Dragon's Den, on track to do $3.5M in ARR, and Growing LinkedIn Audience to 125k Followers

Eric M. (00:01.901)
Tom Hunt, welcome to the show, how you doing?

Tom Hunt (00:04.654)
Eric, I'm honored to be here.

Eric M. (00:07.693)
No, I am honored. I've been following you for a while. A bit of background for the audience. Tom, Tom has tried and failed at 17 different businesses, but he's actually having a lot of success with Fame, a B2B podcast agency that helps B2B brands produce and grow their podcasts. His team is fully remote. There's 71 full -time employees and they're on pace to do about three and a half million dollars, maybe more. And according to his LinkedIn profile,

He has no idea what he's doing. Okay, Tom, I thought we could talk about four things here. What did you learn from one of the businesses that you filled out? What did you learn the most? The second thing is fame. The first year you're a bootstrapper. You know, what did your day to day look like? The third topic, LinkedIn. You've gone from like 25 ,000 followers to almost a hundred thousand in less than two months. And then the fourth thing is.

I think you're a bit of an introvert, at least that's what you've shared on LinkedIn. So I want to know how does an introvert lead people because you've got a pretty sizable company here. So I'm curious to know more about that. So starting with the first topic, obviously we're not going to dive into all 17 businesses, but is there one where you felt like you actually learned a lot?

Tom Hunt (01:29.998)
think the most formative attempt was a male leggings company that my, me and my two best friends started in 2013. First business or maybe first or second. And we noticed that like male jeans were getting skinnier and skinnier. So the next natural step was obviously for men to start wearing leggings. It was kind of happening in the sport and yoga world back then. And so we were like,

Instead of jumping on that trend of like, making like a leisure wear, which would have been a good idea. We were like, we're going to change male fashion and we designed some leggings, got them made in China and started selling them through an e -comm store. Managed like hack our way onto dragon stand, which are like shark tank in the U S. Didn't get any investment raised to there and got actually humiliated. We can link to the video below. Anyway, over from 2013, 2017, you probably saw it about.

two to 3000 pairs. So not like horrendous, but the big learning there was that none of us had any experience in fashion or manufacturing. And I think the reason why it failed was because the product that we created and distributed, like it was okay, like just about wearable for a year or something, but it wasn't great.

And so my learning there is that, and it's something that I truly believe now, I think we're doing okay job at it at fame is.

If you can just build something that's like significantly better than competitors or the same slash slightly better, but at a lower cost, then you will grow and the business will work. And then you put marketing on top to speed up the growth. So that's something we didn't realize then, but it's something that we've learned. And so a thing we believe retention of the foundation of growth. And so a big focus of our time is like, how do we make service better and clients happier?

Tom Hunt (03:37.55)
because if we do that, we know the company is going to grow.

Eric M. (03:39.693)
Yeah, yeah. A few questions about this business. Did you give away any free leggings to the sharks that were in the Den Show?

Tom Hunt (03:48.366)
I'm pretty sure they got like, if we had samples and we gave the samples out, I don't think we got the samples back, but it doesn't mean that they actually, they probably didn't wear them to be honest. One of them said, I quote, you do realize that in 20 years, this is going to be on YouTube and your kids are going to be watching. So this was 10 years ago. It's still on YouTube. And actually one of us, one of the three does have a kid, but the kids only like six month old.

So he's probably going to see it in a couple of years. So that dragon, Duncan Valentine, was correct.

Eric M. (04:22.797)
Okay, I'm a bit surprised that you you sold a few thousand who was buying these where were they buying them from?

Tom Hunt (04:29.07)
There was a few custom segments. So they're buying them from the meganstork .com which was our domain. And I would say the majority were buying them for running yoga or the gym or crossfit. Then we had a small selection for like fancy dress at festivals. And then we had the rest were like people that believed in the mission of us changing our fashion. And so they would like buy them for proper outfits. That was only a small proportion.

Eric M. (04:57.389)
Okay, you know how you see cars out there and they're advertising their business, you know, their advertisement on the car with the name and everything. Were you wearing these pants or whatever you want to call them like every day to promote them?

Tom Hunt (05:12.878)
Me personally, I was like, probably wearing them once a week. So I wear them to the gym, I wear them running and would wear them socially on like very specific occasions.

Eric M. (05:17.805)
Okay.

Eric M. (05:26.317)
Okay, okay. I'm surprised that three guys got together and they're like, this is a great idea. I mean, obviously one person has ideas, two, okay, now you got a team, but three, that's kind of an anomaly. Okay. Are you still friends with those two other former business, business mates?

Tom Hunt (05:43.406)
Yeah, yeah. They still like my best, still like my best friends. One of them has gone on to create a much bigger company than Fame. so I, hopefully he learned as well from the experience.

Eric M. (05:52.845)
Okay. Okay. All right. let's dive into our second topic here and that is fame. You're a bootstrapper and you're very proud of that. I I'm a bootstrapper myself. I'm really curious to know what was that first year like Tom and you know, what was that day to day? what did that look like for you? How did you get the traction? You know, how did you get your initial customers? What were you really focused on? And if you're looking back.

Is there anything that you you you would have done differently that you know now?

Tom Hunt (06:28.654)
So I think is one of the reasons why we have been successful in that the leader, which is me, has done absolutely every role in the company. So let's break it down in terms of the day to day. I was probably spending 10 % of my time on sales and marketing. We both, you got the first lead through Google paid on organic. So I was like running that and then I was doing a sales course, the 10, 20 % of the time.

It was a massive amount of lead flow, you know, but that echoes what I was saying earlier about retention and the foundation growth, like really focusing on making the clients that we did have happy. So after one year, we probably had like eight clients at the end of the year started at one. And so throughout the year, the 80 % that I wasn't spent. When spending on growth was spent on delivery. So we had different roles in the company now, like, which is the project manager, the account manager, the account director, they made the creative team that do all the production.

So I was being project manager, account manager, and account director on all the clients. So I did have a project manager based in the Philippines, but then I had to like train them up. And so I was doing that role at the start. And then I was the main contact for all the clients. And then I was doing the account director stuff, which was like the main strategy work. So I was really just in the weeds. Like I wasn't, I was like self -employed essentially. I think maybe at the end of the first year, we had our first account manager.

So then I would have handed a couple of clients over to them, but I was just delivering 80 % delivery of clients, 20 % selling, and then no percent on strategy.

Eric M. (08:07.405)
Okay. And so your first hire was the account manager. Is that correct?

Tom Hunt (08:14.702)
So when we started, I started fame because at my last, I was employed in 2019. We started podcasts, went really well. They became the first client. And so there's one guy based in the Philippines who within my team there came across as the first project manager. And so that was like the first full -time person. And then for the creative team, we would just have freelancers, freelance editors, freelance designers, et cetera. But then the next high after that was the, an account manager who would actually be the main.

point of contact for the client.

Eric M. (08:46.413)
you. Okay. Now, is there anything that you would have done differently looking back?

Tom Hunt (08:52.846)
The obvious answer to that is higher earlier.

Well, that's like a typical business advice, I think, like get out of the weeds, but looking back, a for me to do that would have been higher risk. I would have had to put more money into the company. I think I put like 400 pounds. And so to like run a loss for the first few months to hire someone earlier would have cost more. So it would have been higher risk. And then B I wouldn't have got as good at those roles. And so when I needed to write the documentation for doing those roles for onboarding and for hiring, I would have been worse.

So I actually think it was a good time investment and friend of listening, who's building a bootstrapping a service company. I think first six months, try to do everything yourself because if you are going to train or hire someone else to do it, the better you are, the easier that process is going to be. And this is actually any role we've created in the company, apart from like the audio editing and the design. I could basically do as good as anyone in the company probably. And so that has enabled us to.

grow with lower risk. E .g. we're more successful at hiring, we're more successful at onboarding and more successful at managing because I have that ability.

Eric M. (10:07.853)
The second year, what were you focused on? Were you you've got this this project manager on board account manager on board? Was it pretty much the same thing like the same focus or? A different thing that you focused on.

Tom Hunt (10:20.494)
I only got completely out of client work in the last six months. So, but it has, it probably has come down. So that 80 % first year, maybe 60 % second year, 50 % third year, 30 % fourth year, and then now zero. So in the second year, let's break that down. It was probably a bit more on sales or we'll call it growth, which is I call sales and marketing. Maybe 30 % because we had a higher lead flow and I had less clients because I had the account manager. So maybe 30 % on sales. And then let's say it was like 40%.

delivering clients, client work, and then the remaining part, 30%. I was probably actually then like doing what I like to call level three work, which is like designing processes. So level one of actually doing the thing level two is managing the person doing thing level three is designing or deciding what work has to be done. And so I think in year two, I actually started doing level three work where I was maybe documenting the account manager on boarding process or document how we hire account managers or document how we do a specific thing for a client.

and then I've, I've a really good way of, of looking at, the entrepreneurial journey. It's looking at the stage of the work. So it goes from one to five. I outlined the first three and four is taking systems and departments and making them work well together, which is really what I'm doing now. And then five is like looking to the future. And so what a typical entrepreneur should see is that they will graduate through their stages at the start. They'll be doing a lot of stage one, but then by year three, four, five, six.

hopefully doing more stage three, four or five. So that my journey has followed that framework pretty closely.

Eric M. (11:59.245)
Okay. And I imagine in the very beginning, you're probably working, I don't know, 80 hour weeks, maybe even more. Did that gradually come down the past six months in terms of work? And I think it has, because you're posting these lovely pictures like in Rome and on the beach. I'm like, okay, I know this guy is not working crazy like he was the first year. You guys, I'm trying to relax now a little bit, right?

Tom Hunt (12:21.838)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think what I've really realized recently is that for like strategic roles, so it's only level three and above your output or your productivity is really not defined by how many hours you work. In the early days, like if I had a shed load of level one work, EG, I had eight clients to look after. My output on my productivity kind of is correlated with how many hours I work. Cause I just have to keep them all happy.

But when you're doing level three and above, it's really like having an insight or thinking about something, can make you wildly productive. And that often doesn't happen when you're sat at your desk, trying to do a task. So I think my, the workload has probably only come down in the last six months as I've been doing more level three and above work for the, for the previous four years, it's been pretty like 12, so 12 times 12 of the day times five would be 60, probably not up to 80.

I reckon like 50 to 70 hour weeks consistently.

Eric M. (13:26.829)
Yeah, it sounds like, you know, the first year, maybe the percentage of time that you spent strategically thinking about the business was maybe pretty small, maybe, you know, 5%. But now it seems like it's much, much higher, maybe 30, 40%.

Tom Hunt (13:40.91)
Yeah, now like LinkedIn is 95 % now, Jack. Yeah, for sure. You're totally right. It's about 30%, I think.

Eric M. (13:47.085)
Okay. Good. Well, that's a good segue into LinkedIn because I first discovered you maybe about a year ago, you had maybe around 20 ,000 followers back then. And of course we're in the same industry podcasting. And I just thought, wow, this, this guy, I really admire him. What you've done with your business because it's kind of like, that's, that's the kind of business model that I want to be in a few years. And I've noticed the past couple of months, it's like you you've hacked it somehow. I know you talk about hacking LinkedIn daughter shit.

Thought Leadership ads, but in terms of organic following, it's almost a hundred thousand now. So what strategy have you put into place to achieve that growth, Tom? Any secrets that you want to share?

Tom Hunt (14:31.054)
Yeah, I got, I got three things and a bonus one. So it only, you're totally right. It went from like 25 ,000 to 93 ,000 in like two months, I think two, three months. and so the three things that I changed first is I never used to engage on anyone's posts really. and now that's like 30 minutes a day I'm engaging. And what I like about that is obviously it's going to help. It helps with the algorithm. Like if you're engaging LinkedIn, those are your contributing, et cetera.

But then it also, I think makes them more sustainable because you're adding value to other people and that makes you feel good. And if you feel good, then you're going to keep doing it. Whereas if you're just focused on like creating posts, trying to grow your own profile, it's like quite selfish and it doesn't make me feel as good. So that's one of the things that if you want to grow 30 minutes a day, engaging with, with your people that comment on your posts and also just other random people. Second thing is.

only, not only, but increasing the amount of content you create that has proven to get engagement before. Now you can't copy stuff. People have accused me of copying stuff. I like to think I'm inspired by other people, but it basically to, to sustain large amounts of engagement, the algorithm has to see your content is content that consistently gets a lot of engagement. And so any post you do that only gets like 10 likes.

Make the algorithm think that you're not as good anymore. And so you want to, you have to consistently have bangers basically. And the way you lower the risk of not having a banger is by just seeing other people in your niche and looking content that they're creating that does get engagement and then using that to inspire your content. Obviously you have to believe in it and you have to not copy, but that has been big for me as well is trying to consistently have bangers. Third, the analogy I'll give here is like of the bamboo tree.

Eric M. (16:20.845)
Okay.

Tom Hunt (16:27.438)
that for like five years won't actually grow it still below the ground. And then in six months it grows like 17 feet. And so I've been posting confusingly for like two to three years. And only let me, let me just explain the growth in the last three months. So I think that's a good analogy. And the reason I think that's happened is practice. So I've written, I don't know, like 500 LinkedIn posts that haven't got more than 50 likes. And so when I finally got these other two keys, the first two we've discussed.

then I was ready, my skill set was basically ready, like I knew how to write a post that would get engagement. So that's the third one. And the bonus one, I actually need to look at this quote. This is for like people to like get the super viral post like plus over a hundred, a thousand likes. It's basically the quote that says something along the lines of

I can't find it. Basically saying that people will do anything for people who will throw stones at their enemies. And so I'm going to get going to get the actual quote because we'll do anything for Yes, here we go. People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies. And

Eric M. (17:50.861)
Got it.

Tom Hunt (17:52.238)
So for the super viral posts, you have to create a vibe or write content that does one of those things. If you throw stones at the enemies, that's how you get the super engagement that fuels the virality. Two seconds, I'll just have a look at the blog.

Eric M. (18:07.821)
Okay.

Tom Hunt (18:13.23)
So yeah, those are the LinkedIn hacks.

Eric M. (18:15.981)
Yeah. As soon as you said that I understood now why those, a lot of your posts like around management, micromanagement or remote work, why they work so well. I get it now, just from the, what you said from that quote, I get it. Cause you've got so many posts about remote work and why, you know, why you shouldn't micromanage. And it's, it's definitely resonates with people who enjoy remote work, who see that post and like, that's me. Yeah. I don't want somebody hanging over my shoulder.

And always, you know, asking, what are you doing? You know, where did you go? I get it now. It makes sense. Are the photos a strategic, a strategic tactic that you're using? Because I notice a lot of the images, you're never really looking at the camera. They're always like a side profile. Maybe you're looking down at your dog. Maybe it's like a picture of your back and the sunset. And I'm like, I wonder if he knows something about photo images. Cause they're there. You're never looking at the photo. Whereas most people who post a selfie, they're looking at.

Tom Hunt (19:06.798)
Ha!

Eric M. (19:12.717)
the camera.

Tom Hunt (19:14.894)
Yeah. So a few things on this single image posts, at least since I started posting them work the best. So you need an image. Then the other thing I've noticed is that if there's a face, it's like relatively big, not like super far away that always performs better. So those are the two things that anyone can take away. The dog thing is I think it's useful. It is quite like advanced. I think is that.

If you want people to like follow you in your story, then it's useful to have like other characters in the story that people can notice and like start to like or dislike. And so that's why I bring Bear in a lot. Plus she's like super cute and I just really love her. And so it's just great. Also Bear's been a cost center for six years, you know, I had to buy her, I had to pay for her food and stuff. And so now it's actually good that she's getting a, she's making a return, you know.

Anyway, and then the point about not looking at the camera, this is just personal preference. I just don't like, I don't know why. I just think it's cheesy. Whenever I see a picture of myself looking at the camera, I just don't really like it. And so it's more of just like a stylistic thing. There's nothing, it's probably better to look at the camera for LinkedIn pics, but I just don't like them.

Eric M. (20:28.077)
Okay, okay. Totally makes sense. All right. Last question before we get into rapid fire. you said that you're a bit of an introvert and, I'm just wondering how does an introvert lead a team of 71 people? Are there any, are there any advice? Is there any advice that you can give to other introverts who may be listening?

Tom Hunt (20:49.134)
Yeah, I think it's interesting that the typical CEO is like wants to have an office to have people around them loves going to networking events and conferences. I think that probably doesn't make for a better CEO in general, but their disadvantages, I think maybe their lack of like, I don't know, completely generalizing, but their lack of like ability to form or like empathy and one -on -one situations. That's something that I'm.

I think I'm really good at. And so the way I'm the CEO of Fame is I don't do any of those things for the external extraverted CEOs do. I like sit behind my laptop, writing to posts, have a lot of one -on -ones. I think that's not exhausting for me. Like big group meetings where I have to talk or present are more exhausting. So we have a leisure team meeting with just four of us.

I have no agenda one -on -ones, which are just one -on -one meetings with random people in the team every week. And aside from that, that's most of like the internal stuff that I do. And so, and none of that stops my energy. So I think to summarize, I haven't thought through this probably before, if I built the business and my role to leverage my strength as an introvert.

Tom Hunt (22:12.942)
And it seems to be working, but then we obviously don't have a test case where the, the same version in an alternate universe where we have an office, everyone's there and I go to the conferences. Like maybe the business would be double the size, you know? So I think that the learning here is that if anyone's an entrepreneur building a company, understand what you are best at and try to build the business in a way that enables you to leverage those strengths.

Eric M. (22:43.629)
Tom, do you get people reaching out to you, other CEOs or founders, asking for advice on how to build a really good culture when a lot of your team is remote?

Tom Hunt (22:53.614)
Yeah, that question comes up quite a lot, typically in LinkedIn comments. I say the most important thing is have values that like actually that you believe in the resonate with you and that means something like specific enough, not honesty and honesty and integrity. There's a first step is define those. And then the three steps first to find them second, high fire, promote and bonus based on them. And the third is just continually remind people about them.

And if you do step two, then people probably will be continually, continually reminded because if they're interviewing people, they'll know to check the values. If they want to give bonuses, they have to check the values, you know? And so that's something that we've learned is that make sure the values resonate with you, the founder. And then just continue it like CRO, like chief reminding officer, keep reminding people. And you do that by making sure you hire fire, promote and bonus people based on them.

Eric M. (23:53.517)
you. Do you have your values displayed anywhere? Is it like on your website or anything? I'm just curious.

Tom Hunt (24:00.078)
Yeah, they're on the website and in, in meetings. I used to do this a lot, but I don't run the meetings anymore. So I used to run like the whole team meetings and I'd be like, just quiz people on the values and until I ever had to know them. It's just, you don't need to listen off or.

Eric M. (24:15.661)
Sure, yeah.

Tom Hunt (24:16.846)
So it's client client client. And you can tell me if you think that tangible enough client client client. Basically we choose the client first action bias, which is we prefer to just do stuff and learn operational excellence with any people business. You need like strict processes and documentation and then. Very obsessed. So growing both client podcasts, the business and ourselves.

Eric M. (24:39.405)
Love it, love it. Okay, okay. Thank you so much, Tom. I got a few rapid fire questions. Are you ready? Just give me the first thing that pops into your head.

Tom Hunt (24:48.494)
The first thing that pops into my head is probably going to be us to think about the values then and how we used to do this thing.

I can't remember what I was going to say. So if we move on to the next thing.

Eric M. (25:04.141)
Yeah, all right, here's the first question for you, okay? First question, what was a favorite childhood toy that you played with?

Tom Hunt (25:14.222)
I used to have a teddy bear gourd when in the poo. It's like a small little cutly toy.

Eric M. (25:19.561)
Yeah. Okay. Second question, a song that you can listen to over and over again.

Tom Hunt (25:27.918)
Right now it's called Deadbeat Gospel by Barry Can't Swim. Bang, I wish it was linked to it in the show notes.

Eric M. (25:35.661)
Yeah, no, I'm going to look it up after this. Okay, what's the most interesting thing you did in the last 26 days?

Tom Hunt (25:46.382)
So that was post Rome. I think it was have a, so I'm good. I used to play football a lot. And then I took it at 18 years and not playing football. And then in the last three years, three years, I started playing football again and I had a coaching session with a football coach, which. Cause I hadn't been coached for like 18 years as I went back to it and developed all these bad habits. And he was like pointing them out to me. So that was the most eye opening.

Eric M. (26:14.957)
Okay, all right, last question for you. Instead of taking aspirin for pain relief, you do what?

Tom Hunt (26:23.598)
Recently I've been lying on the thing called a shakty mat. I don't know if you know what that is. It's like a mat with led spikes on it. And you like, if I have a bath and then I'll lie on the mat for 20 minutes without a t -shirt and just lying on the bed. And I don't know about pain relief, but it's like, makes me so sleepy. So after, if I do that in the evening, have a bath and go on that, and then I'll just like fall asleep straight away.

Eric M. (26:28.333)
No.

Eric M. (26:47.661)
Is it made out of rubber or what kind of material? Okay.

Tom Hunt (26:50.35)
May the spikes of plastic, like tiny little plastic spikes. Like it hurts, but not too much, you know, like it doesn't draw blood, but it's just like, it's definitely uncomfortable, but you get used to it.

Eric M. (27:01.101)
All right. It sounds very curious about that. Do you feel, is it health benefits?

Tom Hunt (27:06.702)
Yeah, I don't like, I feel super sleepy afterwards, but I haven't noticed really anything else. Like it's good cause you line it, you can't really read or go on your phone. And so for 20 minutes, he was lying down, which I think is a good exercise anyway. And then it makes you sleepy, which is good, but then I don't know if any health benefits apart from that. I'm sure the shakty might be will say that, but I haven't experienced them yet.

Eric M. (27:25.709)
Okay, all right, there you have it folks. Tom Hunt, founder of Fame. I will put links to Tom's LinkedIn profile. Make sure you follow him as well as the Fame website. Tom, thank you so much for coming on Innovators Can Laugh.

Tom Hunt (27:38.99)
I appreciate that, Eric. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Eric M. (27:41.581)
Yeah. Yeah, me too. I've learned a great deal and it was a pleasure having you on the show. All right. For everybody listening, if you enjoy this, feel free to subscribe to others about it and stay tuned for next week when I'll have another very innovative guests on the show. Thank you.