YouSaid · the spoken record

Solly Solomou

lines on the record: 70
first: 2025-02-14
most recent: 2025-02-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Before I had Alfie, our first boy, I would roll the dice on every decision, put it on the table, no problem. Having Alfie made me think about things very differently, that it's more than just me and Jess. It's me, Jess. And this little human who's dependent on us and what we do and every action that we take, whether it's a mannerism, a word that we say, they're taking it in, and they can replicate it. all the way through to safety and making sure they have a life that you want them to have. And I would guess in terms of the biggest thing for me is pushing me to be a better role model. It makes me think about who I am, how I show up. And I often look at it through the lens of how would I feel if Alfie did that? So I would say that role model piece. Thinking about my actions a little bit more is the good thing from it.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am extremely goal focused. I can really lock in on a goal. Everything else moves out the way. The great thing about that is being able to lock into that goal, home in and go for it. The downsides of that is you miss things on the periphery sometimes. So it's good and bad and have to check and balance myself on that basis. But I would say that's probably the two sides of the coin to that one.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I probably say Disney. I'd want to see inside Disney. Coming back to entertainment powerhouse, Disney have achieved that status and they've managed to evolve from this animation, TV show to Disneyland, to Disney Plus, to Marvel, to Pixar, to some of the greatest movies experiences that you can possibly experience. And the whole feeling that comes off the back of that. So I would like to be inside there to see that magic and how it all ticks and go back into the history of what I know and see how it looks underneath the bonnet. That for me would be a fascinating company.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think he's a very, very special brand, and I believe it's lost its way, and sometimes businesses do. And we work with them. They want to understand Gen Z in a better way. But I do not think it's got too much heritage, too much equity in the brand that it's built. You think back to the Michael Jordan advertisement, whatever it may be, Apple's special. If you look at brand products, the way they've expanded their product, the quality of what they do, that's special. So for me, I'd probably say Apple, but bunch the others in there too.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Favorite consumer, but I mean, Apple. I think Apple has to be up there. Let me expand it. I go Apple Night, Disney, these kind of businesses.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being a dad is the best thing ever, and it can also be the most humbling thing ever. I guess going from someone who my daughter loves and is obsessed with as a two-year-old to being someone who she feels, who I feel she hates. And the ups and downs of that roller coaster where you love, you absolutely love this human more than anything. that experience of the ups and downs of that is mind-blowing. I guess taking it outside of business, it's that up and down of being a dad, having something outside of business that humbles you in different ways. That's something that is an emotional roller coaster in itself, but a very special thing.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A fantastic quote, you're right. Unmade decisions. There's so much emphasis on the importance of making the right decisions in our jobs. You just have to sometimes make a decision. That is sometimes the paralysis that you can end up where you take too long to make a decision, you aim for perfection, but sometimes you just need to go with a decision, back it, make it quickly, trust your gut, trust your intuition, and go for it. The moments I regret is not listening to that intuition and leaving it too long, questioning myself too much. So that connection of intuition, gut feel, and making a decision on it generally is a thing that I constantly check and balance myself.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Say it's the constant change in evolution. Every year is a new job. It's a new job. I'm understanding how to navigate the US market. I'm understanding how to navigate a public environment. However, I enjoy that change. I enjoy the variation. I love challenge. And one of these people where if I wasn't doing Lob Bible group, I'd be trying to like climb Mount Everest or kill a Manjaro or something like that. I just need a challenge. For me, Lab Bible Group fuels that. It fuels that challenge. It tests me. It pushes me. It challenges me. But I enjoy that.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe probably that the impossible is possible sometimes I'm sure there's certain things that I say such as us moving up the mountain getting as close as we can to some of the biggest companies in the world I'm sure there's lots of people that probably doubt that I'm sure there would be lots of people that would probably question the ambition early doors on where we wanted to be and where we are now so I'm a hopeless optimist in that sense around ambition and what can be done and what humans can do and achieve so i think maybe that is probably the one sometimes i do have to check myself make sure i have the right people around on that front but”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, as a product that will evolve and the whole AI product he's creating and all these other aspects, it'd be hard not to back him on that front. As a platform, as it is now, I believe it needs to evolve. And as a marketing platform, again, I think it needs to evolve.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say TikTok I would buy Meta I would buy on their big bets that they've made. Yeah, those would probably be the two. I would short, can we short X? It isn't.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Massive, so I believe it will be a place for innovation, a place for young adults, in particular Gen Z, and we'll see how they connect to a Gen Alpha. It's an interesting product.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, like their version of WhatsApp, they have WhatsApp, but it's also iMessage, it's their version and that whole disappearing, that privacy element of it, what Snapchat offer is massive for them, also the maps. I don't know if you've been on the maps and you can see where all of your friends are in the world on the maps if you've got it turned on. Like there's so many cool features in Snap and they've got some brilliant technology, brilliant innovation. They've always been innovators and quite often you've seen obviously they've been taking some features from other platforms and other platforms are taking features from them. But Snap have been brilliant innovators. I believe Snap is an interesting place over the next five to ten years. Whether it can compete with the TikToks and the Metas at this scale, I mean, these players are huge and we've seen what they've done in AI. We've seen what they're doing in e-commerce and these kind of bets that they're making.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would yeah. I'm obviously aware of the pros and the amazing things that can come from that, but also the cons, you know, bullying some of the things that you can get access to. But this was no different to when we had dial up. I remember sitting on the computer and I think my parents were on the phone and I was shouting down the stair. Can you get off that? I'm trying to do my MSN and all this kind of stuff. But, you know, the stuff that you could access and things that could have been said across MSN, it's no different. But I think back to this kind of making sure that we're thinking about an environment and how to make it safe is really important.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So taking me about to my youth now, I was thinking the minute you tell me you can't do it, I'm finding a way. I'm getting it. VPNs weren't a thing back then, but I mean, I am finding a way to get it. So I think that needs to be carefully managed. And my kids are two and four. So I think I've got the best years to come where I have to manage that kind of letter.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From a product perspective, it's moving things forward, and I'm looking out through that lens. In terms of is it being abused and the data and information, it's way above my head. I don't know.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they'll paving the way. From my perspective, they are someone you cannot ignore from the quality of the product and what they have on there, but also the innovation through shop and other aspects of that. And I see us showing up in ways around entertainment across that. I see TikTok shop being a part of our ecosystem and how we play in that in the future. And we've done some experimentation and we can see that being a part of our ecosystem and how it could evolve.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is something that I'm fascinated by. In the next five years or less, it's expected to be a one trillion market. The TikTok shop social commerce world overall is expected to be a 1 trillion market. In China, it's already massive, absolutely massive, but I know so many people now, millennials and Gen Z audience bases, who are buying from TikTok shop. It's a really interesting time where for creators it's an opportunity to monetize through affiliates across TikTok shop. So one of the things that they've been able to nail is not just selling directly to consumer, they are selling to consumer via craters. So their whole thing, they want to be the next Amazon. I'll speak to a friend of mine who's over at Snap and he was saying those guys are two steps ahead. They want to take on Amazon.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another big question, and I feel like there's quite a lot of political questions. Political underneath that. So I think TikTok is a great product, great product. It's just the stickiness of the feed and the understanding of you and serving you content that you love.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Score, are you talking about something that happened, or whatever it may be? It does enhance that experience. So I believe that behavior is a change in traditional TV, newspapers, magazines, etc. The numbers speak for themselves. That market has gone from being 70, 80% of the market down to 20%. Digital is changing the game. And for a player like us, that has a huge amount of attention and eyeballs across that young adult demographic, that's a great thing. And for those businesses that adapt, again, that's a great thing.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“TV has its place. I guess it depends what you categorize as that. I'm a massive believer in connected TV and the likes of YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, all of these different subscriptions that we have. And we've all got too many. I believe that that's the future and where things are going. And I don't think that's going to be news to anyone. Audiences on traditional TV are reducing down. Behaviours are changing where even when you are watching a TV show, whether it is on a traditional broadcasting channel, it's on a Netflix or an Amazon Prime, you're still dual screening. I don't know how many times I get told off when I'm watching a show with my wife Jess. I'm just there scrolling on my phone. It's just a habit that we've created and in some ways, whether you're watching sport or whether you're watching some sort of series that you want to connect with your friends and you're in WhatsApp and you're talking about it and you're talking about”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think when you start a business, and this is just my personal experience, location isn't even on the mind, it's just survival or moving forward. So I think we could do more to help along that journey here in the UK. However, I still think it's a fantastic place to grow business. I know so many entrepreneurs who've been successful. I know so many emerging entrepreneurs who have been given opportunity to grow and build. Would they be bigger in the States? Well, you're talking a 300 million population country versus 70 million here, a market that in some ways is nearly five to eight times the sizes here in the UK. So you do have more opportunity in a place like the States. However, we have been the home of some really successful businesses, whether it's something like Dyson. And you look at a business like Dyson and the innovation and the”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Need to look at the environment and we need to think about why it is that businesses consider moving to the US versus being here in the UK and think about how we can replicate certain elements of it to compete. And there are lots of pros of the UK markets, the stability, the structure, and all of the disciplines that come with the UK market. However, we probably need to look at the way in which it can evolve, mentorship.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, it comes back to it's that investment back into the UK market. There's a huge amount that is sat in ICES, that is sat in low return pension funds that could be utilized to grow at higher rates, but also stimulate and encourage more innovation and more businesses in the UK market.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had a great chat with Julia Hoggart, CEO of the London Stock Exchange. And she's got some interesting plans. Those plans are going to take time, but I believe some of the steps that they're putting in place will certainly revitalize and rebuild some of that UK investment that maybe isn't there right now. And that is going into US markets and other places. However, I believe the steps have been taken to revitalize.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Talk him from personal experience. It was a big learning curve ongoing from being a private company to being a list of business, having a set of stakeholders that think and want information in a certain way whilst also running your business. So adapting to that and learning and growing and understanding how to manage that was a whole learning curve in itself. I'm hungry, ambitious, I enjoy learning. So for me, there was points in which I was challenging. However, the learning curve has been amazing. I would never look back and take any of that away. So from that experience of going through it, it's been fascinating. Certainly the benefits that I mentioned before have been brilliant.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That could be an option in the future as we grow and build our US business, a dual listing might be the way to go, but we need to build on the success of what we've started with the Betches business and our organic business out there and really continue to build, expand and grow that. And as we do have a bigger US business, it may start to make more sense to us to have a dual listing and look at what that might look like.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We believe by being a list of business, having the additional firepower, the paper, and the status, it would enable us to accelerate us forward to growing and expanding the business. And so far, in terms of the BETC's acquisition and also having that firepower and the options and the PLC status, it's definitely given us a leg forward in terms of going after what we believe we can be.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's coming up to three years in a couple of weeks' time, which was a bizarre experience. We were meant to go to London Stock Exchange. And for the whole pandemic madness that was going on, we couldn't do that. So I remember sitting on the sofa with my wife and little boy ringing the bell on the sofa on this Zoom. It was madness. Not the experience you think. However, in terms of the reasons why we did that, We believed in the opportunity of the US growing our business out there. So we have over 100 million audience members out in the States and we know that we've done the hard bit. It's then about establishing the business and growing out there and accelerating that.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mobile phones. They're going to be this clunky item that we carry around right now and look back on and go, why did we hold that thing? Why did we do that? We're going to have wearables that are going to make it way more seamless. So it's not even anything other than extension of things that you'd normally wear, as we're seeing with watches, as we'll see with glasses, maybe 10, 15, 20 years. That's what we may be looking at. As wearables become more advanced, as you're able to put more process in power into smaller things, I believe that the phone will become something that we look at as a clunky item and look back at why did we ever do that?”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think that's it. I think if you're willing to adapt and embrace it, it's an opportunity. If you're wanting to go against the title, I mean, the world has never changed on that basis. Anyone who has lent into change, I think Meta have put something like $30 billion into AI. The list goes on in terms of those other players. They were making their big bet in the metaverse and other areas. What a pivot that is”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm genuinely excited by the movement forward in technology with the introduction of the likes of AI, allowing you more time for the creative process. So there's some things like desk research that have just become way easier, sub-editing, language translation. I mean, some of the tools that are available on dubbing.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Democratization and the access to technology using and embracing technology like that, the cost of creating a movie where maybe 25%, 30% of it is AI generated or assisted.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think there's different circumstances that require different elements of that. So we recently worked with Tesco. Brilliant, brilliant clip of Father Christmas picking up his meal deal at Tesco. Really quick fire behind the camera works perfectly and has absolutely flown. That's a way in which you can weave brands into culture in a way that doesn't necessarily need to be ridiculous production value TV advert. And I think AI is going to be so interesting on this. When Sam Otman came over to the UK, he demoed their version of video creation, the ability to pop into ChatGPT, a visual, and a video that you may want to create. And it is mind-blown where things are going. So for us as an entertainment business, you can imagine a world where we're creating movies. And because of that democracy,”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A professional outfit to get to where we need to go, we need to have high standards. And if those standards are not met, we need to address them and change it. So another element of something that I hold of high value is excellence, whether that's for the audience who are our customers or a client who are our customers. We have over 500 million followers now across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube. We generate over 3,000 views every second and in order to produce that, you need to be living and breathing and understanding that audience to really nail that and grow an audience base of that size and scale 500 million people over half of UK adults consuming what we do on a monthly basis, two-thirds of 18 to 34 is in the UK. You have to operate with excellence.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I think that's why the US expansion for you is going to go very well. He's going to go very well. It's the perfect environment”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Coming back to trust. Do you trust when you pass the ball to that person? They're going to do their part to deliver what they need to. If you trust that and know they're going to do that, that's one aspect of it. The other is, can I be open with you and you take that in the right way? Can I trust you to take that in the right way? And then have an open conversation on how we work together to make that thing better or improve it or change it or whatever.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's it. What you talked about there, my definition of culture, what we hold of high importance, is people that want to grow and evolve. We often talk about whether it's the mountain and the further up you go, the lower the altitude, the less oxygen, the harder it gets. Where we want to go is from, let's say, a quarter of the way up the mountain and get as far as we can to the top and to the pinnacle of the mountain as we possibly can. For us going from quarter of the way up the mountain to as close as we can get to that pinnacle is going to take some serious work and we're going to need people that are ambitious, hungry, want to grow every year their job is not the same. Every year that has gone on, my job has been different, whether that's being a private business, going to a public business, to having an American element to our business to grow into 500 from 100. Each element of our business and the evolution of it has meant”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Little bit more time with hiring, being clear on what the culture is, and also accepting that maybe that person with that additional experience or that additional technical skill set is probably not the right person on the basis that they under-index on the cultural fit. And therefore, they're going to create chaos. So I think from my perspective, that learning over time on understanding who we are and what we are and what kind of person works within our business is probably the thing that I've got wrong a couple of times. Well, lots of times.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Over time, I had this mindset that it's all about the vision. It's all about the technical skill set and put no emphasis on culture. And this was early doors. I had no understanding of it. So sometimes what I would do is sometimes hire very, very quickly bring people in the business and think this person's got an amazing, amazing technical skill set or they've got an experience that we just don't have in the business without thinking about, is this person going to gel with that other person to the left of them or to the right of them? I'm really taking all of those elements into account. Because when you're creating a team, one great individual for sure can make a massive difference. But when you've got a team who are working together and trust each other and create something amazing together, that's something else. So for me, putting more emphasis on taking a”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's like a lot of countries in one massive country. Each one has such a different culture. The views are so extreme. Again, back to it, the left and the right. What you're interested in, a niche is not a niche over there. It's huge. It's huge. My brother has these old school cameras. And I would never see anyone walking around in the UK with one of these. It's a niche. We were walking around in New York and we saw like five people over the course of a week who had these same old school cameras and that really clicked to me that this place is huge. You really have to pick something and be the best at it, even if that's a niche. So to go in there and think that you could just take the UK style and repeat it in the US, it's not going to fly.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe that we could, yes. And the reason for that in the UK, we're very conservative. We have a nice chat before we talk business. In the US, in particular New York, it's straight to him, straight to the hustle. And they celebrate success in a big way. If you're hungry, ambitious, willing to roll your sleeves up, what a place that is to do business. Now, I love the UK and sometimes it's a bit much when you go to the States, you go to New York and it's straight down to the business and you don't have those charts. But I believe it's a great environment to grow a business and the culture there is supportive.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably not going into the US sooner. If I was to rewrite the script, I definitely would have started the business in the US. The reason for that is the size and scale of the market. You're talking a $400 million market versus a 70 billion pound market here. It's huge, and we've been very successful here. And the UK market is integral. We want to be market leaders in entertainment in the next five years. However, If we did the same thing in the US, different scale. So we've corrected that. And a couple of years ago started our office out in the State, someone who's been with us for 10 years, went and started it organically. And then through being a list of business and having access to capital, which we did three years ago, it really gave us the firepower to accelerate that journey. So I would say if I could rewrite the script and do something slightly different, I'd do it the other way around.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A million views or a thousand views. Really mastering the art, and it's the same on every single platform. If you put the content forward in the right way, it can make a huge difference. So getting those people who understood those passion points, understood the platforms, and really scaled it out. And we have just been relentless at this. And I often say in our world, you've got the legacy brands, then you've got the meme players. In between here, you've got a few successful people who've created brands that people resonate with know and love.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It took time and investment. So, first things first, get the right people, the people who are living and breathing those different passion points, whether it's gaming, sport, tech, whatever it may be, get the people who understand those audiences inside out, understand the platform and how to speak to them. Then empower them with tech and tools and dashboards and data that helps them make better informed decisions. So very early on, we had a tech team from the beginning of the company. So we had a couple of person tech team. I think it was our fifth hire that we made. We grew that and built it. Our data, insights, and tech tools. Empowering these creatives, which I guess in a traditional world, you'd have the creators on one side of the room, then you'd have the data people on the other side of the room, and they would just butt heads. For us, we very much encouraged and actually hired people who embraced creativity and data as one. I mean, you know this, a good thumbnail can be the difference between”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We didn't realize at the time, but we were on this cusp of a massive wave that was forming magazines, newspapers, even traditional.com as we know it, was changing. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and the emergence of these platforms over time, we understood better than anyone how to interact with at the time millennial audiences, give them what they want. For us, it's understanding culture, understanding those audiences, understanding how to connect with them in an authentic way.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think it's on like 10 million views. But this was before Stormsy was big, before, well, Kevin Hart and ISQ Roberts are massive, but Kevin Hart has become huge. For me, that moment had been sat there in a hotel in Manchester getting two huge names in a room, having a rat battle with this up-and-coming UK star and them doing it for Lab Bible was a big moment. You know, we had like 25 people, but from an audience perspective, it was huge. And after that, we started to really build out the portfolio. So we built out Sport Bible. We built out gaming Bible.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You absolutely spawn. I mean, I saw a statistic that said that 11% of the US population classified themselves as content creators. 11%. So obviously people who create content is much higher, but 11%. And that's because of the democratization. Still for a lot of them, unless they get lucky with a big brand deal or have a partnership in place, for a lot of people of that 11%, it's not a career. A lot of them fail. But just going back to the question that you asked me on that moment. So I remember being sat in Manchester in the McDonald Hotel. We managed to get IceCube, Kevin Hart, and Stormzy, who's not big at the time, in a hotel room doing a rat battle. So we had Kevin Hart and Stormzy doing a rat battle governed by Ice Cube, the one and only. It absolutely went off. So I think for me, that moment. When you say it went off.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We all knew each other. It was like a community. So back then we were like DMing each other on Twitter, chatting with each other on different messaging, platforms, etc. We were in groups together and we all knew each other. One was in a call center, the other was working in a nightclub. And all of these different places. So this was super early doors where don't forget Facebook was launched in 2004. YouTube was launched in 2005. Facebook had only just listed in 2012. TikTok came in 2016, Snapchat 2014. So this was early doors where people were not making a living out of something that they loved doing. For us, we brought them in, gave them a career. They loved it. They still love it. Lots of them still work for us to date. And we've continued that on you.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I remember this moment, so we're in Manchester. Our team was probably about 25. We had the best people who understood how to create the best Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts in the country, I'd say. We had a group of them working in Manchester. Some moved up, some were based in the north.”
2025-02-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source