Ash Ali & Hasan Kubba - How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

[00:00:00] We had some very late nights working on the Balkan Trashing It Out and there were moments where I just wanted to just sort of tell and go, I'm not at all ready enough now, but we just carried on and carried on and I think bouncing from each other and having that ability to work with each other was really, really important.

[00:00:14] Welcome to Escape The Rat Race Radio, I'm your host, Christian Rodwell, and this is your ticket to Escape The 95.

[00:00:22] I think learning is the new key element of working in a workplace. If you're not learning and growing, then you really need to consider why you're there and what's the purpose of it because if it's just a job to pay the mortgage then that's going to really make you feel disheartened.

[00:00:39] Hey, welcome to another episode of Escape The Rat Race Radio. My name is Christian Rodwell and this week my guests are Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba.

[00:00:53] Now for those of you who have been longstanding listeners to Escape The Rat Race Radio, you will remember Ash from Episode 29 where he shared some stellar lessons that all budding entrepreneurs can learn from.

[00:01:04] And I'm going to link to that episode in today's show notes for you to go back and listen to if you haven't heard that before.

[00:01:10] Okay, so today, however, Ash is joined by Hasan who is a longstanding friend and business associate and the co-author of their brand new book The Unfair Advantage. Now the subtitle of this book is how you already have what it takes to succeed.

[00:01:26] And I think that is just so relevant for all of my listeners because it really is true. It comes back to the famous quote from Henry Ford,

[00:01:34] when you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Now successful entrepreneurship is really 80% mindset and 20% skill set. There's always someone else that has the answer. Now in today's conversation you're going to hear Ash and Hasan tell you why we all have unfair advantages in life.

[00:01:53] What do we happen to be really analytical in the way that we think? Or we have a talent for something that might have been thought really geeky when we were at school, but actually now is our greatest asset.

[00:02:04] Or it could be that you just naturally have a great feel for people and can build relationships really easily. So an unfair advantage is simply the element that gives you an edge over your competition. And the quicker you can really get clear on that,

[00:02:18] the quicker you're going to start seeing success and traction in your business. Now with Ash's 20 years of hands-on experience creating and growing startups combined with Hasan's own digital marketing agency background and startup investment experience,

[00:02:34] we should definitely be taking note of what these guys are sharing with you today. Okay, let's do this. Let's head on over to today's conversation with the authors of the unfair advantage Ash Ali and Hasan cover.

[00:02:52] So welcome to Escape the Rat Race Radio Ash and Hasan. How are you both today? Wow, well thank you very much for inviting me back and I did promise at the end of that one. I think that'll be back in the new year. So my back.

[00:03:33] You did so it's great having gotten great to be joined obviously by Hasan. So what are you guys just sharing a little bit about what you're both up to at the moment how you first connected?

[00:03:42] And then we're going to talk about something pretty special that's happening right now. So everybody has. Yeah, so my name is Hasan Kubba and yeah we've been working on this book for a while now the unfair advantage has been like three and a half years in the making

[00:03:59] and it's based on our experiences as entrepreneurs. I kind of escape the rat race myself basically. I worked in the city very briefly after I graduated from university

[00:04:12] and I just thought this really isn't for me. And about four months into it after doing two different jobs and kind of doing sales jobs specifically kind of more

[00:04:23] ones that would work on my sales skills in particular. I decided to go out on my own, start my own business and that was around 2014, early 2014

[00:04:33] and yeah took a couple of years of really hard work and my goal was to get kind of passive income stream coming in.

[00:04:41] And it's hard work, let me sell you. But I did get in the end and I kind of was able to travel and kind of enjoy myself and go out on Southeast Asian islands

[00:04:51] and later on when I met Ash, I took him to that side of the world as well as he saw to how great it could be.

[00:04:58] And then I kind of came back to London and that's actually where I met Ash when I came back. I met Ash at a business dinner and you know this is one of those right place right time kind of things for us.

[00:05:09] It was business dinners aren't usually what we go to really we haven't really been to any ever since but there we were a sat next to each other

[00:05:16] bonding over the food we're having and things things is a bit overrated isn't it? And we became friends. I became Ash's investment partner. He had just had the just the IPO.

[00:05:27] I had a bit of free time because my business was running itself and we started to get a lot of experience in investing in startup founders

[00:05:35] and that's where the concept of the unfair advantage on the book came about is as we were working gained those pictures kind of started to see who succeeds and who doesn't and who has good progress in their startup right

[00:05:48] who wants to get the funding and we started to see patterns and unfair advantages all around. So this was the concept that we came up with and actually started off with Ash having the idea and then

[00:05:58] you're working with him and developing it further and working on this book together, basically. Yeah so Ash, you know I definitely saved people listening right now

[00:06:07] they can go back to episode 29 here the full background story of obviously your time with just eat but tell us what's been happening in the last in the last couple of years

[00:06:16] Oh my god, so getting this book ready, I mean I've been all over the world speaking about the unfair advantage and it's been a pleasure

[00:06:23] and humbling to be able to share our stories and share the just eat story and all the stories are of investing in startups and failing and succeeding

[00:06:30] around the world and how people are connecting the dots and actually connecting with our authenticity of what we're sharing here with the unfair advantage and the book

[00:06:38] and both me and Hassan bonded of a bad food with both foodies so we love good food and we travel full food and we'll go anywhere for good food

[00:06:47] so the bad state was away we bonded and then on top of that Hassan lived in Northist London and so do I and it was easy and comes across immunity to be a friend

[00:06:56] and staying in touch and have coffee's more often. So it just shows you how a location, how close you are to get them makes a difference as well

[00:07:02] so since then I've been a writer in the book with Hassan and we've been speaking all over the world and also I've launched another company called you

[00:07:09] which is a platform to teach people digital skills from a coach from around the world and I've been working on that for the last year it's been a phenomenal journey around democratizing access to skills.

[00:07:22] Yeah, it sure is and I've been along to one of those and there was a fantastic evening so congratulations on that

[00:07:28] and so I'm going to go in with a massive question here for you guys. So for people listening right now, you've obviously written the unfair advantages out this week

[00:07:37] so you know, launch day is January the 23rd so everyone listening now it's either a couple of days away or it's already out so obviously head over to

[00:07:45] the links which will give you later on in the show but for someone listening right now who's stuck in the rat race, they are working hard to build their business you know in any amount of spare time that they've got evenings, weekends, early mornings

[00:08:00] how can someone discover their unfair advantage to help them get out the rat race? Yeah, good question discovering your unfair advantage so it kind of all starts with understanding how kind of successful

[00:08:14] work so to say or even business success in particular. I grew up and I know Ash did as well watching a lot of self you know self help gurus, motivational speakers

[00:08:25] Ash used to go to Tony Robbins, I used to go to this kind of seminars as well. I used to love those stuff

[00:08:31] and it was basically a case of thinking you know they kind of tell you you just need to work harder and you have the right strategies

[00:08:40] and it's about doing this that and the other and be disciplined and believing yourself right it's kind of those are the kind of things that keep coming up

[00:08:47] and the implication is that we are not super successes yet when not multi millionaires or even billionaires yet just because we're not disciplined and hard working enough if we just hustled harder, if we just knew the right steps then we'd succeed and we'd all succeed

[00:09:03] and the right steps is the same for everyone somehow it's kind of this one-size-fits-all and coming from that background and then game the concept, the idea of like what is their success doesn't I mean that's not the full picture

[00:09:16] right crazy that means it's not a case of just about working harder it's not a case of just buckling down for me when I had my success of working in my so I suffered digital marketing agency

[00:09:29] and it was hard working in those initial clients getting more clients on board making it a recurring revenue business making it automators and running itself these were all challenges and when I got to that stage where I

[00:09:41] people thought I was working I was just chilling and sending out invoices but I thought you know I thought I deserved this you know

[00:09:51] I paid my dues and I deserved all the success I had right it was all because of me and therefore I should be self satisfied

[00:09:58] and happy to myself and one of the things that I took by this in my TED talk as well my TEDx talk in London earlier this year

[00:10:06] I spoke about how one of the insights I had I was in the Philippines I was in Manila and I see these kids I was I say

[00:10:13] in a very posh part of Manila and the Philippines lovely pace by the way and I see some kids playing in the street and they were better for and looked really scruffy I thought oh that looks unusual because I'm

[00:10:26] herelized the begging actually they're begging on the streets and in that part of Manila there wasn't any bit of begging I grew up in London and people begging around the streets quite normal here right but you kind of think to yourself that nobody

[00:10:38] is going to do that badly from it nobody's going to you know end up starving or going to die from having that stuff but I actually had a bottle of water with me and this little girl kind of points to the bottle of water

[00:10:52] from my hands and I realized that she was thirsty and we are okay they don't have the safety nets here they don't have the things here in the third world and all the stuff we've taken for granted all the unfair advantages we've had in our

[00:11:04] backgrounds in where we grew up in the education systems in the safety nets and all that kind of stuff the health care the stability allowed us to have the success so kind of started thinking about unfair advantages in that way

[00:11:16] and that mean you realized that okay it wasn't just why did so in terms of finding your own coming back to your question and finding your unfair advantages I started to look at myself and I thought well my unfair advantages

[00:11:28] well native speaker of English is one because I was born and back there actually in Iraq kind of water and country lucky to come out and come to London secondly I had the friends and family network here who I got my initial clients from you know like friends

[00:11:41] of friends it was like my aunt's friend husband was one of my first clients and you know these kinds of things can really help you out

[00:11:49] and what you're naturally good at as well you know everyone has kind of innate talents and it took me a while to discover mine but I realized one of mine is in sales is in speaking to people building trust and a relationship

[00:12:00] and again that got me started getting my first few clients in London so your unfair advantages we kind of break them down in the book until we call them miles framework and I can break that down I think next because I know I've been talking for a while

[00:12:14] but essentially you can break them down in different categories and you can look at yourself looking at doing audit and kind of think what do I have going for me what am I good at what circumstances do I have do I have money I can invest

[00:12:26] can I do something I have the credibility to raise funding can I do my own app do I know the coding or the coding background but do I know people who can do that so these are all things that we can consider unfair advantages

[00:12:37] because you didn't necessarily work for them you might have just locked into them right so it's kind of about looking yourself and kind of doing that audit and ask perhaps you can share that miles framework but before that ask a question actually

[00:12:52] we talk about escaping the rat race and by no means do I ever you know talk about a job as a bad thing right and there's probably a lot of unfair advantages to actually being an employment right you know you've got an income

[00:13:06] you can invest that in your business then many skills you're getting free training perhaps what are some of the other ones that perhaps you know people should take advantage of if they still in employment.

[00:13:16] That's a really good question Christian and I totally agree with you although we are entrepreneurs we don't say entrepreneurship is where everybody and 75% of people hate their jobs according to statistics and data I can't remember where that was from but if you're hating your job

[00:13:31] and not getting up in the morning and going to work then you need to really think about what you're doing because this is going to be your life and the second thing you need to think about is

[00:13:40] your responsibilities in life like you said you might have a family you might have a mortgage and you need to make sure that you are accountable for that as well

[00:13:48] but there's other advantages you can get at work but it's knowing that working hope that you can actually be still being entrepreneur you mean entrepreneur any age that's the other thing people think that entrepreneurship is what a young people

[00:13:58] but it's not you can be 50, 60 I think KFC you are a club Mr. Clownfield how old was he when he was he was like 56 or something like that so I mean you can start companies much later the average age according to the

[00:14:11] startup world is actually 40 I think so you know so don't think that it's too late that's the other thing about entrepreneurship you think oh my god I'm losing time and I need to be you know you need to get out of this

[00:14:20] when you're young and you're in the workforce you're actually getting experience and one of the biggest values that you can get by working somewhere so you can actually see problems first hand

[00:14:29] so if you can solve a problem that might help something in your company it might be something that will be useful for the sector or the industry and that's coming from back from what we call the intelligent side of the miles framework

[00:14:41] so we talk about intelligence and insight and that's insight so insight is really important so you can gain that at work the second thing is you can build a team most of my co-founders and team that I work with now

[00:14:53] are X work colleagues and people of work with in the past and people who are investing in their other startups are people of work with because I know how they work so that's very important and the other thing is you also get to learn a lot about the

[00:15:05] emotional intelligence of working in teams because when you become an entrepreneur most likely you're going to start off with a small team or by yourself and it's very lonely so understanding how to deal with that loneliness is quite difficult at first

[00:15:17] but then knowing how to work with a team is also important so emotionally intelligence the thing that we talk about in intelligence and insight is really important so there's lots to gain from staying in work and being in the right field

[00:15:27] I think the key thing is to make sure that you enjoy the journey and learn as much as you can I think learning is the new key element of working in a workplace if you're not learning and growing then you really consider why you're there

[00:15:40] and what's the purpose of it because if it's just a job to pay the salary and pay the mortgage then that's going to really make you feel

[00:15:47] disheartened and you always want to become an entrepreneur then or jump ship but it's not always the right answer at that point and has there any other elements of the Mars framework there that you want to add to as well

[00:16:01] that was a really good so insight is a massive one and that's huge for coming up with a business idea but yeah let's break it down because we haven't working it down to you audience what it is so the Mars framework is an acronym

[00:16:11] a milestone for money intelligence and insight which Ash touched on there location and luck right place right time and it has how Ash and I met and lot of things come from right place right time

[00:16:22] I'm sure even in your life Christian education and expertise is for me and S is for status and status is really big one so just a touch on education expertise is what we like to think of is how you come up with your solution

[00:16:36] you know education expertise helps you so the intelligence insight helps you find the need and the education expertise helps you to fill the need, solve the need come up with a product or service that fills that need

[00:16:49] right and then status is huge because status is about how you come across and this is where things like unconscious biases come to play what kind of accent you've got who you know is huge

[00:17:02] just what they say is not what you know is who you know is some truth to that so status is massive because it's how you come across so how others perceive you and then also how you perceive yourself

[00:17:15] plays a big role in that as well in a status so that affects how you confident you come across and how you interact with others and it's also a network as I said who you know so that kind of breaks down the miles frame work

[00:17:29] and then it's on the foundation of mindset because without the right mindset you can't do anything yeah absolutely agree you know what are some of the traits that both well let me ask you Ash I know you've worked both works with so many startups

[00:17:46] you know what's the core things that you see in successful entrepreneurs and between the ones that make it and the ones that just give up you know is it a mindset thing is a skills thing

[00:17:56] you know what is it that's the differentiator between those that are successful and those that aren't yeah it's a massive question I think it varies from person to person on a occasion, but one of things I realized is that you have to answer the why

[00:18:12] why you're doing what you're doing in the first place and I think by answering that question of why it brings you back down to your purpose and what you want to do as your purpose in life

[00:18:20] and what kind of impact you want to have and I think a lot of people start a company just because they can make money then they're going to lose that purpose and sense of why eventually I'm going to stop

[00:18:29] you know there's companies that have a I've been in companies where I've made not too many but then all of a sudden I've just lost my mission for why I was doing it and I really felt this often bad

[00:18:38] and it's actually I never went back to my route of why and I started only because I had a lot of one of their advantages

[00:18:43] to get the business started really quickly and scale and I forgot to answer that my own person on question of why am I doing this so when you look at entrepreneurship, I think you find a lot of the most successful entrepreneurs that I've come across right now

[00:18:56] have been the underdogs or the underrated or underestimated and they have the resilience and the grit to get through things and I find that most entrepreneurs who are successful feel like they have nothing to lose

[00:19:11] and I think that's really where it becomes interesting when you're working full time and you got a job and you got money to lose and potentially a house to lose, we got mortgage compared to if you feel like you've got nothing to lose

[00:19:22] and having that mindset of the underdog is quite important and I think that's really something which I've seen across most of the entrepreneurs rates and there's lots of other traits as well. The timing is very important for the right idea, the right time, for example

[00:19:35] it's critical example into a most successful startups is timing and knowing when the right time is launching, you can't always know that even the guys at Google didn't know that they tried to sell Google to Yahoo for a million dollars

[00:19:47] they said no and they carried on doing it and look at where Google is now so there's lots of things that you don't realize in the past that we have and I think the other thing is

[00:19:55] when people are listening to the entrepreneurs heroes, there's a lot of narrative fallacy people listening to stories which they forget about what it really happened and I think when you really got back down to it and look at the traits of people I see them

[00:20:10] I often ultimately find that the best entrepreneurs are the entrepreneurs who choose themselves first yeah, and playing the long game, would you agree that you have to have that mindset that it's not going to happen overnight and there's going to be loads of bumps along the way

[00:20:27] and you're playing the long game here yeah, there's no straight line to success, it's a really squiggly long journey to the process and you get to learn about who you are through the downs and that's why having a good team and co-founders around you is very essential

[00:20:44] I mean when I was writing the book with Hassan we had some very late nights and some weekends we were just away working on the book and thrashing it out there were moments where I just wanted to just sort of tell and go, I'm not really enough now

[00:20:56] but we just carried on and we carried on and I think bad thing for me to learn and having that ability to work with each other was really, really important for me anyway but I only knew that from self understanding of who I am

[00:21:08] you know most companies I always thought would a co-founder I never try and do it myself because I know my weaknesses and I know my strengths and I think I'm getting to learn them as I go along

[00:21:17] as well so I think it's knowing your strengths and weaknesses is very important I think most of the top entrepreneurs I know are very self-aware they're really self-aware, they're nowhere to plug the gaps they much more self-aware than normal people in the workforce Hey this is Chris Ducker

[00:21:34] Hey I'm Jill Stanton Oh I'm Brandon Block Hi this is Perry Marshall and you are listening to a skip the Rack Race video video video video video video I just want to reinforce that point you mentioned there about you know starting with co-founders

[00:21:46] because when I first met you as she was back at juniors event the entrepreneur Academy London and it was something that you talked about on stage which really resonated with me is and from my experience of running a skate the Rack Race

[00:22:00] for the last five years on my own it's tough when it's all you the decisions are just on your head it's difficult so you know I totally for anyone listening would say definitely if you're at the early stages of a business look at who's around you

[00:22:16] who can you perhaps partner up with anything to add from your side house on that Yeah definitely so I was sort of found that myself and the full story is I actually didn't start open think it was kind of straight out of university

[00:22:28] I did the economics of university and the typical path from there when you go to a good union your ambitious is banking in the city in London if you want to hype a job but what didn't appeal to me is having that boss working

[00:22:40] something that I don't necessarily have a passion for so I don't want to do that so I just took time off and started to think and that's when I got interested in starting my own business and I really tried because I really had this idea

[00:22:52] and I started setting up a website and I just couldn't launch it my perfectionist tendencies got the better of me and I just didn't have the strong deadline I had some savings saved up on my student loan and it was tough and that's the kind of

[00:23:06] not being able to be accountable to me when you're just starting out it's really difficult to get going but then what made the difference from me is I got those jobs in the city I got workers in alternative investments broke up and a very salesy position

[00:23:22] and then I did B2B sales also in the city and what I learnt from there was massive so the skills that I got from it but then the second time round I again left and tried to launch and that time I succeeded

[00:23:36] was that I had an accountability point at that time so it was actually somebody else who was starting their own business at the same time so I really think that's valuable so it's an uncompeting business but we can kind of help each other out

[00:23:48] sitting next to each other when we're working we sit in the Starbucks over looking when we say they're going to come on we could do this and being a sounding both for each other just doing it as completely by yourself it's too difficult I think

[00:24:00] very difficult to achieve I mean there are some people who can try to do it but then you need your family supporting you as well when you're working full time I think the challenges are going to be in our entrepreneur

[00:24:10] but how do you convince people around you to support you as well so like everyone's like it's not going to work out and pressure around you and so this is why money and their money part of the market is important because you need to have enough savings

[00:24:24] and your bank account to be able to ride the wave of not being able to get clients and money cash coming into the company and I think that's something which people don't talk about much about how to fail correctly

[00:24:34] or they don't talk about how to create a cushion for failure so that you can get started again and jobs will always be there you can always go back to your job and funny thing about working and being an entrepreneur

[00:24:44] I know a lot of entrepreneurs who've had their first angel investment from the boss they worked with hmm right? and that's fascinating because they've had such a great relationship and the boss like if he doesn't work out come back

[00:24:58] but I really love the idea that you're working on I've been I did a deal with a virgin back and just deep-aise and I remember talking to people like if you have a big enough idea and you want to leave and you're a top employee

[00:25:08] which is brands will actually offer to invest in your company so you can still be part of the your success and knowing that is a good person that's cool right? And that's the same thing with James Khan Rookham company, we'd someone want to leave there

[00:25:20] he's like right I'll invest in your company so it's a very clever way of actually and then as an employee you can still think about having that process some people want to grab the bull by the horn

[00:25:32] to do it themselves and to take the risks on as well but then working with somebody who's already been there done that is quite interesting and a lot of people would start companies which are in the same domain or where they're working

[00:25:41] but if you've got a passion that's completely outside of it I'm working as a working as an equity straight and almost everyone want to make an ice cream company you know I need to have enough money in the bank to make sure I balance it up

[00:25:54] because I haven't got the domain expertise and then those who will all play with before I get it right and then I need to get art now so you start thinking about and that's how you develop a concrete advantage just like it's specific to the project

[00:26:04] or the circumstances what you're trying to create it's not just a one-feet one-size-fits-fits-all kind of concept so has any other examples that you can maybe draw upon in the book for someone listening right now they're saying yeah I like this concept of unfair advantage

[00:26:20] what's kind of like a checklist of things for people to start thinking about right now and maybe there's an example that you can share of how someone else has done that so thinking about your own fair advantage I'm just going about I think it's a case so

[00:26:34] it comes about because actually I would get pitched by so many start-up founders or they say I have this idea and it's like it's completely out any domain of expertise or any network that they have or they've got no way into it right?

[00:26:49] So a great example is a guy by the name of Tristan Walker he founded a company called Walker and a company and basically he started off as the entrepreneur in residence at Dree and Dree St. Horowitz basically it's a huge venture capital firm in Silicon Valley

[00:27:10] one of the most legendary ones and he was being meant to directly by one of the founders there and they gave him six months to think of an idea because they believed that he has some potential when they wanted to help them out

[00:27:22] so he came up with all sorts of different ideas to solve global obesity, freight and shipping to try to solve I think at one point he was even trying to think about hunger and banking so all these big juicy problems and areas

[00:27:38] where there's obviously a lot of money and you need a lot of expertise to solve and ultimately what his Walker and company ended up being is the company that he founded was a shading company he went from these big, big things

[00:27:52] where he had no specific insights or expertise in and he went to something which was about shaving and now why did he choose that? was really interesting because he was actually African American and he started to look around his network and what he's experienced

[00:28:06] and his life and the pain point he's had so a great way to think of an idea is look for pain so he realized that these multiple raises like Gillette and Wilkins Sword or wherever other brands they create lots of in-grown hairs

[00:28:22] for men with thick curly beard hairs so they'll get in-grown hairs and razor burn and irritation and he thought it has to be a solution for this and he looked into basically just need a single blade razor and that's the solution.

[00:28:35] So he created a very clever system around it of how to prepare your face created a nice brand used some rappers to help promote it like Nas who's actually also into VC stuff and eventually after a few years of work on that he sold it to Procter Engamble

[00:28:51] who owned your let for 30 million dobbins so it's like a really interesting discovery journey that he went on even with that kind of guidance that he had he was completely going down the wrong path until he thought, okay, what do I have experiencing?

[00:29:07] Maybe I can scratch my own edge and now scratching your own edge in other words solving a problem that you yourself experience isn't the only path you can actually research something completely outside of your experience and just go for it that's what Jeff Bezos is, well Amazon

[00:29:21] he just sold the 94 he was working in Wall Street he saw this internet thing building up and he told me, well I think retail is going to go on the internet and he decided to found Amazon based on that inside so it's not the only way

[00:29:34] but it's a great way so it's just a case of like looking at yourself what are you stronger, what's your networking or kind of insights do you have and kind of going from there? Yeah, and I think the key there is taking action upon that idea right?

[00:29:47] So I'm sure everyone listening right now ourselves included if we really just took 20 minutes we could think of some things in our lives that we could improve or that we have a better way perhaps that we would do it but most people don't do anything more bit right?

[00:30:01] So the difference is actually taking that first step but many people let fear perhaps getting away of that and anyone listening right now who maybe is nodding their head in the agreement going, yeah I know I just haven't got started any tips, as sure

[00:30:15] anything to say to those people? I think the, I can see a lot of people I end up stage as well in your right but they're probably not in the head going I've got lots of ideas and I meet people with lots of ideas

[00:30:25] all the time and I meet them every year and they'll come for a coffee or a meal they'll be going through the 10th idea and I'm happy to the 9th one we'll have it to the 8th one and they'll be going, well I thought I changed my mind

[00:30:35] and I'm going to new one and they really want to jump and they want to do something for themselves I think if you found an idea that you're really passionate about and you really feel there's a need for it and it's a problem for it

[00:30:47] I think you should test it as quick as possible the key is to test things and I think we come into it as mindset that we have to jump shit completely from work and go I've got to do this, I've got to decide

[00:30:56] they are going to do it now, I'm going to stop work though There's actually that's not the blocker the blocker is actually our own mindset our own mindset is the thing that's blocking us from saying why don't I develop what we call it MVP a minimum viable product

[00:31:09] or the thing that we can use to test this idea and actually see if people do feel there's a problem with this because then that will excite you and if there is traction, that will excite you if there isn't traction then you have to try and find where

[00:31:20] traction meaning momentum and people are saying yeah I'm going to say probably I'm going to pay for that then you probably want to go back to school one again I think about your idea too many people think it's about the idea

[00:31:29] but it's not about the ideas about the execution and about the sales and marketing and I say this a lot to people that you know most companies and most startups fail not because they can't develop the ideas because they can't get root to market

[00:31:40] they can't get distribution, they can't get product out or the service out and that's where you should start thinking about partnership or opportunities to work with other people if you can't do that bit but the idea in itself of if you don't do this now

[00:31:53] and later in life you'll be probably thinking of yourself I regret not doing that and I think it's the regret and you need to answer that question of regret and I think it's trying things I think we live in a culture right now

[00:32:07] especially in Britain where we're not told to try things and if we fail it's like oh my god you're a big failure but you're not a loser, you're not a failure you're a tinker I think the tinker is other ones we should have been a succeed

[00:32:16] and I think you're feeling a tinker in mind that will allow you to get started you don't want to just develop when we had the idea for the book it wasn't just like right we're going to have this amazing book

[00:32:25] it was actually we got this idea for a book and it was horrible Christian first draft was like oh my god right but that's what got us started onto the journey right and that's where I think tinker and momentum is important

[00:32:39] and then also knowing that when you're tinker you can stop and knowing when to stop is also important because then there's an opportunity of other things that you can try so don't just get to round up about this one idea think about how it's going to work for

[00:32:52] some trying find the low-hanging fruit and discover yourself what your own unfair advantages to accelerate the growth when we talk about non-fair advantages but we talk about it as speed so your unfair advantages when you're developing a startup or a business is about the speed

[00:33:07] at which you can develop this business so you might have the insight, the knowledge, the partnerships, the distribution, the marketing skills whatever it is that will get you to market really fast I think that's something which you should identify in yourself as a employee

[00:33:20] yeah I like that really great advice definitely all about that proof of concept isn't it just getting out of their testing and getting feedback so Hassan is there anything that we've not yet covered with the unfair advantage that you would like to share?

[00:33:37] Yeah, so the book is broken onto three books. Part one is is all about understanding one and unfair advantage is and how success works and it's not a pure meritocracy it's not purely luck either it's somewhere in between and everybody's unique it's all about knowing your circumstances

[00:33:56] your strengths, weaknesses, personality, motivations are all unique that's part one. Part two is kind of doing that all the understanding the miles concepts and how it works and for example intelligence and how it's not just about IQs about emotional intelligence and creativity as well

[00:34:13] and how to be creative with interdisciplinary thinking but part three is about how to start it's the quick start guide we wanted to give a very accessible, very easy way to think how do I begin with a startup and one of the things that we've broken down

[00:34:30] is there's two types of startups right? There's two. One is the kind of startup that we hear about that become these huge tech titans like Google and Facebook and Amazon and Netflix and all these kinds of things they're called them hypergrowth startups they're using a lot of funding

[00:34:48] they're using not profitable in the early days and they're all about scaling up and becoming huge and that's what makes people into billion end-to-stop, right? The big stories but there's also lifestyle startups right? You hear this concept of lifestyle businesses

[00:35:03] right? And it's kind of often spoken about sometimes in a condescending way like it's not that great yeah, I was just a lifestyle business actually a lifestyle business can be amazing can give you an amazing lifestyle amazing work like balance it can give you an amazing income

[00:35:19] it could be very wealthy you might not be a billionaire but who needs to be a billionaire to be happy right? It's just a case of like you'll be earning ten times what you're down there to drop with a lifestyle business with a small team

[00:35:30] you can learn to if you can learn to systemise and automate things and have it as a digital and online business it's amazing, right? So my experiences with a lifestyle startup founder and learning about tech startups because we were investing in them and mentoring them

[00:35:44] because my background is marketing and growth and strategy but Ash has a lot more experience from both sides but the just-tique was a high-cooker of startups right? So that distinction is very important and we often have people coming to pictures or telling us about their ideas

[00:36:01] and it's usually a high-cooker of startup idea and it's like they usually, they're not usually often they don't have those unfair advantages to make that work they don't have a computer science background they don't know any technical co-founders we can code to the app or wherever

[00:36:17] it is that they're developing the software they don't have the money to put into it to be able to live without having a personal income right? So there's all these unfair advantages that they're missing they don't have that status and credibility

[00:36:29] to be able to raise funding from these these investors early on right? They haven't, they don't ex-google experts or drop that up Stanford or Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge so that's where unfair advantages really come into play it's like figuring out

[00:36:44] what kind of startup do I need to find that and what kind of lifestyle do I want again going back to your own one as well it's a very important concept and it's really one that people need to be clear on

[00:36:55] and sometimes a lifestyle startup can become a you know, a scaler, a high-cooker startup as well but depends on the total addressable market and the cost of the rest of those things and the cost of the quick start kind so how do people get hold of this book?

[00:37:11] It's out this week and do you reckon guys you could perhaps sign a copy and we can give one away to one lucky listener? Absolutely. Okay, let's do that. Let's do that. And then for everyone else where's the website for the unfair advantage

[00:37:27] and social media or the usual places people can go and find out more? Yeah, the unfair advantage that could be you, okay? That's the website you can find out more about it and it's going to be available as available for pre-order on Amazon

[00:37:41] on what's stones, W.H. Smith is going to be in all the airports and train stations see we were going to self-publish it first and the last thing you spoke to actually was going to be self-publishing but since then we've got on a book deal

[00:37:54] and it's like a crazy journey so it's really cool. We've been selected as an unfiction book that's from W.H. Smith. It's also so you can find us any good bookshop guys. Yeah, I know what it is. If you're traveling into China or Taiwan

[00:38:08] or somewhere you might even get a copy of our book there because it's been translated so... Wow. That's an interesting thing as well. So look, you can get it from Amazon and all the major bookstores. My place where I pick up books is the travel bookshop

[00:38:19] so every time I'm traveling is the airport bookshop which is the W.H. Smith travel will be there and please get a copy, give us a review and tell us what you think about the unfair advantage and tell us what your word advantage is

[00:38:30] and we'll happily sign the copy of the book if you come and see us at any events that we're doing across London. This year. Yeah, and I know it's been a long journey with getting the book to launch but you've done a great job

[00:38:43] and for anyone listening right now who's thinking about writing a book a word from you, Ash. Oh wow. Don't do it. No. Look, if you really got a passion for something and a mission then come and talk to us

[00:38:55] because we've had a lot of people speak to us and we use the same startup methodology of the lean startup writing our book as well and we can show you how we did that and you don't have to just go out there

[00:39:06] and say, right, I'm going to do a big off-knot novel or a book in itself so the writing the book has been a big journey it's taken us three and a half years to get here but the book has got 20 years, 25 years 30 years of our experiences combined together

[00:39:19] in that book and the research that Hassan has done in some of the startups that we worked with and the interviews we've done, I'm sure it's not as easy as people think but it gives us a shout if you're interested

[00:39:31] because we can help you understand the quick ways of going how to do it. Yeah, there's an awesome book absolutely packed for the content and I'm sure it's going to be a huge success for you both so thank you Hassan, thank you Ash

[00:39:42] for being on a scale of advice radio today and it's going to be a manic week for you and good luck once again. Thank you very much, it's having us. Hi, it's Christian here and I want to invite you to join the Escape the Rat Race

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