. If you look at Saudi Arabia and how they buy online, it's a relatively immature market. If you go to Singapore, it's a very mature market. And so we wanted to see, you know, do we have a one trick pony that only works in the UAE? Or is it going to work in all of the other territories? And it turns out that it works in every city. So wherever there are commercial offices, restaurants, wherever there's, you know, villas, and people that take, you know, take to online to find contractors and suppliers and designers. It turns out that it's, it works. Oh, India, sorry, India was the other one. And then it was reaching out to the guys at Google. So we, we are super fortunate. Because of our relationship with Google, we have a dedicated account manager. We're part of the Google growth program. And so they give us insights into countries, cities, and they can, they're willing to provide at no extra cost reports to help us understand which markets we should be approaching so that we can get a, get a very good idea of which cities and countries we would achieve break even first. And, and so, you know, if you look, by the time of, by the time we get to the end of 2025, so by the end of this year, we'll be two countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, by the end of next year, we will be at least four countries, which will definitely include Singapore. The fourth one, we get to get the, the information back from. But if you fast forward five years, honestly, I don't even think we'll own the company by that point. We, you know, what we've done, what we're doing, the speed that we're growing, and, you know, the, the, the markets that we're disrupting, the speed at which we can get market shares just and unreal, genuinely unreal, you know, we're going to end up, you know, appearing on the radar of, you know, family offices, private equity firms, you know, there's, there's, there's a very, very big competitive of ours. In, I think it's, the HQ is in India, but they're also in Singapore as well. And those guys are very, very liquid. And the likelihood is if we try and enter two territories that they're already in, and if they have ambition to come into the UAE and Saudi Arabia, it's a, it's a natural acquisition. But if that didn't happen, then I would say, but the time we get to the end of 2025, I would be astounded if we weren't in every continent, and at least 20 countries. Now how we do that is, is still up for debate. You know, we ran a simulation if we franchise, or if we license, you know, contractors direct, we ran a simulation if, if we were going to, you know, can't be a strategic partner that's already in those other countries. And then, you know, we ran the same simulation if we do everything ourselves. And, you know, if we do everything ourselves, it's the most expensive naturally, you know, carries the most risk. If we go in with partners, it's the second most expensive, and the revenue isn't as great, because obviously there will be a rev shift. And if we franchise, we actually make money from the franchising, we can open new markets pretty much overnight, but you take a sliver of the, the revenue. So it depends what the goal is. Is the goal to maximize revenue and control the quality? Or is the goal basically a land grab to get in as many cities and countries as we want irrespective of the revenue? And we haven't defined that yet. Because, you know, it changes, you know, every, every week, our emotional, you know, I suppose attachment to the company and the people that we serve changes. And, you know, I don't know. I still, I just love, I love what we're doing. I love that the team, you know, the team that I've got around me are absolutely phenomenal, you know, right away from Jenny, the COO. So she came with me from my old company. So when that got acquired in 2019, she came with me. And we basically started the business almost just the two of us, you know, and then we brought in the, the head of marketing and technology, then the head of strategy. And then obviously, we've now got the project director and his team. They're just brilliant people, genuinely brilliant people. And I think, I think that's what makes the job even more enjoyable, is we're solving a significant problem that hasn't been addressed yet. But I'm doing it with people that are as equally motivated as me in achieving an outcome. You know, being part of that movement, that was the first movement, the first people, by being the first on the moon, you know, is like, we were the first ones to do it. We set the precedence. And there might be other people to try and copy what we're doing and good luck to them, you know. But they really believe in the cause, you know, it just makes conversation so much easier. And it's, it's not long before a group discussion turns into this wonderful, you know, dream-like scenario where everybody's, you know, thinking and dreaming about what the business could be in the future. They're just wonderful people. No, it's amazing. I can feel it in your, I can feel it in your passion that you're very proud of everything achieved as well, a very proud of the team you've achieved it with. So on that note, I would like to ask you, David, give me everything you have achieved in contact to threat, but also, you know, in your career to date, and I have previous business before that you successfully exited, it sets up. Like, what advice would you give to an 18-year-old entrepreneur starting out now, given all the knowledge that you have, David, thinking back to yourself on 18, what advice would you give to that 18-year-old? My first advice would be choose something that you love doing or service in industry that you love, because then it doesn't matter how hard the job becomes, it will still be enjoyable. So that would be the first thing. Don't go after the next new shiny object just because you think you're going to make squillions. Stick to what, you know, and stick to what makes you feel happy, because that's where fulfillment is, and if you've got to pull a 16-hour day, the 16 hours will go like that, and it won't feel like work. So that's the first thing. The second thing I would say is try to, if it's at all possible, get a job, a salary-paying job, and learn how, if you can, a business operates. So try in, if you can, you know, speak to the CEO, CEO, whatever, see if they're willing to coach you and be a mentor, and have them coach and mentor you for, you know, six to 12 months, whatever it is, save up as much money as you can, and start your new business, whatever you think it's going to be, as a side hustle, because if you can prove concept, you know, on your lunch time and when, you know, your work and day ends and on weekends, you can then refine what you think your business is or what your product is using someone else's money. It's technically a charge you burnt it, you know, you're an employee, but get to a point where you're using your income from employment to actually build your business on the side so that you can understand who your market is, how they buy, what your product is, why it's different, and understand what marketing channels work best for you. Then what will eventually happen is your side hustle will either demand more time or it'll be making more money than your actual job. But at that time, you'll be able to comfortably and confidently be able to resign. You can thank your CEO for all the support that he or she has given you in mentoring you. And then, and then you've got a revenue generating business. And then I would say that the third thing is probably just be very careful about how you advertise and how much you spend because, you know, a lot of people are waiting to take the, you know, take your money off you. But if you can, like, Google's fantastic and, you know, Google has been wonderful for us because it's all measurable. You know how much you're spending, you know how many visitors there are, you know how many clicks, you know how many everything. So, you can almost, to a degree, plan how much revenue you can make based on how much you spend. But, prior to avoid billboard advertising, unless it's been physically proven or demonstrated that your product or service performs really well with billboards, they're horrendously expensive. And just figure out what works for you because if you're not making more money than you're spending, then it's not working from an advertising standpoint. And then, outsource what you can. You know, there's in the early days, I was outsourcing so much because we couldn't afford to hire people to do that role. You know, when we came out the back end of COVID, we had next to no money, next to no revenue and we had to build from the ground up. So, anything that we needed to do from a design perspective or anything along those lines, it was being outsourced. You know, we went to Fiverr, we found great consultants on there. So, what would cost you maybe $5,000 in the UAE was $500 and you still get a fantastic service. There's many smart ways to work on building your business and your brand and your sales without spending a fortune and don't buy stupid stuff. I had to catch myself then, you know, you see so many, you know, kids that, you know, they just made $100,000 on a deal, whatever that deal is. And, you know, they go out and they buy, you know, they just buy a car and a watch and it's a depreciating asset. You know, if you roll that $100,000 back into your business, you'll soon realize it becomes $200. And then you roll in that $200, you'll soon realize it becomes $400. I'm not saying you can't have that stuff. But I think it was Jay-Z, he said, "If you can't buy it twice, you can't afford it." So, you know, that's a great rule to live by. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, and, you know, since COVID, you know, we were very, very, very comfortable pre-COVID. And then, you know, like I said, I learned the re-learned the value of the derem after. And even now, if we can buy it twice, I probably still won't buy it, you know, because we're building a business, we're building an empire. And, you know, I, there are certain responsibilities that we have to each other as families and that I have to my family as a dad and husband. And so, until we find ourselves in a very, very comfortable position, all luxury purchases are off. Yeah, great advice, really good advice. I think a lot of people have seen the light post-COVID or true COVID, they realized how little, you know, how they could, how little value in their lives, maybe the luxuries that they're spending on, we're giving them, and they actually didn't need them. So, but exactly the same implies in business. That's amazing advice. What I'd like to do, we're coming to the end of the podcast, I'd like to just say, you know, well done to you as an entrepreneur, as a leader, and congratulations on what you're doing, contracts are direct. Clearly, you're only at the beginning of what sounds like an amazing story. And I think the great advice, you can really great advice today. You and I have known each other for a few years, what we've got to know, which is a lot better through, through VISTAGE. So, it's been great to, to collaborate with you on VISTAGE. Since VISTAGE are the sponsors of this podcast, I'm going to finish off with one question, which is, what advice would you give to anyone out there, any leaders, CEOs, founders, who would be considering joining VISTAGE as a member? So, I would say to reevaluate why you wouldn't. So, before I joined VISTAGE, there were a lot of things that I was internalizing that I was trying to solve for myself, which I was struggling with, and a lot of things were just festering, bubbling, and eventually we're going to explode. What VISTAGE does is it takes out the loneliness. So, when you're at the top, you often feel like you've got nobody to speak to. And if there is somebody that you want to speak to, there's no experience or context that you can give or that they have that would be able to help talk you through a certain situation. So, with VISTAGE, to be surrounded by such smart, talented people that you can share totally, totally confidential, that you can share the most painstaking challenges with is invaluable. And by the way, you can also share good news. Some of the conversations that you have or that we've discussed have been around raising money, "Should I take this deal? Should I take this deal?" Again, being surrounded by people that have been in that scenario, even recommendations and introductions, "Hey guys, what would be really useful is I'm trying to get hold of this guy or this lady in this company." "Yeah, no worries. I'll leave it to me and I'll make the intro." I would say there is so much to gain and so little, if anything to lose. You will be, or certainly my experience has been, that I am a much more rounded CEO. My knowledge of the role and people and how certain things function has increased tremendously. So, just give it a go, bite the bullet, do it. It's worth it. Super. So, look David, thank you. Thank you so much for an amazing chat today. Really enjoyed that. Thank you. I really appreciate it. It's nice to be on. And good luck with everything. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot, John. Really, really do. And thank you very much to Vistage as well for putting this platform together. It's fantastic. Super. Thanks David. Brilliant. All right, I'll see you soon. Thank you very very much John. See you later, take care.
