Speaker 1: I just kind of think about it as like the
Speaker 1: spins are the rule at wheel. You know, it's if
Speaker 1: you think about it like it's a game to keep playing.
Speaker 1: If you keep spinning the rule that will, you're going
Speaker 1: to hit the jackpot. And the people who get somewhere,
Speaker 1: the people who just keep spinning. Two friends that at
Speaker 1: outwears Great Dev's helped me and they built this beautiful
Speaker 1: app for us, and we submitted it and oh great,
Speaker 1: you get an A but Apple featured it and we
Speaker 1: immediately got seven thousand users overnight. Oh man, that was
Speaker 1: our first big kind of kick.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy
Speaker 2: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 2: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 2: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 2: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 2: explore the stories of those who found lives. They adore,
Speaker 2: the good, bad and ugly, The best and worst day
Speaker 2: will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm
Speaker 2: Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned
Speaker 2: funentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found
Speaker 2: Matcha Maiden and Matcha Milk Bark CZA is a series
Speaker 2: of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring
Speaker 2: the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way.
Speaker 2: Many of our guests on the show tell incredible stories
Speaker 2: of trying lots of different things that they don't really
Speaker 2: love before stumbling on a particular YA that then changes
Speaker 2: their life. What has fascinated me about George Hartley since
Speaker 2: the day we first met is that he's loved then
Speaker 2: left lots of different yays to end up in his
Speaker 2: current chapter in an industry that he originally knew absolutely
Speaker 2: nothing about. I was first introduced to George as the
Speaker 2: co founder and chief Marketing and Product officer of Blue Thumb,
Speaker 2: Australia's largest online art marketplace, which many of you have
Speaker 2: probably already heard of or purchased from, but if you haven't,
Speaker 2: George describes it as the SoundCloud of art. Launched in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, blue Thumb connects over twenty thousand Australian artists
Speaker 2: with collectors, facilitating the sale of more than one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand original artworks to date, with around half a million
Speaker 2: dollars worth of art currently for sale. How he has
Speaker 2: completely revolutionized the art industry, which was previously quite inaccessible
Speaker 2: and intimidating with laws of middlemen, and then grown the
Speaker 2: Bluethorm business to extraordinary heights, having recently launched in the USA.
Speaker 2: Is a fascinating story in itself. I didn't, however, expect
Speaker 2: to ask about his prior connections to the art world
Speaker 2: and where the idea was spawned, only to hear him say, oh, no,
Speaker 2: I know nothing about art. While I've always been a
Speaker 2: pretty big proponent of finding a business idea out of
Speaker 2: a gap in the market that you stumble upon yourself
Speaker 2: as a consumer, so you have a personal connection. George
Speaker 2: is an amazing example that you can, of course reverse
Speaker 2: engineer a business by perceiving a gap in the market
Speaker 2: without any prior connections, qualifications, or a foot in the door,
Speaker 2: and that that can often in fact be an advantage.
Speaker 2: Much to my surprise, he actually began by studying marketing
Speaker 2: and accounting at UNI, had an entire marketing Korea. He
Speaker 2: then left to do music full time, which he then interned,
Speaker 2: left to do a master's in computer science, and then
Speaker 2: worked in ux design, all before Blue Thumb began. I
Speaker 2: loved our first chat at a founder's dinner where this
Speaker 2: all unraveled, and have been wanting to continue it in
Speaker 2: depth so much, and you guys just happened to benefit
Speaker 2: from that too, so I hope you all enjoy. George,
Speaker 2: Welcome to SEZ THEA.
Speaker 1: Thanks Sarah. Great to be here.
Speaker 2: Oh it's so so lovely to see you. How do
Speaker 2: we make friends? It's a bit random. I was a customer,
Speaker 2: then we connected online, and then we met like a
Speaker 2: week later out of the blue at an event, but
Speaker 2: I did know you were going to be here. And
Speaker 2: one of my new best friends is your wife, so
Speaker 2: we have so many different connections.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. She's a huge fan of the pod, like
Speaker 1: super fan, and when I told her I chatted at
Speaker 1: that dinner, she was like, oh, oh my god, you
Speaker 1: have to go on the pod. So yeah, she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be here, and she's even more excited.
Speaker 2: It's actually the sweetest. She came for the start of
Speaker 2: this session today, so I got to meet her in
Speaker 2: real life, and I absolutely love that I have a
Speaker 2: super fan. I didn't even know they existed, so that's
Speaker 2: just absolutely delightful. Thank you for bringing the AA to
Speaker 2: my dad. Well, I'm so excited to have you here
Speaker 2: because I had been a customer of Blue Thumb before
Speaker 2: I knew any of your story. And of course, the
Speaker 2: natural assumption is that art is in your background or
Speaker 2: in your history or family, or that there's some kind
Speaker 2: of logical connection. But one of my favorite parts of
Speaker 2: CZA is finding pathways that don't necessarily make as much sense,
Speaker 2: and they have lots of different dots that connect in
Speaker 2: different ways. So there was an AFI article about you
Speaker 2: that I came across about the business in my research,
Speaker 2: and it was all about music, not art, nothing to
Speaker 2: do with art. Yes, So the beginning of your story
Speaker 2: is actually much more musical. Tell us about your childhood
Speaker 2: and what you thought you'd kind of be back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, Blue Thumb kind of. I guess it's
Speaker 1: the is the second big thing I've done with my life.
Speaker 1: My you know, I always thought I'd be a musician,
Speaker 1: and that was my one like one searing passion was music,
Speaker 1: I guess, So yeah, I sort of always just loved
Speaker 1: music playing, you know, growing up I played in bands.
Speaker 1: I played the trombone and the bass guitar as well
Speaker 1: and keyboards, and I'd always had bands with my best
Speaker 1: friends when when we were kind of in high school
Speaker 1: and then at university, and even I worked as an
Speaker 1: English teacher in Japan.
Speaker 2: I formed a band.
Speaker 1: Random, so I finished the Minion and then I went
Speaker 1: to Japan to teach English. But I joined a band
Speaker 1: over there, like a Japanese rock band, and I was
Speaker 1: the bass player, and well, yeah, we played a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of great shows as well while I was doing that.
Speaker 1: And I came back and I grew up in Adelaide,
Speaker 1: and I chose to move to Melbourne because this is
Speaker 1: kind of like the cultural harb is where the best
Speaker 1: music was, all right, and I just wanted to be
Speaker 1: surrounded by it. And so I kind of i'd finished
Speaker 1: university and I went into marketing because I didn't really
Speaker 1: know what else to do. And I was playing in
Speaker 1: bands here in Melbourne, and a few years into marketing,
Speaker 1: I was sort of like, I'm not very good at this.
Speaker 1: I was at a big ard agency. I slacked at it,
Speaker 1: and I was like there must be more, you know,
Speaker 1: So I quit and I went to play music full
Speaker 1: time in my twenties for a few years, and after
Speaker 1: about you know, mid to late twenties, it just wasn't happening,
Speaker 1: and it was really hard, and it was really hard
Speaker 1: to think you only want to do one thing, and
Speaker 1: like I felt like I was only really good at
Speaker 1: that one thing. Well, it's all you've done, It's all
Speaker 1: I'd really focused on. Yeah, it'd been just my passion,
Speaker 1: and so I'm like it was one of those really
Speaker 1: hard moments where I'm like, if this isn't working, then
Speaker 1: what you know? And it was literally around that time,
Speaker 1: I was probably twenty six. I got an iPhone. I'm like, oh, I.
Speaker 2: Love this, Hello New World.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I started reading the jobs biography at the
Speaker 1: same time, like, oh, this is interesting, and I kind
Speaker 1: of thought back on actually, I also have loved technology,
Speaker 1: used to make websites for friends. I'd always be there,
Speaker 1: sort of the technology person, and I did like it.
Speaker 1: I was going to study it at union. Then I
Speaker 1: didn't see it, Like I took the advice to someone
Speaker 1: who said, oh, you'll be plugging in cables at Telstra, Like,
Speaker 1: oh god, that sounds like death on a stick. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to study that. So but I got you know,
Speaker 1: I got a twenty at school for it, and I
Speaker 1: was good at it, and I liked it, and I'm like, actually,
Speaker 1: I think I like that as well. So I made
Speaker 1: this kind of this big call and I just stopped
Speaker 1: music and studied study computer science, and that kicked off
Speaker 1: what I'm doing now. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: That in itself is before we even get to the
Speaker 2: second big iteration of your career. The fact that you
Speaker 2: had this one searing passion, and that is also like,
Speaker 2: I think the arts is something that people are also
Speaker 2: often discouraged from because it is so hard and it's
Speaker 2: so competitive and you're never going to make it and
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. The fact that you actually quit everything,
Speaker 2: you've done one big leap of faith. You've quit everything,
Speaker 2: quit your marketing job to go into music. That already
Speaker 2: is a huge theme in CZA taking a big risk
Speaker 2: on something, but often the story is looking back, you
Speaker 2: took a risk and it worked, but you took a
Speaker 2: risk and it didn't necessarily work out the way that
Speaker 2: you'd hope, And like, I think, I think we also
Speaker 2: come to see failure as like a big scary thing
Speaker 2: that's awful, and then your life will be over. But
Speaker 2: that led to this pivot, which then led to the
Speaker 2: coolest thing ever. So I love this. There's so many
Speaker 2: themes in the story already that are amazing. But before
Speaker 2: we get to the sort of more computer science tech
Speaker 2: part and then the Blue Thumb story, can you talk
Speaker 2: us through the mindset that you had at the time,
Speaker 2: because I think it's easy to tell it now that
Speaker 2: we know that it's all worked out for you, But
Speaker 2: at the time, when you've been passionate about something your
Speaker 2: whole life, you have risked everything. How did you confront
Speaker 2: that feeling of failure or the feeling of like, what
Speaker 2: else do I do? Because I think one of the
Speaker 2: big things we do as humans is we stilo ourselves
Speaker 2: into I'm a musician, or I'm creative, or I'm not creative,
Speaker 2: or I'm a numbers person, and then we think you
Speaker 2: can't be anything else ever, But I think we're actually
Speaker 2: really agile and versatile. But you have to let yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely no. And it felt scary, like it felt
Speaker 1: petrifying at the time to do, but also it's sort
Speaker 1: of I do like trying things. I do like I
Speaker 1: like the feeling of progressing at something, and I think
Speaker 1: most people do you know whether you're it's a skill
Speaker 1: or a hobby or a new kind of work stream.
Speaker 1: I like that feeling of becoming better at something, progressing,
Speaker 1: you know, towards mastery, and so I kind of thought
Speaker 1: about it like that a little bit as well. I'm like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe wor at worst kind of I can
Speaker 1: pick my base up again, but at least I'll learn
Speaker 1: how to kind of make apps, you know, make websites.
Speaker 1: So I kind of thought about it that way at
Speaker 1: the time. But you know, looking back, it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad my path led me here. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: of course it was a good idea to like go
Speaker 1: into tech. Of course it was a good idea to
Speaker 1: become you know, to join an app developer and then
Speaker 1: start Blue Thumb and then you know, raise money and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But at the time petrified these moments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't know what to do, but I did, you know,
Speaker 1: optimize towards kind of action and just trying something so
Speaker 1: and you have less to lose than you realize. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, it's actually you never regret action, really, you know,
Speaker 1: I only ever regret in action.
Speaker 2: It's so true. I love that you can remember that.
Speaker 2: It was petrifying because I think often people who are
Speaker 2: listening to the podcast often tune in because they're in
Speaker 2: that earlier phase where it hasn't worked out yet, and
Speaker 2: they are in that like, oh my god, this thing
Speaker 2: hasn't worked out or I haven't quite found my blue
Speaker 2: thumb yet. But even going back to UNI as kind
Speaker 2: of in an industry that you hadn't you know, done
Speaker 2: your undergrady, and even that's overwhelming. What was that like?
Speaker 1: Well, I was going through some boxes the other day
Speaker 1: and I found the rejection letter from r MIT. No,
Speaker 1: what I've forgotten? I got rejected really because I applied
Speaker 1: for a Masters of Computer Science and I didn't have
Speaker 1: an undergrade in computer programming, and I.
Speaker 2: Didn't you did it becom right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I did become Yeah, and I'd forgotten it,
Speaker 1: like I've got a terrible memory there, I forget bloody everything.
Speaker 2: I'm the same, I've watched the same So this is
Speaker 2: such an aside, but mine is so bad that I
Speaker 2: watched Chernobyl the series, like I've watched the entire thing.
Speaker 2: I knew i'd watched the entire thing, but I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's been long enough, I've forgotten it. I'll go back
Speaker 2: to the start. I watched episode six first, but because
Speaker 2: it's all out of order, I was like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is episode one. Didn't know got to the end. The
Speaker 2: black and white credits came up at the end saying
Speaker 2: and then this person went to jail, and I was like,
Speaker 2: that's weird that they did that in episode one. It
Speaker 2: was like, I have absolutely lost my marvel. So I'm
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's a great series. I've got to rewatch it.
Speaker 2: I don't even know why that change.
Speaker 1: That's all my brain's doing, right, I know that's my
Speaker 1: brain too. I forget everything, and I've forgotten. I've been rejected.
Speaker 1: And I looked at this rejection that I'm like, I
Speaker 1: couldn't even know. I'm like, then I remembered I actually
Speaker 1: had got knocked back, and I went in to meet
Speaker 1: the vice dean of computer science, and for some reason
Speaker 1: I convinced them. I can vaguely remember saying, no, I'm
Speaker 1: really good at programming, blah blah blah, you do't regret,
Speaker 1: and they tried to talk me out of it, and
Speaker 1: somehow I got in even though I'd got this formal rejection.
Speaker 1: I remember, I only remembered it when I saw the
Speaker 1: piece of paper. So yeah, they didn't think it was
Speaker 1: a good idea either.
Speaker 2: I guess I love it. You're just like I refused
Speaker 2: to accept that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I found the rejection letter for the Blue
Speaker 1: Tharm business plan for their business competition. I applied for it,
Speaker 1: you know, in second or third year, I remember that.
Speaker 1: But Blue Thumb the app was a UNI project for
Speaker 1: r MIT.
Speaker 2: Actually really yeah, so.
Speaker 1: It was maybe the third year of it or whatever.
Speaker 1: I was working as an app developer and that was
Speaker 1: like the first job I'd actually loved in my life.
Speaker 1: I'd be twenty seven or something. I sort of went
Speaker 1: to outwear they are the best app makers, said I
Speaker 1: want to work here, and they're like, can you program that?
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I'm two months into the UNI Like, well
Speaker 1: then you're useless to us. I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: what else do you need? And they had this argument,
Speaker 1: the two founders in front of me, like we don't
Speaker 1: need and we need developer as well. I'm here, And
Speaker 1: eventually they're like, look, you can do it day a
Speaker 1: week doing some marketing. Maybe do you know how to design?
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's that? Do you know? U? Ex design?
Speaker 1: Like I'm doing course next semester, Like okay, you can
Speaker 1: maybe try that. So anyway, I've worked with these developers
Speaker 1: and there's the first job i'd loved, and now I
Speaker 1: was there and I had this unique assignment for RT
Speaker 1: to do to make an app like an iOS app,
Speaker 1: and oh blue Thumb, you know, we're just getting rolling
Speaker 1: with the website, we'll make an app for it. And
Speaker 1: I was not a very good dev. I never was
Speaker 1: a good dev. But a friend, two friends that at
Speaker 1: outwears Great devs helped me and they built this beautiful
Speaker 1: app for us that was like lovely experience of our website,
Speaker 1: and we submitted it and RT, oh great, you get
Speaker 1: an A but Apple featured it and we immediately got
Speaker 1: seven thousand yearss overnight.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 1: That was our first big kind of kick forward was
Speaker 1: my UNI app that the guys at work and helped
Speaker 1: me build got featured. That's amazing, sent things up like
Speaker 1: the first you know, you get these step changes occasionally,
Speaker 1: very occasionally. That was the first one.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the first one is that you had
Speaker 2: a first career that didn't work. That was the first step.
Speaker 2: I always come back to that idea that you know,
Speaker 2: and people listening will be like, oh my god, you've
Speaker 2: been talking about this for seven years now, shut up.
Speaker 2: But it's always relevant to me. And that's that you
Speaker 2: don't have to see the whole staircase. You just have
Speaker 2: to see the immediate next step that you're on, and
Speaker 2: like that's all you can throw things at. They don't
Speaker 2: all have to work out, Like they don't all have
Speaker 2: to be the You don't have to reach the end
Speaker 2: of the staircase that you started on, like you can
Speaker 2: change direction as you go along. And I love that
Speaker 2: you didn't love what you were doing until twenty seven.
Speaker 2: And in most people's brains in the early twenties, you
Speaker 2: think that's why too late. I think we have this
Speaker 2: like perceived schedule of life of when we should find
Speaker 2: our passion and when we should find what we're going
Speaker 2: to do. But you hadn't even entered the industry that
Speaker 2: you ended up in, like your whole family's music. You
Speaker 2: have a history in music, You were doing it full time,
Speaker 2: and you never considered that there was anything else for you.
Speaker 2: I think anyone listening who is all consumed in something
Speaker 2: and you don't love it, but you don't know where
Speaker 2: else you can go. That's okay, It's so common, like
Speaker 2: more common than you ever imagine. But then you have
Speaker 2: found this thing that you love, and it sounds like
Speaker 2: you had actually faced more rejection than I knew of
Speaker 2: in the story quite early on. How do you Because
Speaker 2: I think people are also they're not just scared of failure,
Speaker 2: they're also scared of rejection when someone says no to you.
Speaker 2: What does that feel like? Do you take it as
Speaker 2: a challenge. Do you have a moment where you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it's going to fail. I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2: How do you deal with that kind of self doubt
Speaker 2: dialogue that happens when you do get a know because
Speaker 2: for some people that'll be it blue. Some would have
Speaker 2: never got off the ground. But I love that you
Speaker 2: were like, fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway.
Speaker 2: Oh r M, I T you take that back. I'm
Speaker 2: going to force my way into this course.
Speaker 1: Look, I take notes, so personally, I like I've got
Speaker 1: the thinner skin in the world. Like I sit back
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, it's all, oh give up, No,
Speaker 1: this is a terrible idea. And I like, I'll have
Speaker 1: I have half a day of just moping the world's ended.
Speaker 1: I'm ship this sucks. And then it's either like I
Speaker 1: talked to Lauren or I talked to a co found
Speaker 1: or whatever, and suddenly you're like, you're back on. Oh,
Speaker 1: those guys don't know what they're doing, Like suddenly I
Speaker 1: don't know, Actually you're fine. And I just kind of
Speaker 1: think about it as like the spins are the rule
Speaker 1: that will. You know, It's if you think about it,
Speaker 1: like it's a game to keep playing. If you keep going,
Speaker 1: if you keep spinning the rule that will, you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're gonna hit the jackpot. You're gonna you're gonna get somewhere.
Speaker 1: And the people who get somewhere, the people who just keeps.
Speaker 2: Me, Oh, I love.
Speaker 1: That's all it is. It's my ambition is always far
Speaker 1: outweigh my talent in anything I've ever done that.
Speaker 2: Is extremely inaccurately humble and absolutely.
Speaker 1: Not you know, like I said, programming, I was never
Speaker 1: very good. Music, I was never great. I just loved it. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think my ability to keep going is probably my
Speaker 1: strongest strength, more than any than any talent. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like when I get to know, I take it really
Speaker 1: personally and I have a terrible day and then.
Speaker 2: Pretty quick turnaround. To be fair, I guess.
Speaker 1: And then you keep going and not. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: always for me, like, you know, on my own, i'd
Speaker 1: never get anywhere. Like, it's always having someone to wing to,
Speaker 1: someone to bounce off, always having someone else, because if
Speaker 1: you're going through it together, you're fine.
Speaker 2: Like that's a great point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's solo founders I'm absolutely in awe of because
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I just couldn't. Yeah, but having someone there
Speaker 1: to just at least commiserate with or to agree that
Speaker 1: these guys are idiots and don't know what they're.
Speaker 3: Doing them.
Speaker 2: Hype girl in that moment.
Speaker 1: Absolutely Yeah, And like my hype girl was my brother
Speaker 1: and kid.
Speaker 2: Nice. I was thinking more Lauren, but with the pomp. Well,
Speaker 2: I love that because it's a really common theme, I think,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't get talked about as much because the
Speaker 2: media are always going to focus on the success story
Speaker 2: and the most recent chapter of your life. That's always
Speaker 2: going to be what the articles are about. But I
Speaker 2: find that when you dig a little deeper, most really
Speaker 2: successful founders have thrown a couple of ideas out at
Speaker 2: the world that have come back and not gone very well.
Speaker 2: Like it's never not never, but it's very Unusually the
Speaker 2: first try that becomes the thing that blows up. And
Speaker 2: I just don't think you hear about that enough, because
Speaker 2: you know, why would you talk about that. But I
Speaker 2: think people who are in their first or second try
Speaker 2: that hasn't gone so well need to hear that that's
Speaker 2: not a deterrent. That's you just experimenting and playing roulette.
Speaker 2: And it's like, don't stop because the first one didn't work.
Speaker 2: Some people it takes them like seven tries. Just keep
Speaker 2: going because you'll find the thing absolutely And yeah, give
Speaker 2: yourself a day, give yourself a couple of days if
Speaker 2: it takes that to open. Feel like failure hurts, it does,
Speaker 2: It stings, But if you bounce back, you can you
Speaker 2: can have a blue thumb. So I love that. So
Speaker 2: tell us once you had And I loved reading that.
Speaker 2: It was around the idea that art is an industry
Speaker 2: that's very intimidating. It feels sometimes a bit stuffy and
Speaker 2: inaccessible if you don't understand the provenance of everything. And
Speaker 2: I love that you actually came to the industry as
Speaker 2: an outsider and then wanted to make it accessible. How
Speaker 2: did you like? How where did the name come from?
Speaker 2: Where did the initial concept that you turned into an app.
Speaker 2: Come from and how did you meet your co founders?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think coming to art from outside, like my
Speaker 1: two co founders a chartered accountant and I was like
Speaker 1: an app designer, so far away from coming to it
Speaker 1: as an outside I think has actually been a benefit
Speaker 1: to us because it sort of hadn't really been done.
Speaker 1: Like we you know, we were trying to make build
Speaker 1: tech tools for artists to sell their artwork directly to collectors, right,
Speaker 1: we wanted to ignore the middle layer of industry of art.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, I like I hated the feeling of going
Speaker 1: to a gallery and just getting kind of like dismissed.
Speaker 1: You know, if you have to ask what it is
Speaker 1: and the price, then it's too expensive for you, you know,
Speaker 1: I hate that for you.
Speaker 2: There are no prices in gallery like.
Speaker 1: You know I And also when we're doing our first research,
Speaker 1: like I spoke to a few industry folks and a
Speaker 1: couple of galleries and I remember being laughed at, like
Speaker 1: properly laughed at. Yeah, And that really put fire in
Speaker 1: the belly, you know, someone like just laughing at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had your open you twenty four hours and then.
Speaker 1: No, No, that was pure, like like, Okay, now now
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and build this out of spite.
Speaker 2: Is a powerful emotion.
Speaker 1: Yes, so that was like, okay, screw you, I'm going
Speaker 1: to prove that. You know, no one will ever buy
Speaker 1: art for a thousand bucks sight unseen. That was like
Speaker 1: they were pissing themselves at us. I'm like, okay, And
Speaker 1: when we hit that mask and I'm like yeah, but
Speaker 1: and yeah, we'd had bandit out a few ideas. We
Speaker 1: were going to do a wine website. I wanted to
Speaker 1: do music obviously, but SoundCloud was so good. SoundCloud was
Speaker 1: just this perfect platform that put artists right in front
Speaker 1: of their fans. I'm like, this is perfect. We can't
Speaker 1: how are we going to beat this? But like SoundCloud
Speaker 1: for art and I was like, there's an idea, love
Speaker 1: that cloud. Yeah, Like so that was kind of That's
Speaker 1: been the vision pretty much the whole time is let's
Speaker 1: build SoundCloud for us, let's build tools for artists to
Speaker 1: sell their artwork in front of collectors. And from the
Speaker 1: start we sort of you know, I loved really nice ux,
Speaker 1: really nice technology. Like, like I said, the Jobs book
Speaker 1: was like a real changing life pivotal moment. Reading that
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Okay, I think if we build a
Speaker 1: better product. You know, we're coming from outside art, let's
Speaker 1: just build the best technology tool. I think we will
Speaker 1: be able to kind of really get somewhere. So we
Speaker 1: just focus on a better product. And then we had
Speaker 1: to learn distribution and marketing, which was like like, oh,
Speaker 1: you actually have to think about this product person. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: we have to pay attention to SEO. So we learned
Speaker 1: that along the way. But but yeah, it was you know,
Speaker 1: we actually we bought a website for from an art gallery,
Speaker 1: like okay, and you know, we'd bought another website for
Speaker 1: apps and stuff, so we bought this art galeries website, like,
Speaker 1: let's turn this into SoundCloud for right. So that's where
Speaker 1: that's actually where it started.
Speaker 2: This was still at UNI, so it was still I was.
Speaker 1: Working it out where as well doing UNI as well,
Speaker 1: and Fill and Ed were both lack accountants working full
Speaker 1: time accounting jobs, and so we're like, okay, cool, we've
Speaker 1: got this art gallery website. Let's turn it into a platform.
Speaker 1: Let's turn into a marketplace. We'll call it Blue Thumb
Speaker 1: started working on the app as well, and we sort
Speaker 1: of we chipped away with our jobs and with this
Speaker 1: blue thumb on the side for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I'd say, real, Like I said, my memory is absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1: This was started twenty twenty a twelve, I reckon it
Speaker 1: was maybe mid twenty thirteen. I remember that one of
Speaker 1: the best days of my Yeah, yeah, look I know this,
Speaker 1: but I do remember one of the best days of
Speaker 1: my life was when I had to stopped being the
Speaker 1: customer service person. Man Like, yeah, our first hire and
Speaker 1: customer service.
Speaker 2: Was like just bliss, which actually is really interesting because
Speaker 2: it does come back to the fact that you do
Speaker 2: kind of have to do everything and learn everything at
Speaker 2: the start of most startups, not all of them, some
Speaker 2: need like full scale teams to start off. But even
Speaker 2: before that, I loved hearing about how you sort of
Speaker 2: thought about wine and then you thought about art. And
Speaker 2: I think I have erroneously maybe like it works for
Speaker 2: my particular situation, but always been a big proponent of
Speaker 2: find a gap in the market where you're the consumer
Speaker 2: and you've had the experience, don't reverse engineer it, don't
Speaker 2: go I want to be a business person, Let's find
Speaker 2: an idea. Go. I stumbled upon an idea because I'm
Speaker 2: the consumer but I think you're a really good example
Speaker 2: of that. Of course you can reverse engineer it. Of
Speaker 2: course you can say I need a business idea, where
Speaker 2: is there a gap? Look at the market and find one.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't have to be something that you know
Speaker 2: anything about. You just have to be the best at
Speaker 2: like how you present it. You have to have a
Speaker 2: skill set that. It doesn't have to be in art.
Speaker 2: It can be. Remember the conversation we had when I said, oh,
Speaker 2: obviously you're an and you were like, no, how fascinated
Speaker 2: I was. Do you remember?
Speaker 1: I was just like I got an art podcast just
Speaker 1: so I can learn about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were like, no, I know nothing about it.
Speaker 1: I don't. Yeah, I sit on that podcast. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of that person that's like Lauren? Is
Speaker 1: he so much stick? Because yeah, So no, none of
Speaker 1: us knew anything about art. Dad was a painter, though
Speaker 1: he had a real passion for it. Isn't it countt
Speaker 1: who painted? So he loved art. So a house was
Speaker 1: ful of art, but he doesn't know much about it.
Speaker 1: He just likes painting. But no, none of us had
Speaker 1: a clue what I would say. Though I was building
Speaker 1: a product that I could empathize with as a musician.
Speaker 2: Yes, so like as the artist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that kind of connection as to what would I need,
Speaker 1: what do I need to kind of show someone to
Speaker 1: know that there are artwork? Is kind of being you know,
Speaker 1: this is popular, this is engaging. You know that feeling
Speaker 1: of oh, you put something up and a lot of
Speaker 1: people suddenly like it. You know, what do you need
Speaker 1: to feed back to them that in a more general sense,
Speaker 1: like has has been helpful?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that insight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but as far as no, like yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I bought a painting when we launched.
Speaker 2: It's like, again, I take back so much of what
Speaker 2: I've said before about like be your own customer, which, like,
Speaker 2: obviously it helps, it helps in so many situations. Completely agree,
Speaker 2: But it's not the only pathway. You can literally look
Speaker 2: at the market and go, what is a problem that
Speaker 2: needs solving somewhere that I have the skill set for
Speaker 2: and you can make it incredibly incredibly successful. I mean,
Speaker 2: you guys are now I think I was reading and
Speaker 2: this is an outdated article. You have like three hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars of art for sale on the website. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: way more now, right, Jesus like, that's crazy, this idea
Speaker 2: from a UNI project in an industry that none of
Speaker 2: the three founders are in. That's extraordinary, It's great.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, I'm surprised, surprise myself sometimes managed to pull
Speaker 1: this off. You still waiting for someone to.
Speaker 2: Tell you, oh, it's all fake. So what would you
Speaker 2: say to anyone else who is kind of trying to
Speaker 2: you know, has that enthusiasm, does feel like they have
Speaker 2: a good skill set, but is looking for that idea. Firstly,
Speaker 2: how do you know the idea that's going to stick?
Speaker 2: And secondly, as you upskilled? And I think this is
Speaker 2: probably the hardest learning curve for most people who go
Speaker 2: into business. You will already absolutely have some skills that
Speaker 2: are helpful and they'll just be different to everyone else's.
Speaker 2: But you'll always have skills that you have no idea about. Like,
Speaker 2: no one goes into a business and just has everything
Speaker 2: they need already. How did you upskill? Was it mentors?
Speaker 2: Did you do courses? Did you? Like? You know, you
Speaker 2: have to wear so many hats. You have to be
Speaker 2: the customer service person. You have to learn about logistics, distribution,
Speaker 2: like legal, How did you learn all that stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So generally learning has been a combination of just
Speaker 1: scaring the Internet and Google right, a lot of reaching
Speaker 1: out to people who will talk to her those court
Speaker 1: or like catch ups with entrepreneurs. I've always made a
Speaker 1: big effort to speak to entrepreneurs who are like slightly
Speaker 1: adjacent to what we're doing, you know, vaguely within the
Speaker 1: what we're doing. Those catch ups have definitely been the
Speaker 1: most valuable learning of the last ten thirteen years. I
Speaker 1: have been doing this. When you go and have a
Speaker 1: coffee or whatever with someone, anyone who will have you
Speaker 1: who's running, anyone.
Speaker 3: Who says yes, because the good ones are too busy
Speaker 3: to write blogs, right, and that most of them are
Speaker 3: too busy to do to really tweet their insights.
Speaker 1: The real alpha of this is working for our company.
Speaker 1: We've tried these eight things, and this ninth is the
Speaker 1: one that's working for growth or the one that's working
Speaker 1: for new customers or product. Those things they'll tell you
Speaker 1: in person, they're not going to they they went out
Speaker 1: on a podcast, they won't say it on a stage.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those one to ones are like, yeah, that's where I
Speaker 1: pretty much learned learned all the really key stuff I
Speaker 1: would say, apart from general Yeah, Internet So those two things.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how we've learned, I think, and and
Speaker 1: just by doing Yeah, like, yeah, I think I've learned
Speaker 1: is because like we've we had another startup smart, We've
Speaker 1: had a million, We've had lots of We've tried lots
Speaker 1: and lots of stuff. You know, we've tried twenty things,
Speaker 1: I'd say, Sarah before then the way along the way,
Speaker 1: we like, yeah, we yeah, we've had a million dead ends,
Speaker 1: Like we just can't people talking about them because they
Speaker 1: didn't work.
Speaker 2: They're the ones you need to talk about.
Speaker 1: I don't have I don't have any I'm not a
Speaker 1: detailed person.
Speaker 2: I remember what they were.
Speaker 1: I genuinely don't. But you've got all these dead ends,
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's it's you know, you're spinning the
Speaker 1: Rulett wheel. You got to so the bias for action,
Speaker 1: trying things quickly. Yeah, you know, you learn when you
Speaker 1: put something out into the world. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: rabbit hits the road when someone buys something that was
Speaker 1: someone said, you know, like the quickest you can if
Speaker 1: you've got an idea, my advice or what I you know.
Speaker 1: I think what was helpful for us was not quitting
Speaker 1: our jobs to do it. Yeah, it was doing it.
Speaker 1: You know, we had our job yea, And yeah it's
Speaker 1: hard because you don't have as much time and if
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it now with you know, two kids
Speaker 1: and everything, but when I had more time. Yeah, you've
Speaker 1: got this time outside of work to work on these things.
Speaker 1: If you still have your other job, you don't have
Speaker 1: the pressure on it. Yeah, you can have time to experiment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It's a low risk. And so if you've
Speaker 1: got an idea, I'd say just do it. Just do
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing right now and do the idea as well.
Speaker 2: That Yeah, so nuts and bolts wise, did it start
Speaker 2: as just the three of you know, other staff? And
Speaker 2: how did you get your first sale? Like did you
Speaker 2: have to get a critical map for anyone who's looking
Speaker 2: at a marketplace? Did you have to get a critical
Speaker 2: massive artists first? Did you already have them? Like what
Speaker 2: was kind of the growth or the chronology of U
Speaker 2: three staff, number of artists, number of sales? Do you
Speaker 2: remember your first sale? When was it? How far was
Speaker 2: the lag between like launching and then?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so those early days, you know they're hard marketplaces, Yeah,
Speaker 1: double hard, right, Yeah, so I do remember, Yeah, we had,
Speaker 1: you know, we got we got this art gallery website.
Speaker 1: We're like, okay, we'll rebrand it, rebuild it. So that
Speaker 1: took Actually we did it really simply so that that
Speaker 1: that was quick. So we're probably back up within two months.
Speaker 1: And then I remember it was probably another two months
Speaker 1: before we sold a network, so we only had a
Speaker 1: couple of artists on there. We went out, we did
Speaker 1: some cold emailing, and then is that how.
Speaker 2: You scouted them the first time? Cold emails?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, cold email for heaps of stuff. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: cold email. And then I remember, you know, we to
Speaker 1: use oDesk a lot.
Speaker 2: It's up, yeah, and we still do.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, it's like you can get an expert,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting in Europe who's who's fairly affordable and
Speaker 1: they've been doing this for twenty years and I need
Speaker 1: three hours of their time to sort out my CEO.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. It's like the Internet. I love it.
Speaker 2: It's pretty great that Internet.
Speaker 1: It can there's someone somewhere who can solve your problem,
Speaker 1: you know, for like four hours of their time. So
Speaker 1: we got an SEO person who said, you know, we
Speaker 1: want to rank for how do you sell art? Because
Speaker 1: we want artists to be able to find us, so
Speaker 1: we start worked on that a little bit. I thon.
Speaker 1: It took us two months to get our first sale.
Speaker 1: We had a few inquiries and I ended up calling,
Speaker 1: you know, inquiry leaving number. I'd hit the phones close
Speaker 1: to calling. Yeah, yeah, look they sent us a note
Speaker 1: about something. So I call and are in two months
Speaker 1: in someone board and that We're like yeah, and we
Speaker 1: it was just the three of us, so fill it
Speaker 1: and me for at least eighty months, I reckon. And
Speaker 1: we had our jobs for quite a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah. How long after that?
Speaker 1: Probably around eighty months. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Maybe do you all leave at the same time.
Speaker 1: No, I feel Phil went a bit earlier because we
Speaker 1: had another app template business as well at the time,
Speaker 1: was selling app ten plates. He went to sort of
Speaker 1: work on that as getting a bit more money. We
Speaker 1: had an email business called Sendicate.
Speaker 2: Did you have like starter mail or something?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we had smarter mail as well. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, we had lots of these things, and
Speaker 1: then it was bloody hard. We were putting our own
Speaker 1: money in for two years. I reckon, we have lots
Speaker 1: of you know, I didn't have much money. We just
Speaker 1: had a job. So we we were funding this marketplace development.
Speaker 1: We hired one dev. Maybe we had a sort of
Speaker 1: agency for a year. Then we hired one dev so
Speaker 1: it was probably our first hire. Then it's the customer
Speaker 1: support and it was so hard and it was like
Speaker 1: maybe two and a half years in. It was nowhere
Speaker 1: near scale. We hadn't raised money and we were like
Speaker 1: at breaking point. And there's this discussion is like do
Speaker 1: we just try and sell this?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Do we raise money? And I'm like this, this can
Speaker 1: be big, this could be a thing. I remember, and
Speaker 1: there's a discussion of like okay, one of us will
Speaker 1: go and try and sell the business, and I'll go
Speaker 1: and try and raise money.
Speaker 2: And whoever comes back first, whoever.
Speaker 1: Gets the deal first. And so I went out. I'm
Speaker 1: like right, and I just hit up every founder of
Speaker 1: a big e comm business I could find in Australia
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn and cold email.
Speaker 2: Wow back to the cold email.
Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah, yeah, I love it. And so we
Speaker 1: went cold I went to like probably twenty big e
Speaker 1: commerce founders you know, Russel and Cogan and you know,
Speaker 1: and we had one reply and that was from Jeremy's
Speaker 1: same you know, with that Oh my God, and that
Speaker 1: was it, so.
Speaker 2: I could one because that's the one that works.
Speaker 1: It was a reply and it was a no. It
Speaker 1: was like oh yeah, and you were like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was nice, nice little business. But he said, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't invest, we just buy them and you're probably
Speaker 1: not at scale anyway. Oh, no worries, you know, We're
Speaker 1: keep in touch. And then he pinned me a few
Speaker 1: few months later like how's it going, And we'd grown
Speaker 1: a bit and I'm like, oh, you know, we we
Speaker 1: were doing the first time I spoke to him, we
Speaker 1: were doing maybe six thousand bucks a month and we
Speaker 1: were like twenty or something. So it's starting to grow
Speaker 1: because the Age had written about us. So we tripped
Speaker 1: from that. It's like, oh, okay, all right, and then
Speaker 1: we had a call and then yeah, and then Adam
Speaker 1: and Jeremy were interested and they came on. And meanwhile, like,
Speaker 1: no one was interested in buying this. Here was a
Speaker 1: loss making market, and they came on and yeah, so
Speaker 1: they came on as our first kind of angel investors.
Speaker 1: That was three years in i'd say twenty fifteen, and
Speaker 1: that was amazing because suddenly we had money to scale
Speaker 1: and it wasn't our money and we could like actually
Speaker 1: do stuff, yeah, be full time. But again that was
Speaker 1: like I was working this job at out where, and
Speaker 1: I loved that job. There was the only job I've
Speaker 1: ever had. I loved.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I don't want to leave. I'm good
Speaker 2: at this.
Speaker 1: I'm finally good at something I like. And I was
Speaker 1: just there's another thing, is like, is this a huge mistake?
Speaker 1: You know? Like, but yeah, we did, I did leave,
Speaker 1: we did go full time and it's gone. Yeah, it's gone.
Speaker 1: Wilson's Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: I mean I can't believe that even three years in
Speaker 2: and after having left your jobs, you still had moments
Speaker 2: of like do we just get rid of this?
Speaker 1: Like is this yeah? Yeah? Ament it was like yeah,
Speaker 1: you're still like might not be like tech startup takes
Speaker 1: so much money and yeah, it's just so hard.
Speaker 2: You only hear about them really, like they come into
Speaker 2: your consciousness when it's like Unicorn sold for blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and it's like you forget, even three years into a business,
Speaker 2: you still didn't know it was going to be successful.
Speaker 2: Like that's extraordinary and that you've got to know first
Speaker 2: from here. I love that the whole theme of this
Speaker 2: episode is no is not actually a no. Just keep
Speaker 2: just keep trying, just be impressible.
Speaker 1: We got, you know, like ten silences in one no.
Speaker 2: Focus on the no's better than zero zero crickets. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I think that's that is also reassuring that, yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't again even business is that now you look
Speaker 2: at I mean, you made like a sixty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: sale on the website I was reading about from the
Speaker 2: person who didn't believe you could make a one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars sale, like that's absolutely outrageous, But that in that
Speaker 2: same business you have literally considered closing before and not
Speaker 2: just like six months in, but like three years in
Speaker 2: before pivotal things happen. And I think it is sometimes
Speaker 2: just keeping the faith between the pivotal things that happen
Speaker 2: that do keep you alive until you know, you get
Speaker 2: your momentum. So you mentioned the age, how did you?
Speaker 2: Because I think the buzz and like, it's all well
Speaker 2: and good to have an amazing idea, but it's actually
Speaker 2: communicating that to people that gets it over the line.
Speaker 2: How did you launch? Like how did you get people
Speaker 2: to firstly, because you didn't have an equivalent to say
Speaker 2: where the better version of blah. You kind of the
Speaker 2: first people who have done this. I feel like educating.
Speaker 2: Like when we started Matchup, people didn't know what that was.
Speaker 2: So it's not just like why are we good, It's like,
Speaker 2: what is the thing that we're selling. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of education around that. Did you do word of mouth?
Speaker 2: Was it trying to get placements in newspapers because it's
Speaker 2: e comm Was it mainly seo? Like how were you
Speaker 2: kind of getting the word out to make, you know,
Speaker 2: it into what it has become?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So you just cold call everyone and any random number.
Speaker 1: A lot of cold emailing of journalists. That first Age
Speaker 1: article was yeah, tweeted the journalist Max Mason at the
Speaker 1: Age because he'd written about art. I'm like, oh, you
Speaker 1: should check out us. So that was a tweet and
Speaker 1: a d M and then a follow up cold email.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was a lot of cold I'd love
Speaker 2: that you're such an ambassador for a cold email. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well then I started an email company, smart Males,
Speaker 1: so yeah I did.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, well paid back in so many ways, really
Speaker 2: good ROI.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like pr is did work in the early.
Speaker 2: Days for us, Like you had an agency outsourced no
Speaker 2: we did it, like yeah, like yeah, just you're amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm not literally, I just like sending lots of emails.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like we found we thought we were too small,
Speaker 1: we couldn't pay people in the early days. Look, let's
Speaker 1: just send some founder emails or whatever. But it's sort
Speaker 1: of the artist stories are interesting, Like most of our
Speaker 1: artists are not in kind of like a high end gallery,
Speaker 1: but you know, the ones that get momentum find massive
Speaker 1: success on us and like we'll quit a job they
Speaker 1: don't like and become full time artists. And you know,
Speaker 1: we started tracking these like incredible stories of these artists
Speaker 1: who you know, had managed to go full time in
Speaker 1: their career and be super successful and like.
Speaker 2: Because of you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like because because they can connect to the collectors
Speaker 1: directly through us, because we had to be collectibates. So
Speaker 1: those stories, you know, really moved me, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm like I always wanted that for my music and
Speaker 1: never got there, and I like love I love seeing
Speaker 1: that for artists, like I really do, and like they
Speaker 1: you know, they always sort of touched me, like moves
Speaker 1: me a lot, and so I'm like, well, why don't
Speaker 1: we tell pr you know why don't we pr these?
Speaker 1: So that was good for us, like that was a
Speaker 1: good storytelling thing. And then it was like good old SEO,
Speaker 1: like we're a marketplace and feel my co founder he's
Speaker 1: good at sort of the technical marketing stuff, and he
Speaker 1: used to like lurk on some.
Speaker 3: Funny old buch.
Speaker 1: This horrible black hat marketing blog. What was it called
Speaker 1: Warrior Forum or something just yeah, just these guys forums.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and cold emails lurking for um just tweet random.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, So we just we never
Speaker 1: thought we'd be able to raise money, and he just thought,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to work this ship out on
Speaker 1: our own. So he worked out se O and and
Speaker 1: at work we'd get external se O people to kind
Speaker 1: of do our on page s O for us, so
Speaker 1: show us we're a keyword gaps all that stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: you just find someone like what should we be optimizing
Speaker 1: for what blog post? Yeah? Yeah, And so that long
Speaker 1: term that that's worked really well. So now you know,
Speaker 1: we have a really strong SEO kind of channel and
Speaker 1: as a markplace, it's really important. So now we're in
Speaker 1: a good position for that. They were the two channels, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love the I really do love the cold call
Speaker 2: recurring so often in this because I think again that
Speaker 2: whole siloing or self selecting yourself out of things because
Speaker 2: you don't think you meet the criteria for something. I
Speaker 2: think some people think, oh, but they're connected, they know
Speaker 2: Adam or they know whatever, and he knows this, and
Speaker 2: it's like you didn't know him at the start. You
Speaker 2: made that relationship because you just yeah, because you literally
Speaker 2: send a DM and I think, like, yeah, sure you've
Speaker 2: got nine no's, but all you need is one warmer note.
Speaker 2: But like, it's true the amount of times that I
Speaker 2: have made networks that now people will assume that I
Speaker 2: got something because I was friends with this person, that
Speaker 2: the relationship did begin because of a cold email. And
Speaker 2: you just have to kind of a not be scared
Speaker 2: that you'll get a know or dead silence. What's the
Speaker 2: worst that can happen? You feel silif for five minutes
Speaker 2: and b like there's always a chance that they'll say Yes,
Speaker 2: people are interested, they're really interested in what other people
Speaker 2: are doing, and if they do hear a good idea,
Speaker 2: people love to be involved in that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And you've got a fifty to fifty chance that it'll
Speaker 2: be yes, So why would you not just take the risk?
Speaker 2: The email takes two seconds, and the amount of tized
Speaker 2: people have surprised me and come back and said yes
Speaker 2: when they didn't know, like now we're friends. But at
Speaker 2: the time, I'm like, sometimes you just have to give
Speaker 2: people a chance to take a chance on you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And if you're kind of specific with ask, what
Speaker 1: I've found is people you know, important, powerful whatever, like
Speaker 1: doer type, CEOs, whatever. These these people often do want
Speaker 1: to help. You know, they've been in your position trying
Speaker 1: to get something off the ground, And if you're kind
Speaker 1: of specific, you'll be surprised how often these people want
Speaker 1: to help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think it's a big part of
Speaker 2: the entrepreneurial sort of attitude is you pay it forward
Speaker 2: to people who are, you know, earlier on in their journey,
Speaker 2: because that is how everyone learns. It's through like incidental mentors,
Speaker 2: and so there's a willingness there. It's just you do
Speaker 2: have to ask, and you're right, you do have to
Speaker 2: ask in the right way. So I also think sometimes
Speaker 2: saying will you be my mentor is like, well, no,
Speaker 2: no one has time to be your blanket. Mentor even
Speaker 2: though I really wanted that, I wanted the simplicity of that.
Speaker 2: That kind of email doesn't normally work. But if you say,
Speaker 2: I know that you're a specific expert in this and
Speaker 2: this is what I'm struggling with in my business, could
Speaker 2: you give me a couple of pointers on that thing,
Speaker 2: They're going to go, Yeah, that's exactly you know, my expertise.
Speaker 2: So that's a really good point. Is like, formulate the
Speaker 2: cold email in a clever way.
Speaker 1: Specific you general that night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, going to make it easy for that. So now,
Speaker 2: I mean, you guys have gone from not like you said,
Speaker 2: not knowing what that you'd ever get investors or that
Speaker 2: how well we're gone. That comes back to the staircase
Speaker 2: thing that you weren't jumping through hurdles that were ten
Speaker 2: years down the track yet you were just focusing on
Speaker 2: the next thing. And that's a beautiful way way to operate.
Speaker 2: But you have just launched in the US. Tell us
Speaker 2: about where you're at now, Like, what's what's blue thumb
Speaker 2: doing now? What are your big goals and projects and
Speaker 2: hopes and dreams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, so we've launched blue thumb art dot
Speaker 1: Com in the US, So you know, we're a dot com.
Speaker 1: Dot are you here? And you know.
Speaker 2: We's a dot com.
Speaker 1: Thirteen years later, we are finally, we're finally into the USA.
Speaker 1: You know. It's the world's biggest art market. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's it's the most competitive as well. But the funny
Speaker 1: thing is we a lot of our bigger artists already
Speaker 1: sell quite a lot there, just not through us. You know,
Speaker 1: we have like a strong loyalty with our artists. You know,
Speaker 1: we sort of we measure our net promoter score that's high,
Speaker 1: you know. But you know, we haven't had this good
Speaker 1: USA experience. We haven't been selling much there, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's just this dot AU in Australian dollars. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we've launched the dot com. We've got one person in
Speaker 1: the USA as well, you actually have stuff. Yeah, We've
Speaker 1: got someone there, which is cool and hopefully I'll get
Speaker 1: there in a month or two to kind of see
Speaker 1: the lay of the land and say hello, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's all happening and now it's just a matter of
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's like, because we've been at this for
Speaker 1: quite a long time, you actually do forget the initial
Speaker 1: stuff that you did, Like all the small bits, you know,
Speaker 1: the beginning, the little things doing every day you're completely forgotten.
Speaker 2: So you especially.
Speaker 1: I'm a goldfish. So yeah, we're back to that, Like
Speaker 1: we need to assume no one knows us or cares.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: What we do is we have some great art already,
Speaker 1: but we don't have the buyers. So it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's close to zero to one again, you know, it's
Speaker 1: er point one to one now.
Speaker 2: So yeah, chairman though, to see if you can do
Speaker 2: it all again.
Speaker 1: It's exciting. Yeah, And we've always, like I said, we
Speaker 1: always had a chip on our shoulder about a technology
Speaker 1: company in h you know, people aren't doing this the
Speaker 1: right way. They need to focus on better tech for
Speaker 1: artists and ignore them.
Speaker 2: Like what's the masses?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like what the norm is in the art industry.
Speaker 1: The art industry sucks. The industry is opaque. It makes
Speaker 1: you yeah, yeah, it's like it's not there to benefit artist.
Speaker 1: It's not even there to benefit most collectors. You know,
Speaker 1: it's there to make them feel like shit, So no.
Speaker 2: More.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, squeeze money out of the top
Speaker 1: of it sucks. So like, you know, we sort of
Speaker 1: driven by a bit of a chip on the shoulder
Speaker 1: there to kind of make it into something. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's exciting.
Speaker 2: Okay, so big takeaways chip on your shoulder, cold calling,
Speaker 2: winging it, getting lots of nose. No, I really, I
Speaker 2: really love that it hasn't all been you know what
Speaker 2: so many big tech founders. It's not the same narrative.
Speaker 2: It's not like I was a you know, playing with
Speaker 2: computers since I was zero, and I always wanted to
Speaker 2: be in tech, but I also always knew art. It
Speaker 2: was the combination of my passion of my profession. I
Speaker 2: love that it's like none of it is conventional and
Speaker 2: that's such a great story. How do you now? And
Speaker 2: especially now that you have two beautiful children? A big
Speaker 2: part of seizing your yea is like, once you find
Speaker 2: a meaningful job, and particularly one that is doing such
Speaker 2: beautiful things for other artists like you get I'm sure
Speaker 2: so much gratification from watching their stories. How do you
Speaker 2: switch off? Do you find joy in work? Firstly, would
Speaker 2: you say you love your job now? And what do
Speaker 2: you do outside of work that's kind of allows you
Speaker 2: to switch off? Especially now that you're back in that
Speaker 2: hustle mode, Like, how do you switch off? And just
Speaker 2: what are the things that help make you forget what
Speaker 2: time it is or that forget you to do list?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I do love my job. Like I feel
Speaker 1: very lucky that I wake up and it feels like
Speaker 1: you know, the day after high school finished, when you
Speaker 1: can do anything.
Speaker 3: You know, that feeling like shit's.
Speaker 1: Finished and I can do whatever the hell I want?
Speaker 2: Sits so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can now do whatever like it's done.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: I still feel like that. I still feel like I'm
Speaker 1: which on school.
Speaker 2: Do you know what? That's actually such a good description.
Speaker 2: I feel like that every day too. I'm like I
Speaker 2: can do whatever I want and it's my work. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like this mostly how I feel. Obviously I feel
Speaker 1: terrible a lot when there's stress and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: but like I yeah, I just have.
Speaker 2: That feeling of you for twenty four hours and then.
Speaker 1: I just feel lucky that I can we can have
Speaker 1: an idea and go and do it like it's amazing. Like,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I do love that. How do I switch off?
Speaker 1: I used to drink too much nice, so that was
Speaker 1: that was a good fun switch Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was fun until until you have little kids and then
Speaker 1: it's no longer fun having a hangover.
Speaker 2: No, I haven't even risked it because I'm like, there's
Speaker 2: it's already hard, dead sober.
Speaker 1: So No. I used to love, like, you know, going
Speaker 1: out to the pub with friends and stuff, so that
Speaker 1: I don't do that. I read. I like reading.
Speaker 2: We still play bass in trombone?
Speaker 1: No, no, you don't at all. They're under the bed,
Speaker 1: the instruments. I'm fairly like one track. Like I can
Speaker 1: kind of only do one thing at a time with
Speaker 1: my life, and at the moment that's building companies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just can't.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because you can build multiple companies, I feel,
Speaker 2: like different businesses, but you can't. Yeah that's really coo.
Speaker 1: Yeah so yeah, that's sort of unfortunately. Like and you know,
Speaker 1: every year I write a list of stuff I want
Speaker 1: to work on or build or whatever. Like that's actually
Speaker 1: been a big thing for me. That did change my
Speaker 1: life as well. Back in twenty twelve, I wrote my
Speaker 1: first you know, list of what I want to get
Speaker 1: out of the year, and one of them was like,
Speaker 1: you know, start a company. And then I've looked back.
Speaker 1: I keep that list in my Apple Notes. I've looked
Speaker 1: back and I found I've actually done a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff I wrote down one days. Normally it would
Speaker 1: take two or three years. Normally it'll be like from
Speaker 1: two years ago, I've finally achieved it. But just writing
Speaker 1: it down and having it there, not even looking at
Speaker 1: much is actually helped to me.
Speaker 2: I do that every year as well. I think resolutions
Speaker 2: get a really bad rap, but I find they are
Speaker 2: a really nice way to track your even if they
Speaker 2: change that way through the year. Just track your thinking
Speaker 2: and your goals and whether you get there or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah and so. But on that for like
Speaker 1: five years, I had, oh yeah, I start another band,
Speaker 1: and that's I've never been able to do that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been able to do a lot of the others.
Speaker 1: So no, I'm I like playing with my hanging out
Speaker 1: with my family, Like I've got two kids, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. Is that a lot to life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like you don't really get what I
Speaker 2: personally have found. And I don't know people with two
Speaker 2: or like more than one. I'm like, you're actually a
Speaker 2: superhuman that they are kind of my joy, Like Teddy
Speaker 2: is my joy. That is playing, that is my play.
Speaker 2: I don't kind of need to do the same types
Speaker 2: of play activities at the moment because I do them
Speaker 2: playing with him. Is that whereas before I need to
Speaker 2: read or like going, you know, do an activity to
Speaker 2: kind of help me switch off. But they are such
Speaker 2: good time wasters. Yeah, it just that makes me forget
Speaker 2: what time it is because you're so consumed in being
Speaker 2: with them, which is so cute. How would you say,
Speaker 2: just as a last question, I feel like a lot
Speaker 2: of people's journey is kind of consumed the idea of
Speaker 2: being successful, and like we've already mentioned success and failure
Speaker 2: and use those words about them around and I feel
Speaker 2: like it's it becomes a lot of the metric that
Speaker 2: people use to measure their life and happiness and fulfillment
Speaker 2: and do you like your job and do you enjoy
Speaker 2: what you do? Don't really come into it until later
Speaker 2: in the piece, which is a real shame because I
Speaker 2: think you can get on this hamster wheel and not
Speaker 2: jump off often until you know, sometimes it's quite late
Speaker 2: in your life. Do you feel successful? What do you
Speaker 2: consider is success? And has that changed?
Speaker 1: So like, yeah, objectively I should feel successful. And you
Speaker 1: know there's that quote of like remember when you're desperately
Speaker 1: wanted all the things you have now, so like I
Speaker 1: can try and reason that, yeah, you're doing well, but nah,
Speaker 1: really yeah, I just you.
Speaker 2: Don't feel it. Nah you look at the stage, you
Speaker 2: have some crazy metrics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like no, I well yeah, I sort of.
Speaker 2: It's already making you so uncomfortable. Is that a humility thing?
Speaker 1: I think? Like I was talking to someone the other
Speaker 1: day and it was like, should be bigger than it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not. We're not. This is not where it should be.
Speaker 1: And no, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Just is that the fire that keeps you alive? Though?
Speaker 2: Some people need that that drive for the next thing
Speaker 2: that comes out of dissatisfaction with the present.
Speaker 1: If you're a therapist, that would probably say, you need
Speaker 1: to know, you need to realize you're enough.
Speaker 2: Wow, you are extraordinarily objectively successful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm super lucky. Like I do
Speaker 1: feel very lucky that I've got you know, what we've built,
Speaker 1: and also like a really great team. I like going
Speaker 1: to work with these people like that. You know, we've
Speaker 1: got people who are a lot better than all their
Speaker 1: jobs than I am for this stuff, which is great. No,
Speaker 1: it's really actually it's awesome. So I feel super lucky.
Speaker 1: That we've got this and that we you know, have
Speaker 1: been able to kind of build this also for our artists.
Speaker 1: But nah, I just know I feel like, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: not We're not where we should be, and yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah wow, Well in that case, in five ye is time,
Speaker 2: we'll do another episode. We'll check in and see if
Speaker 2: you are your metrics for that are they financial? Are
Speaker 2: they numbers of like is there a particular number of
Speaker 2: users or a number of sales? Like do you have
Speaker 2: an idea what that looks like where you would be
Speaker 2: like tick? Or will it just be this moving goalpost?
Speaker 1: Don't? Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: I love that. Nice. Well, congratulations on everything. Do you
Speaker 2: know what's next? Or just the US? Just focus on
Speaker 2: Yeah that not just the US, I mean the US.
Speaker 2: That's an enormous market.
Speaker 1: Actually two things, so I should mention we've got I
Speaker 1: mentioned an art podcast, So we've we've launched our podcast,
Speaker 1: which I'm loving because I'm learning about art and intoing
Speaker 1: interesting art collectors, which you've been on Sarah and not an.
Speaker 2: Art collector, but I know I thoroughly enjoyed link the
Speaker 2: episode that we did.
Speaker 1: That was a great chat. But the something that we
Speaker 1: launched this week actually was print on demand, so all
Speaker 1: of our artists now can sell prints of that's all
Speaker 1: of their originals through us. Yeah, so that's kind of
Speaker 1: that's a super cool thing. And like we built this
Speaker 1: kind of interesting AI upscaler to kind of make them
Speaker 1: super high res. So you've been working with the printing
Speaker 1: company for a year to get really really high resolution prints. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on like a really thick, nice stock. So yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1: That went live this week, So that's a.
Speaker 2: Bit gradual thing. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know it's like we look at our
Speaker 1: analytics a lot and Prince is top ten search term
Speaker 1: on us in your own yeah yeah yeah yeah, so
Speaker 1: so that that it's also cool as well as obviously
Speaker 1: the USA, which is like the big build. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh congratulations. And for everyone who's listening, I mean, if
Speaker 2: you haven't, most people actually that I've mentioned this podcast
Speaker 2: too already have bought from Blue Thumb, which is so cool.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, this is amazing, Like you know the
Speaker 2: guy from Blue sum They're like, yes, I buy from there.
Speaker 2: So most of you probably already you don't need the link,
Speaker 2: but I will put the link to Blue Thumb in
Speaker 2: the show notes just in case as well as the podcast. George,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining USAT, such a cool
Speaker 2: human doing amazing things. And if you don't already know
Speaker 2: Blue Thumb or haven't already purchased, although I think many
Speaker 2: of you probably have or have at least heard of them,
Speaker 2: it is an incredible place to source artwork and find
Speaker 2: new artist and was particularly amazing for us when we
Speaker 2: were first renovating and decorating the house. I will include
Speaker 2: links in the show notes as well as to George's pages,
Speaker 2: along with my episode on his podcast too, which was
Speaker 2: an absolute delight to record. It was also so lovely
Speaker 2: to bond over having kids at a similar age and
Speaker 2: hearing about the fatherhood of his life as well. He's
Speaker 2: just such a lovely person, incredibly almost painfully humble about
Speaker 2: how successful he's been, but I guess that's all the
Speaker 2: more endearing. I hope you guys enjoyed. If you did,
Speaker 2: please as always share the episode, spreading the yighborhood, growing
Speaker 2: it as far and wide as possible, and leave us
Speaker 2: a review and hit the subscribe button if you haven't already.
Speaker 2: One of my resolutions this year is to remind you
Speaker 2: guys to do that more. If you have a second,
Speaker 2: I would be so grateful, But otherwise I hope you
Speaker 2: are having an amazing week and seizing your yay