Luke Massie - I Have Nothing To Hide
Guests: Luke Massie
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
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People are annoyed because they think the people that invested have been burned, and then you've just bought the business back.
At that point, shit was real.
Sounds like a nightmare.
It’s absolutely horrible. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in my life. And this is actually the first time I've spoken about it.
What’s the truth?
Luke, yo. Thank you for being here fairly last minute. I've just got back from New York and I was thinking, I'm coming to Manchester and I want to make the most use of my time in this city. You are one of the more famous, renowned young entrepreneurs here, building an incredible business in an incredible way with an incredible reputation. So, I thought I would call on you to have this conversation. I think there’s a huge amount of things that we’ll relate on. I hope there are some things that we have different views on as well.
I'm sure that's definitely going to be the case.
100%. But thank you so much for coming, especially last minute. Here's where I want to start. In—and I do this sometimes as a challenge—in 30 seconds, can you tell me Luke Massie’s story from birth until now? The reason I do this is because I think it helps filter out the moments that are of most significance. Do you reckon you're up for that challenge?
Of course, always.
Okay, I'm going to stick 30 seconds on the clock.
So, young lad born in Preston, one of five. Grew up on a council estate. Father wasn't around. Been through school, went to college, didn't go to university. Set up my first business, set up another business, set up another business. Constantly challenged. Favorite saying is "Why not?" Came across a big industry, I’m now challenging the big operators in that space, and day-to-day asking "Why not?"
Perfect. Exactly 30 seconds. Tell me about that first business.
My first business was a company called Mortgage Claims Direct, which believe it or not had nothing to do with mortgages.
How old were you?
I was 17 when I founded the company. The company came about when I was at Cardinal Newman College in my first year of doing my A-levels. I was based in Preston and that was 9:00 to 4:00 every day, five days a week.
The college was?
Yeah. So I was doing economics, finance, and sport actually at the time. I was working at a law firm part-time in the evenings to make some money. I used to finish at 4:00 and then run around the corner to start work at 4:30 until 8:30 every night.
I’m going to—sorry to interrupt that—but why?
I needed to make money. My mom is unemployed, has been since I was young. Even when I was at school, I was making money buying and selling sweets. I needed to make some cash to even just go out with my friends at the weekend. I’ve always been that person. I’ve always made money, whether it was a milk round, a paper round, or buying and selling sweets. Even though I was at college, I didn’t see that as an opportunity not to make cash.
Do you think—you said your dad wasn't around for a number of years?
Yes, for a number of years, yeah.
Do you think if your dad had been around and your mom had been employed, you would be who you are today?
Well, probably not. I think my outlook on things would be different. I think my attitude towards challenges would be different. You probably get hardened all the time to challenges. I think that starts at a very young age. In isolation, I think being an entrepreneur you come across challenges every single day. I think most people would crumble at those challenges because the big decisions that you're making haven't just happened here and right now, this is combined over five years, ten years, whatever it may be.
So yeah, going back to the first business, I was working on the phones at a law firm. There was actually a part of the law firm which was a lead generation arm to the business. Basically, I was the annoying young lad at 17 ringing up asking if you'd been mis-sold PPI.
Oh yeah.
But it was at the time when the banks hadn't lost. So every person we were calling, we'd convert sort of one in 20. It was really hard work. And then something happened—the banks had lost. It was now legal that the banks had to repay people that had been mis-sold PPI. It was one of the biggest scandals ever. Our conversion rate went from one in 20 to literally 50%. Every other person I was calling, we got a hit.
So I managed to save up £3,000 and thought, I can do this myself. It's an unregulated business, the barriers to entry are so low. We don't have to be a solicitor firm; we can be a lead generation arm and act on behalf of our clients. We keep 25% of the money that's come back. It was a brilliant model. So I created my own script, convinced two of the top girls to come and work for me. I said I've just raised this investment.
I managed to lie to a landlord in Preston and got an office space. I was meant to be 18 to get a tenancy. Set up this call center and called it Mortgage Claims Direct. The reason for that is one of the biggest challenges I had at the law firm was when I was ringing up calling from a PPI company, they didn't give me a chance. Whereas if I was calling from Mortgage Claims Direct, a mortgage is really important to everyone. They’d give me at least 30 seconds on the phone which allowed me that foot through the door.
We saw that our conversion was much higher than everyone else's. So the three grand I had, I worked out that I had basically six weeks' worth of money. I was paying these women full-time whilst I was still at college doing my A-levels. I still to this day am fortunate enough for it, but we ran out of cash. For two weeks I had to say to these women that this investor is waiting to send the check to me, the money’s coming in. Fortunately enough, some of the claims started to come in which gave me cash flow. We managed to scale that business to 12 staff, and I sold the business for £94,000 a week before my 18th birthday. That set the ball in motion, which is wow, there are ways to make cash here.
It’s incredible. Running a business at 17 years old where you have 12 staff is pretty incredible.
I worked in call centers from 16 to about 19 or 20. I genuinely think the call center experience is one of the most valuable skills I developed. Being a 16-year-old calling up people at random out of the blue at 9:00 AM trying to sell them double glazing or fascia boards or conservatories really teaches you something that becomes a real valuable transferable skill as an entrepreneur.
Completely agree. It also sets you up for one of the biggest things in life that people don't like, which is failure. That stepping out of your comfort zone, picking up the phone, speaking to a stranger—that is real life. I talk about this a lot, but call centers are the modern-day workshops. They are the modern-day factories.
If you think about everything that requires mastery, it’s a process of practice makes perfect. David Beckham learns to do amazing free kicks by continually kicking the ball at the net for years and years and years. Call center work is you sit there, you pick up the phone, you try, you learn, "Oh shit, that didn't work with that type of person." Ten seconds later the phone is down, ten seconds later the phone is back up, you're trying again.
I think there's a huge element of self-awareness to that as well. When I would call, I knew that the likelihood of someone buying from me based on how I looked was very, very low. I knew that if I was a "Steve" or a "Steven" it made a huge difference. I knew if I was more articulate, those little things. I think self-awareness is a tremendous thing and I think self-awareness is something you can't teach—understanding what people think of you.
Moving on, so you did that, you sold the business, you're 18 years old. What happens next?
Made a few mistakes. Went and bought a car that I shouldn't have done—an RS5. £1,000 a month car insurance. Really. And still then going back to see my mom in a council estate. Wasn't the best decision. Also, sort of gets the wrong attention. Looking back now, it was a really poor decision. At the time, I always wanted that car, I went into Audi and for me, it was my money, I've made it, that sort of thing. But that money could have been used a lot better.
But those are mistakes that I made at an early stage which meant I've not had to go and do those now. Then yeah, I also started to invest in other businesses. Friends had come up to me with an idea of a loft converting business, for example. So I invested in Preston Loft Conversions. I thought that if I can invest little bits of capital into three or four businesses that that would generate me £20,000 to £30,000 a year per business and I wouldn't have to work again. Because I'd had one success, I thought that would work for everything else. That was another huge mistake, which is you can't spread yourself too thin. At the same time, stick to what you know. Don't go into markets that you don't know about.
So where did Vibe come in?
Vibe was founded when I was 20 years old, but it wasn't a business. People talk about Vibe being founded in 2013—it's five years old. Yes, it was formed five years ago because I incorporated the name. I knew it was a very, very good brand at the time, but I didn't know what it was.
I had four tickets to see Ed Sheeran that I bought on my card for me and my friends, £100 each. They gave me the cash, I put it in my bank and made the purchase. Something came up in the social calendar which meant we couldn't go to the event and my mates were asking for the cash back basically. So I went to Google, typed in "selling tickets," and there were a number of sites that offered me the option to sell these tickets: Get Me In, Viagogo, Seatwave, StubHub.
It was a pretty crowded market. They were all offering the same service for the same fees. But the problem I had as a consumer at the time was two major problems. First of all, they all charged me a selling fee. In order for me to get the £400 back, I had to list them at £500. Knowing at the other end there was a buyer going to pay a fee as well, I just didn't think that was morally right.
But if I'm being completely honest with everyone, the biggest issue I had with it was that all these sites would only pay me the money after the event because they wanted to control a process. Now, what 20-year-old lad can afford to give their mates back £100 each and wait for six months? It just wasn't feasible. So I thought, this is shit. Went to Twitter—anyone at our age when they've got a problem goes and rants about it. I tweeted the fact that I had four tickets to see Ed Sheeran, #Manchester #EdSheeran. Literally within sort of four or five minutes, there were genuine Ed Sheeran fans tweeting me, "Hi Luke, I'll take the tickets." They could see that I was a real person, they could see that I invested in my Twitter profile.
So I got chatting to one genuine Ed Sheeran fan, I tweeted him the screenshot of my confirmation of purchase, shared with him my PayPal details so he could send me money as a stranger and would be covered. I managed to get my money back within 10 minutes. It was at that time where I questioned, as I always have in life, my "why." There was a need here on a buyer and a seller's part, but the current operators in the space weren't fulfilling that need for either of us.
So I started questioning, if I've done this, surely there’s other people doing it? I started using things like TweetDeck and checking how many tweets there were. Just on Twitter alone, there were between 15 and 25 million tweets a month with the keywords "need tickets," "want tickets," "spare tickets." That's when the lightbulb moment happened for me: if I can replicate what I've done, then I can help thousands of people.
So we set up basically the #GoodVibe, and that's how Vibe was born. Vibe Tickets was a free resource. Anyone who wanted a ticket or had a spare ticket would tweet us, and we’d just retweet it. Within the first six months, we grew to 60,000 followers. We then grew to 100,000 followers. This was an amazing time for us because we had people from the industry itself, from Ticketmaster, using our hashtag and using our Twitter handle. It was insane. That's how I actually met my first investor, who basically used Twitter to sell some Formula One tickets and was like, "I want to know who this lad is behind this account because he's just saved me a fortune. This is such a good idea."
So at some stage, you think, "I'm going to make this into a company and an app."
Again, the idea was planted in my head by the guy who ended up being my first investor, Matt Newing. He said to me, "This is really cool. Wouldn't it be brilliant if every time someone tweeted you, you made a pound?" Just to give you an idea of figures, it was just me in my bedroom, but we were doing between 3,000 and 5,000 tweets a day—retweets connecting people. That’s probably between £3 and £5 million worth of tickets every single day.
So we were causing a nuisance in the resale market because the big four resale are spending money on user acquisition, on SEO, on PPC to try to get people to these sites, and we're just taking it all on social because we removed those barriers to entry. We just wanted to connect those people. It was at that time that this guy, who was obviously a lot older than me and a lot more savvy than me, sort of presented this idea.
That's when I thought: a marketplace. It's brilliant that all these people are using Twitter, but A, I don't own the customer; B, I can never monetize this; and C, if I'm going to build something of value and I want to pivot and change the product, I'm going to have to own it myself. That's when I went back to him with a business idea and said, "Look, I've listened to what you've said. You've planted this idea in my mind, I can't get it out of my head now. I think I can build a Vibe community." That's when the idea of Vibe came about and I wrote my first business plan as such. On that day, he wrote me a check for £200,000. A physical check for £200,000. He said, "Will this be enough to get you on your way?"
So you make this MVP, this kind of minimal viable product to prove the concept, and then you raised again?
Yeah, we carried on raising. But I mean, this is another thing that people ask me about: "How do I raise capital?" Our MVP was the Twitter account. We could prove that even though we didn't have a product, that thousands of people were using this as a genuine alternative.
I guess you can prove the need, right? Then there's like you've got to prove the execution of the idea.
And this is where I think for anyone who's listening who's trying to raise capital really needs to consider this. The amount of people that come to me asking for investment from myself or access to my investors are typically raising between £100,000 and £200,000. When I actually ask them why, nine times out of ten it's to prove this idea that I've got in my head. When they could actually go and prove the idea that they've got in their head without the £200,000. They could create a Facebook group or they could create a Twitter account and just prove the need. Then it's a different scenario, which is: "Look, I've already demonstrated the need, I now just need capital to make this happen."
So here's the thing. My first company was like a tech company. Very interesting a lot of the sort of parallels between it because I realized the need was there. One of the ways I realized the need was there was when we created a Facebook group that did the same thing, it was so active. It was so active, in fact, that I knew that if this Facebook group was a website and I owned it, it would probably be worth hundreds of millions of pounds at scale. If we took it to more universities—the Facebook group was just for Manchester. So I tried to create the website, didn't work, whatever.
But one of the things that I learned from running a tech company was that money runs out quick. Very quick. One of the interesting things is, especially when it's like a pre-revenue tech company, as a founder, you look at the bank account and you know it's like an hourglass. The more time that passes, the lower this number gets. It’s almost in some respects like a bit of a runway. This aircraft has got to take off before the end of the runway. If it doesn't, it falls off the fucking runway. Investment what it does is it extends the length of the runway, but because it increases the overheads, it increases the speed of the aircraft. So the aircraft is now just going faster down the runway. There's more overheads, right? So, how does that feel as a tech founder dealing with that constant ticking down of the bank balance?
Very, very good question, Steve. And no one asks this question, so thank you for asking. First of all, in that first year, it's extremely terrifying. You think you're onto something, you've now brought these people in, they've bought into the vision. You've convinced people who've got families and dependents to come and join this operation and join this vision. But you also know that it's part of your strategy to actually make an impact in the industry by going in with this different monetization model.
For people that don't understand Vibe is that not only is our offering different as a product, but our commercial model is different as well to the industry. We completely separate ourselves from resale; we're offering a different alternative. So yeah, the first year for me was turbulent. It was so hard to get in my head that I'm going to have to keep going out and raising capital here and trying to pivot and trying to understand where we're going to generate revenue.
We sat down and we built a very, very good advisory board. A huge influence on that was Richard Branson. Without trying to bring him into the story, he was one that said you've got to look at this bigger picture. If this is your game plan, you need to make sure that it's part of your strategy and you execute very, very well.
And you met him on—was it Virgin’s Pitch to Rich competition?
Virgin’s Pitch to Rich competition. I was down in London.
Did you win that?
Well, no. I was actually a finalist. We won capital, but Richard then singled me out and identified me as someone that he wanted to mentor. I’ve been to his house several times, spent time with him on that. I think he saw what I was trying to do with Vibe as a challenger brand and the world against it.
What you did with Voom as well, which is in line with...
Exactly, we're trying to build something that's right. People all the time question Vibe's model. I could tell you right now that if I turned on monetization tomorrow and charged for this service, we would be profitable within six weeks. But it's not the right thing to do. So we're going about it a different way. The external pressure for that is very, very difficult to stay strong to what you're trying to achieve and what the strategy is.
There were three finalists; we all won cash. And then MacRebur, the plastic roads guys, ended up winning the actual competition.
What did they win?
I think he won more cash and some prizes from JCDecaux, some of the partners, etc. That is a fantastic business by the way. Toby is a brilliant founder, so he was definitely a deserved winner. He is making a global impact on plastic, so fair play to him. But yeah, the following day Richard invited me to his house. I think he just liked Vibe.
And it was at that point where Richard Branson said to me, "Look Luke, Vibe isn't a ticketing business. Don't think of it as a ticketing business. You're in the business of connecting people, and data is your currency." That's when things clicked for me. Okay, how I've been packaging Vibe, how I've been selling Vibe, how I've been trying to convince people has to change. Vibe is about removing those barriers and it's about challenging any company that deliberately positions itself to exploit the customer. That's where Vibe can go as a brand. That really started to excite me, but also the investors that I'd previously visited which was: "Look, you've been thinking about Vibe as a ticketing business. The industry is very, very competitive, it's going to be difficult to demonstrate a model that's going to work. How about looking at it from this position?" And that's when the real cash started coming in.
But how is it—to go back to the question—how is it being a tech founder who is presumably always raising money? Like even when you close a raise, you have to then basically start thinking about the next raise you're doing, right? What I'm trying to get at is, I understand from my perspective what it's like, especially as a startup. In our first year, our bank account just went one way, right? But what does that feel like on a day-to-day basis? How does that impact your life? Do you come to peace with the idea that...?
As I said, I think you need to accept that this is the strategy and this is what we're playing for and you do it right.
What impact has it had on you though?
Very, very stressful. But you've got to take that burden on as a founder, I think.
How has it changed you on a personal level? How is Luke different because of those things now than he was three years ago?
Wow, that's a really good question.
This is what we're going to do on this podcast, by the way.
Yeah no, that’s a really good question and no one's ever asked that. That's probably because you're a founder yourself. I think it's made me—so Vibe's been in positions where we've got 20-odd staff, there's 80k about to go in wages, whatever, and we won't go into details, but the burn rate's chugging on. You've got three days of capital left and it's like you've got investors there and they're riding on the investors. They're waiting to get to a point where it's best to negotiate their position.
Of course.
But you become hardened to it. I think you then start understanding things from a different perspective. What you've got to do is you've got to take the emotion out of it. You've got to take the "these guys are trying to screw me" out. You've got to take the emotion out of "I'm really worried about everything else." You've got to go: "Look, this is the product, this is how we're doing things, this is why we're so successful." The alternative is: turn on monetization and slow growth, or turn on monetization and go against everything you've said and force something. Stick true to what you have and it'll come good. That's the only advice I can sort of give to people that are embarking on it.
In your first two years, what was your worst moment? Your toughest moment, let's say. The moment you thought—maybe not the toughest moment for you, but the moment which most people would consider the toughest. For us, it was probably when one day on the way to work, 6:00 AM in the morning, we get hacked. Someone emails all of our clients really personal abusive things. We lose all of our clients. There's 70 people here. They lose all their clients, so we know we've got no money.
And the cherry on top of that cake was that it was our team-building day. So everyone was on their way to paintballing. We pulled up at paintballing. On my way there at 6:00 AM, I start getting calls. Our investors have received personal abuse from our email address. Getting there and having to tell the whole company to turn around, we're going home, and we're going back to the office, there's no clients left. Them all being in their tracksuits and stuff, us sitting on the desks, them seeing me in the glass room on the phone talking to these brands trying to save it like a fucking bullshitter. What was your toughest moment in the first two years?
Probably—well, it's happened over the course of it—but I think the hardest thing for me has been thinking that something was when it wasn't. What I mean by that is, quite publicly recently, there's been a situation with Vibe where I was backed into a corner by someone who was my mentor, someone who did write my first investment check. I signed my first shareholders' agreement at age 20, raised this capital, and at the time didn't take independent legal advice. Throughout that period, I've thought that something was that it wasn't.
So let’s give that context then. Recently in the press, as some people would have seen, there was a story. The headline is: "Vibe Tickets goes into administration, bought back by the founder." So, you’re well-known for raising from the crowd. I’m not familiar with the process completely, but from what I understand, this is a platform—I think it’s Crowdcube?
Yes, we used Crowdcube once, yeah.
So, just from the external perception, it's quite good to start there with the ignorance. You raised on Crowdcube, you raised from other investors as well. The business goes under—this is just the public perception based on press. It says Luke Massie has bought the business back. People are annoyed because they think the people that invested have been burned, and then you've just bought the business back. What’s the truth?
Basically what happened was we had a very difficult structure in the old company. Again, touching on that and without going into the specifics of the details, but we had a very, very restrictive shareholders' agreement which meant that I couldn't take on new capital or I couldn't take on new debt without investor director consent. Which meant I constantly had to go back to a person to get their consent to do something.
It got to a stage where, again, we had agreement on the table for more capital to come in and there was a situation that was engineered which meant that it was favorable to that one person who was holding the cards. It actually got to a point where the rest of the investors said, "Well, we're not continuing to invest in this vehicle unless some of these documents are changed."
It then forced Vibe into a position where the company ran out of capital. The company ran out of cash, which meant it was insolvent. For those that don't understand that process, it means that once a company is declared insolvent, it means that as a director I have a duty by law to think of creditors first, not shareholders. That was very, very difficult considering that I was the biggest shareholder and I was also one of the biggest creditors, having put my director's loan in at the beginning—and people don't understand that.
So I had to take the correct legal advice and I had to take the correct independent insolvency advice. It was told to me, "Look, if this company doesn't get capital very, very quickly, the company's going to go under." So I went back to the shareholder base and asked for some short-term capital until I could get this deal over the line, and the money wasn't forthcoming. Which meant that I had no other option.
The company was placed into administration and I wasn't willing to give up on this. There was no way. So I frantically ran around, put some money together and put a bid together to the independent valuers of the business to say, "Look, I'm the founder, I'm willing to take this on. Here's my offer to the business." My offer was conditional.
Who makes the decision when you...?
So the insolvency practitioners, they put an independent value in, so they say, "Okay, we think this business is worth X," and take everything into consideration. It's a vigorous process.
Sounds like a fucking nightmare.
It’s not. It's absolutely horrible. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in my life because I'm now not in control of my own company. It could have easily been taken away from me because of this process. And for people to come out in the press to say that this was forced and this was—no one would want to go down that process. If anyone's been through it, never mind at the age I am, but no one would want to go down this process.
How did it feel?
I was frustrated, I was angry. I was so close to coming out and saying, "You guys don't know what's happened." I've not even come out and made a public statement yet. But going back to what happened is, my offer was conditional and I went in with an offer. My offer was declined, my first offer. I was so surprised, I couldn't understand. Surely I'm the only person that's tried to buy this business?
It became apparent that the one person that tried putting the company into administration had made a bid for my company. Now, people can take that however they want, but...
So one of your original shareholders who had let the business go under also tried to buy it back?
Not only that, this said person actually tried contacting key members of staff prior to it going into that. Now, this hasn't come out, this hasn't been demonstrated because I don't want to go over the past, but the situation that was portrayed was the fact that the headlines...
Contacting key members of staff as if to say like, "I'm going to buy this business and then I'm going to hire the people and then I'm going to run it myself" type thing.
You could take that however you want. No comment. Yeah, exactly. Those are the facts that people don't know about. So I've gone in with this offer, my offer’s declined. I couldn't believe it. "We've had a significantly larger offer, Mr. Massie." At that point, shit was real. This was it. I'm no longer in control of my company, someone else is buying it. What can I do?
So I sold some more personal assets, I sold some Bitcoin, I'm ringing around friends that I know, people that I can rely on. I said, "Look, I need to get more cash together to buy this business." I was told that I had two hours to improve my offer. Managed to script together some more cash and put my offer in. My offer was conditional on A, I took on the going concern of the business, things like Salesforce that are operational to the success of the business, but also that every single member of the staff was moved over. I didn't make one redundancy because my team was so important to me.
The first priority I had to do was to save the company, to get the staff. So that very day the transaction completed, Luke Massie buys the company back. Okay. That same very day, because one of my investors was on the stock market, they had to make an announcement to the London Stock Exchange. Which then all the press got onto it. The announcement to the Stock Exchange was just factual: "The company went into administration, Luke's bought it back."
So they all—not one media outlet in the Northwest rang me for a comment. They all just printed that "The company's gone into administration, Luke Massie’s bought it back." That was really disappointing for me because not one of them rung me up to ask for comment. Now, this is now spreading around Manchester. The headline was true, the fact was true: Luke Massie did buy the company. I did. Yeah, okay. But why and what's going to happen and what's happening next was never documented.
And you know what? It shouldn't have been documented. At the end of the day, this happens. But because Vibe was a public company...
I’ve got to be honest with you. First time I saw the headline—I think someone sent me a screenshot—I probably got sent it, being honest with you, nine times in the space of about seven days. Just like, cause you know what this entrepreneurial community is like, people send stuff around.
So the first thing I saw was—and I didn't read it properly cause it was just a headline. The first thing you think, and because I've got personal experiences of people doing this to screw me as well, was that the business has been flipped, you've shaken off people and debts and you've started again and screwed people. That's what the headlines portray.
Completely agree.
And anyone—if you saw that for Social Chain, you’d think the same thing because nobody knows your character. They know the personal brand, they know the tweets, whatever. They don't know character. And that's the difficult bit.
But then I—once I read, I actually took the time to read some things, I very quickly realized what had happened. Understanding how shareholder agreements are written and the past—my own personal past—I completely understood. And that's why I messaged you just to say...
No, I appreciate that. And for those listening, you sent me a text just to say, "Keep your head up Luke, these things happen, you'll shake it off." To get that from a fellow entrepreneur, someone who’s going through the challenges that you're going through, that helped me through it.
But again, it's that—you talked about character. I think that hurt me the most, which was people are actually questioning your character. People are coming out and saying that you're screwing people over. And this is the thing, is once I'd saved the company and I know, okay, now I'm back in control of things, the first thing I did was pick up the phone to my lawyer and say, "I want to give shares back to the crowd out of my own shares." Because that's what I was going to do, that was the right thing.
But before I could even come out and comment, first of all I had to take the right tax advice because what I didn't want to do was gift shares to people and then they would all be landed with a tax bill. So I had to do things correctly. And when I could announce it, I was relieved because I was like, "Look guys, this is what I was trying to do. You were all so quick to come out and judge and you were so quick to write the headlines." It was just in that moment I learned a lot. I learned a hell of a lot about how things are set up, how things are perceived, etc.
I wouldn't like to say that people do want to see you fail, but evidence backs that up. And that's the thing. Especially people that are in the local community who are trying to champion entrepreneurship. That's really, really bad. You know, at the end of the day, if this was happening in the States, I'd guarantee that people would have been sending me very different messages and the press would have been different.
Let's just take this down to the fundamentals. I genuinely believe—don't know if this is a good thing to say, don't care—I think 99% of human agenda is selfish in some regard. So when you're winning, say you start winning and I'm just Tom, Dick, and Harry watching. It’s in my advantage to back you because I want to align myself with that success.
And then when you fall, because you're joining me as someone that's not done anything, it's also good and it makes me feel good to watch you fall and to also take the opposite side and say, "Oh that prick, he fucked up. I always knew that was going to happen. That always happens, that's why I'm not doing it." It makes me feel good as a bystander to think, "Well, I wasn't inferior to Luke in fact. In fact, Luke was never going to succeed, so we're all the same here." Do you know? It's that kind of—it’s just the way people are chameleons and when genders and motives change, they change.
No, exactly. And this is the thing, one of the disappointing things was The Sunday Times wrote a piece not last Sunday, the Sunday before, which was the first page of the business section.
Really?
Which was my face. The image that was used that went on all the billboards because I was the face of Voom. And the headline was "Branson’s favorite goes under."
You're joking!
Exactly. "Branson's favorite goes under." First of all, I haven't gone under. Second of all, I've acquired the business back and things are actually fine. To the consumer, to a Vibe customer, they would never know what's actually gone on. But because Vibe is such a public business in this area and because we've rightly raised capital, it was blown up. But for that to be such a personal headline—that was aimed at me. That's me. That's not the Vibe Limited—I mean, bearing in mind we're separate entities. That was quite hard. But it was a lesson. It was a huge lesson for me. I can't wait for the day that we get to that stage where that reporter is asking for comment and I can go, "No."
Would you?
I don't think I'd give him a comment, no, because he's portrayed me to be something that I'm not. Where was my comment when you asked for—what was going on? Because what he could have done—this is a real talking issue here—is what he could have done is taken what's happened, painted a fair picture of what's happened, but then asked what I would have done differently. Because this is an interesting story for the startup scene, which is not just from the founder perspective, but also from the investor perspective. Because this could happen if you're too restrictive. This could happen if you force your founder into a corner. We'll find ourselves—we have to. So there's lessons to be learned here from founders: make sure you get independent legal advice. And again, I don't want to go over the same points because it is what it is, you can make your own judgments on it. At the end of the day, Vibe's now looking forward and it's a positive road for us.
I really want to go back to that point about that reporter. That reporter calls you, Vibe’s taken over the world. I work for Vibe, everyone works for Vibe, right? He calls you and says, "Luke, can I have a comment?" I honestly believe in that moment you should say to him, "100%." Because that is the—if you walk around with that grudge and that resentment to somebody who made a decision based on his own bullshit defects and whatever, his own agenda to make money and just to capitalize on a headline and get clicks, if you walk around with that grudge to that person, I think you're losing still.
Yeah no, and do you know what? I think because it's still raw. It's still raw, 100%. You're human. And this is actually the first time I've spoken about it. I've made comments—I came out, set the record straight, I'm giving my shares back to the crowd. Since then, I've not said anything, I've just cracked on.
Forgive all these fuckers.
I've not said anything. I've got a business to focus on. I've got an incredible team, I've got an incredible opportunity here with the business. I've got super, super supportive investors that have not just backed me, but they've backed me through this whole process as well. They're confident that I'm going to come through this as a stronger leader, but also Vibe is going to come through this as a stronger business. I genuinely do hope that in two, three years' time I look back and when people say, "What was the turning point?" it was this. I had to shake off that negative toxic cat. The last six months of my life have been managing the investors, not managing the business. It became a business itself.
It’s just...
And this is the problem. I've learned from that. At the end of the day, naivety—one of the comments that was on LinkedIn was "Luke's young and naive because he's not come out and said something." Okay, fine, you can be entitled to that opinion. I was young and naive at 20 signing a shareholders' agreement which pretty much meant that I couldn't make the decisions on behalf of the company.
The other thing is that shareholders' agreement was never challenged at any investment round I've ever been through, including the Crowdcube round, who have their own lawyers looking at things. So no alarm bell was ever raised for me that something's wrong here until the final raise when the company's run out of capital.
What did it feel like to go on the internet, log in, and see someone you don't know talking shit about you?
Really tough, but not because of them talking shit about me.
What was the worst thing you read?
"Luke Massie had this planned all along." Really? As if this is like premeditated, I want to screw people. That is ridiculous. Bearing in mind everyone's been given shares back. That's it, apart from the guy that put us in this position anyway and the very small few that were following him.
So to have that, it was difficult. It was new ground, it was new territory for me because I've always been portrayed in the media as a good guy doing the right things at the right time.
This is the thing, though. The reason why that headline was written by The Sunday Times is presumably because you as a brand are big and Vibe is big. Vibe going under is not really as big a story as connecting it to someone as big as Richard, and then connecting it to yourself. Part of the danger I guess of building a personal brand where you're known just as much as your business is known is when things do go bad, you'll be dragged into the pits. If nobody knew Luke Massie as an entrepreneur, there would be fucking no story there. There really would not be a story there.
But if you think what people like is they like the rise and the fall. They like to cover the Whitney Houston going to the top and then the Michael Jackson falling. You know what I mean? So it comes with—it’s one of the real dangers and one of the things that I'm quite scared about, I'm genuinely scared about with entrepreneurs building their personal brands, is you will rise big. I've seen this in entrepreneurs that I've followed. You’ll rise big and you'll rise young and you'll be clapped all the way up, right? And then they're waiting. The same motherfuckers are waiting to boo when anything goes wrong. I’ve seen friends time after time their companies go up and then down, and the impact it's had on some of them is really tough. Mental health issues, especially the real young ones. I'm not talking about you because you're much more mature and old now compared to some of these young entrepreneurs. I'm talking about 18-year-olds. I've literally got messages from 18-year-old kids asking me how they're meant to deal with this when they've gone bust.
Well, this is what I'm saying. Hopefully the process that I've been through, I'd like to shed some positive light on it, which is lessons were learned. If I can pass that on to the next young founder who's raising some capital who might not have the resources or the money to get the correct legal advice, I could just maybe point him: "Look out for this, look out for dragon tag, look out for these points."
Three things then. I'm 18 years old, I'm Luke, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm wanting to start a business.
Correct accountant that can give you the correct advice. Okay, so that's number one. Correct lawyer. In fact, no. Number one would be a co-founder. If you have someone who can share that burden, someone—you'll know with Dom—if you have someone who can share that burden, someone—even...
I didn't even think about that.
It’s ridiculous. A co-founder, someone who you're in the pub with when things are down. What can—because no one, it's such a lonely place. It is such a lonely place. And if I have a co-founder I can go, "What about this? What about this?" It's not on a non-other than it is real context. So even me and you now, we can talk about our issues and our challenges and they might be the same, but in different context. So the advice that I give you might work for Vibe, but it might not work for Social Chain and vice-versa. It then becomes familiarized advice.
So your text to me was brilliant, but in context it wasn't, if that makes sense. Which is "Luke, keep..." well, that's really hard, Steve, when people are writing about me, you know what I mean? It's like, but what you're saying is right. And I think having a co-founder to share that responsibility—because it's sanity as well. I think it would be even 20 times harder if you was the only founder and you've no one to bounce that off. You can get sucked into the bullshit. That can become your reference point.
I see that really bad. I see founders coming to me going, "Luke, I've actually got this, it's worth—we're touching a million now in revenue, what's the next step?" And I say, "Go and find a co-founder." Like even three years in, I don't care. Go and find the guy that you can share the—he's worth 5%, 10%, 20% equity, believe me in the long run. Go and find that guy, go and find that girl.
And co-founders need to understand what they're getting into as well. So many people talk about their co-founder and the co-founders have no value, no value whatsoever. That's another thing that's interesting; we were having a conversation before this and that does happen. So yeah, get a co-founder, get the right documents in place from a legal point of view, even between you and your co-founder. It's like going into a relationship and having a mortgage or whatever it is. Set the foundations right from day one because the only purpose of a contract is for when things go wrong. And shit will go wrong.
And the crazy thing is, especially when you're young, you're just so eager to just give it a fucking go that you don't want to spend so much—you just want to get the fucking money in and the thing put in the drawer and the contract signed and you think, from here on in we're just going to build a billion-dollar company, I'm going to retire with a fucking jet, everything's going to go fine. We're not even going to need to look at that contract again. But I'm yet to run a business—I've probably raised investment in some way maybe 13 times—and the contract every single raise I've looked at it and thought, "Ah God, I wish I'd done something differently."
Yeah exactly. Especially the first couple. The first investment I thought, "Fuck, I've fucked myself."
Insane, isn't it?
Second one I thought I'd fucked myself again. My current investors are amazing.
Yeah no, exactly. But I mean I looked at these and I was like, "Luke, who signed that?" But you don't know better. And people—this is what the press could have run. This press could look: this has happened, Luke's come through it, he's managed the process, let's put that behind us.
That's not a story. No one's getting clicks for that. "Luke's come through it, he's managed the process." It’s "Richard Branson's favorite's gone under." It just doesn't make it right. And this is why I don't take it personally. And I know those same people that are going to tear me down are the ones that are going to build me up. I've become...
So how are you going—for those listeners, how are you going about mitigating that? Are you going into every situation analyzing, or are you just going "fuck it, why not" to a certain extent? Are you going, "Do you know what, is this a correct use of my time? Is this correct for what I'm trying to get across and could this be misconstrued?"
Give me a more specific example.
So you're talking—so you get invited on to go on to TV. At what—how do you value that?
How do I make the decisions? Yes. Been asked to go on loads of TV shows. If you ask my team or you ask anyone in the company, we've been—MTV have asked me to go on a show called "How I Got Rich." I look at what they want me to do and it's "Go on a helicopter, show your Rolexes." No, fuck you. I've probably had that exact offer with the title change 10 times. "No, fuck you." I'm looking for things that will bring value in some respect to things I care about.
And also, do you not think there's a responsibility as—exactly, it’s not who I am. There's a responsibility for people that are following you and follow your brand expect something. For you to go and do that is potentially wrong.
Here's what I'm trying to do. 18-year-old Steve Bartlett wrote in his diary: "I want to be a millionaire before I'm 25, I want a Range Rover to be my first car, I want to work on my body image, and the fourth one was I want to have a long-term girlfriend." Long story. I did all four of those things, but upon doing those things, I realized that those weren't the things that are going to give me happiness and fulfillment.
So at that point when I was 25 years old and I looked at my diary, everything was there. But how do you explain that to an 18-year-old? So this is what I mean—so I get there, I realize that money and stuff aren't going to do it for me, and I look back down the age ladder, let's call it, and I see 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds. They're looking at footballers and they're looking at all these things. I don't want those fuckers to make the same mistake I did.
Do you think that's an influencer issue?
I talk about it on every channel, on this podcast, every single fucking episode, about how...
Stop thinking that something is it, smoke and mirrors.
Yeah, stop chasing after pleasure thinking it's happiness. Because there's this thing called the hedonic treadmill, which is when you chase the Lamborghini, you get a Lamborghini—I've sat in my friend's Lamborghinis—a week later, they don't like their Lamborghinis anymore. Because you adapt and then you're looking for the next thing.
And they've probably sold things like their name and morals to get it as quick as possible.
And so my thing is, I'm never going to get there, ever. I'm never going to get to this place. There's not a destination, is there? No. So I have to create a life where I'm already there in every sense of the word. I've got enough now, I'm happy enough now. If I died today I've done enough, I've been nice. And all those things. So I've stopped pinning my fulfillment on a future extrinsic goal of getting something or achieving something.
I've built my life to where I want it to be sustainable now. I want to speak to my mom more, I want to give to charity now. I'm not trying to cut down the rainforest and then donate to the fucking rainforest. I'm going to build a business which within the rainforest that helps the rainforest. You know? So it's just a change in my perspective. And I share that perspective. I don't share my car, I don't share what I'm—you know, I don't share how I travel or the nicer things. I try not to share the extravagant things because I don't want to trick anyone into thinking that matters.
It’s a journey I've been on and it's an interesting thing. I wanted to ask you as well is what's your—what's your relationship—I probably tainted this answer but—what's your relationship and motives when it comes to money? What do you want from money?
Security. So I think one thing that I've craved throughout my life is security. You know, knowing that I can look after my mom. And that's it. As long as there's a level of security, I think looking after my family, I think... and not just security, but even down to my day-to-day decisions. I'm in a long-term relationship, I've got a stable relationship. That's something that I've craved from a young age which is: I was the eldest, I was looking after my brothers and sisters, I was trying to add stability ever since I was young. I was the one trying to support my mom through tough times.
So I think that stability is a massive thing for me because as an entrepreneur to want stability is quite insane because even as we operate, stability isn't the best... exactly. So my life in terms of Vibe, in terms of how I approach things is so unprocessed. It's, you know to a certain extent, it's like the creative mind. And then I go home and Luke Massie at home is stable, craves that thing. I go home and I still, you know, look... go and see my mom frequently, do the food shop with her, that sort of thing. And that I think is how I've been able to sort of stay grounded to a certain extent. Not that I've gone on and achieved things that I want to yet, but I think it just puts perspective on things. I still go into the Ingol Labor Club in Preston where it's £2 a pint and people are playing darts and people are playing pool. That's Friday night and that's because that's who I am and that's where I'm from, you know.
You talked about going home to your partner. What's the deal, is she your girlfriend?
Yes, so Frankie. I've been with Frankie since I was 20 years old. Really good girl. Again, brought stability. She's got her own business, her life is busy as well. She's got her own beauty salon.
Does she understand?
Yes, I think she understands the...
Does she understand?
Well, I don't know. I think she understands business to a point. It's tough. It is tough because she'll come to me with her problems, I'm like, "That is your problem? Let me explain the real problem."
That is so funny. Every time I ask that question to an entrepreneur, it's the exact same response. I say, "You've got a partner, does she understand?" They go, "Yeah, she understands," and I go, "Does she understand?" and they go, "No, she fucking doesn't."
No she does. She’s really smart, she's doing her own things. She's going to listen to this, so no. She does, but...
My thing is, I have to understand that they'll never really understand and I'll cause immense friction trying to get them to understand. That is a tweet right there. Like, I in my past relationships, I've caused such immense friction by trying to get them to understand this thing that I can't even use words to explain. I can say it's really fucking hard. You don't know what "hard" is. You're using your reference point of what "hard" means to you.
That's the thing. You go back home and teas on the table and it's like, "How's your day been?" and it's like, "Boom. Do I even bother? What do you mean 'how's my day been?' How do I explain that?" It is insane. But at the same time, if I was to ask, and I do, "What's your problems?" it's like, "Well, this girl came in and wasn't happy with this" or what... it’s, I can't even relate to that and I'm like, "Yeah, okay."
It's relative.
Exactly, exactly. So for me it's that stability and it's, you know, without getting the violin out or anything, but when I was growing up I never had a proper Christmas that everyone was around the table. And then I found this girl and I'd go around to her house and that was the family, you know. And I felt myself: "Well, this is what I wanted."
They say behind every great man is a great woman, or they say behind every great woman's a great man. I'm sure it works for me, stability in home life. I think then it gives you that rock. So when you are going through these turbulent times, you've got that other person that's going, "Yeah but Luke, so what?" You know, it's like and then you... it's like you've said, you've got to then live in the moment and reflect and go, "Do you know what? Look where I actually am. This is where... what's the worst that can happen? I go back to living in a council estate. I've come from that. I've come from that. That's fine, we'll go back there. My mates are still there, it’s not a problem."
You're not scared of the bottom because you were cool there.
That's what I'm saying. It's like, just go for it.
I noticed in your bio it says "giving it a real go." That's all I'm doing. Like people said to me all the time, "That is all I'm doing. I might fail and fine, but I tell you what, I'm going to just keep learning, keep giving it a go." Why? Why is it worth trying? Why don't you just go get a job at somewhere nice and comfy with no fucking stress? You can clock off at 6:00, you can just chill out. You'll know how much money's coming in and you don't have to fucking worry about any bank balances or anything. Nice cushy life, you'll go on holidays every quarter.
Yeah, and a lot of my friends in stable jobs and stable relationships have that. I don't think there's anything wrong with that because I don't think everyone is born to do this. For me, I think it's... again, all I've ever done in my life is ask why. I think what I'd do if I did that is I'd be asking myself every single morning, "Why? Why am I going and doing this?" and I'd then probably get to the answer, which is "It's giving me money" or "It's allowing me to go on that holiday." So then I'd say to myself, "Well, how could I do that anyway by doing something I wanted?" I'd always keep coming around back at that same question and it'd probably come back to freedom, being able to live life on my own terms. However I do things might not be the right way, but I'm going to give it a go in Luke Massie's way.
But think about this Luke, you know, all this fucking pain, all this stress, all this bullshit. You're asking me a question that you don't know the answer to, so we can... no, I know the answer to it. You do know the answer to it? So I know why I tolerate all the bullshit. Why do you tolerate all the bullshit? Because there is no other fucking version of Steve Bartlett. There is no other version. So it's not for me, it's not even a choice. It's I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying.
But you could ask a guy who’s in a stable job on £70k a year in Oslo and he might give you the same answer. It’s all about alternatives. Would I rather be in a cushy middle ground somewhere earning stable checks and just coasting through life, not really challenging myself? Or would I rather take the risk and go for it?
I'm someone that is so deeply connected to my own mortality. Like the way that—one of the big things I say to people when they're trying to figure out how they should live their lives is: you know there's that expression, "live every day as if it's your last"? Bullshit. Do not do that. That's fucking terrible advice. If you lived every day as if it was your last, you would definitely have an addiction.
What if this was an hourglass, this can of whatever it is here, and I put it on your desk, right? And it poured down how many days you had left. 40 days, right? Would you ask yourself this: would you A, be holding the grudges you had right now? Would you B, be doing the thing you do every day when you wake up at 7:00 in the morning and leave at 7:00 at night? If you could see the sand pouring out of that hourglass into the bottom and you say it had 50 years, I think people would live a completely different life.
I think they would take more risks, I think they would forgive easier. This is why I was talking about forgiving that guy. Do you think people are scared though? Do you think people are scared of "Right, I've got this, this is my comfort zone"? Here's the great thing. This is the great thing with the hourglass. It tells you where you're going to end up regardless. You're going to die. Like it's the real—this is reality, deal with it.
No matter what you... so what's the thing to be most scared of I think in life is death, right? So people are oh, scared that they might not be able to pay the bills. You're going to die. That's the biggest one. The most scary thing is going to happen. Steve Jobs, he really inspired me with his commencement speech where he said, "You're already naked." Understanding that I'm going to die has given me all of the fearlessness to go for it regardless.
All of these fuckers writing about you, they're going to die too. They're all going to be fucking forgotten. Everything and also one of the things that's really liberated me is really believing that I'm really not special. That I'm insignificant to the world, I don't matter, and therefore all of my problems and my shit doesn't really matter anyway. It's a game, I've got this hourglass on my desk, the sand is pouring. I'm just going to use my time as however I want. I'm going to forgive people, I'm not going to do petty things, I'm not going to worry about what people think about my hair. If they want to talk shit about me on my deathbed—and this is what I call deathbed thinking which is the book I've been talking about a lot—is am I going to care about Jenny that doesn't know me tweeting me telling me I'm a fucking idiot? Which happens ten times probably ten times a day. I'm not going to care about that. I'm going to care about my mom and what I did and how good I was.
So trying to live my life now as if, you know, I'm on my deathbed and that hourglass is ticking away has given me... why the fuck would I go do that call center job I did for 12 hours a day if the hourglass was there? Making money to pay the bills for me has never been—never made any sense.
Well I think that's for me and the "why" isn't it? It's like questioning that why.
Imagine just paying the bills till you die.
Well that happens, doesn't it? Like that does, and people are cool... you know, and people are cool with that, and that's the thing.
By the way, there's nothing wrong with people in call centers. Listen, the thing that it's wrong for everybody to do is do some shit for the rest of your life where you tolerate some stuff you hate. Definitely. I couldn't agree more. If you love being a fucking schoolteacher, love it. Amazing. You are more successful than the most famous...
Well that scenario is: if you wasn't being paid for this, would you still do it?
100%. That's the question I ask people. If you... 100%. I did it for two years without being paid. Exactly. I was a kid in Moss Side trying to build a business, shoplifting food, trying to, you know... and the money hasn't—hasn't impacted me in any way.
No, it's good to see, it is good to see and I think there's a lot of people that follow you and are influenced by you. Not just because I'm sat here, but I think you are someone that people should listen to and be influenced by the correct influence. Love Island starts next week and people are influenced by the wrong things, definitely.
§02Transcript — part 2
I think you're in that position now where you are paying back even this podcast, I think, you know, you're spending your time now trying to give back. I think that's important. The journey that I’ve been on, even the last six months, I think it's really important. Because if you can just help that one person... you was telling me about another business that you've been involved in and it was someone that was actually part of your competition. I mean, that's just insane.
I want to take it back to that thing you said. So you said, "Why don't you just go get like the middle ground, whatever, something that's comfortable?" Why doesn't Luke Massie go do the comfortable thing?
I don't know, I'm trying to find it. Sounds to me like you've had a lot of time to think about this because you've probably been asked it a lot more than me. This is the first time I'm being asked it and I probably don't really have the straight answer to it.
What is making Luke Massie—what's driving him?
Ah, this is another hard question. I don't know. I don't know. I think what was driving me to get up and do the milk round when I was 13 years old? What, you know... I don't know. I think for me it's settling, or thinking that you're there, or I don't know. It's such a tough one. I think for me it's just an internal drive and...
What do you want your life to look like? Say in 10 years' time? No, let's say 20 years' time. What does your life look like?
I can't see it. That's what probably scares me, that's probably what drives me. And it's not that enough is enough, for me it's that because I've craved stability all my life, it's probably getting to that place where even if this failed or even if this failed, everything would be fine. I don't know whether I'll ever get to that stage like you're saying and maybe you're a year ahead on that.
Do you know what I think as well? I think because...
Because I think we're still both learning, you know, you're learning, I'm learning, and it's we're both at—we're on this cycle and this is the thing and it's our duty to pass it on just as we're getting passed on information.
Do you know what it is? This is my observation from this conversation. I think you're right in the sense that I've gone a little bit further down the cycle because of the types of issues I'm dealing with. So I'm—you're dealing as you said, you've spent the last how many months dealing with investor stuff. I'm spending less of my time dealing with that kind of thing. And when you're dealing with investor stuff like raising, it's every waking hour of the day and it's urgent and it's so important, so you don't have the head space to think a little bit longer.
No, agreed. And I think I need to put—fast forward a couple months, I've got some key staff coming into the business. For me, it’s just stepping back operationally, even if it's just for getting the head out of the clouds and just seeing things from a different perspective, I think will help things.
And I think that's what it is. So I think I've just had, because there's Managing Directors running the business, I think I've had a lot of thinking time. I remember key moments where one real moment which made me think about why the fuck I'm doing what I do every day was when we got a real offer to buy the business from a very big media company. There was a billion-dollar multi—probably a hundred-billion-dollar media company.
I went home that night as a 24-year-old and I thought, "Okay, so if I sell and I accept this offer, then what do I do?" And that was the moment where you start to really realize: what would the money do for me versus taking this purpose from me? And then really thinking, what would I do tomorrow? Would I start another business? Do I just spend the money? Would I want more money? Realizing that the motive for me to get loads more money really isn't the thing. So why am I doing it then? Because 18-year-old Steve, when he started and he wrote it in his diary, it was all money.
Okay, so last question. Dinner table. There are six seats. You're sitting in one of them, I'm sitting in the other. I get to cook. There are four other seats. Dead or alive, you can invite anybody to this dinner party. Who do you invite to the table and why?
Oh, you with these questions. Who are the first people that pop to mind?
Mom. Even if she didn't understand it. It's really interesting that you'd bring her. I think even though she wouldn't understand it or that there's other people... even if there was the most famous guy in the world there, but yeah, my mom.
On that, I'm going to digress slightly there. So your mom has been this incredibly important influence in your life as you've explained, and everything you've said has kind of touched back to that. In those tough moments where people are talking shit and you know from your mom's perspective those are people talking shit about her son, is that one of the things that really gets to you the most?
No, because I protect her from it. My mom doesn't see... she doesn't see... my mom doesn't have Wi-Fi on. Yeah, my girlfriend sees it. I think she knows the truth. Yeah, and she's extremely supportive and she knows that my actions have always said who I am. So she knows. Yeah exactly, and how I go about things day-to-day, how I support things. Anyone who knows me, even without seeing those headlines, sent me a message because they know me as a character. They know, whatever's gone on Luke, don't really need to know the detail, it'll be cool. They know you. Yeah, they know me and it's... so yeah, I think it's becoming hardened to it and just distancing yourself.
But for my mom's point of view, she doesn't understand what I do. Same. My mom is an alcoholic, she's in that place where I'm just a son and it doesn't matter what happens, I'm still a son and I think she's happy for me. So it's about protecting her and knowing that she—I think my mom blames a lot of things that have happened in our life down to her, especially external circumstances.
Is she hard on herself?
Well yeah, and I think that was one of the reasons for turning to alcohol. That was her sort of probably escaping and still is to a certain extent, but...
And you've dealt with that your whole life?
Yeah, definitely. Your whole life? Yeah, my whole life. So it's for me it's—so when I was young I was very aggressive towards it. You could probably tell in my character. I was confused, I didn't understand why, I didn't... and I would come home and one day you'd get my mom who was up and the house was clean, and then some days you'd get my mom who’s been in bed for three days because she's depressed and she can't face the world and I just couldn't understand it. Because I don't suffer from depression and I don't suffer from depression.
You know, so there was confusion, anger. As a young lad you're still trying to figure yourself out, you're going through puberty, you're growing up, etc. And there was all this. And also, which is worth pointing out is: you've seen my personal brand and personal message. When I was 17, 18, 19 and I was trying to start this operation, you'd see me in shirts and ties and suits and because I was trying to portray this picture thinking that I was this... this lad. And it actually got to a stage where I started thinking, "Do you know what? Why—what am I hiding from here? Why am I embarrassed? This is it. And it's probably a massive part of my story and it's what drives me, it's who I am. So why hide from it?" And it started becoming real and the tie then came off and then the shirt came off and now I'm just cool within myself.
And you talked about depression there. We live in a world where depression, anxiety, all these things are both the awareness of them is increasing but the data says that they are increasing as well. And in founders, and young founders like myself and you, we go through so much bullshit, right? So much unpredictable anxiety.
And also, one of our biggest things is we take on the responsibility of everything that goes on. So I'm talking there about protecting my mom from things. I make sure I go out of my way to make sure that she doesn't hear the bad things because that would hurt her. But you do it for your staff. You do it for... you're the umbrella of everything. You are everything. So, you know, and yes sometimes you're in the press and you're in the limelight and it seems like you're the front man, but guess what? That is the tip of the iceberg. The 90% is you're dealing with it 24/7.
Everyone's doing it. Everyone's got their own battles and I think that's... but your battles are unique, right? And they're proportionally bigger. I'm talking about myself as well when I say this, but they're proportionally bigger than, you know, wondering, worrying about what Jenny said about your hair at work. And you know after this conversation when you look at your phone or your emails, there'll probably be some bullshit there for you to deal with. You know, there's almost I always used to have this kind of like email anxiety, especially in my early startup days. You wake up in the morning, you don't want to see your emails because you know if you refresh it, there's going to be some fucking bad news because every day there is, right? Going back to the point about mental health. Have you suffered with anything?
Ooh, one thing I would say is I'm probably cold in terms of some relationships. Emotionally. Emotionally because something bad's coming. Something bad's going to happen. So you, even from a young age, you become heartened. So you know when my mom had serious depression when I was younger and even child service agencies nearly came in at one point, it was that bad, is that I protected my brother and sister. So I made sure that they knew they were loved and things were fine and mom's just going for a bad time. So that then straight away from an early age and you know, as I said, I think then every challenge you go through then it's just toughens you up until you're cold.
The toughening up thing though, I mean that's like conducive with... this is—I'm asking this because I'm interested for me, right? So I used to think, you know, I'm tough, I'll get—I'm hard, and you hear these stats about men and, you know, male suicide and these kinds of things and you think, "Steve, maybe—maybe you're not super fucking Superman. Maybe you too are susceptible to these things." And when I think from the age of 18 to 24 building my business, I thought no I could never get anything. No mental health issues could ever touch me. Now I've changed my mind. Now I think after reading so many books I'm like, we're probably the most vulnerable. Yeah we're probably the most vulnerable when you think about it.
You know, we are. Because we and we also convince ourselves that we are immune and we just—we close down, we don't share as much on the emotional side because we have teams. And if you was to ask Frankie, my partner, she'd probably say that that is the number one issue that she has with me, which is: I don't tell my problems and then she'll see it and it's like, "What? Like you've been going through that?" and it's like, "Well yeah." But it's not your issue, you know what I mean? My ex-girlfriend turned around to me in the car and it fucking hit me like a ton of bricks. She went, "Are you depressed?" And I wasn't.
I get "Are you bipolar?" Because one minute I'm buzzing, I've just done a deal, I'm fine, then next minute my world's changed. You're just a million miles away sat next to somebody. Exactly.
But that's interesting. I think it's just one of the things that I'm really—again this is being a little bit—a little bit further down the path—is I'm really focusing on taking care of myself. Because I now believe that...
So how do you do that mentally?
So there's a number of things. So there's a book I've got to recommend, which I read this week, called "Lost Connections." And it's all about debunking the idea that mental health issues are anything to do with a chemical imbalance. And it's not what—what's wrong with you, it's what's happened to you. And it goes through all of these major studies that prove this. Even—so it goes through everything from like nature, right? Nature and us as animals being creatures of a certain environment. They show a study where prisoners who face out onto green grass are 25% less likely to get depressed than prisoners that face out onto concrete. That's one thing, right?
Then there's other things like your—we're social animals, we're tribal animals. That's how we evolved and survived today. So we've got incredibly lonely in this connected world to the point now where the average American, when they're asked how many people have you got that you could really count on if you needed to and like depend on and talk to in those moments, the most popular answer now is zero. Fifteen years ago it was three. We're becoming more and more isolated in this crazy connected world. They show all these studies, they show that people who have close friends and family and talk to them and socialize are significantly, significantly less likely to become depressed and happier.
So I've got a question for you then which is, you know, if you don't mind me saying, off the record prior to this sort of podcast it was, you know, you were saying to me that you've got very, very few friends and you're extremely busy, etc. And you said you haven't got—yeah exactly, and you sort of said to me and admitted, "I feel like I'm a bit of a social recluse." Now you read this book and one of the things is that we're tribal and we're socializing. Do you think that that's what you need to do? Do you think you need to let a few more people into your circle?
The romantic relationship bit is exactly linked to that. So I 100% do.
You have to come to Preston honestly, you'll find a good girl in Preston.
It doesn't come naturally to me, right? So what I want to do naturally is go home tonight and go on my laptop. Because that's comfort zone. That's what you do. That's what I'm good at. I think I'm good alone. Depends what you search at 11:00 at night though, doesn't it? It'll be my emails, I promise you.
But what I've done tonight is I messaged my friend and I said, "Listen, I'm doing this podcast and then let's go for a drink." He—I don't want to do it. No, he knows that. I've called him, I told him on the phone, I said, "Look, I don't want to go see friends." He knows I don't want to fucking do it. He knows I'm doing it because I now believe that I should do these things. It's better for my mental health, it's better for my business therefore, it's going to make me a much happier person in the long term. I believe in it. So I'm doing things because I believe in them, not because they're habitual, let's say.
Back to this table.
But yeah, so back to this table. Elon Musk has got to be on there for me as just a guy that is just challenging everything. He is for me the entrepreneur disruptor. He is: something's not right, I'm going to do something about it. And that's it. And you know what, he might not get them all right. But you know what? And you know what he's actually done, he's taken the blueprint of what Richard Branson did and he's made it better. Putting that car up into space, doing whatever he's done with Hyperloop—he's just taken what's already existed and done it better. That's him.
My thing with Richard—sorry, Elon—the reason why I love him is because he was willing to spend all of his billions from PayPal on electric cars and space travel. Things that were bigger than him. He's not trying to make money. This guy's trying to change the world. He wants to build a legacy. That's his number one agenda. I can't say that.
But the reason why he's in that position is because he's bought himself that time and that position. He’s bought himself that respect. Exactly. Because that's what money gives you, is that choice. So if you can get Social Chain and Social Group to where you think it can and I can get Vibe where I think it can be, we'll then be in a position in five, ten years' time where we can do things that we want to do and our agenda can change.
You know, again he's got to be on the top of the list for admirers, you know, as an entrepreneur. So my mom, Elon Musk, you—you're on the table. Are you on the table, mate, or are you not on the table?
I'm cooking already, so I'm...
Right, you're cooking. Okay. Poof. Let's go for music, something in music maybe? Kanye West. Kanye West because he's just... we're not going to get to eat anything. Yeah, exactly, no we're not. We’re just talking. Yeah, but he's just an outside thinker, rightly or wrongly. I love him but I do think he's a bit of a false... no, that's what I'm saying, he rightly or wrongly—I think he's a genius and also—he is a genius, yeah. And well they say don't they, like about genius and insanity, they're so close together and I think he is on there. But if you had Elon Musk, Kanye West, my mom—wow, that is insane.
Last one.
Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking, definitely. He left his mark on the world. There was a few funny jokes obviously when he passed away, but yeah he's a genius. I mean, I've watched his films, the two different ones. You know, and the guy was a bit of a player back in the day, I know he had six or seven different kids. And he was a geek, you know? Yeah, he was the original guy wasn't he? So yeah: Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Kanye West, and my mom.
How would you want to be remembered? I've just stolen that from the True Geordie. It's going to be so dead. How do I want to be remembered? As a guy that had morals—no, as a guy who had beliefs and stayed true to it, whether it was right or wrong. And I want people to know when I've had a discussion with them or they've met me is that everything I've said then and there is actually what he believes. You might not agree with it, and that's cool, I am cool with that. But you know where you stand with Luke Massie. You know he's honestly speaking from the heart and he's not got an agenda, he's not... that's who he is. You know, and I'll give the right feedback at the right time and it's not a personal thing, it's just if you ask me for something I'll give it you. Honesty. And that's why I think because of what's been said in the podcast, that's why it's so close to heart, so passionate about it. So yeah, I think just being a man of his word.
Amazing. On that point, thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Pretty late now. What time is it? Super late at night, 11:00, so better go get some food. But thank you so much for coming on. People can find you on Twitter and everywhere under @LukeMassie, everywhere, and obviously they can find @VibeTickets everywhere. So it’s been a real pleasure and I’m sure we’ll continue these discussions off the mic.
Agreed. Thanks, Steve.
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