YouSaid · the spoken record

Solly Solomou

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70
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2025-02-14
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2025-02-14
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  1. “Was through two means. So the first was consultancy. So we had all sorts of people getting in touch with us saying, can you help us grow our Facebook account? If you remember that time, everyone was saying, is a Facebook like worth a pound? Is it worth 50p? Is it worth £2? I always remember those conversations. So everybody knew it was a thing that they needed to be on to reach millennials and young adults. However, no one fully understood where it was going to go. And so we had a few companies that approached us. We put deals in place that said, okay, if we help you grow your Facebook account to this, we would get this fee. And we did that and we did it a number of times. And again, back to that profitability since day one, that was always important to us. And we got some annual deals in place.”

    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

  2. “We very early does brought in some brilliant people at university. They sent bulk emails sometimes accidentally to everybody in the business school. What I did is I took all of those emails, sent a note around saying, who would like to do some work experience? I had a huge amount of applicants. So even in the early days where we had this office above the printer shop, I had like five people at a time on rotation coming through doing work experience. These are really smart people helping grow the business. I guess as we got further along, we then started to find out people who had created their own.”

    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

  3. “All sorts of challenges along the way, whether it was figuring out how to get the account back via the CTO, going through this verification process, or trying to figure out how to deal with that level of traffic that we were generating, because we'd have these huge spikes.”

    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

  4. “Very candid, but he didn't have to take the call, he took the call, and a week later it was sorted. A week later, he explained what it was, we sorted out some paperwork, it ended up being verification. And the funny story on that, it was actually my dad's account was also linked to the Facebook account, and we were using that to post as well as others. So we just had this extra account to post from. And we had to verify some of my dad's friends that he went to school with about 40 years ago. to get the account back. And I remember being on the phone to my dad saying, dad, can you see this picture? Is that person, this name? It was that multiple choice. I don't know if you remember these kind of like security checks and all that kind of stuff. It felt like the future of the business was hinged on this moment on my dad being able to recall this random person who he's not in touch with anymore from school and get it right. Thankfully, we got it right. So we went through.”

    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

  5. “Completely. I believe entrepreneurs are creatives at heart and I think if you have too much to go at, if you have no constraint, that creative process is ruined. For me, I believe in that pressure that creates the output. So I'll never forget. About a year down the line, we'd shifted focus to Lad Bible as the business. So one day I woke up, our Facebook page went down. It just disappeared. No email, no nothing just disappeared. Obviously my heart sank. So went to work on thinking, right, how am I going to speak to someone in Facebook? How am I going to speak to someone who can help me sort this out? And in fairness, it wasn't too accessible to speak to them. And I remember going across LinkedIn, messaging all sorts of different people. We managed to get through to the CTO. We spoke to the CTO who...”

    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

  6. “And I had to explain this to her. She was like, what is Facebook? What is this thing? I was like, don't worry about it. It's all good. So she transferred the money, we got access, all kind of came across. And I remember just lay there on my bed thinking, what the hell have I just done? What the hell have I just done? I've just spent a huge amount of money, you know, sort of at this point. I was burning through maybe like 60, 70% of the money that I'd saved up from previous endeavors, the funding, etc. And I remember sitting there thinking, I've really got to make this work. I don't know how I'm going to make this work, but I need to make this work. I need to figure it out.”

    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

  7. “So, for whatever reason, and fair play to my mum, I couldn't transfer that amount of money from my bank. I don't know why. I just couldn't. I used my mum's bank.”

    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

  8. “Marketing, TV marketing, magazine marketing. It was all too expensive. And then I came to Facebook. Everyone was following this page called The Lab Bible. And it had half a million people on it. And I thought, do you know what? This is interesting because it's mainly based around students and it's got half a million people. This could be a really interesting angle to market this website over here. So I got chatting to the person who created it, Alex Partridge. We were chatting away and I thought I'm going to offer to buy it. So I did. We had a bit back and forth. He accepted, but the lab 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

  9. “For the first couple of weeks wearing that suit to go and see the bars clubs cafes, quite quickly I realized it probably wasn't a good idea. And I should put it away. I guess I was just figuring it out. It was so raw. I was trying to figure out how do you start a business. I remember sitting there thinking, what do I do with a whiteboard out, you know, sort of trying to work out what's a business plan? How do I write this thing? How am I going to get that traffic? How am I going to get this advertisement money? I guess where it really kicked on is I was exploring different forms of marketing to really ramp up the traffic. And around the time, everyone, our age was on Facebook. So this was 2012. Facebook at the time hadn't even listed. It was still the dot-com. And you remember the old website, the blue and white. I think it had moved past the Facebook to Facebook. However, it didn't even really have a mobile app. Everyone was on Facebook. I explored email.”

    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

  10. “Was the gateway to Lob Bible? So I was doing all sorts of crazy things to market this thing. It was like chicken and egg where you've got, I need audience members to come to my website and consume this from Leeds. And I then need customers to advertise different cafes, bars, clubs, etc. So I needed to get the traffic, which I was doing all of these. I was utilizing the printer shop by getting these bags printed off with a logo, sending them all around the different takeaway companies. I was doing flyers, all of that kind of stuff. And then I was going around the cafes, bars, clubs, and selling them advertisement space. So I had to kind of get both of these sides operating. And my granddad, who's an important figure for me, this is a funny story. He bought me this suit. I think he always wanted me to go into business and his associate. It was where they sit. And it was a big suit, like, you know, sort of drain pipes, the kind of old school suit. I remember.”

    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

  11. “Exactly, exactly. I had to keep the cost base low. But I didn't understand the concept of getting investment. All I knew was I had to make more money than I spent. And that was what I had to create. And that was my mindset from the off. I didn't really understand the concept of taking on investment and growing a business. So from day one, we were profitable, even with the first business, which the online shooter community was rating these different bars, clubs, cafes.”

    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

  12. “Straight away, I probably had to outlay about 300,000 four thousand pounds to facilitate doing the year in industry. So obviously I had accommodation and I decided to get an office space straight away, which was above a printer shop. And it did look like a prison because it had like prison bars across 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

  13. “On it. Okay. Yeah, so I guess through my endeavors early doors, I'd made a decent sum of money. So I had some money that I'd saved up from, not the sweets, that was probably a smaller play, but certainly the clothes and a few other endeavors. And I invested that into it. I also got some funding from the university.”

    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

  14. “I believe I would have found my way into that path. At the time, I didn't know, but you just find your place, your natural place. And for me, ideas creating something, building something was something that I was passionate about. Before I knew it, this online student community was something that I had to bring to life.”

    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

  15. “Of actually trying to explain it to my parents that I was going to go and try and start this online student community recommending different bars, clubs, cafes, all of this kind of stuff was a bit like, you're what? You've kind of gone down this path of education, gone to university, we kind of thought you were going to go down this route. We got over that hump and in fairness to them, they were completely 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

  16. “As we got closer and closer to it, I had all of these ideas of different businesses that maybe I wanted to do. And I was chatting with my enterprise department, Professor Nigel Lockett. Absolute legend. And he said, I've got this idea that I would like to potentially give people like you the opportunity to start your own business in a year in industry. Would you be my guinea pig, which was completely exciting for me because obviously I can take this idea that have, bring it to life, the university supported me with mentorship, funding, and other things like that. If it didn't work out, I'm going back to university, which just felt like the dream. I've got this opportunity to start something without the risk of not knowing where I'm going to go afterwards at such a young age. And with Nigel's brother as a mentor and a load of other support around it, so this was just amazing to me.”

    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

  17. “Thing I was doing before university, the sweets, the clothes, all of this kind of stuff, you know, maybe that's not why the career. Exactly. I need to be serious. So that was the mindset I had going into it. Coming into my third year of university, we had to go and pick a business to go and do year in industry.”

    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

  18. “I guess if I take you back to me growing up, I was the kid who was selling sweets at school. So I was the guy who understood exactly which sweets were going to sell and which ones weren't. And then I went and negotiated with the news agent or the different places which I'll buy the suites and buy them in bulk and then bring them into school and sell them. So I was that kid growing up. I also had clothes that I would buy and sell. Sometimes I'd have a knock on the door. It'd be one of my friend's parents coming round to buy some clothes. And so growing up, I always had this urge to do business, I guess. I didn't even know what the word entrepreneur was, but I had this urge to go into that avenue. Felt natural to me. I followed the course of going to university where I started the business. I was going down this path of I'm going to go and do a business management course. I'm going to go and work for a big business. And that's my career.”

    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

  19. “Thank you for having me on. I feel very privileged. This is my first and exclusive episode on a podcast, so I feel very privileged on that basis that you've had me on and I'm very pleased it's with 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

  20. “All I knew was I had to make more money than I spent. And that was what I had to create. I didn't really understand the concept of taking on investment and growing a business. So from day one, we were profitable. If I was to rewrite the script, I definitely would have started the business in the US. The size and scale of the market. It's huge. As we grow and build our US business, a dual listing might be the way to go.”

    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