Shownotes
Ollie James
Bio
Ollie James is a serial startup operator and CEO of Adttribution, a US-based programmatic data company helping brands and platforms unlock the true impact of their media spend through attribution-first audience targeting. With a deep background in programmatic media, identity resolution, and customer success, Ollie has held leadership roles at Roqad, AKQA, and WPP agencies. His work focuses on connecting media spend to measurable outcomes using privacy-compliant data products across CTV, retail, and digital platforms.
When not decoding adtech’s most complex problems, Ollie is wrangling his 2 kids and two dogs in Bristol, UK and leaning in on his musical background by helping his closest buddies grow, deliver and develop the UK music festival ‘BoomTown’ where he’s been involved since the very beginnings of the show as an independent festival through to a partial exit to Live Nation in 2022, the UK’s largest festival holding co.
Ollie picked up a type 2 diabetes diagnosis in Nov 2024 and has been on a health journey that’s led to him dropping 45lbs and pushing the disease into complete remission alongside a leveling of other health markers such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Summary
Ollie James, who embarked on his entrepreneurial journey at the tender age of eight, exemplifies the essence of innovation and ethical business practices. He recounts his formative experience of establishing a car cleaning service, which ignited a lifelong passion for entrepreneurship. As the conversation unfolds, we delve into his remarkable trajectory, transitioning from a junior position in a Swedish affiliate marketing firm to the CEO of Attribution, a US-based data privacy company operated from Bristol, England. Ollie's commitment to data integrity is evident in his decision to delete all customer data every 24 hours, a practice he upholds not out of necessity but as a principled stand in the landscape of modern business ethics. Throughout this episode, we explore the myriad challenges he faced in navigating the complexities of B2B sales, the invaluable lessons learned from his missteps, and his vision for a sustainable future in data management.
Notes
The conversation unfolds with Ollie James, a seasoned entrepreneur whose journey commenced at the tender age of eight with a car cleaning venture in his village. His early foray into entrepreneurship was not merely a childhood whim but a formative experience that instilled in him the foundational principles of business ethics, as evidenced by the lesson he learned when his advertisement was removed from a church notice board. As we delve deeper into Ollie's narrative, we trace his evolution from a junior role at a Swedish affiliate marketing company to the helm of Attribution, a data privacy enterprise based in the United States yet operated from Bristol, England. Through this exploration, Ollie elucidates the challenges and insights gleaned from his diverse experiences across different continents and industries, emphasizing the importance of ethical data management in today's digital landscape.
The discussion also highlights Ollie's candid reflections on the difficulties of transitioning from a structured corporate environment to the unpredictable terrain of startup leadership. He shares the eye-opening realization that nurturing client relationships takes time and cannot be rushed, a lesson that underscores the protracted nature of B2B sales cycles. This revelation serves as a pivotal moment in Ollie's entrepreneurial journey, prompting him to recalibrate his expectations and strategic approach. Furthermore, the conversation touches upon the innovative ethos that drives Attribution, particularly its commitment to deleting customer data every 24 hours. This practice, while seemingly counterintuitive, positions the company as a leader in data security and privacy, showcasing how constraints can spur creative solutions in business operations.
As the episode progresses, we witness Ollie's passion for fostering a culture of excellence and his commitment to building a company that prioritizes both ethical practices and client trust. His vision extends beyond mere profitability; he aims to cultivate a sustainable enterprise that can thrive for the next two decades. The dialogue culminates in a discussion about the evolving landscape of data privacy regulations, where Ollie's proactive measures in adopting stringent compliance standards position Attribution favorably in a competitive market. His narrative not only resonates with startup founders but also provides invaluable insights for anyone navigating the complexities of modern entrepreneurship, emphasizing the significance of resilience, ethical practices, and a long-term vision in achieving success.
Takeaways
- Ollie James, the guest on today's episode, began his entrepreneurial journey at the tender age of eight, demonstrating early signs of business acumen by establishing a car cleaning service in his village.
- The discussion reveals how Ollie transitioned from a junior employee at a Swedish affiliate marketing firm to the CEO of a US-based data privacy company, emphasizing the importance of learning from initial failures.
- A significant theme in the conversation is the duration of B2B sales cycles, which Ollie stresses can extend from six to eight months, challenging the assumption that prior relationships will ensure quick conversions.
- Ollie shares a fundamental principle of his company, Attribution, which involves the deliberate deletion of customer data every 24 hours, highlighting a commitment to privacy and risk reduction in data management.
- The episode delves into the complexities of navigating different privacy regulations across the globe, particularly emphasizing the contrast between European standards and the evolving landscape in the United States.
- Ultimately, Ollie expresses a desire to run his company for decades, showcasing his commitment to long-term growth and the ambition to expand into international markets beyond the US.
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Transcripts
Hello. Please meet today's guest, Ollie James.
Ollie James:I mean when I was, I think I was eight years old, I started my own car cleaning business because I realized that, you know, if I could get some pocket money from, from my dad for washing his car then I could probably replicate that around, around the village. And I remember putting a, a sign up like a little my first ad saying it's Ollie's car cleaning business. And I put it in the, in the church.
They we had a freestanding sort of church notice board in the by the village hall and it had a sort of, it's a glass and wooden cabinet thing. It shows you how far go go back we go.
And I remember the church warden phoning my house and asking to speak to me and telling me that it wasn't appropriate for me to put business ads into the church note on the church notice board. So I had my first lesson in entrepreneurship and ad.
Jothy Rosenberg:What if I told you that at 8 years old an entrepreneur got his first lesson in business ethics from a church warden who caught him advertising his car washing service on the church notice board? Today's guest, Ollie James started that young and never stopped.
From washing cars in his village to running a US based data privacy company from Bristol, England. Ali's journey spans multiple continents and countless lessons that learned the hard way.
In this episode, you'll hear how Ollie transformed from a junior employee at a Swedish affiliate marketing company into a CEO who deletes all customer data every 24 hours. Not because he has to, but because it's the right thing to do.
We'll explore his dark moment when he naively thought existing relationships would instantly translate to revenue. And how that near disaster taught him the real timeline of B2B sales. But here's what makes Ali's story really compelling.
He's found his forever company in Attribution, the data business he plans to run for the next 20 years. From his unique approach to privacy first data management to his philosophy of doing the best job possible.
Whether you're collecting bins or building billion dollar businesses, this conversation is packed with hard won wisdom for any founder navigating the complexities of, of modern entrepreneurship and Hello Ali, thank you for being on this show.
Ollie James:Jathy, thank you so much for having me. This is going to be great.
Jothy Rosenberg:First of all, can you tell us where you're originally from and then where.
Ollie James:You live now originally from? Well, I've always been in the uk so I've spent a little time bouncing around.
I've lived in London in my early sort of agency Years and I spent a little bit of time in North America over in Vancouver and back now in Bristol, England where I have been for the last 13 years, where I've thrown down my roots, you know, wife, kids, dogs, and running the current company, which is a US based company, but from Bristol in England. So we do everything kind of remotely. So that's a kind of an interesting aspect of what I do.
Jothy Rosenberg:So your start was in London then and then and all those other interesting travels along the way?
Ollie James:Yeah, yeah. Started off in London like work wise, working for a company called Trade Doubler, the European affiliate network.
So that's where I kind of cut my cloth straight out of. Of university, which was in Wales actually.
So started in uni in Wales and then that led to my first job in London and then everything else falls into place.
Jothy Rosenberg:There seems to be a UK theme going on right now with, with this.
Ollie James:Podcast I get, I look when I travel to. Cause obviously running a US business, I travel to the States a lot and I spend a lot of time in New York.
I'm actually there next week for an event called Programmatic I.O. and then I'm in town for Ad Week New York. But my point was I can hear a lot of Irish within the New York accent.
So I think probably the Irish are quite understood, especially by the New Yorkers because that influenced their, their accent. I mean, this is just anecdotally from, from what I've kind of picked up, but I think Irish over Glaswegian.
I think the Glaswegian has more of a challenge potentially.
Jothy Rosenberg:So when did your entrepreneurship part of your, your life, your existence begin?
Ollie James:I think I was 8 years old. I started my own car cleaning business.
Jothy Rosenberg:Did you travel to people's houses with your buckets or did you have them come and you used a hose at your house?
Ollie James:No, I was out with my buc. And well, I kept my dad's bucket and his sponge.
But yeah, essentially traveling around on my bicycle and getting referrals and getting other kids in the neighborhood to kind of help me out for a cut as well. So there's quite a few business lessons wound into that. If I think back at it related.
Jothy Rosenberg:To your current company, you were involved with the agency world for a while and then you were involved with. Well, tell us about what that world was. Was like actually.
Ollie James:Yeah, I mean that I said I cut my cloth at Trade Doubler, so that's an affiliate marketing, I guess you could call them an agency.
And I was there for six or seven years and that was a pan European business and I was a technical account manager and I kind of developed a kind of skill set in. In explaining technical subjects to people that weren't necessarily very technical.
And as I sort of grew up and in within the business became sort of.
I used to accompany salespeople along their track and meet customers in order that salespeop didn't over promise should we say on what could be delivered and when could be delivered. So that was how I kind of evolved through that business and we.
We exited I say we I was a reasonably junior person but the businesses would exit was floated on the. On the stock exchange Stockholm Stock Exchange and that was when I decided to take a bit of some time out essentially from. From the.
From working because I'd gone from. From school to A levels to university to then into this quite high powered.
I don't want to say I was suffering from burnout but I certainly wasn't ready to take the next leap with some others that were starting up businesses. So that's when I took some time out and went to sort of Canada and did some snowboarding and.
And before I then came back to the UK to then sort of start again. But it was an interesting evolution. I learned a lot from. From what was. I was the 13th person to join in that business but I was.
That was in a UK team and there were 10 other or nine other different European offices with similar sized teams. So that's where I got my.
I learned how to work remotely within a team way way long before we had the sort of you know Covid and every this sor trend to working from home. I remember the kind of spider type phones that sat in the middle of the desk and you had email, maybe a bit of Skype and that was the.
That was the kind of tools we used but we managed to affect to collaborate and work very effectively together over that time. Despite not being in the same physical location.
Jothy Rosenberg:Were there things that you learned there that you were able to directly apply to when you were ready to do in your do your own startup?
Ollie James:Yeah, I think that. I think Trade Double is a Swedish company and I very much enjoy working with the Swedes. They have a very.
A super smart and they're able to articulate very well what it is that they want and able to articulate whether or not you've delivered what it is that they want all in a very kind and supportive and quite structured way as a kind of the culture. So I think that would be my main sort of take through it's.
It it's how you define a project, briefed upon a scope and really communicate with people what it is that you expect as an outcome and not necessarily step by step by step. So being able to communicate in a way that allows people to approach a problem their own way without you having to define each micro step.
But, but also make sure that they don't go too much off on a tangent or waste time doing things that you weren't, that you weren't expecting them to do. If that makes sense.
Jothy Rosenberg:Yeah, sure, that, that puts a lot of trust in people to be able to figure out how to deliver what you, you're asking for. That makes, that makes great sense.
But what was it that made you feel, you know, to start something from scratch, you have to feel a lot of conviction that the world needs this, the world needs, is missing this. What was driving you that there was something, a gap in the market or something that you felt uniquely able to fill?
Ollie James:Well, I, I mean the precursor to me getting involved in sort of multiple startups and wanting to be in that environment is because I, I, I understood very quickly that I didn't like big corporate environments and that I didn't like, I didn't like having to deal with a board or having to deal with lots of like minut of detail in terms of our governance and how we, you know, I didn't, I didn't much, didn't much like the HR department and I didn't much like the, the, the, all the structure that's built into a bigger corporate organization.
So that was when I decided okay, fine, I want to do something, I want to do something definitely on, on a smaller scale with a smaller team and looking for that problem. I kind of learned through working for other people's startups as a, I guess a reasonably senior person.
So I'm coming in at sort of director level based on my experiences working for someone else's startup and from that and seeing where the niches are, doing the best I can to help to help that business along.
And when there is then a natural evolution, trying to find something smaller and smaller and smaller with another partner or with another very small group of people until I finally landed where I am today, which was kind of me and two or three other people, but based on the business we're in now is in sort of in data and identity. And that was directly the business I was involved with before. And that company has grown.
So I could see what was going right, what was going wrong, how the things I would do differently, the way that I would manage the company the way I would manage the people and the culture and where I could see the product being able to really fly by.
I basically stripped down some key products and focused on key areas and I knew that if I focused on these things and that was going to drive revenue and that was going to give us, you know, be able to give us the opportunity to tread some water and give us the opportunity to not have to go out and raise large sums of cash because we could get to revenue quickly. So I kind of learned from one thing and then moved to the next rather than having some kind of.
I wasn't sort of sat in a restaurant and suddenly a lightning bolt hit me that, wow, I've got this great idea and I can't believe that this, you know, I've just seen a raindrop and I've thought about some new kind of like a technology that's going to, that's going to catch this raindrop and do something fabulous with it. It was always kind of a slow learned experience.
And that's why I've moved through marketing and go to market and then data and programmatic into where I am now.
Jothy Rosenberg:I've never met an entrepreneur who would say and everything has worked perfectly and smoothly. So was there any kind of really difficult time so far with this company which we should mention its name, right?
I don't think we've mentioned its name.
Ollie James:Yeah, it's called attribution. Attribution, you know, coming from my affiliate days, working out that the outcome.
So you want to know what drives the sale so you can spend more money on the activity that the activities that drive outcomes. So yeah, we just kind of merged that too. I didn't come up with the name though, I must say. And I'm not sure, I'm not quite too sure about it.
But I realized when, when I, when I was brought on board that I had fires to fight and more. More pressing issues to. To look at than maybe what the name of the company was called.
Or I'd like a new website and a new logo and all of those things. But we've parked all of that for now while I've been dealing with other issues. Which was your question.
Jothy Rosenberg:Yeah. Was there a dark moment?
Ollie James:I think you always. That that's my dark moment was around getting traction and not being.
I thought somewhat naivishly that I'd just be able to pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm doing my own thing now. This is the offering. It is similar to X, Y and Z from in the market that you can see.
Why don't you let's, you know, let's go ahead, let's, I'll send you the contract.
And I was, I found very quickly that it takes, even if you have people that know you and that trust you and that you can articulate your value proposition to very quickly, there is still a big chunk of time in that sort of sales, that sales process. And it takes can take six to six, eight months to get to a point where you're, where you've signed a contract and then to revenue.
And if you naively think you can jump to straight to revenue, as I did almost instantly by all my buddies kind of coming in and working with me and being able to just link LinkedIn outreach, you know, 300 people that could buy it. I was, my maths were okay, well there's going to be at least 50 people.
People are going to come straight back and say yes, that it's a, it's a dark moment where you think ah, this isn't, this isn't going to happen quite the way I planned it. And then if you don't have the cash to back that up, then you're looking at actually shutting the whole thing down before it even properly starts.
So that was, that was my kind of learning. And I wouldn't say it was dark. I was just very, very nervous at one point that actually I'd, I hadn't planned properly.
Jothy Rosenberg:Was it self funded all the way or did you get some upfront?
Ollie James:Well, there was actually. The business had customers when I joined it.
It had been going a little while and the guys that were running it had built up a customer base and some revenue. So I was lucky enough that the idea was even was formed.
There were customers and essentially what I was coming on board to do was to grow that in order that we didn't then have to go and go and get extra revenue. So.
And that's why I'm a UK CEO running a US business was because they needed me in quickly because of a previous change of leadership team in order to get this up and running. So I think they ideally would have quite liked a US CEO in market but you have to pay those guys way more than they pay me.
But the rest of the team is actually not in the US either even though it's a US Inc. Company.
So we've got some engineering and product team in Poland and also in India and there's myself in the UK who is kind of doing sales and we also have a marketing external resource agency for marketing and then the lawyers are then separate again. So I can have sort of, I've set up a few, these are some of the relationships I had to set up initially.
So we don't, we can't have an in house lawyer obviously, but we have a little firm that can specialize in data privacy and, and they help us out on a kind of fee basis. So and if I want engineering done, you know, I'm going to get, I'm going to have to write a check to get that done.
So I have to be very careful about what to ask for and to make sure that you know, because you can run up a bill quite heavily. And I think a lot of people that I deal with, my sort of customers and partners have that all in house and are much bigger.
So I just have to be a bit smarter about when to deploy that revenue, that resource.
Jothy Rosenberg:Hi there. I hope you're enjoying the show.
In addition to the podcast, you might also be interested in the online program I have created for startup founders called who says yous Can't Startup?
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The QR code will take you where you can learn more. Now back to the podcast. So it's really your show now.
Ollie James:Yeah. Which is kind of what I always wanted. But yeah, careful what you. Careful what you.
It's been a very tricky transition between somebody at sort of director level and I mean, you know, vp, sales, VP onboarding, vp, that kind of level where you have a CEO, where you have a board, where you have another four or people around you that are all advising you to having to make decisions on your own and trying to elevate yourself above the business to look down on it rather than actually getting involved in the day to day. It's like I could do that.
I've used to work in an Agile product team when I was at the WPP agencies and I've been a product lead and I know how that works and I know how to work within that team.
But I must not do that now because I need to be out telling the story, evangelizing about the business and sales and bringing new business and interest in and I can't be, I can't be getting too deeply involved and that's really hard. I find that impossible.
There's a big difference between running a business and being a senior person within a business, no matter what the size of that business is. That's been tricky for me.
Jothy Rosenberg:Can you explain a little bit more about what you guys are doing with. You know, your statement is about. Says that data is central to what you're doing and that there's a lot of issues with data privacy.
Can you kind of paint the picture for that of how that works?
Ollie James:Yeah. So we run, we've got a European business as well as a US business and we're essentially the data provider.
What we've, what I've done in previous companies has been a bit further downstream and sort of building a platform and people can sort of log in and they can buy audiences and almost like, I don't know if know, but live ramp sort of style business where they operate data marketplaces and they do private marketplace deals and they do, you can buy on a, you know, cost per click, all of this kind of stuff. We don't do any of that. We've taken the step upstream and become a sort of a raw data provider.
So we put all of our efforts into sourcing data, cleaning data. We have an algorithm that goes through and removes any sort of duplications.
And we have an algorithm that says, okay, this is a bot, or this is, this is someone using a V that sits in India and is using a VPN to access Netflix in the US for example. There is a lot of that that's going on.
So our mission is to provide a very clean, highly applicable data set to provide into that aforementioned kind of ecosystem in order that people can target advertisers, can target an audience and a fully addressable audience. So that's the kind of shift that I made. I said, okay, I want to get really, really good at this part of that whole ecosystem.
When it comes to moving data through essentially the programmatic advertising industry, that's where we've, we've had. And so the privacy side of things is probably more important now to me as a raw provider because I don't.
Any problems that I have in, we have, sorry, in our setup, we would then necessarily pass that down downstream.
And that's where, that's where one of the problems I saw previously was that, okay, we're being dumped on with, with data where we can't verify whether or not there's been consent, we can't verify where it's come from, or we can't have a robust answer as to whether or not we should actually be using this or not. So I wanted to kind of solve for some of that and create that kind of gold standard of data. But there's a secondary.
The second, you know, where I'm being pulled now is that it's not just about privacy side of things, it's about data quality because you can have data that is fully compliant, that still comes from a crappy website or a website that's MFA or that's which is made for advertising, one of those kind of like websites.
So what I'm looking at now is this quality scoring traffic because we're kind of, the message is that we've got privacy baked in and we're fully compliant. That's dealt with. That's what we spent six months doing, cleaning up the data and now let's start to look at the quality of it.
So, you know, you've got that it is what it sort of says on the tin. So that's where I'm kind of moving to.
Jothy Rosenberg:And you have very different regulations on privacy from Europe. And then, and then US is, is mostly a different standard except California.
Ollie James:It used to be the Wild West. We used to say the states when it comes to data and privacy. But things are definitely changing.
I would definitely say that because the US we're a US company and I would say our biggest market is us. We apply much of what we do in the EU to the US even though we don't sort of strictly have to.
You've got the, you know, obviously the US privacy regulation, California leading the way. But there are another, well, I don't know, 20 odd states that have implemented their own sort of version of that gpp.
So we have to be, we have, we want to be buttoned, really, really buttoned up. The most buttoned up of anybody in the US Even when we don't necessarily have to be. In certain circumstances it would make sense.
Jothy Rosenberg:To have one standard that you use because then it's going to be a lot easier and if you just use the strictest standard, you're not going to ever run afoul of the states that have lower standards.
Ollie James:Yeah. And we delete all of our data every single day, every 24 hours. So we don't hold anything.
So if you were to say to me, hey Ollie, I need you to send me, you know, a 30 day look back window for this audience in the U.S. i can't do that. I would say, okay, I can give you the data, you can store it, you keep that for 30 days and then you'll start to see your transaction.
And that's one of the things from a privacy perspective because then we don't. We minimize our risk of data leakage. If we're holding vast sums of data that go back, you know, months or some years.
Some data companies can give you, can give you last year's data A. It costs a lot for us to store it, but it actually costs us an awful lot to run the algos every day and rebuild this massive data set.
But we took the decision to do that because we thought it was the most secure way. It will minimize the, minimize the impact of a data breach.
If you've only got 24 hours worth of data at any one given point and I don't think there's anybody else in the market that does that and people think I'm mad. That must cost you a fortune to run that your servers must be melting on a daily basis to try and regenerate this.
But that's the decision that we make that we've made.
And I think it's an interesting proposition for us as well as, you know, coming from a genuine desire to want to make sure that our, our setup is as, you know, secure and as safe as possible.
Jothy Rosenberg:Do you try to maintain your own data center or do you use AWS or something like them?
Ollie James:Yeah, AWS is us is our kind of go to which is not the cheapest way of doing it. But if you're going to use a cloud, I think if you're going to use a cloud data, a cloud system, then that would be.
That's the one that we, that we researched and decided we'd move to. We had bare metal machines and that means our own data on our own servers. So we used to rent servers. And I just think.
And that can be a cheaper way of doing things. And what it means is that you can. Well, it used to be the only way that you could keep your data in market.
So you'd have your European data in a European data center with your name, you know, with a sticker on it, with your name on the server. And you do the same in the US and then you keep those data services, those data sets completely separate based on the geo.
But you can do that now in the cloud. So there's no need to ring fence it with a physical machine. I think it's less risky.
I know these things are kept in nuclear bunkers and they're the safest things ever.
But I think cloud infrastructure seems, seems to me to be a sensible way to do things and it also helps me with my relationship with Amazon because I want to have a good relationship with them. They just launched their dsp and so I think being one of their customers allows me to access the open marketplace and et cetera, et cetera.
Although I'm sure that some other cloud providers are available. I don't know, maybe I just, yeah, I've just succumbed to all the advertising and the media press, but I've not seen it.
Jothy Rosenberg:You're actually right. You're actually right. Most of my startups, more than, well, not all, not, not most, but at least four of my startups have been cybersecurity.
So I, I can tell you you're right. And the reason that it's really, the argument for why you're right is really easy to make.
So think about people who run a corporation that does, I don't know, pick, pick one. Pharmaceuticals. Okay. Are they really an expert at data security? I don't think so.
And so, you know, any industry you pick, yeah, you can hire good IT people, but guess who hires the best IT people? The cloud people, because they've got everything to lose because they can't afford the PR of having a big problem occur.
And so they're really good at it. So you can be safe, you can feel you're safe.
Ollie James:That would be almost terminal, I guess, for their business if they had a breach, someone like, was in back to.
Jothy Rosenberg:Your, your company that you're, you're growing and what does success look like for you personally? I mean, in terms of your business, in terms of, but just in, you.
Ollie James:Know, sort of life, it changes.
I mean, I, I, I always wanted to do the, the, I had, it sort of drummed into me that whatever it is that you're doing, do the best job that you possibly can do. Okay. So my dad used, got me a job.
He used to work for local government and he walked into his buddy's office that run the technical services department, he's like, hey, Ollie's back home from university. He's driving me mad, he needs a job. So the guy's like, yeah, I need a refuse collector, a bin man, dustman we call them in the uk.
So I spent holiday after holiday going around collecting up the rubbish and throwing it on the back of the lorry. But my mindset for that was the same as it is now, so I wanted to be the best goddamn bin man that there was.
And I so used to run ahead of the lorry and grab all the rubbish and make piles and then run around and throw all the Throw all the rub in from the piles. I thought that was maybe a more efficient way of doing things than just going from house to house. And we used to call it bagging up.
So you would go and bag up a street and then the lorry would come and you'd throw it all on because we thought we could get it.
But we used to run and hang on the back of the bin lorry from street to street rather than going and getting into the cab because we thought we could save time. I mean you can't do these things now, right?
I mean you have like proper mechanical bin loaders and you get arrested if they saw you hanging onto the back of a lorry driving down the highway. But these are the things, things we used to do, but all in the name of efficiency and doing things better. But I digress.
That's basically the, that's basically the ethos.
The success for me is looking back regardless of one of the outcome is whether or not we do the job as best that we possibly can do and that we put the effort in and we, and we tried our best to get the outcome rather than. So it's about the kind of the journey and the doing rather than the outcomes.
And I know most people are looking at outcomes and revenue and market share and all of these other things, but I think if you. Certainly for me it's paid off is to look at the task in hand and go what's the best way of doing this?
And if you can put your hand on your heart and say that's how you do it, then that's what success looks like for me.
Jothy Rosenberg:Do you think you'll keep running this business, keep growing it like for a long time, maybe till you retire or do you see yourself selling it to somebody? What about.
Ollie James:I'd love to be in it for the long haul, which is the first time I think I can say that I'd love to still be running it in 20 years time. I'd love to see us grow in the States and grow European business. I've never worked for a company in Asia.
I'd love to look at that, that sort of Asian market. I don't know anything about it.
I look forward to working with somebody who can help me maybe out of Singapore, look at Japan and Australia and that sort of thing. So that's a.
And this for me because it's a data business, it's a global business and, and I'd really like when we've cracked the US and I'm loving my US focus. Don't get me wrong, but when this is big enough and when I can hire people in market to kind of when I've got a GM and a sales guy and some.
Some onboarding capability, customer onboarding capabilities in the US then I might look to do something else. You do the same thing in another market and that's really exciting. But that's at least a 10 year plan. And why not? Why? I think I've found my home.
Perhaps it'd be difficult to someone to very hard to drag me away from this. I'm not sure what you could offer me for me to say, okay, I'm gonna ditch this and move. I don't think there is a. There's not a sav.
Jothy Rosenberg:Mora are you doing anyway? Are you. Do you think about and do you focus at all on making sure you have a good work life balance?
Ollie James:Yeah, I try because I work because I'm in the UK and I work in predominantly a kind of US time zone. It leaves me with a little bit of time in the morning. I do the school run, I go to the gym.
If my kid's playing rugby, I'll go to his rugby match or his hockey match or see his school play or walk my dogs because I know that it could be 10pm Before I. I don't really get into. I'm not kind of a Netflix kind of show watching, kind of binge watching kind of guy.
So I don't do those kind of things that might otherwise take up lots of other people's time. So therefore I do. I work. I mean I work a lot but I find time to.
Because of the time difference says that it enables me to pop up as I say at a sports match or.
Jothy Rosenberg:Your dinner time is a particularly difficult time for you to get away, isn't it?
Ollie James:Yeah, it's fine. We don't. We're quite informal as a family in terms of. It's not. I mean I will be at the dinner table when I need to be.
I have a. I take some medication from. I'm type 2 diabetes. So I take some medication for my, for my diabetes which, which kind of suppresses appetite.
So I'm often kind of not hungry at certain times. So we have a very kind of fluid. I don't necessarily.
Mealtimes at my house aren't very like traditional mom and dad sat there and the dogs in their beds kind of thing. That is quite a fluid. I might breeze in and grab something and eat it standing up and then say hello and fleet off somewhere. But I make that up with.
You know, I tend not to work weekends, so they, they tend to be very. My oldest son plays sports on the weekend, so on a Saturday, so does my youngest actually on Sunday. So that's when they kind of get that back.
Jothy Rosenberg:My grandson was 6. He's now 8 when he was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. And he's not yet old enough to manage it himself, but he's.
I think he's gonna get there probably within the next couple of years. Hey, I have one last question for you.
Ollie James:Okay.
Jothy Rosenberg:So grit, it's something that all startup people have. It's just if I. It's a, it's a, it's like a. It's like a law of the universe. Everyone who's doing startups has grit. And what's your grit story? Where.
Because you started talking about being an entrepreneur and doing something on your own without anybody, you know, suggesting it, you just did it when you were eight and, and then you've done a whole bunch more. So where do you think it comes from?
Ollie James:My great story. I think probably that it comes from. From school, I guess. There was a lot. I mean, I've always struggled with my weight, so that.
Which is part of, like, the reason that led to my kind of. My diagnosis of diabetes. So I was, you know, clinically obese and I was heavy at school. Had been my sort of weights fluctuated up and down.
So I got on the kind of receiving end of some.
Some interesting feedback when I was at school, I think kind of being able to kind of channel that and deal with that and be the kind of champion for other kids that weren't. That weren't the cool kids and, and that weren't the, you know, and that had other.
Had their challenges as well, was probably what kind of set me up to be able to cope with the whatever kind of life threw at me and that would be, you know, I was, I was one of the kids. I didn't. Didn't do sports day, but I was, but I was in year eight.
I was one of the only, like, kids in the lower school that got a lead part in the school play. Right. Because I could sing. So. Which again was. So that kind of.
I was like, yeah, I can't do these, these things that everybody's, you know, that everybody's doing and is championing, but I can actually do this. And it was actually kind of showed me that, that you can, you can find your.
Your way, you can reach your goals if you, if you kind of put your mind to it and Block out some of that noise.
Jothy Rosenberg:It's kind of like. So I've had some interesting conversations with my grandson.
His name is Warner because I mean he's known me of course his entire life and so he's well aware of my physical disability not having a leg. And so. And then I wrote a book about it. That's the book I'm gonna be sending to you. Well in addition to that one for your 10 year old and fantastic.
He loves that book because it talks about. These are animals. There's some pictures of them up on the wall there. That's from the book that have a challenge, a physical challenge.
I didn't include diabetes in the book. I could have, I suppose I made ones that were a little bit more obvious and visible. Just, just.
Cause I thought that would be easier for the four to nine year old age age range. It's really helped him to think of what he has as a disability. It is a physical disability.
It's just not visible to, to people and, but all of the same kind of issues exist. It, it puts constraints on him. He, he has to be watching his diet, he has to be watching the timing of when he eats certain things and all of that.
He is very active physically. He's playing sports, which is, which is cool, but he has to be careful.
And, and, and I think what it's doing to him and I, we're all seeing this is that he's very smart, like really smart. And it's, and he's, he's leveraging that. He's, he's, he's emphasizing that he's focused on those sorts of activities. It's really cool to watch.
Ollie James:Yeah, it takes all sorts.
But yeah, I think that yeah, if you have some adversity, it kind of challenge pushes you down to find your, to find what it is that you're really good at and you enjoy. And we're not all made out of the same mold and takes all sorts. I think that's certainly true of your startups. You need some differing personalities.
You need people that challenge your ideas. And that's why I think diversity and inclusion is so important when it comes to startups. I mean I always have sort of run a meritocracy.
I'm like, okay, you hire the best person for the job, you promote the best people. But that often comes through some sort of diversity.
Whether that's neuro or whether that's physical or whether that's with race, color, creed, educational background. And we're all kind of, we're individuals at the end of the day.
So I guess we're, I guess there's diversity baked in regardless of, you know, if there's two people then those two people necessarily have to be very different even though, and even if they're twins.
But there's certainly, certainly helped over the years, say working for Trade Doubler with that European colleagues in European offices and different cultures coming together has certainly helped, helped me understand how important that is and, and see how effective it is.
Jothy Rosenberg:So Harvard Business School did a very comprehensive study of, of the success of diverse teams versus homogeneous teams and 75% better decision making. And there's a whole criteria for how they decided that for diverse team.
Ollie James:Yeah, I think they'll be the ones that went well.
Jothy Rosenberg:Listen, Ali, this has been really fun with your travels to the US if you ever find yourself in Boston, I hope you'll let me know.
Ollie James:I'd love to come to Boston.
Jothy Rosenberg:I'll take you to my, you know, my favorite. Do you, do you like oysters?
Ollie James:Hell yes.
Jothy Rosenberg:Okay. There is a. We have the most amazing oyster place in, in Boston on the North End, so please, please let me know.
Anyway, this has been great and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this and good luck with your company.
Ollie James:Thank you so much. And Thea, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Jothy Rosenberg:And here's your startup founder toolkit. Number one, Revenue timelines are longer than you think.
Even with warm relationships and a proven value proposition B2B sales cycles typically take six to eight months, from first contact to signed contract to actual revenue. Don't make Ollie's mistake of assuming your network will immediately convert. Plan your Runway accordingly and expect the long game.
Even with friendly prospects. Choose your constraints strategically.
Ali deletes all customer data every 24 hours, not because regulations require it, but because it reduces risk and differentiates his company. Sometimes the most expensive operational choice becomes your competitive advantage.
Ask yourself, what constraint could you voluntarily adopt that would force innovation and set you apart from competitors? Number three Focus upstream for cleaner business models.
Instead of building another platform downstream, Ali moved upstream to become a raw data provider. This eliminated complex marketplace dynamics and allowed him to focus on doing one thing exceptionally well.
When you're evaluating your market position, consider whether moving earlier in the value chain could simplify your business model and strengthen your competitive moat. That is our show with Ali. The show notes contain useful resources and links. Please follow and rate us@podchaser.com designingsuccessful startups.
Also, please share and like us on your social media channels. This is Jothi Rosenberg saying TTFN Tata for now.
