A Millionaires Masterclass In Business, Side-Hustles and Passive Income - Mark Tilbury

Mark Tilbury 0:00 What's the worst that can happen when you're 20? You lose what you have. You're 20. You've got all your life ahead of you to restart something else. I mean, how exciting is that?

Ali Abdaal 0:08 Hey, friends, and welcome back to Deep Dive, the weekly podcast where every week it's my immense privilege to sit down with academics and authors and creators and entrepreneurs and other inspiring people, and we find out how they got to where they are, and the strategies and tools we can learn from them to help us build a life that we love. What you're about to hear is an interview between me and Mark Tilbury. Now, Mark has an incredibly inspiring story. He left school at the age of 16 with no qualifications and no money. He then had a winding career trajectory, and he took a couple of risks and ended up starting his first business. And now, 30 years later, he is a multimillion-dollar CEO.

Mark Tilbury 0:38 I always knew at 16 when I left school, I wanted to be self-employed. I'd done loads of different side-hustles. I've always liked finding ways of making money. School teaches you to go out and find a job to earn money, but it doesn't teach you what to do with that once you've got it.

Ali Abdaal 0:52 In this conversation, we talk a lot about business, how to build a physical business, how to build an online business, what it really means to think like an entrepreneur and the skills needed to survive in the world of business, and how to make this thing that we call passive income.

Mark Tilbury 1:04 Everyone who's young has got time to make money. I don't think people are aware of how much time they have. I'm probably gonna shock you here with something.

Ali Abdaal 1:13 At the moment, according to the YouTube analytics, 81% of you who are watching this on YouTube have not yet hit the Subscribe button. And so if you're, for example, in the now 81% of people who are watching this on YouTube but who are not subscribed to the channel, I would love it if you could do so, and it would be awesome to get that number down to 50%, and it would be cool to get, like, 50/50 sub/non-sub ratio just, just for

Ali Abdaal 1:32 fun. Mark, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Mark Tilbury 1:34 You're more than welcome.

Ali Abdaal 1:35 It's gonna be, it's gonna be super fun.

Mark Tilbury 1:36 I've been looking forward to this for a long, long time.

Ali Abdaal 1:37 Yeah, same. And yeah, I'm, I'm going on yours as well, so we'll do a l- link swap and all that, all that jazz. Um, your story is, is super interesting, and I'd love it if you can just kind of take us, take us through it, and then I'll... and then we'll dive in at different points, and I'd, I'd love to ask more questions about it. So my-

Mark Tilbury 1:52 Well, it's, it's quite a long story. It depends where you want me to start from, really.

Ali Abdaal 1:55 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:56 Um, but obviously I come from a different era to what is around now.

Ali Abdaal 1:59 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 2:00 Um, and I really wanted to leave school. School wasn't great for me. Um, I, I wouldn't say I hated it, but I didn't enjoy it. Is that fair enough? I tolerated going.

Ali Abdaal 2:10 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 2:10 I had, um, lessons that I enjoyed, like woodwork, technical drawing, sports, all that sort of thing, but everything else seemed to be a waste of my time. I always thought there was always more out there in the world for me to do. Um, so I thought, "16, I can leave, so I will leave." Um, and I was told by my mentor at the time, although I didn't know he was my mentor then, that getting a trade will be your best bet to, you know, whatever you wanna do after that, get a trade behind you 'cause you can't go wrong.

Ali Abdaal 2:36 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 2:36 So I became a carpenter/joiner and, uh, did that apprenticeship for three and a half years.

Ali Abdaal 2:40 A carpenter/joiner?

Mark Tilbury 2:42 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 2:42 What is, what, what is that? [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 2:43 Well, like a cab- a cabinet maker you might call nowadays.

Ali Abdaal 2:46 Okay. Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 2:46 So I used to make real- well, some nice furniture I used to make, but eventually I got wound up with the job because they got a really big contract for making these, um, wooden trash bins for Walmart-

Ali Abdaal 2:57 Okay

Mark Tilbury 2:57 ... or ASDA as it is in the UK. And I was constantly making these, and that's why I actually brought that job to an end because I thought, "You know, I can't continue to do this. There's more to me than that." Um, and it actually pushed me out of that job, um, which was quite good really in hindsight, um, but disappointing at the time.

Ali Abdaal 3:14 Do, do you think that's still good advice for people today in 2023?

Mark Tilbury 3:18 Um-

Ali Abdaal 3:18 The trade thing

Mark Tilbury 3:19 ... I actually think,

Mark Tilbury 3:20 personally, and I think we'll clash on this-

Ali Abdaal 3:22 Mm

Mark Tilbury 3:22 ... um, I actually think too many people go to university.

Ali Abdaal 3:25 Mm. Interesting.

Mark Tilbury 3:26 Um, and I think, uh, I think it's about 25% at the moment. Is it something like that? 20-

Ali Abdaal 3:30 Yeah, it's quite high. Yeah

Mark Tilbury 3:31 ... 25%. Um, and when I was at school, maybe 10% went. Um, so the best of the best went to university to do the jobs like becoming a doctor or medical professional like yourself, um, which you've got to do. I understand that, fully understand that, and that is correct. But what I think is a lost part of our generation now is the people that go that could have become plumbers, electricians, carpenters, which then go on to having their own businesses within those fields and growing those out. And of course, because of that, we've now got a shortage of those, and when you get a plumber in or someone to do any work for you, it costs you a fortune because there's such a big skill shortage.

Ali Abdaal 4:08 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 4:08 Um, so I do think too many go. So yes, I do like the trade route, and you've always got something to fall back on. And while you're learning a trade, you're also learning about life as well because you're meeting so many different people and seeing how the world ticks, and I think that's great for setting you up if you wanna go into business.

Ali Abdaal 4:25 How would you, how would you define trade?

Mark Tilbury 4:27 Um, trades, well, realistically, the plumbers, the electricians, anyone that does anything that takes time to learn through a proper apprenticeship, I'd say that's really a, a household trade. So anyone that you, you actually phone in, I don't know, for example, tree surgeon, you know, they cost you a fortune.

Ali Abdaal 4:44 Tree surgeon?

Mark Tilbury 4:45 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 4:46 What does a tree surgeon do?

Mark Tilbury 4:46 Well, heart-

Ali Abdaal 4:47 Like pruning the-

Mark Tilbury 4:48 ... heart change or something like that

Ali Abdaal 4:48 ... pruning the trees and all that. Okay. Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 4:49 Well, there's quite, there's quite a lot of work there. When you've got as many trees as I have and you get, get them in-

Ali Abdaal 4:52 Yeah, I mean, I don't have a house, so like [laughs] yeah

Mark Tilbury 4:54 ... yeah, you're talking 3 or 4 grand for a visit, so-

Ali Abdaal 4:56 Oh, wow. Okay

Mark Tilbury 4:56 ... yeah. So skills like that I think are, are worth investing in. Um, and I think a lot of people that do go to university, and please bear in mind I'm not knocking university because it has its place, and 100% agree with that, um, but too many go that could make a really good career elsewhere, like and earn a lot more, not start off with the debt that they incur by going to university.

Ali Abdaal 5:20 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 5:20 And I do understand there's a social element to university as well, but it's a very expensive party for three, four, five years, and that, so-

Ali Abdaal 5:28 Yeah. Yeah

Mark Tilbury 5:28 ... or six years, I think, in your case.

Ali Abdaal 5:30 Six, six years in the medical case, yeah. [laughs] Um, so would something like, you know, learning to code and becoming a software developer through, like, without going to university, would you put that in the same category of qu- like learning a trade? Like you've got the skill that's taken you a while to learn, and you don't necessarily need to go to university for it?

Mark Tilbury 5:47 Yeah, I'd certainly say so because as an employer, I always employ on experience as opposed to, um, you know, getting marks from university or whatever it happens to be or exam results because I think experience for me always counts for a lot, lot more than exam results.

Ali Abdaal 6:03 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 6:03 Always thought that way, so.

Ali Abdaal 6:04 Yeah. No, absolutely. It's, it's, it's the same for us. Like, um, Eli, I think a couple of our team members didn't go to university, and I didn't even realize until, like- Ages after we'd hired them, I was like, "Oh, shit. Oh, yeah, that's... Yeah, fair enough." [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 6:15 Yeah. It just seems a bit of a push way, doesn't it?

Ali Abdaal 6:17 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 6:17 I don't know what your parents were like, but I'm assuming-

Ali Abdaal 6:20 Oh, very much academics-

Mark Tilbury 6:21 ... it's expected that-

Ali Abdaal 6:21 All the way forward. It's just almost a given that you're gonna go to university.

Mark Tilbury 6:24 Yeah. So I think is there three rules in your household-

Ali Abdaal 6:27 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 6:27 ... uh, doctor, lawyer, or failure?

Ali Abdaal 6:29 That's the one, yeah, yeah.

Mark Tilbury 6:30 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 6:30 Sometimes people put engineer in there instead of fa- but, like [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 6:32 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 6:32 ... doctor, lawyer, engineer, or McDonald's. Those tend to be the, the, the options that you have.

Mark Tilbury 6:36 And we're not mo- no- we're not knocking McDonald's-

Ali Abdaal 6:37 Of course

Mark Tilbury 6:38 ... are we?

Ali Abdaal 6:38 Yeah, 100%.

Mark Tilbury 6:38 'Cause a lot of people have started there and done well as well, so.

Ali Abdaal 6:40 Yeah. Um, how... So let's say someone is, I don't know, 16, 17, 18 listening to this, and they're thinking, "I don't really know what I wanna do." The default seems to be, well, for a lot of people, "I'll, I'll just go to uni 'cause it," quote, "it's useful to have a degree."

Mark Tilbury 6:55 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 6:55 Um, how should... How would you approach kind of if you were advising someone, and if they were like, "Hey, Mark, I don't, I don't really know what to do. I'm 17"?

Mark Tilbury 7:04 Well-

Ali Abdaal 7:04 What are the factors here?

Mark Tilbury 7:05 ... personally, I, I would say, and this didn't exist when I was younger, is not necessarily a year out, but spend some time doing a lot of different jobs. Because doing a lot of different jobs, you do find out what you don't like. So we mentioned McDonald's there. So you could flip burgers for two weeks if you wanted to, learn the ropes of the McDonald's trade, then quit, then go onto your next job.

Ali Abdaal 7:26 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 7:26 Learn that job. See what you didn't like from it. Take the things you did, and then put them together in the third job you go to. So I, I think taking a year away to find out what you don't like is a great way to do things. And then if the choice is to go to university because you wanna be X, Y, Z that needs that, then of course you go. But the problem with going when you don't know what you wanna do is that's a lot of debt.

Ali Abdaal 7:49 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 7:50 That's a hell of a lot of debt, and that debt at some point's gotta be paid off. And you may never go into that job or use that degree ever again in your life. So it is a bit of a waste, I think, for a lot of people.

Ali Abdaal 8:03 Yeah. Even in the UK where it... b- you know, some people would say it's not really debt, it's more like a graduate tax. Oh, it's only 9%, and you only have to pay it off once you're earning more than 25K or whatever the number is. Do you think the debt thing is still a factor that people should seriously consider?

Mark Tilbury 8:18 Um, I think so because I think it also limits their job options as well. Because most people that come out of university feel they're of a certain level. They don't wanna earn below a certain level, and you are gonna be paying it back nine times out of 10. Um, but you also job trap yourself to a certain degree as well using that.

Ali Abdaal 8:34 What do you mean?

Mark Tilbury 8:34 Well, y- [laughs] most people that I know that have been to university that haven't got jobs are like, "Well, you know, I can't find a job for my qualifications." And you think, well, that's because you've studied something you didn't want to study in the first place-

Ali Abdaal 8:46 [laughs] Yeah

Mark Tilbury 8:46 ... and there wasn't any job opportunities for that. And whoever promised you that university course was gonna give you a good living-

Ali Abdaal 8:53 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 8:53 ... at the end of it essentially lied to you because it's not there. But it is a business, university, isn't it, at the end of the day? There's a lot of people making a lot of money pushing a lot of people through, whether it's through the university itself or whether it's through the accommodation or whether it's through student unions or whatever it is. There's a lot of money being earned. So I can understand why people push youngsters that way because in a way it's an easy option, isn't it? If you don't know what to do, you've got three stroke four years of, "Well, I'm going to university. I'm working hard. Everyone thinks I am." But then the reality will hit after that. So-

Ali Abdaal 9:28 Mm

Mark Tilbury 9:28 ... again, not against university before anyone feels that way, but I think a lot that go probably shouldn't.

Ali Abdaal 9:34 Yeah. I think I'm... I would, I would broadly agree with that. I think, yeah, in, in some schools and s- in some, in some backgrounds it's just... You know, in my school, like, 100% of people went to university, and it would... it was, like, really weird if you didn't.

Mark Tilbury 9:46 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 9:47 And-

Mark Tilbury 9:47 The same at my-

Ali Abdaal 9:48 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 9:48 ... son's school as well. I mean, my son, every single person in his school leaving in his year went to university.

Ali Abdaal 9:54 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 9:54 He deliberately did not go to the open days of the university because he knew he didn't wanna go. And if he-

Ali Abdaal 9:59 Mm

Mark Tilbury 9:59 ... went to the open days, then they would probably coerce him into wanting to go. You know, like, "You can join this team. You can be on that team. You can do this. The nightlife's great." And he felt that it would hold him back, and I think that's the bravest decision he's ever made. Because if everyone around you is going, and you say, "No, I'm not," you're actually the strong one in that situation. And he's now built obviously a business with my s- well, he built a business before we worked together, but now we work together on YouTube and everything else that we do and on the podcast Strike It Big, and it's, it's a fantastic relationship because of that.

Ali Abdaal 10:37 Nice. So you, um, were a carpenter and joiner for, you said for three and a half years?

Mark Tilbury 10:41 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 10:41 So what happened next in the career?

Mark Tilbury 10:43 Uh, well-

Ali Abdaal 10:43 At this point you would've been, like, 19-ish?

Mark Tilbury 10:45 Yeah, 19, 20.

Ali Abdaal 10:47 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 10:47 But I always knew at 16 when I left school I wanted to be self-employed. I'd done loads of different side hustles, although they weren't called that-

Ali Abdaal 10:53 Oh, yeah [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 10:54 ... before. [laughs] Uh, they were just side hustles.

Ali Abdaal 10:55 What, what kind of side hustles?

Mark Tilbury 10:56 Um, I used to go fishing, used to catch fish at Dover, catch the train first thing in the morning for free, come back and pretend I lost my ticket, so very cost effective.

Ali Abdaal 11:05 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 11:05 Used to catch lots of mackerel. We used to take them around the house and estate selling them, um, which worked very, very well as a youngster. Um, I used to buy and sell cars as well, so I was flipping cars. That's while I was a, um, carpenter and joiner. So I used to do a car a week. I'd always buy a car that I liked. So if I couldn't sell it, it didn't matter, that would be my car, but they were always Escort Mark IIs. That's the car of choice, and they always sold. And I was buying them for about £300, selling them between 500 and 600. So you double your money for a little bit of valeting, and that's all it took during the week, and then someone would come along. We'd park it on a nice estate as well when they came to visit it, so that it'd give it a little bit of kudos, and, um, always did very well. So always done lots of side hustles. In fact, I got to a stage where I actually ended up selling all of my time, which I don't think a lot of people understand. But, you know, when you're being paid an hourly rate at work and you're, you're working every hour of the day, Saturdays I'd work part-time in a model shop. Sunday I'll be teaching people to fly model helicopters. You know, I'd actually got to the point where I sold every bit of time I had, and we went to fit, um, a staircase on a customer's house And, um, I always remember this really, really rich guy, and I spoke to him, and I said, "How can you have such a great lifestyle? Because this is what I want." I don't know if he laughed or not, but he said, "You know, you've got to get your money to work for you." And I went, "Well, how's that work?" So he explained, you know, about investing and having a little bit of money starting to grow in the background. He says, "If you think long term, you'll do well. If you think short term, you'll lose your investments." He said, "So that was quite important at the time to me." And at the point where you've sold all your time, you've got no other way of earning money. You know, you're, you're done, aren't you?

Ali Abdaal 12:52 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 12:52 You, you're, you're, you're maxed out. So, uh, that was quite a good turning point.

Ali Abdaal 12:57 Okay, two g- two questions on that if I... So

Ali Abdaal 13:00 one is, um, were you not concerned about things like work life balance and all that stuff that is fashionable to talk about these days and very unfashionable to talk about kind of hustling and grinding and stuff? If you're selling all, all of your time, yeah, how, how are you approaching that, if at all?

Mark Tilbury 13:18 Um, well, to be honest, I was never really too bothered about finding the girls. Uh, I'm not the best-looking chap in the world. I understand that, but I was quite a cheeky chappy. Normally had a girlfriend, and I didn't work hard at it. I had a girlfriend, finished with a girlfriend, had another girlfriend, and so on. So that's just how it went. Um, and I think a lot of people do spend a lot of time on trying to find the one.

Ali Abdaal 13:42 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 13:42 And, but I always believe the one will arrive if given enough time. Um, so that was fine. I mean, I had a good social life. I enjoyed my... enjoyed what I was doing. And when you're... For example, because I love radio control model flying, and that's what my main businesses are, um, being that age and being able to fly other people's models and teach them to fly on their models without having to buy them, that was great fun anyway. So I was having fun, although my time was being sold. So that's sort of how it worked. But when I did meet the one, which obviously everyone hopefully eventually does, um, I did say to her, "Look, you, you need to understand I'm very selfish with my time." And she said, "Well, what does that mean?" I said, "Well, when I have enough time to spend with you, it'll be 100%. You know, 100%. If we're coming up to London or we're going out on a date, we didn't have mobile phones there, so it was less interruptive. And if you had a date for an evening, it'll be 100% of my commitment, time, and everything. But in between that, you might not hear from me or you might not see me and all the rest of it." And she understood that-

Ali Abdaal 14:50 Mm-hmm

Mark Tilbury 14:50 ... and what the long-term vision was. And I think if you're honest and upfront right from the start, then that's good.

Ali Abdaal 14:57 Fantastic. Um, it s- strikes me that the phrase selling your time is an, is an, is an, is an interesting phrase. Like, is that how you were thinking of it at the time, or is that, uh, sort of afterwards as you learned more about finance, you realized you were selling your time?

Mark Tilbury 15:08 I think it was afterwards. Um, I, I realized that I couldn't earn any more than I was, um, because again, there's no more time in the day to physically do it. And I think lots of people get trapped by earning a daily amount of money, and they think that's what I am worth. That's the value I'm giving, so that's what I get. Um, you, you can only increase that by giving more value, but eventually your time is limited. And again, we'll go back to the doctor analogy because this is what you are. Even as a doctor, you can high earn, can't you? Very, very good earnings. But that still caps at some point.

Ali Abdaal 15:43 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 15:43 So let's say as a doctor you do a bit of private and all the rest of it, I don't know, quarter of a million a year, something like that. You're still capped at that.

Ali Abdaal 15:52 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 15:52 That's it. There's no more-

Ali Abdaal 15:53 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 15:53 ... unless you make your money work for you. Um, now obviously I wasn't at that amount of money. I was probably back in the day, I don't know, 15, 20,000, something like that, which was double what I was earning in my job.

Ali Abdaal 16:06 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 16:07 Way over double actually. Um, so what can I do? You, you are trapped, and I realized it, but it was explained later that you'd sold all your time. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 16:16 Hmm. I like that, that, that phrasing, selling your time. I think it's, you know, there's that thing of, there's nothing that ruins more dreams than, uh, the security of a, a, a monthly salary or-

Mark Tilbury 16:27 Mm

Ali Abdaal 16:27 ... or a daily wage. Um, and-

Mark Tilbury 16:29 Well, it's a comfort-

Ali Abdaal 16:30 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 16:30 ... isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 16:31 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 16:31 And I, I think lots of people will moan about that they don't get paid enough, um, but they don't want to do anything about that, and that's the crucial point is that comfort stage. And when you're comfortable, why do you need to do anything about it? I'm comfortable. I can moan about it, bitch about it, whine about it, but actually I am comfortable, and that is a dangerous position if you want to be rich.

Ali Abdaal 16:54 You had this then, this, this conversation, which is with the super rich guy that you were installing the, the-

Mark Tilbury 16:58 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 16:58 ... the stairs for. How did, how did that change things for you?

Mark Tilbury 17:02 Um, it made me look at investing.

Ali Abdaal 17:05 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 17:05 Um, what I would have liked is someone like myself or someone like you available to be able to look up and study because I, I think YouTube has opened up what the schools haven't been able to provide. And if we'd have had financial lessons at school-

Ali Abdaal 17:24 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 17:24 ... I'd have been hands up to go to it because I, I, I've always liked earning money. I've always liked, you know, finding ways of making it. But school teaches you to go out and find a job to earn money, but it doesn't teach you what to do with that once you've got it.

Ali Abdaal 17:38 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 17:39 And I think that's where YouTube has certainly jumped in. And the whole reason we started the YouTube was because we were on a skiing trip, and we noticed the ski in France up on the wall there. Um, and we were in a chalet, and I have told this story a few times, but we were around a table. There was four youngsters, and I say youngsters, 18, 19-year-olds, maybe a little bit older than that. And for two hours after dinner, all they talked about or asked questions about was business and finance. And I didn't know h- where the time had gone. I spoke to my son afterwards. He said, "Look, that was two hours. They were interested in what you had to say." I said, "What? Aren't they teaching this?" And they went, "No." So, you know, I think you get to a certain stage in business where you think this is all common sense-

Ali Abdaal 18:21 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 18:21 ... common knowledge. Everyone knows this. But actually it's the opposite. They don't. And, you know, they're eager to listen and to learn and to, to move forward.

Ali Abdaal 18:30 Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So you, so you have this conversation, um- As you're, as you're installing the, the staircase, what happens the next day in your life?

Mark Tilbury 18:39 Um,

Mark Tilbury 18:40 well, I, I left work, started a business. Um, and with starting a business as well... Again, a lot of people turn off on YouTube when you start talking business, 'cause they think it's all complicated, and difficult, and hard, whereas actual fact it's the, the complete opposite. Uh, most people I find when I talk to them think they have to know everything about business. They've gotta go to business school or, or do business studies, or go to university to study it, and they're the people to go into business. Whereas the reality is we're all winging it. I mean, to a certain degree I would say you- you've probably done the same-

Ali Abdaal 19:11 Yeah, 100%

Mark Tilbury 19:12 ... with this business. You know?

Ali Abdaal 19:13 [laughs] Every single day is-

Mark Tilbury 19:14 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 19:14 ... just trying to m- make shit up as we go along.

Mark Tilbury 19:16 And you learn the lessons as you go on.

Ali Abdaal 19:18 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 19:18 And those lessons sometimes are hard learnt, they cost you some money, but sometimes they make you a lot of money.

Ali Abdaal 19:23 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 19:23 But whatever way it is, it's a lesson, and you don't forget it because you've learnt it yourself. It's not someone else telling you that lesson. You've learnt it, and you move on from that, and it's, it's a great way to be. Um, I think the advantage youngsters have now, which they don't really see, is everything's a possibility now. When I was at school, it was, "What are you gonna be?"

Ali Abdaal 19:44 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 19:45 Well, I do... I, I wanted to be a pilot, first of all. I wanted to join the RAF and be a fighter pilot, and drive those fast blowtorches around the sky. Uh, but I got the bins, and obviously from there on I, uh, that wasn't gonna be a possibility. So the only other thing I was good at was carpentry and joinery, so I, I stuck onto that. But also, I'd have liked to have been a racing car driver, or I'd like to have been, you know, any multitude of different things, but that was for someone else. That, that wasn't for me. You know, that wasn't possible.

Ali Abdaal 20:16 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 20:16 You know, that, that was a barrier. No, you, you've got to decide what you want to be, and you've got to decide that now, and you can't have anything too advanced because you're never gonna get there, and that was quite a hard knock all the time.

Ali Abdaal 20:28 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 20:28 Very, very hard knock. But that was common. That was very common back then.

Ali Abdaal 20:31 Whereas today there's more kind of possibility in people's minds.

Mark Tilbury 20:35 I think, I think so.

Ali Abdaal 20:36 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 20:36 Yeah. I mean, again, you went to university to study medicine, and now you're into YouTube and social media-

Ali Abdaal 20:42 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 20:42 ... and all this sort of thing.

Ali Abdaal 20:43 Bit random. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 20:43 And yeah, y- y- you don't know where you're gonna go, but the possibilities are there, aren't they?

Ali Abdaal 20:48 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 20:48 You know, if you had-- If you were at school now and you liked motorsport, for example, and you thought, "Well, I could do that," and you've been to the car circuit and you go, "I'm actually not too bad at this-"

Ali Abdaal 20:58 Mm

Mark Tilbury 20:58 ... you know that that is actually a career path. Whether you can follow it or not, that's down to you as an individual, but it's a career path. I thought it was just something s- you know, racing drivers did.

Ali Abdaal 21:08 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 21:08 I didn't know where they came from. It's just racing drivers' job.

Ali Abdaal 21:11 Yeah. I guess partly it's, it's, it's sort of like two things. Fir- Like, I think for me, I was very lucky in the sense of, you know, being born in the right place to the right set of parents, privilege, and all that kind of stuff. But I think also there's an informational advantage that people have today that they didn't back in the day.

Mark Tilbury 21:28 100%.

Ali Abdaal 21:28 It's like today, if you think you wanna be a whatever, you can just Google it, and someone will have made a day in the life of a whatever video.

Mark Tilbury 21:34 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 21:35 And you can literally see the YouTube channels of F1 drivers and see what, what they're up to day-to-day, and you think, "Huh, that's interesting."

Mark Tilbury 21:40 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 21:40 Or you can listen to them on a three-hour-long podcast where they literally break the, break down their entire journey.

Mark Tilbury 21:44 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 21:44 So I think that's like, yeah, one of the, one of the really cool things. And in a way, like I've, I've spoken to a lot of people recently who feel that, again, t-to your point, the university industrial complex takes in all of these, like varied and interesting individuals and spits them out to become an identical automaton-

Mark Tilbury 22:00 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 22:00 ... going to consulting or whatever other, you know, accounting or whatever, you know. Obviously, consultants, accountants, all, all good. Just using that as an example.

Mark Tilbury 22:08 I mean, for you-

Ali Abdaal 22:08 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 22:08 ... to, to switch from being in medical, in medicine-

Ali Abdaal 22:12 Mm

Mark Tilbury 22:12 ... to what you're doing now, I mean, that, that must have been a very brave move.

Ali Abdaal 22:17 Um, I think once the business started to do well, it felt less bra- le- less like bravery and more like common sense. Um, and, and the tide was already slowly starting to turn in that maybe in my year 5% of people were like, "I don't really wa- I don't really wanna do medicine." These days I speak to medical students, and they're like, "30% of my year group, they realize they don't wanna do medicine." So it seems like, again, I think with the availability of information and like social media, the internet, et cetera, people are realizing that the path that they are set on at the age of 16, at least in the UK, where you start choosing your-

Mark Tilbury 22:46 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 22:46 ... A levels and stuff, is not necessarily the path you have to continue following for the rest of your life.

Mark Tilbury 22:51 But 10 years ago, if you'd become a doctor-

Ali Abdaal 22:54 Mm

Mark Tilbury 22:54 ... you'd have done that till the day you retired.

Ali Abdaal 22:56 Yeah, probably. And there were very few examples of like, you know-

Mark Tilbury 22:58 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 22:58 ... people starting a, inventing a surgical equipment or something. Like that-

Mark Tilbury 23:01 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 23:01 ... that's what I imagined I would do. I was like, "I'm gonna be a doctor forever."

Mark Tilbury 23:03 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 23:04 "And on the side I'm gonna try and invent some kind of tech thing."

Mark Tilbury 23:07 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 23:07 Um, but even then that was 'cause when I was like 13, I started making websites for money, and so I already had that business thing going on the side.

Mark Tilbury 23:14 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 23:14 Whereas most people weren't thinking in those ways and were just focused on getting through the-

Mark Tilbury 23:21 But that's the entrepreneurial spirit, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 23:23 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 23:23 You know, and I think that's in from a very early age, uh, regardless of who you are. Um, I don't think you can be taught that. Um, you can be taught business without a doubt, and you can learn business, and you can have a go, and you can learn investing, and you can have a go. But entrepreneurial spirit, you can't just say, "I'm gonna become an entrepreneur." You know, it's what you are.

Ali Abdaal 23:43 How did you... So

Ali Abdaal 23:45 do you th- do you think that's some- something peop- someone can develop?

Mark Tilbury 23:49 I think, um, m- 90% of people can, can be pretty good at whatever they decide they want to be if they're dedicated enough to it. Um, but to be 100% good at it, that's, that's the hard bit.

Ali Abdaal 24:03 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 24:04 And that's the difference, isn't it, really-

Ali Abdaal 24:06 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 24:06 ... between most people.

Ali Abdaal 24:07 'Cause I think in a way you've gotta, you've gotta enjoy it as well.

Mark Tilbury 24:10 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 24:11 Like I was, I was interviewing, um, a chap called Marcus yesterday who's like a, an, uh, Olympic medalist in tennis, and I asked him kind of if you wanna become a, a pr- professional tennis player, what's the, what's the balance between like discipline and just sort of pushing through it? And he was like, "It's just impossible. Like, unless you genuinely enjoy it, it's impossible to just get punched in the face repeatedly [laughs] "

Mark Tilbury 24:32 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 24:32 ... which is what happens when you're trying to play professional tennis.

Mark Tilbury 24:34 Yeah, I'd, I'd agree-

Ali Abdaal 24:35 And so, yeah

Mark Tilbury 24:35 ... with that. I mean, I chose radio-controlled models as my main business, but that's because I was so into it-

Ali Abdaal 24:41 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 24:41 ... and I, I was pretty good at it as well. You know, I traveled the world representing the UK team, um, and we did quite well as a team as well. We got bronze medals at European championships and world championships. So that, that's pretty good, and that helps build that business as well. So if you've got a passion for the thing you enjoy and you can see a way to make money from it, it's great, but it's no good at just being a passion-

Ali Abdaal 25:02 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 25:03 ... because so many passion businesses just go down the pan because they don't look at the business side of it first. And I was always very much, "This is my hobby side of what I do for my business. This is my business." You know? And they're two completely different things. You know, when you're doing it as a hobby, you can be friends with everyone. When you're doing it as a business, you can't, and it's as simple as that.

Ali Abdaal 25:22 Yeah. It's the same analogy that I... So, um, in my course, we teach people how to be YouTubers. Um, and one of the things I always ask people is, "Are you treating YouTube as a hobby, or are you treating YouTube as a business?" And you can't say 50/50 on both, 'cause, you know-

Mark Tilbury 25:34 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 25:34 ... you've gotta, you've gotta pick a side, because that radically changes the way you approach it.

Mark Tilbury 25:38 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 25:38 If you're treating YouTube as a hobby, great. Make videos about whatever you feel like. Follow your passion, all that kind of stuff.

Mark Tilbury 25:42 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 25:43 If you're treating it like a business, then let's analyze the market. Let's figure out how you're gonna stand out. Let's, like, you know, take it a... treat it, treat it like an actual business person would treat a business-

Mark Tilbury 25:51 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 25:51 ... rather than hoping that, hey, if I just do my hobby thing, it'll just magically make me money. Um, so how did you decide that you wanted to... So w- w- what was the business that you initially started, and how did you decide to go down that route?

Mark Tilbury 26:04 Uh, the initial business w- again, was radio control models. I bought a shop, because the only way you could start a real business like that was having a shop. I mean, I'd done the side hustle part of it, which was repairing people's models on the side and teaching people to fly them. Um, but the next logical step was to, to get a shop, so that's what I did. Um, and from day one it was very good.

Ali Abdaal 26:25 How, how did you get a shop? Like, what is... What, uh [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 26:27 Well [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 26:28 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 26:28 Well, basically, I just went... I, I did a business plan. I spent weeks and weeks and weeks drawing up this business plan. I tried to cover everything I could. I worked part-time for someone so that I knew what I needed to do. Um, he actually stole my plans [laughs] which was a pain, to be honest, but I wasn't quite ready to go. He actually opened a shop exactly where I was gonna open it with the same name as well. He stole everything. Um, completely other st- another story.

Ali Abdaal 26:53 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 26:53 Um, but I did a business plan when I was ready-

Ali Abdaal 26:56 Okay

Mark Tilbury 26:56 ... which was six months following this. Um, and on this business plan it laid out what we could make, what my expertise was, where we were gonna do it, rents, everything. Took it to, um, the bank manager, and he turned me down flat. He didn't even give me really the time of day. It was literally, "Well, you've made an appointment. I've got to see you, but no."

Ali Abdaal 27:14 Okay.

Mark Tilbury 27:14 You know, if I could sum it up any better than that, I would, but that was what it felt like to me. And I came out of the bank and I went, "Well, this is either dead in the water, never gonna happen, or I've gotta go forward with it and try and do something." And when you've been slapped pretty hard like that, it is actually quite hard to see a positive. So I coulda turned right. I coulda turned left. So I decided to turn right. The bank next door, next door but one, was Barclays. I went in there. I said, "I've got an appointment with the manager." And they went, "Oh, you're not down." I went, "Oh, no, definitely. It's, uh, 11:00. Uh, yeah, I'm, I'm a bit early. Maybe that's it." "No, no, you... Oh, we'll, we'll let you see him anyway."

Ali Abdaal 27:50 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 27:50 So I went in and saw him, um, gave him the business plan, spoke about it, and he went, "Yeah, I wanna back you." And he said, "I'll be your first customer."

Ali Abdaal 27:58 Oh, wow.

Mark Tilbury 27:58 Just like that. Pretty good, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 28:00 That's pretty good.

Mark Tilbury 28:01 Yeah. I think he had, um, a certain amount of money that they had to potentially lend out to startup businesses.

Ali Abdaal 28:09 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 28:09 Um, and obviously we had to cover it with, you know, the, the, the, the property I had and various other things, but it was a yes. It was a definite yes, and that was a, a big thing.

Ali Abdaal 28:20 All right. We're just gonna take a quick break from this episode to introduce our sponsor, which is very excitingly Huel. Now, Huel is great because I've been a customer of Huel for the last six years, and also we've got an interview with Julian Hearn, who is the founder of Huel, on this podcast, so you can check that out. It'll be on the YouTube channel and on the Spotify page. And that was a fantastic master class in entrepreneurship. But anyway, we're talking about Huel because Huel is a fantastically complete meal. So if you're like me and you have a fairly busy life and you don't necessarily make the time to shop and cook and prep and wash up, like, a healthy meal at home, which is obviously ideal, then the nice thing about Huel is that it's a great alternative to an unhealthy cereal or an unhealthy takeaway meal, for example. I particularly like the Huel Black Edition because this is high protein and lower carb. So for 400 calories, you get 40 grams of protein, and so this is absolutely fantastic for workout days where I'm trying to get my 160, 180 grams of protein in. And it's also great because the high protein helps me stay full for a lot longer. Take my two scoops of the Black Edition powder. I like the Banana Edition and the Salted Caramel Edition. I'll mix it up in my NutriBullet blender thing with water and maybe a little bit of milk sometimes, and then I'll just sip on that while I'm working at my desk, and that will get me the appropriate level of protein that I need. It'll get me a decent chunk of carbohydrates and fibers and fat, and also 26 different vitamins and minerals which are generally very good for the body. It's also very reasonably priced. Like, if you work it out, it comes out to 1 pound 68 per meal-ish, which is about 400 calories, and that's way cheaper than an alternative would be if you were ordering takeout, for example. So if that sounds up your street and you would like a nutritionally complete and affordable and healthy option for some of your meals, then head over to huel.com/deepdive. And if you use that URL, huel.com/deepdive, they will send you a free T-shirt and also a free shaker bottle thing with your first order. I still use my T-shirt. It's great. It's nice, elasticy. It fits reasonably well. It makes me look kinda hench. So you can check that out, huel.com/deepdive. So thank you so much, Huel, for sponsoring this episode This episode is very kindly brought to you by Trading 212. Now, people ask me all the time for advice about investing, 'cause I've made a bunch of videos about it on the YouTube channel, and my advice for most people is generally invest in broad stock market index funds, which is exactly what you can do completely for free with Trading 212. It's a great app that lets you trade stocks, and funds, and ETFs, and foreign exchange if you really want to. And one of the great things about the app is that if you're new to the world of investing, you can actually invest with fake money. You don't have to put real money in. They've got a practice mode where you invest fake money, and then it actually tracks what the market is doing in real time. So you can see, had I invested 100 pounds into this thing, what would my return have been X weeks or X months further down the line? Once you've got some comfort with that, then it's super easy to deposit money into your Trading 212 account. You can use Apple Pay, like I do initially, or you can use a direct bank transfer. And then once the money's in your Trading 212 account, then you can invest it in basically whatever you want. The other really cool feature about Trading 212 is their Pies feature. So what you can do is you can follow people who've created investing pies. For example, someone might have a pie where, I don't know,

Ali Abdaal 31:00 30% of it's Apple, and 20% is Tesla, and 10% is the S&P 500. And you can follow people on the app and see what pies they've created, and you can see the performance of those pies, and then you can just copy and paste a particular pie into your own account. And so that means, like, let's say you've got 100 pounds to invest, and you've put 50 of it into the S&P 500, but you wanna be a little bit more experimental with the other 50 pounds. You could invest it into a pie where someone else, who's generally a pro or someone in their bedroom [chuckles] who just loves the markets, has already done all the homework for you. The app also lets you auto invest, which is a great thing, 'cause then you can automatically invest a percentage of your paycheck into the thing every month. And so if you haven't yet started with investing and you wanna give it a go, then you can download the app on the App Store. And if you use the coupon code ALI, A-L-I, at the checkout, that will give you a totally free share worth up to 100 pounds. It's available on iPhone and Android, and you can check it out by typing in Trading 212 into your respective app store. So thank you so much, Trading 212, for sponsoring this episode. Like, my brother is a s- tech startup founder, and so I'm familiar with that side of things where they've got, like, venture capital backing.

Mark Tilbury 31:53 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 31:54 But I've just never really clocked that you can literally walk into a bank with a business plan on a piece of paper and ask them for money. Is, is, is that, is that how it works?

Mark Tilbury 32:03 I'm not sure you get it now.

Ali Abdaal 32:04 [laughs] Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 32:04 Um, but back then, certainly it was a business plan.

Ali Abdaal 32:07 Okay.

Mark Tilbury 32:07 And I think when you had managers back then, the managers of a branch would have, you know, the, the final say over quite a lot of things.

Ali Abdaal 32:14 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 32:14 Nowadays, it would probably go through all sorts of committee and different things.

Ali Abdaal 32:17 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 32:17 But yeah, it's l- literally a business loan. It was a startup loan. It wasn't for the amount I needed. Even with what I had, it wasn't enough.

Ali Abdaal 32:24 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 32:25 But if the business was successful enough for the first two months, it would be enough. And, uh-

Ali Abdaal 32:30 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 32:30 ... that, that's the way I worked it. And first day when we opened up, I was so skint, I had nothing.

Ali Abdaal 32:36 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 32:37 I didn't even have enough fuel to get home. I took a sleeping bag and put it in the back of the van I had, because if I didn't take any money, I wasn't able to get home that night.

Ali Abdaal 32:46 Wow.

Mark Tilbury 32:47 But that's full commitment, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 32:48 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 32:49 And if you're gonna do anything, commit.

Ali Abdaal 32:52 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 32:52 'Cause then there's no option. It works or it doesn't, but you're gonna do as much as you can to make that work.

Ali Abdaal 32:59 Were you not worried that you were gonna, like, l- lose the house and, like, all of the fears that would... Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 33:04 Actually, I was 20. What's the worst that can happen when you're 20? This is the thing I can't seem to get through to a lot of people. What's the worst thing? You lose what you have. You're 20.

Ali Abdaal 33:14 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 33:15 You've got all your life ahead of you to restart something else.

Ali Abdaal 33:18 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 33:18 I mean, how exciting is that? It's brilliant. You know, everything's on the line.

Ali Abdaal 33:26 D- did you have that perspective when you were 20?

Mark Tilbury 33:28 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 33:29 I feel like when I was 20, I was like, "Gosh, if I lose every- uh, the, if I get kicked-

Mark Tilbury 33:32 No

Ali Abdaal 33:32 ... out of med school, sudden- like suddenly my life is over."

Mark Tilbury 33:34 Yeah, but I couldn't see it going wrong.

Ali Abdaal 33:36 Okay.

Mark Tilbury 33:37 But it was exciting.

Ali Abdaal 33:38 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 33:38 So it's that excitement is what you want, and, uh, that drives you on. And we had a cracking day.

Ali Abdaal 33:44 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 33:44 You know? I, I say that now. It's just over 100 pounds we took, just over. And to this day... And this is another thing in retail that amazes me. We've never, ever had a day where we've taken less than 100 pound on a day we've opened, ever, even in the early days. Um, and what amazes me is people have to decide to come to your shop.

Ali Abdaal 34:04 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 34:04 Particularly back then. No internet, no eBay, all that sort of thing. So they've got to come to your shop, make that active decision to come in and buy something. And, uh, I always thought you gotta have a day when no one decides to come to your shop, haven't you?

Ali Abdaal 34:18 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 34:18 But we never have.

Ali Abdaal 34:20 That's-

Mark Tilbury 34:20 Which is quite amazing, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 34:22 That's amazing. Um, w- w- what... Okay, l- I've got a friend who's super into, um, burgers. He just loves making burgers, makes burgers for all his friends,

Ali Abdaal 34:31 and he says, "One day I really wanna open, like, a burger shop or, like, a burger van or something like that." If that person was on your ski trip being like, "Hey, Mark, how do I open, how do I turn this into a business?" What would be the steps that you would follow today, assuming you can't just walk into Barclays and be like, "Hey, can I have a loan?"

Mark Tilbury 34:47 Well, the-

Ali Abdaal 34:48 Or-

Mark Tilbury 34:48 ... the problem with food is-

Ali Abdaal 34:49 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 34:50 ... 80% of food ventures fail.

Ali Abdaal 34:53 Okay.

Mark Tilbury 34:53 So it's a pretty bad statistic, isn't it? Particularly restaurants. Um, so the best plan of attack is to be the 20%, not the 80%, straight away.

Ali Abdaal 35:01 Okay.

Mark Tilbury 35:01 So there you go. That's the best advice you can have, 'cause that's the, that's the one that's gonna win. You've gotta have something a bit different as well. And again, with burgers it's very difficult, isn't it? Because you would think, or I would, I'm not into burgers, um, but you would think everything's been done. And then you look at, um, one burger outlet that we went in, in, into, in the States, In-N-Out Burgers. All right? The simplest menu you ever did see. Okay? So there's three different options. They're just the same burger made in three different ways, and they were absolutely flat out. My son, who's sitting over there, absolutely loved it.

Ali Abdaal 35:34 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 35:35 Kept taking me back to this place. I was like, "God, if only they did a chicken burger as well, it'd be great." But because they specialize and their menu is so small, you know, people know what they're going there for, and they do a very, very good job of it.

Ali Abdaal 35:46 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 35:46 So I would probably say to anyone that's gonna start and do a burger van or something like that, make it simple.

Ali Abdaal 35:52 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 35:52 And make it so you can repeat what you do. And when someone comes back the next week because they enjoyed your burger, make sure it's just as good. It's exactly the same as it was the last time they had it. Because the worst thing you can do ... is make this wonderful burger, and then the next week go, "I'm gonna cut down on the cheese. I'm gonna cut that a little bit thinner. I'm gonna just, you know, I'm gonna now start portioning the sauce a little bit less 'cause these are key savings to make my business work better and put more profit on my end margin." But as soon as you start destroying that product or, or bringing it down from what people like, it just gets worse and worse and worse, and you might get a third visit, but you won't get a fourth. You know, the second visit's 'cause they enjoyed the first one.

Ali Abdaal 36:33 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 36:33 The third visit was because they thought the second one, well, maybe he made a bit of a mistake, but I'm still after that ultimate burger I had the first time I came. I ain't coming a fourth time for-

Ali Abdaal 36:43 Hmm

Mark Tilbury 36:43 ... something that wasn't as good as the first time.

Ali Abdaal 36:46 So for a business like that, that requires some level of startup capital, how would, how would you approach finding the money, assuming you, you don't have rich parents to give it to you?

Mark Tilbury 36:53 The three Fs, friends, families, and fools.

Ali Abdaal 36:55 [laughs] Okay.

Mark Tilbury 36:57 Because they're out there, aren't they?

Ali Abdaal 36:58 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 36:58 Why, why borrow it from somewhere where you don't, where, where you've got to pay that interest back? So those are your three places to start with. If you get enough from that, then you can go to the banks. The banks will give you some money, without a doubt. So then you can go that way. I've never gone to a venture capitalist ever. I've never done fundraising, never gone down that route. Obviously, some businesses need it because they have to go through this, and I hate this word, burn stage.

Ali Abdaal 37:26 Burn stage?

Mark Tilbury 37:26 Well, where they're burning the money-

Ali Abdaal 37:27 Oh, yeah

Mark Tilbury 37:28 ... produ- you know, trying to build that brand.

Ali Abdaal 37:30 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 37:30 You know, if you've got a good brand, it should pretty much start organically growing.

Ali Abdaal 37:35 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 37:35 Um, so I hate a burn stage, and people that tend to, um, raise money in that way do tend-

Ali Abdaal 37:41 Mm

Mark Tilbury 37:41 ... to think, "Oh, I've got plenty of money. We can do that. We can do that." Before you know it, it's gone. So a lack of money or certainly a small amount of money at the start is actually a bit of a superpower because it makes you make the most of all your free advertising, everything that's available to you to make, you know, the best decisions from. So it depends what it needs. I mean, if it's a startup burger van, how much can that really cost? I mean, you need a van. You need to adapt it. Do it yourself if you can. You've got your recipe. You've got your menu. 10, 15,000. Find a pitch. Nowadays, you're more likely to have to pay for a decent pitch, but back in my day, you'd have just wheeled up wherever you wanted to and put your sign out.

Ali Abdaal 38:24 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 38:24 But just keep turning up, keep doing it.

Ali Abdaal 38:26 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 38:27 You know, it's, uh, it's all doable, but there, you know, a lot of people will put excuses all along the way, of course.

Ali Abdaal 38:33 Yeah. Yeah, I think especially for, like, this is partly why I really like, you know, when, when, when people ask me, "Oh, you know, I wanna get rich. What do I do?" Often I'm like, "Okay, well, there's a lot of books you can read and stuff," but, like, if you learn how to code, that is a very good way to get into the business thing because almost every software business that you start does not need startup capital. You can get your-

Mark Tilbury 38:55 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 38:55 ... $10,000 of Amazon Web Services credit for free. You don't need to spend 15K on a van. Um, and you can almost kind of qu- be profitable from day one. You're not in that quote burn stage where, crap, I've just spent 15 grand, and now I need to recoup that over the next five years, and then I'll become profitable.

Mark Tilbury 39:11 Hmm. And the other beauty of a digital product is you can obviously be anywhere in the world producing that digital product. So your overheads can be cut to an absolute minuscule amount if you want to, and you can be in a beautiful part of the world for very little money producing your product. So yeah, digital products are fantastic.

Ali Abdaal 39:27 Yeah. Yeah, similarly, I get, I get emails from people being like, "Hey, can you do a video about passive income ideas from Pakistan?" And I'm like, "Well, no, 'cause I'm not in Pakistan right now," but also, like, passive income ideas from Pakistan is the same as passive income ideas on the internet-

Mark Tilbury 39:42 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 39:42 ... anywhere else because the internet is not localized. So I think there's definitely something to be said for using the power of the internet, which wouldn't have been a thing back in your day, to start businesses that can benefit from that location independence and also the scale.

Mark Tilbury 39:54 And the trouble, you mentioned passive income. Most people's definition of that is it's a business that's gonna give me money. I haven't got to do anything. But the, the h- the def- the real definition of a passive, uh, business is it's gonna cost you either time or money or a combination of the two. So whatever way you look at it, you know, it's not really passive.

Ali Abdaal 40:14 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 40:15 You know, it's got to have that initial investment of time or money or both.

Ali Abdaal 40:20 Um, l- l- let's go back to this guy that you were, um, installing the stairs for. So it, it strikes me that there are two directions you could, you, you could have gone from there. The guy's saying t- telling you, you know, make your money work, work for you, and I'm gonna use the terminology from MJ DeMarco, who you might be familiar with, where it's like you can go down the slow lane approach or the fast lane approach.

Mark Tilbury 40:41 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:41 And the slow lane would be, okay, I'm making, I don't know, 2K a month. My costs are 1.8K. I can save 10% of my paycheck every month, and I can put it into the S&P 500.

Mark Tilbury 40:52 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:52 And someone... I w- I watched a video on YouTube from Ali Abdaal telling me that Warren Buffett says you should invest in the S&P 500. Great.

Mark Tilbury 40:58 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:58 That money's growing by 7% a year. By the time I'm 55, I should... it should be worth a million. Versus I'm gonna take that spare 200 quid, and I'm gonna use it to start my own business. What do you think about those two different, two different routes?

Mark Tilbury 41:11 Well, I use a combination of the two. Um, I've always put away approximately 10% of what I earn into an index fund.

Ali Abdaal 41:18 Nice. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 41:18 Always, from e- from about 18.

Ali Abdaal 41:21 Nice. Same. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 41:23 So I, I'm sorted, aren't I? You know, because, you know, that, that was always gonna become a big amount. I can draw down on it now if I want, but of course, why would I? I've got 10 years of hopefully amazing growth. Um, but I've also gone, hopefully, partway down the fast lane, um, and that is obviously opening a business, investing in myself, investing in the business, and pushing that forward. Um, there's lots of hurdles along the way, though. You know, like shops were a great thing to have when I started, you know, the model shops, and we, you know, built those shops up to various, you know, several different shops. Um, but then of course the internet hits, and then having brick stores isn't the way to be. So you, you've got to adapt that business. Um, so now we're talking 35 years on from when I started, and we're still in business doing- A similar thing, but we're doing it in a completely different way. So I think an entrepreneur sees, um, answers as opposed to hurdles, or they might see a hurdle, they get over it and move on. You know, don't get stuck by it, and, uh, that's what we try and do.

Ali Abdaal 42:27 So 35 years ago when you started the business, were you thinking, you know, 35 years later I'm still gonna be doing this? Or were you more like short-term in your-

Mark Tilbury 42:34 Um, I would say it was a lifetime sort of, uh, business at the time, definitely. Um, because I think most passion businesses are. Um, I think the ones that aren't are the ones with the exit strategies are more tech-type businesses. Um, and if I was advising your friend with the burger van, um, I would probably say that the, the, the main thing to focus on is your exit, to be perfectly honest. Where, where, where's it going? Where's your finish stage? Because if you don't have an exit strategy, you haven't got anything that's sellable. So a few years back, probably 10 years back, I decided that wasn't something I had, an exit strategy at all to the business I was in. And so I've made it or adapted it, so at any point should I now want to sell it, I have a role in exit strategy.

Ali Abdaal 43:29 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 43:30 So year on year on year, and it's now a turnkey business as opposed to being, um, fully dependent on myself, which it, it was. Obviously, we had staff, but you know, you take, take me out of it 10 years ago, it wouldn't have operated. But now it will operate very well with the staff that we had. Again, I refer to yourself, similar to yourself, you have a very good team behind you, and once you have a very good team, then the business can roll on a daily basis.

Ali Abdaal 43:55 Yeah. I think the thing for me is, you know, peop- uh, I was in, uh, Miami earlier this week. Everyone's... There was like m- multimillion/10 million agencies and talking about selling to private equity for 20X profit, and I was just like, "Yeah, I don't think I have an exit strategy." But for me and this business, I don't really think of it as a business, but I feel like I don't really want an exit strategy. Um, the... For me, making YouTube videos, interviewing people, writing books and stuff, that's more like a lifestyle choice-

Mark Tilbury 44:25 Hmm

Ali Abdaal 44:25 ... rather than a business.

Mark Tilbury 44:27 Well, similar to my lifestyle business-

Ali Abdaal 44:29 Yeah. [chuckles]

Mark Tilbury 44:29 ... because the enjoyment was there.

Ali Abdaal 44:31 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 44:31 So, you know, it rolled and rolled, and the enjoyment came-

Ali Abdaal 44:35 Yep

Mark Tilbury 44:35 ... every day.

Ali Abdaal 44:36 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 44:36 You know, that, that's the great thing with enjoying what you do, isn't it? It's-

Ali Abdaal 44:39 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 44:40 ... it, it's a fun time. You know, you are going to work, and yes, you do work hard-

Ali Abdaal 44:45 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 44:45 ... but the work you do, you enjoy.

Ali Abdaal 44:47 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 44:47 So it-- you're rewarded every day.

Ali Abdaal 44:50 Yeah. Absolutely. And I guess further down the line, if I did decide, "Okay, this is no longer that fun. Let's now... Let's maybe figure out an exit strategy, license the IP." There's, you know, there's then things that you can do-

Mark Tilbury 45:00 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 45:01 ... to build to sell, as it were. Um, just to take things back to complete basics, what is a business? If someone's listening to this

Ali Abdaal 45:11 and they're like... Like, I feel like the word business is, is... You know, we're talking about exit strategies. You know, I just threw out, you know, 20X profit. Uh, for someone who doesn't understand what's going on, it's like the word business can feel very daunting. So how would you break that down, like, most simply?

Mark Tilbury 45:24 Well, if you wanna boil it down to really the brass tacks, it's buying something and selling it for a profit. That's the brass tacks of business, isn't it, really? Uh, or producing something and adding value to it and selling it for a profit. So it can be as simple as a side hustle, and the reason side hustle is so popular, I think, on YouTube is because people don't think it's a business, where of course it is a business. It's only when you go into scale that the problems obviously come. Um, but a side hustle essentially is a business, and no one's scared or very few people are scared of a little side hustle-

Ali Abdaal 46:02 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 46:02 ... but they're scared of doing a business.

Ali Abdaal 46:04 Yeah. That's true.

Mark Tilbury 46:05 But really, they're the same thing, just slightly bigger. Um, a lot of people think business is when you start employing people. Of course, it's not. It's way before that. But the employment thing is a, is a big trigger or a, a hard point to get over when you get to that stage.

Ali Abdaal 46:21 So when you're selling... When, when you're repairing model airplanes on the side, would... Is that, is that a business?

Mark Tilbury 46:27 Um, I would say it is-

Ali Abdaal 46:29 Okay

Mark Tilbury 46:29 ... because you become known for it. If you're known for something and that's what you do, I would say... Well, it is a business because it was the start of a business as well. Without that, the business wouldn't have started. It wouldn't have had the capital to be able to start. You know, what I was earning from that, you know, made me more money. So if you take, um, the repairing people's models scenario, I was working part-time in a model shop, so I had quite a lot of customer base from that. I would then go out and teach them to fly. They'd crash their model. It would need repairing. The... Or if they didn't crash it, I would be able to suggest how we could make that model fly better, and my specialty was radio control helicopters, so there was always upgrades, always. So... Or what you need on that, you need the new metal head or the titanium tail boom or whatever it happened to be that would improve it for you, and it'd be like, "Well, I don't know how to do that." "Well, leave it with me. When we come back for a lesson next week, I'll have it all done for you." So you've got the spare parts that I was buying with a trade discount because I'm working in a store, so that's great. You sell at full price. You've got the repair costs and labor, maybe an hour. Always charge to the hour. That's always a good tip. You know, if it takes you half an hour, your minimum's an hour. And you had... You supplied it back. They were gonna be there the following weekend because they wanted to pick up their pride and joy, so they're not gonna not turn up for their lesson. So it's actually, that is a business.

Ali Abdaal 47:51 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 47:52 You know, and it's only then scaling it that people have the issue with.

Ali Abdaal 47:56 Oh, interesting. Yeah, I like that definition of business. It makes it feel a lot less daunting-

Mark Tilbury 48:01 Hmm

Ali Abdaal 48:01 ... 'cause I think even, like, before... I think, yeah, for me, I w- when I was doing my web, web design type stuff, I was w- weirdly thinking of myself as a business. I... Or even trying, trying to act as if I was a bigger agency than I actually was-

Mark Tilbury 48:16 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 48:16 ... with one man shop hoping people would give me work. But yeah, the word business does seem very daunting to people, and thinking of it as this, you're, you're taking a thing, you're, you're buying a thing, you're adding value to it, and you're selling it for a profit

Mark Tilbury 48:27 It's strange, isn't it-

Ali Abdaal 48:28 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 48:28 ... really. Also, the other hard thing when you're doing it as a side hustle is understanding what you're worth as well.

Ali Abdaal 48:34 Hmm.

Mark Tilbury 48:34 Because your value you're adding quite often is a lot more than you're charging for as well. So if you're charging an hourly rate of £30, £40, £50, £100-

Ali Abdaal 48:44 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 48:44 ... and you are booked out-

Ali Abdaal 48:47 Yep

Mark Tilbury 48:47 ... I mean, it's obvious to look at that now and go, "Well, I was worth more than that. I should have charged more." But at the time you think you're charging about the right amount, and that's why you're busy. But, you know, you could, you could... Let's say you doubled the amount you charged, and you lost a quarter of the people, you're earning more money-

Ali Abdaal 49:05 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 49:05 ... and you're working less time.

Ali Abdaal 49:06 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 49:07 And that's quite a hard lesson to learn when you're starting out in business.

Ali Abdaal 49:12 Why do you think people have such a, an aversion to price and money?

Mark Tilbury 49:18 Um, [laughs] this, this will get political unfortunately.

Ali Abdaal 49:23 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 49:24 Um, I think before, um... I'll say it. Before Margaret Thatcher came into power, 'cause I always blame her a little bit for everyone trying to get the best price on everything. Before that, I think it, I always felt it was what something cost was what something cost. You went and you bought it, and I think she brought a lot of Americanisms in where you, you know, you question the price, and you ask for a discount, and all that sort of thing. So I would say that's where that stemmed from.

Ali Abdaal 49:53 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 49:53 And of course now it's a worldwide market with the web, and the web in certain aspects is a, is a race to the bottom on price, um, particularly with the likes of Amazon and all the rest of them with their bulk buying power and not having to declare profits and all the rest of it. Um, so people are always after a bargain now, and I think that... I would say that's where it started, in my opinion. Before then, it was you paid the price.

Ali Abdaal 50:18 Uh, and like I think the, uh, there's also an interesting phenomenon on the, on the other side. So my, my singing teacher, Josh, is charging like-

Mark Tilbury 50:24 I'm glad you're having lessons, by the way.

Ali Abdaal 50:26 Oh, thank you. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 50:29 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 50:29 Oh, yeah, I need it. [laughs] Um, my singing teacher, Josh i- was charging like, I think like 30 quid an hour initially, and is ridiculously qualified. It li- literally has performed in Broadway musicals, and has done TV work, and is amazing. And I was like, "Why are you only charging 30 quid an hour?" And he was like, "Oh, I don't feel right. I don't feel right charging 35 or 40." Even though his business is not particularly profitable, 'cause we were talking about it. I was like, "Dude, surely just like double the prices," 'cause, you know, that thing of-

Mark Tilbury 50:55 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 50:55 ... maybe you lose 25% of your customer. Who cares? You, you doubled your prices.

Mark Tilbury 50:58 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 50:58 And he was like-

Mark Tilbury 50:58 And if you do, you can always come back-

Ali Abdaal 51:00 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 51:00 ... from the price you overcharged.

Ali Abdaal 51:01 Exactly. [laughs] And he felt... Uh, the, he, he, he said he felt bad increasing the prices 'cause he felt like it wasn't worth, it wa- wasn't worth it even though people were willing to pay. Do you see that kind of thing at all amongst, amongst people that you talk to?

Mark Tilbury 51:13 I, I think a lot of people undercharge. I mean, I used to race, um, cars, full-sized cars. It, it was a great hobby, by the way.

Ali Abdaal 51:21 Right.

Mark Tilbury 51:21 If you ever get into it-

Ali Abdaal 51:22 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 51:22 ... it's fantastic. Um, I don't now. I sponsor someone in the British Touring Cars, but I used to race cars, and I used to have a guy who used to do a lot of the mechanicing for me on that car. And I'd deliver it to him. He'd tell me what he's done, and he'd say, "That's 75 quid. Sorry about that." And I'd think, "God, I was expecting £200 on that bill." And I'd go, "Yeah, have 125." "Really?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, have it." He went out of business. He was in business as a mechanic for about four or five years. Went out of business, and I know why he went out of business. I told him why he was gonna go out of business, and he wasn't charging enough. You know? But he was so afraid, and I don't know why people don't try, because trying to charge a little more is an experiment in business, isn't it? And you push it to as far as you can because you can only make that profit once from that customer.

Ali Abdaal 52:10 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 52:10 You know, you don't wanna rip anyone off. I would never say go and rip people off, but you're providing value, and it's what you put as that value, and that's an important amount of money. If your customers think what you're doing is worth more than you're giving them, I mean, why does he not listen?

Ali Abdaal 52:27 Hmm. Yeah. Why, why do you think people have that fear, that fear of charging more?

Mark Tilbury 52:33 I think they think they'll lose everyone-

Ali Abdaal 52:35 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 52:35 ... or feel they're ripping someone off.

Ali Abdaal 52:36 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 52:37 They don't value their skill enough, which is a shame, 'cause skills take a long time to establish. So again, if you wanna boil it down to learning to fly a model helicopter, that w- to the stage from, from getting an RC helicopter all those years ago, and they were hard to fly. I mean, they didn't really fly. They beat the air into submission basically. Um, but to learn to fly a model helicopter took me the best part of a year to get to the stage where I could teach. Now, some people, it took a lot, lot longer than that, but for me it took a year. That is a lot of flying time, parts, spare parts when you break the model. That's a lot of investment, isn't it? And you've gotta get that back.

Ali Abdaal 53:18 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 53:18 So it's gotta be worth something.

Ali Abdaal 53:20 Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I think when I first started charging for, for our course about two and a bit years ago, I was so scared. I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna... People are gonna think I'm a sellout. Like, I've built an audience off of free content, and now I'm gonna charge for something. Oh my God. And then, like, it's kind of expensive, so, like, the people in my audience who can't afford it are gonna think I'm a terrible person." And there were all these fears I had around money, and I think what was underlying that was the idea that money is evil, and making money is bad, and making money by charging people for things is worse. [laughs] And it just, uh, had... There was a lot of untangling I had to do. Was that something that you've, you've, you've come across?

Mark Tilbury 53:58 I've never struggled with it really.

Ali Abdaal 53:59 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 54:00 Um, with... I mean, you get people knocking dropshipping, don't you? "Oh, you've bought that from Alibaba for $10, and you're selling it to me for $30. That's a rip-off." Well, what do Walmart do? What do Sainsbury's do? What do all these companies do? They buy for a low price. They sell for a high price, and the value they put in between is why they can Get that profit

Ali Abdaal 54:21 Mm-hmm

Mark Tilbury 54:21 Why, why would you say that's a rip-off? It's not a rip-off. That's what I wanna sell that product for. So why, why should you struggle with that?

Ali Abdaal 54:28 Mm. Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 54:29 If no one wants to buy it, then, then you've- then I've got a problem-

Ali Abdaal 54:33 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 54:33 ... because I can't earn the margin I need to survive in business. So I either I've gotta change my business model, or I've gotta look at my margins and see if I can, you know, rely on less. But there is always a figure that you can't-

Ali Abdaal 54:46 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 54:46 ... do less than. It's just not worth your while.

Ali Abdaal 54:49 Mm. Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 54:50 And if you're not earning money, what is the point? And the thing with courses, I mean, I, I only provide free content, as you're aware. Um, and I don't have a problem with courses. I think courses such as your own and others are very good and provide excellent value. But, of course, there is the other side of it, and you know the people that, that produce bad courses-

Ali Abdaal 55:15 Mm

Mark Tilbury 55:15 ... and they, they are a rip-off, without a doubt. You know, so it's very hard to justify the cost of yours, but you know the effort that's gone into what you're producing. Again, that's the value you're adding.

Ali Abdaal 55:26 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 55:26 And if that's good value, then you should never be ashamed to, to charge for it, ever. The fact that you can now sell millions of a digital product, that's immaterial.

Ali Abdaal 55:37 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 55:37 You've still put that value in.

Ali Abdaal 55:39 Yeah. Yeah, I think another thing that I have, have appreciated over time is sort of, I think, cost-based versus value-based pricing.

Mark Tilbury 55:46 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 55:46 Where I think people are in, are often thinking, "Oh, this only took me half an hour, therefore I'll charge based on that," versus that half an hour has added 500 grand in sales to this, this company that you've just tweaked the headline for. So let's charge based on the value we've provided rather than the cost it costs us to just do the thing.

Mark Tilbury 56:03 100%. Yeah. No, it goes to, like, a story of the guy that fixes the computer. I mean, a guy goes to this massive computer place, let's call it IBM, and they don't know what's wrong with their big blue computer or whatever it was called at the time. And he turns up, he looks around, and he takes out a component, puts a new component in. Bam! It goes into life, and he says, "There's my invoice, 20,000 pounds." And they said, "20,000 pound? You were only here five minutes." "Yeah, but it took me years to know what component to take out to make that work."

Ali Abdaal 56:34 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 56:34 "That's my value."

Ali Abdaal 56:35 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 56:35 "Do you want me to take it back out?"

Ali Abdaal 56:36 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 56:37 "No." "Right, okay. 20,000 pounds."

Ali Abdaal 56:39 Yeah, perfect. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 56:40 Hmm.

Ali Abdaal 56:41 And also, if that computer is printing them, like, 100,000 pounds a minute, it's like, [laughs] you know-

Mark Tilbury 56:45 Exactly

Ali Abdaal 56:45 ... to them, those five minutes are worth 500K.

Mark Tilbury 56:47 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 56:48 So.

Mark Tilbury 56:48 But, you know, that, that knowing that component might have taken him-

Ali Abdaal 56:52 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 56:52 ... 50,000 hours of gaining knowledge-

Ali Abdaal 56:55 Mm

Mark Tilbury 56:55 ... to know that's the component that you need to change. So they're actually paying a proportion of that 50,000 hours of learning.

Ali Abdaal 57:03 Yeah, true, and paying for it back. Um, so what does, what does your model business do these days? What does it look like?

Mark Tilbury 57:09 What does it look like? Um, at the moment, we have, um, a couple of shops, um, that sell direct to public. Uh, they also sell on eBay and also via the website. Um, they're still a very big enjoyment for me, and if I get time, I'm behind the counter from time to time. Not, not as much as I'd like to be, but I still get a kick out of, of selling a product.

Ali Abdaal 57:29 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 57:29 Particularly if someone comes in and they don't know what they're buying, and I can explain... You know, ask them, you know, who they're buying it for, what they want it to do, and all the rest of it, and I can explain the best package. And they go, "Yeah, I'll have that." That's, that's, that's quite a kick, you know?

Ali Abdaal 57:45 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 57:45 You... Yeah, it's really nice, and you know they're gonna love the product-

Ali Abdaal 57:48 Mm

Mark Tilbury 57:48 ... and that's brilliant. So that's the shop side of the business. Then we also have, um, a design, import, manufacturing, and distribution business as well. Um, and we manufacture in China and also in Vietnam, and they're my own designs that we, we manufacture. Um, and the best-selling one of those designs is a model called the Riot, which is a model airplane. Um, and I designed that when I was 14 in a geography lesson at school.

Ali Abdaal 58:15 No way. Wow.

Mark Tilbury 58:16 Yeah. It took me years to make it.

Ali Abdaal 58:17 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 58:18 Um, and the reason it took so long is 'cause there used to be a product leader in the market.

Ali Abdaal 58:23 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 58:24 Um, and I had a deal with him, because I knew he was getting quite old, that when he retired, he would pass those design rights to me, and I'd continue that brand, um, and he'd have a royalty. Um, but like in business, there's always a bit of backstabbing some- somewhere down the line, and he passed it to someone else. And I said, "Well, yeah, listen, on." He said, "Well, I promised that to him before." I said, "Well, you could have let me know." But I had all these models that I'd designed as a kid, and I went, "Right, here we go. Let, let's get them manufactured." And now we are more prolific than the models we would have taken on, because they're better, of course.

Ali Abdaal 59:00 Yeah. [laughs] Obviously.

Mark Tilbury 59:01 [laughs] And I designed those because I couldn't afford the kits when I was a, a youngster.

Ali Abdaal 59:07 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 59:07 You know, so I'd use the woodwork lessons. Well, after school, they had a woodwork lesson. I'd cut out the sides of the models and use the technical drawing tables as well to do the final designs. You know, use what you've got available for free, a bit like where you start a business. Use your advertising tools that are free. Use everything you can. Don't just go, "How much does this cost to advertise?" and give them all your money, you know? It, it's about using what you've got.

Ali Abdaal 59:32 This episode is very kindly brought to you by WeWork. Now, this is particularly exciting for me because I have been a full-paying customer of WeWork for the last two years now. I discovered it during, you know, when the pandemic was in, on the verge of being lifted, and I'd spent, like, the whole year just sort of sitting in my room making YouTube videos. But then I discovered WeWork, and I was a member, me and Angus, my team members, we were members of the WeWork in Cambridge, and they have, like, hundreds of other locations worldwide as well. And it was incredible because we had this fantastic, beautifully designed office space to go to to work, and we found ourselves, like, every day just at 9:00 in the morning just going to WeWork because it was a way nicer experience working from the co-working space than it was just sitting at home working. These days, what me and everyone on my team has is the All Access Pass, which means you're not tied to a specific WeWork location, but it means you can use any of their several hundred co-working spaces around London, around the UK, and also around the world. And one of the things I really love about the co-working setup is that it's fantastic as a bit of a change of scenery. So these days I work from home. I've got the studio at home. But if I need to get some focused writing work done and I've been, I'm feeling a bit drained just sitting at my desk all day, I will just pop over to the local WeWork, which is about a 10-minute walk from where I am. I'll take my laptop with me. I'll get some free coffee from there. I'll get a few snacks, and it's just such a great vibe, and you get to meet cool people. I've made a few friends through meeting them at WeWork, and it's just really nice being in an environment almost like a library but kind of nicer because there's, like, a little bit of soft music in the background, and there's other kind of startup bros and creators and stuff in, in there as well, and it's just my absolute favorite co-working space of all time. It's super easy to book a desk or book a conference room using the app, and it's a great place to meet up with team members if you're gonna collaborate and you all live in different places. They've got unlimited tea and coffee and herbal teas and drinks on tap, and they've also got various kind of after-work events that happen, like happy hours and yoga and a few other exercise-type things. And you can also take in guests, so often when guests will come over to visit, I'll say, "Hey, let's pop into WeWork," and we will just work from there for the whole day, and then we'll go out for dinner some time in the evening. Anyway, if you're looking for a co-working space for you or your team, then I'd 100% recommend WeWork. Like I said, I've been a paying customer for theirs for the last two years, which is why it's particularly exciting that they're now sponsoring this episode. And if you wanna get 50% off your first booking, then do head over to we.co/ali, and you can use the coupon code ALI at checkout, A-L-I, to get 50% off your first booking. So thank you so much, WeWork, for sponsoring this episode. It's so cool hearing about physical businesses.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:37 Um, I guess, you know, these days really the only businesses you hear about, often the ones interviewed on podcasts, are, like, online and internet-

Mark Tilbury 1:01:45 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:01:45 ... businesses, like, oh, marketing agency or PR, digital media or content or courses or any of this kind of software. But, like, physically designing a product-

Mark Tilbury 1:01:54 Mm

Ali Abdaal 1:01:54 ... getting it manufactured, and selling it to a physical customer, that's gotta feel pretty good because-

Mark Tilbury 1:01:58 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:01:58 ... you do the online stuff as well. What's the-

Mark Tilbury 1:02:00 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:02:00 ... what's... Is, is there a difference, a different kind of enjoyment in, in the two?

Mark Tilbury 1:02:03 Uh, from online sales, there's very little enjoyment unfortunately. I, I don't really like online sales, although they're a big part of our business. Um, there's no emotional attachment to an online sale apart from seeing the figures at the end-

Ali Abdaal 1:02:16 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:02:16 ... of the day, which are, oh, that's great. That makes me feel good. Um, uh, but that's it.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:20 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:02:21 Um, but what is nice is when you sell all this stuff and you don't see these customers, and I go and visit different flying clubs or whatever it happens to be, or I'm racing model airplanes, which I'm doing this weekend as well, and you go to this club and half the models at this club are, are the models you designed, and you go, "Wow, look at that."

Ali Abdaal 1:02:40 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:02:41 Yeah, that, that came from my pen, and I... It must have come through me at some stage, and that's pretty, pretty powerful stuff really.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:48 Hmm. Nice. With... Uh, I've, I've just got a few specific questions about the shop, shop stuff 'cause it's weird for me. Um, do you have to, like, buy stock in bulk in advance and then s- stick it in a warehouse, and then you're hoping to sell it over time? Is, is that how it works?

Mark Tilbury 1:03:03 Um, it can be. It depends-

Ali Abdaal 1:03:04 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:03:04 ... how you do it.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:05 Okay.

Mark Tilbury 1:03:05 I mean, we ship from China 40-foot containers. Um, and if you look at model airplanes, again, r- going back to the one we just spoke about, you can get, uh, 550 of those in one 40-foot container. So obviously you're, you're having to get containers on a, let's say, a monthly basis. Um, so on that side of the business, yes, you've gotta buy in bulk because we're supplying not only end users, we're supplying other model shops as well around-

Ali Abdaal 1:03:31 Mm-hmm

Mark Tilbury 1:03:31 ... the country. Um, we also license the product to, um, well, used to, to a guy in Germany who isn't there any longer but also to a guy in America. So they, they actually have them manufactured at source under our license, and they go out. Um, so yeah, you do have to buy in bulk on that side of the business. On the other side of the business, the shop business, really, yes, you used to have to buy in more bulk, but because now it's a more competitive market, you probably don't have to do that now. Um, and also your website can show warehouse stock potentially that you don't have.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:05 Hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:04:05 We try not to do that route. We try to have everything we show on our websites in stock, at least a single item-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:12 Hmm

Mark Tilbury 1:04:12 ... because, you know, you get an order for it, you wanna fulfill it straightaway.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:16 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:04:16 Um, so the only company we deal with, uh, where we have to buy well in advance and to the maximum we think we're gonna sell is actually Hornby Hobbies.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:26 Okay.

Mark Tilbury 1:04:27 Because they're very, very, I'll put this on record, very backwards in the way they do business.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:31 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:04:32 You know, they want to know exactly what they're gonna sell for the year. They want those orders in advance so they can manufacture it-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:37 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:04:37 ... which I, I think is the wrong way to go about things.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:41 When, when we first moved to the UK I w- I was eight years old, and we were living in, uh, Wiltshire, a little town called Devizes, and there was a toy shop there.

Mark Tilbury 1:04:50 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:50 And I used to go there and buy these, like, uh, mini airplane things. Uh-

Mark Tilbury 1:04:54 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:04:54 ... the, uh, with... And, like, you know, they, they would have the whole thingy of, like, the Revell paints and the glues-

Mark Tilbury 1:04:59 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:04:59 ... and stuff and-

Mark Tilbury 1:04:59 All the plastic kits

Ali Abdaal 1:05:00 ... I would get, like, a £7.99 one for my birthday, and then I'd spend ages, like, painting the bits, and then I realized, shit, you could paint them before you put the thing on, and it makes it way easier.

Mark Tilbury 1:05:07 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:07 And that was, like, my hobby when I was a kid. And my brother and I went back a couple of years ago, and the same sort, s- same shop was there, the same kind of stuff. Um, we bought ourselves some Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards just for old time's sake.

Mark Tilbury 1:05:20 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:05:21 Um, but yeah, there was a-

Mark Tilbury 1:05:22 Did it get a Charizard in it?

Ali Abdaal 1:05:24 No. I wish. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:05:25 Oh.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:25 If only. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:05:26 There you go. If only.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:26 Yeah, if only. [laughs] Yeah, there was... There's just something so nice about, um, just The, the tactile nature of like a physical hobby, which I f- I feel like I don't, I don't really do anymore.

Mark Tilbury 1:05:39 But also-

Ali Abdaal 1:05:40 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:05:40 ... the visit to the shop.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:41 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:05:42 It's lovely, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 1:05:42 Yeah. You can talk to them and be like, "Hey, look," that kind of thing.

Mark Tilbury 1:05:45 How much enjoyment do you get from, I'll have one of those, I'll have one of those?

Ali Abdaal 1:05:48 Oh, zero. Less than zero. [laughs] Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:05:50 So that's the same for me selling you that product.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:52 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:05:53 You come into my shop, as I explained before-

Ali Abdaal 1:05:55 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:05:55 ... and you ask about something, and I can give you years-

Ali Abdaal 1:05:58 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:05:58 ... years of advice, years of help. You know, that, that, that will be perfect for you, and you've had that experience of coming in and buying. Why have we decided that the internet's better?

Ali Abdaal 1:06:09 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:06:09 What a shame.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:11 I think it's, it's, it's the same kind of thing, uh, you know, if I make a video telling, t- teaching someone the step-by-step methods to starting a YouTube channel. That's very different to sitting down in front of someone and saying the same stuff, but seeing the like, oh, shit, in their, in their face.

Mark Tilbury 1:06:24 You can see the light bulb come on, can't you?

Ali Abdaal 1:06:25 Yeah, and you can see kind of the ideas whirring-

Mark Tilbury 1:06:27 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:06:27 ... and stuff, which you just don't get over the internet. Um, but yeah, internet, [laughs] zero cost.

Mark Tilbury 1:06:32 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:06:32 Big scale. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:06:33 Exactly.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:34 There's lots, you know, pros and cons. So, so you've got this model business right now. What other businesses do you have? What else, what other streams of revenue in your life, I guess?

Mark Tilbury 1:06:42 Um, well, there's all sorts of streams of revenue. Obviously, investing is a stream of revenue, but everything I invest in gets reinvested anyway. Um, YouTube obviously is a revenue stream as well-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:52 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:06:52 ... which is shared 50/50 with my son. Um, and obviously there's a lot of cost to YouTube that people don't realize. I mean, all this equipment, it all costs money, doesn't it? And to do a professional setup, we reinvest a lot of money. I don't know what the percentages are-

Ali Abdaal 1:07:06 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:07:06 ... but it's a lot of money. Um, and that's a good revenue stream for me now, but it was never started for that reason. You know, it was started purely to pass on these years of knowledge.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:16 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:07:16 And I say to a lot of people, to give 35 years' worth of ex- life experience, you got to look about 55, don't you?

Ali Abdaal 1:07:23 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:07:23 And that's just the way it is.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:24 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:07:25 Um, so it wasn't done initially to, to be a revenue stream-

Ali Abdaal 1:07:29 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:07:29 ... but of course it certainly is now. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:31 Nice. So kind of model business with the manufacturing arm and also the, the commerce arm.

Mark Tilbury 1:07:37 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:37 And then the YouTube thing are like sort of your main, I guess, active income.

Mark Tilbury 1:07:39 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:40 And then investing and stuff on-

Mark Tilbury 1:07:41 Exactly

Ali Abdaal 1:07:42 ... on the passive side.

Mark Tilbury 1:07:42 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:43 Nice.

Mark Tilbury 1:07:43 I'm a very keen reinvestor, so, um, I don't really take much out from investing. The only time I really have is when I bought one of my warehouses because it was during the dot-com bubble, and I took it out, and bam, it went down, and I did it a week really before the bubble burst. It was fantastic.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:01 Nice. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:08:01 So you got to have a little bit of luck along the way, haven't you?

Ali Abdaal 1:08:03 Yeah, absolutely. Um,

Ali Abdaal 1:08:05 changing gears a bit, what is your take on buying versus renting a house?

Mark Tilbury 1:08:09 Uh, I like to buy. I not only like to buy, I like to buy and pay off.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:16 Oh, interesting.

Mark Tilbury 1:08:16 Yes, I know. Well, I'm very, um, I'm very, uh, borrowing avert, although we spoke about borrowing earlier. Borrowing for a means, I understand. Um, the loan that started my business was paid back within two and a half, three years, and it was a 20-year loan.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:30 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:08:30 So 20-year, 15-year loan. Um, I like to pay back loans. I like to know what I've got. I like to know what's mine. Now, if I did it all again, I would be less loan, yeah, less, um, avert to borrowing money-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:45 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:08:45 ... and using money to make more money. So my advice on that or my tips would be don't be, uh, loan avert because money can make money. If you've got access to it, you can make money from it. But I would say on buying property, for me, your key property you live in, buy it, own it, get it paid for. It can't be taken away from you. You've got such security for you, your family, and your wife for the rest of your life. That, that's, that's my take.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:14 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:09:14 You know, on resi- a residential property I buy to rent out or commercial property I buy to rent out, obviously I'll borrow and I'll let that run the term.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:22 Sure.

Mark Tilbury 1:09:23 Although most of my commercial property is paid off now.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:26 Oh, nice. That's cool.

Mark Tilbury 1:09:27 But you get to a certain stage in life, I mean, again, we mentioned 55-

Ali Abdaal 1:09:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:09:30 ... which is what I am.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:31 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:09:32 Then you want to be secure.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:34 Yeah. You don't want to be doing anything.

Mark Tilbury 1:09:34 You know, all these things, as you gradually secure things off, you feel safer with the future and how things are gonna go. Um, so although I'm not avert to borrowing some money for a good project, um, I would always endeavor to try and get that paid off for me as quickly as I can. My son is the opposite, but then he's 24 and has a lot of time to go over those stages of paying down.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:57 Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, what are the... So you guys have a ridiculously enormous following across all of the social medias-

Mark Tilbury 1:10:07 Mm

Ali Abdaal 1:10:07 ... which is fantastic. You've done a fantastic job over the last, you know, just only two years.

Mark Tilbury 1:10:11 Big shout out to my team as well, eh?

Ali Abdaal 1:10:12 Yeah. Last t- two and a bit years of doing the YouTube stuff. Um, what are the main,

Ali Abdaal 1:10:17 what are the main questions that you get from, from your audience around finance?

Mark Tilbury 1:10:22 Uh, probably what should I invest in-

Ali Abdaal 1:10:24 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:10:24 ... to make me rich tomorrow, almost, you know?

Ali Abdaal 1:10:27 [laughs] Okay.

Mark Tilbury 1:10:27 Um, and it doesn't matter how much, um, we preach or, or put over long-term investing is long-term wealth, it's, it's very hard to get that message over. And I, I think with the instant access of everything to youngsters nowadays, it probably is hard to understand that, you know, you've got these small amounts to gain a big amount in the future.

Ali Abdaal 1:10:49 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:10:49 So I always bang on about index funds. We've already mentioned it before. If you've not got an index fund running in an ISA, why haven't you? You know, it is, y-

Ali Abdaal 1:11:00 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:11:00 ... it's one of the simplest things that you can do as an individual, the most tax efficient thing you can do as an individual. You are gonna be a millionaire if you put an amount of a decent coffee away every day into your index fund, sorted.

Ali Abdaal 1:11:13 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:11:14 You know, and that's your safety net. And now again, a lot of people say, "You shouldn't have a safety net. You should be 100% in on what you're doing." But that's always been my safety net. I always thought from the day I started putting into an index fund, I would never, ever touch that money. Now, I'm at a stage where I could touch it if I wanted to. I can touch my pensions if I wanted to. I don't need to. I have other rev- uh, revenue streams bringing the money in. It is just there just in case. It's almost a, a reminder that you made that money. You can make it again. You don't need to touch it. Why do I need to touch it?

Ali Abdaal 1:11:49 Yeah. Yeah, I've been preaching the ISA index fund strategy to my friends for years. Um [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:11:54 I mean, it's so obvious, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 1:11:55 It's just so obvious, yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:11:56 Because if it wasn't so good, it wouldn't be limited to 20 grand a year, would it?

Ali Abdaal 1:11:59 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:11:59 It would be a open pot-

Ali Abdaal 1:12:01 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:12:01 ... to put as much as you wanted in. So i- it's just obvious. You know, you've just got to get on board and take the small losses when they come. Keep putting in. Don't worry about it. Forget about it. It's working in the distance. I mean, you don't come out of your house, if you own a house, you don't come out your house, house every day and go, "Oh, it's gone down 5% today."

Ali Abdaal 1:12:20 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:12:20 Of course you don't, 'cause it's still there, isn't it? You're not selling it. You're living in it. You, you don't worry about that sort of thing, as you shouldn't worry about your index funds.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:28 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:12:28 Just keep putting in. Historically, they've raised 8% a year.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:33 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:12:34 Yeah, can't go wrong with that.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:35 Yeah. And if anyone needs a primer on index funds, we'll put some of my videos and your videos in the [laughs] video description and show notes so you can-

Mark Tilbury 1:12:41 Mm

Ali Abdaal 1:12:41 ... you can get a, get a primer on them. Um, any advice for people who are n- who don't have large amounts of disposable income, who think, "Oh, I'd love to start investing, but I'll do it... I don't have enough money right now"?

Mark Tilbury 1:12:56 Make more money. You can only save so much money.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:00 I was expecting you to talk about tips for budgeting and stuff, but this is interesting. Like what do you mean?

Mark Tilbury 1:13:03 No.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:03 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:13:03 Make more money. Y- you know, you can save so much. Say you get paid 1,000 pound a month, for argument's sake, okay? If you saved every penny of that, that's 1,000 pounds. Wow. That's all you can do. There's no limit to how much you can make. So make more money. You know, you've got to budget. Of course you've got to budget. If you don't budget, you don't know where it's gone.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:24 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:13:24 So 100% budget, but make more money.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:28 How do you-

Mark Tilbury 1:13:28 It's not hard

Ali Abdaal 1:13:28 ... how do you do that? Like s- someone might be listening to this saying, "Well-"

Mark Tilbury 1:13:31 Well, okay. People like going-

Ali Abdaal 1:13:32 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:13:32 ... to a bar, yeah?

Ali Abdaal 1:13:33 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:13:33 They like going to a pub. Well, go to the pub, but be the other side of the bar. Get yourself a part-time job. You've got all the social side of going to the bar and being in a pub, and you're getting paid for it.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:44 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:13:46 You know, that's just one example. There's hundreds of examples. You know, it's, you just make more money.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:54 It sounds so simple.

Mark Tilbury 1:13:56 It is, isn't it, though, if you think about it.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:58 I c- I, I mean, it, yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:13:59 ... I mean, if someone said to you, right, it, you need to invest £5 a day into an index fund-

Ali Abdaal 1:14:04 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:14:04 ... and you, and so, and you turn around, you go, "I, I don't have £5 left," in the whole of your day, taking out your day of work, you can earn £5 somewhere doing something.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:15 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:14:15 Of course you could. It could be washing dishes in a restaurant. Could be anything, couldn't it? But you could earn an extra £5. Don't spend it. Put it in an index fund.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:26 I can imagine someone listening to this. I mean, f- for the record, I agree with your advice. I, I c- I, I, I could imagine someone listening to this being like, "Fuck you guys. You guys are privileged and rich, and, like, you don't realize that I've got a family to feed and, like, I'm already working two jobs just to pay my rent because rent's gone up because of inflation and stuff. How can you possibly tell me to j- I just need to earn more money?"

Mark Tilbury 1:14:44 Because they're working so hard, so hard, because they're servicing the debt that they're under, generally speaking. So again, if we're into that scenario, start earning more. Start paying those debts down, particularly the high debts. I mean, they're crippling, aren't they?

Ali Abdaal 1:15:00 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:15:01 You know, again, if you're earning that 1,000 pound a year, uh, sorry, a month, for argument's sake, it's an easy figure to use-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:07 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:15:07 ... and 200 of that is going on interest and payments and you're not getting anywhere, well, you're actually living on 800 pounds.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:14 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:15:14 So get it, get it paid down. I know it's harsh.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:19 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:15:19 It is harsh, but it's also quite simple as well, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 1:15:25 So let's say, okay, so let's say someone listening to this, they're like, "Cool, I'm earning 1,000 pounds a month right now." What would you recommend as, like, your approa- like, if you were in that position, how would you go about earning an extra, let's say 100 quid a month or an extra 500 quid a month?

Mark Tilbury 1:15:39 Well, it's probably a bit different for me.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:40 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:15:40 And it, it's different for everyone, isn't it? But I would use that scenario I just said. If you like going to the pub, work in the pub.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:47 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:15:47 If you like... W- whatever you like to do, find some, some requirement from it. Like I would fly model airplanes or fly model helicopters. There was an element of, of desire that I could pass on that skill, so that skill's worth something.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:00 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:16:01 You know, go online. You know, there's lo- lots of things you can do online, like copywriting, for example, or whatever it happens to be.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:07 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:16:07 In fact, you don't even have to do it. Just ask AI-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:09 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:16:09 ... to do it for you and send it off. You know, there are so many things that you can just earn that small amount extra, and as long as you don't go and spend it or waste it, you're, you're quids in.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:20 Yeah. Nice. Okay, so one big question that you get is how do I start investing to make money, to ma- to, to get rich tomorrow? What other kind of questions do you guys get that you find yourself answering quite often?

Mark Tilbury 1:16:30 Um, that's quite a hard one. I'm looking at Curtis there-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:33 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:16:33 ... for, uh, a thing. I mean, mo- most things, most of the things we get are quite positive, and I think you're in a similar situation. It's more of a, "I didn't realize that. I'll have a go at that." Um, I, I think the, the, the thing that we get that we can't really get over is the time. The, you know, everyone who's young has got time to make money. You know, the, I don't think people are aware of how much time they have, but they've got to start. You can't keep asking for advice and not taking action, all right? Because where's it gonna get you? You, you can read 100 books, but if you don't take action, what's the point in reading all those books? No point.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:15 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:17:15 You know, so action is the thing, isn't it? You know, the, the answer to most people's questions is take action. Do something. Have a go.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:25 Nice. Uh, what's your, uh, what's your take on the whole stop buying lattes from Starbucks so that you can put your £3.50 in an index fund debate? [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:17:38 Well, it's not, it's not really that, is it?

Ali Abdaal 1:17:40 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:17:41 That's not really the thing. You know, the smashed avocado on toast, it's not really the thing. It's where you're gonna find that money from. And obviously by saying, "Don't buy the coffee, don't buy the avocado," it- it... that's all on the, the saver mentality, isn't it? It's like to, to save some of the money you earn. Well, all those things bring enjoyment, don't they? I mean, going out for a nice coffee, taking the wife out or the girlfriend or whatever, yeah, they're all nice things. So I'll go back to what I said before, put some money on top of what you're earning and use that. That's money you didn't have. Any money you earn on top of what you earn is f- free... Well, it's not free money, but you can think of it as free money. Use that to invest rather than say, "I've got to physically give up my coffee." But having said that, do you need a Starbucks coffee on your way to work? Probably not. You can make an instant coffee, pop it in a cup, stick it in the car.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:35 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:18:35 You'll enjoy it probably just as much. You know, I, I buy a particular instant coffee I quite like, and everyone goes, "Instant, ugh."

Ali Abdaal 1:18:41 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:18:42 But I quite like that.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:43 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:18:43 So I'll make a coffee. When I go to work at the shop, I'll make a coffee, I'll take it with me. I could stop. I've got a Costa drive-through on the way to work. Well, you know, it might sound tight coming from me, but that's four quid. I don't need to spend that. And the chances are if you stop for that, you can have a pastry as well, and you've seen what they charge for those.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:59 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:19:00 So, you know, you don't have to do these things, and actually, what are you giving up?

Ali Abdaal 1:19:05 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:19:05 You've still got your hot drink you enjoy.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:07 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:09 Uh, have you come across a book called Die with Zero?

Mark Tilbury 1:19:12 No, but I'm guessing what it's about. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:19:14 Yeah. It's an interesting book by Bill, Bill Perkins, basically about how people who... Uh, kind of aimed at, I guess, entrepreneurs, uh, and people who invest a lot in- into their careers, where the mindset of make more money, save more money continues way beyond it's actually useful. And actually his, his whole premise in the book is that provided you've given s- given what you want to your kids and given what you want to charities, you should aim to die with $0 in the bank account. And a lot of people when they hit retirement age, they find that, A, their health has already declined and so, shit, they should have spent more money when they were younger to do interesting things, and B, that the mindset of scrounging and saving pennies no longer... Like, that, that then holds them back, and they end up, and they end up dying with loads of money left in the bank account, which is time... Which is money that they could have not worked for, and therefore saved time, assuming they didn't enjoy their jobs, or it was a backpacking trip they could have taken in their 20s or 30s or whatever that thing might have been. How do you, how do you think about that balance?

Mark Tilbury 1:20:16 Well, it's multifaceted that, isn't it, really? Because first of all, you've got to say, do you enjoy what you do?

Ali Abdaal 1:20:21 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:20:22 Now, I enjoy what I do for a living. The, the YouTube side of things and the social media with my son, I, I absolutely love.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:28 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:20:29 Um, so first of all, why would I stop doing that if that's something I really enjoy? Um, so far this year we've been to Las Vegas. Um, we- we've come and met you today. Um, I'm doing a bungee jump shortly because one of our guests gave us a bungee jump experience.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:47 Nice. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:20:47 Um, I'm going to Dubai next month. I'm doing a parachute jump over the Palm Island, or that's the plan. Um, we're skiing. I, I don't know if I just mentioned that.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:57 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:20:58 Um, I, I love doing lots of experiences.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:00 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:21:00 I, I would say if you're an entrepreneur or businessman, the model I've always tried to do is to spend a little bit more each year, try and improve your life and your experiences every year.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:11 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:21:12 And what I believe is when you pass away, the experiences and the fun you had are the things that you're left with.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:19 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:21:20 So I've always done experiences. I always wanted to race cars. I've done that, the box is ticked.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:26 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:21:26 You know? All these different things are, are great experiences, and you should experience them, without a doubt. But dying with zero, I don't like the idea of that. I like the idea of generational wealth.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:37 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:21:37 And I like the idea that my grandad said to my dad, "You're gonna do better than me," you know, carry the family name forward, and all the rest of it. He said the same to me. I've said the same to my son as well.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:49 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:21:49 You know, I think that generational thing is great. And particularly when you come from humble beginnings, if you can build your family wealth up, that's got to be a good thing, you know?

Ali Abdaal 1:21:58 Mm. Nice. How, how do you think about, like, charity and, like, donating and that kind of stuff?

Mark Tilbury 1:22:03 I like to think that I give for the right reasons, but I think we all give for the reasons that we can say we gave. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:22:09 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:22:10 Um, uh, I think Ricky Gervais did a really good sketch on it in, um, what was it? Extras, where he went past and went, "Oh, I've only got a, only got a tenner. Don't, don't really want to give a tenner, but... Oh, there, there... Oh, there's a tenner." He went... And, "Yeah, have the tenner." You know, and it was all for show, wasn't it?

Ali Abdaal 1:22:28 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:22:29 And I think there's a lot of that goes on. Um, I give where I want to give, and I'm happy to give where I give. I don't probably give enough at the moment, but probably will more so in the future.

Ali Abdaal 1:22:43 Okay. Nice.

Mark Tilbury 1:22:44 If I see it being used well-

Ali Abdaal 1:22:45 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:22:45 ... as well, you know, that's quite important to me. I mean, our charity as a business is Kent Air Ambulance, so we'll give to that-

Ali Abdaal 1:22:51 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:22:51 ... um, because I think that's a very good cause. And maybe there's a bit of me that thinks, "Well, I might need that one day."

Ali Abdaal 1:22:58 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:22:59 So a bit of payback. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:23:01 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:23:01 I don't know. Yeah, there, there's obviously all these things, isn't there? Why do people give to cancer organizations?

Ali Abdaal 1:23:07 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:23:07 Mm, might need what they develop, you know?

Ali Abdaal 1:23:09 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:23:09 It, it's, it's a funny thing, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 1:23:12 Yeah. Yeah. Um, a lot of entrepreneurs,

Ali Abdaal 1:23:17 they sort of... When you ask them, es- especially I think above the age of, like, 30, they kind of wish they'd spent more time either on their health and/or their relationships as they were, as they were making it big, as it were. Um, do you have any of those regrets?

Mark Tilbury 1:23:33 Um, the only regret I have is I wish I could have spent more time with my son. [laughs] He's giving me the eye now-

Ali Abdaal 1:23:40 Aw [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:23:40 ... because he knows where I'm going with that.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:41 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:23:41 Um, the re- that... And that's probably why now is such a good time.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:45 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:23:46 You know, it's... He's 24, we're- He's a man, you know, and we, we get on well, and we work hard to, to achieve the goals we want to achieve. Um, but it is a very hard balance, very hard balance. I mean, the, the thing he... If you asked him, the thing that I didn't spend enough time on was he was a very good swimmer, and I wouldn't have gone to enough swimming events to watch him. My flip side to that was always that they wouldn't give you the time that his race was on, and I wasn't interested in watching anyone else swim or getting hot in the environment of a swimming pool. It's not just hot, it's humid.

Ali Abdaal 1:24:22 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:24:22 It's horrible.

Ali Abdaal 1:24:23 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:24:23 And it's so loud with everyone screaming, their kids coming on, and all the rest of it. Um, so if they could have given me a time, then I could have gone, "Right, I'll lock that in. I'll be there. I'll be watching it, cheering him on, saying well done at the end," and all the rest of it. Um, so that's a slight regret, slight regret. But realistically, if you work hard, you can gain the benefits along the way, and if your life gets a bit better every year, then I think everyone enjoys that.

Ali Abdaal 1:24:51 Hmm. Nice. Do you think that, um... Again, so when I speak to a lot of entrepreneurs, and you haven't alluded to this yet, which is-

Mark Tilbury 1:25:03 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 1:25:03 ... which is interesting. But when I speak to a lot of entrepreneurs, they talk about the importance of work-life balance. Um, but they only talk about that once they're already millionaires.

Mark Tilbury 1:25:10 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:10 Um, to what extent... Like, I know we, we talked about when you were younger and, you know, in your, in your teens. But to what extent do you think for, let's say, entrepreneurs like your son, for example, uh, or someone like me, you know, I'm 28, um, or people in their 30s, how much... How, how important is this idea of work-life balance, do you reckon?

Mark Tilbury 1:25:30 Um, I think the honesty is, as we alluded to earlier, is the important part of that. So as long as the... your partner, and I know you have a fairly new girlfriend-

Ali Abdaal 1:25:39 Mm-hmm

Mark Tilbury 1:25:39 ... um, I think the honesty behind how much work you need to do and how much time that takes up, that's important. Because at the end of the day, yes, it's a relationship, but it's also a bit of a contract as well, isn't it? If, if she's expecting more from you than you're able to provide-

Ali Abdaal 1:25:54 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:25:55 ... and vice versa, then that's a problem.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:57 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:25:57 That's where the problem's gonna create. So I think open and honest is, is very important. Um, we used to operate, um, the shops initially seven days a week. You know, that, that's a lot of time when you're on very low staff and you're having to be there. Um, so I, I think work-life balance is very important, but if you're, if you start off honestly, and then every year it gets better, then I don't think that's necessarily a problem. Um, I'm probably gonna shock you here with something as well.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:27 Ooh, hello.

Mark Tilbury 1:26:27 Um, when my wife went into labor to have my son, um, I was out teaching someone to fly a model helicopter at the time. I said, "Oh, yeah, I'll be, I'll be there. I'll be about 20 minutes, half an hour." So that was bad, really, because I should have been straight there. Um, two days after he was born, I was in America competing in a radio control model helicopter competition, which again, would sound bad to the average person. But that's the commitment I had to the hobby and to the industry that I was in-

Ali Abdaal 1:26:56 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:26:56 ... that I had to do that. So-

Ali Abdaal 1:26:59 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:26:59 ... it doesn't sound right, but that is how it is.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:03 Yeah. And your wife was okay with this?

Mark Tilbury 1:27:05 Well, to be fair, she was probably happy I wasn't around- [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:27:08 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:27:09 ... for those two weeks anyway, so.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:11 Nice.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:12 Um, what's it like running a business with your son?

Mark Tilbury 1:27:16 Um, it can be quite argumentative, um, but ultimately fulfilling.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:22 Hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:27:23 Um, we used to... Our podcast now is called Strike It Big. It used to be called Like Father Like Son.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:28 Hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:27:29 The reason we named it Like Father Like Son was because we thought the arguments that we had and the disagreements we had and the differences between the old and the new, that would make great viewing. Uh, we ended up finding that the arguments we had weren't really the ones that we'd want to air anyway-

Ali Abdaal 1:27:45 Right. Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:27:45 ... because they were probably irrelevant, or when you look back on them a day later, it's sort of like, well, it didn't really matter, did it, whether that was orange or red.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:52 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:27:52 You know, it didn't matter, but we had an argument about it. Um, but ultimately, working with your son is very rewarding, and that would never have happened within the industry that I'm in because he has no interest in radio control models.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:06 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:28:06 So, um, it was a case of we would never work together, but now we do, and that's good.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:12 Nice. 'Cause, 'cause a lot of people would say, "Oh, you know, whatever you do, don't go into business with any family members."

Mark Tilbury 1:28:16 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:17 Do you... I guess you don't agree with that advice.

Mark Tilbury 1:28:19 Um, not really.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:20 All right.

Mark Tilbury 1:28:20 No. I... You've got to be quite strong, I think, 'cause it, it could have fallen apart-

Ali Abdaal 1:28:26 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:28:26 ... but it didn't fall apart. And it's like a relationship with a girlfriend/wife. You know, it's never happy. So it's never like that, great, great, great, great, great, great.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:36 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:28:36 It's a rollercoaster.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:37 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:28:38 And there are ups and downs.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:39 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:28:40 And as you... As long as you know ultimately that we're, we're, we're both working for the business, for the betterment of the business. And when I suggest something that's outright ludicrous or, "God, you're thinking from the Stone Age, Dad," you know, it's, it's meant with the right passion-

Ali Abdaal 1:28:57 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:28:57 ... you know, to get the business forward. And, you know, a couple of days later, he might come back and say, "Yeah, there is something in that, and there's an app that does that now in a better way, and we can work with this," and, "Oh, yeah, that works," and then that's great. Another time maybe that was absolute awful suggestions.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:13 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:29:13 But I'm okay with it as long as it's taken on board and it's like, "Yeah, we'll give it some thought."

Ali Abdaal 1:29:18 Nice.

Mark Tilbury 1:29:19 And then that, that's good.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:21 Fantastic. Um, oh, I just had a question.

Mark Tilbury 1:29:23 But it is a rollercoaster. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:29:25 Yeah. What do you see as the end game for you with the, I guess the, the content side

Ali Abdaal 1:29:33 of the business?

Mark Tilbury 1:29:34 Um, that, that's hard to say, really. I mean, the thing I get from it, m- you know, equally as, as I do from working with my son, is the, the good comments back.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:47 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:29:48 You know, when you get comments back that you've changed people's lives, that's great. When people walk, walk up to you, and I'm sure you've had this, it's like, you know, "I saw that video with you and-" Talking about this fund or talking about this idea or this side hustle, and I've done it and I'm doing really well. That's brilliant. You know, I, I don't really want that to stop. I'd like that to continue forever-

Ali Abdaal 1:30:11 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:30:11 ... because that's fantastic, isn't it? If you can bring everyone up rather than push everyone down, you're gonna feel better as a person, aren't you?

Ali Abdaal 1:30:19 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:30:19 And that's what I like, you know? All, you know, 99.9% of our comments are, are positive of people that have done better through what they've done, hadn't realized what they could do-

Ali Abdaal 1:30:30 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:30:31 ... or what they were capable of. I mean, how many people don't realize what they're capable of? Most, you know. It's, it's amazing.

Ali Abdaal 1:30:39 Nice. So internet fame has broadly been a positive thing for you guys?

Mark Tilbury 1:30:42 I think so.

Ali Abdaal 1:30:43 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:30:43 Yeah, we were, we were in a tube station last night, and that was quite funny because we were-

Ali Abdaal 1:30:47 Oh, yeah? What happened? [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:30:48 Oh, just recognized, you know, people chat. Sometimes they don't wanna come up to you, do they?

Ali Abdaal 1:30:52 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:30:52 You can hear what they're saying.

Ali Abdaal 1:30:53 You can be like... [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:30:53 Oh, yeah, that's the guy I learned such and such off of.

Ali Abdaal 1:30:56 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:30:56 And you can hear them discussing it.

Ali Abdaal 1:30:57 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:30:58 And you think, "Oh, that's fantastic."

Ali Abdaal 1:31:00 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:31:00 Not only has he learned it, he's telling them that that's the guy-

Ali Abdaal 1:31:04 Mm-hmm

Mark Tilbury 1:31:04 ... and now they're learning it, and that's superb.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:07 Yeah. It's a really nice feeling to be able to pass on knowledge and experience and stuff.

Mark Tilbury 1:31:11 My, my, my mentor, um, Dave, this isn't the guy we spoke about.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:15 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:31:15 It is another guy. He died about, oh, 20 years ago now. He passed on his knowledge for free, absolutely for free.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:23 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:31:23 Didn't even know he was passing on the knowledge. Didn't know... Maybe he had an inkling I was absorbing it.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:30 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:31:30 I don't know. But that was for free. That's why we do all our content for free.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:37 One thing I'm curious about, so I'm gonna phrase this in a, in a, in a, in a weird way, but-

Mark Tilbury 1:31:41 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:31:41 ... like, well, from, from, from what you've experienced and what you've seen, what are the different levels of wealth? By, by, by which I mean,

Ali Abdaal 1:31:51 you know, there's clearly a big difference between, like, 10K a month and, like, 50K a month in terms of what it affords your lifestyle. But, like, 50 to 100, 100 to 250, 250 to a mil, like, uh, what, what are the levels with which you see or in, in your or in, in your friends', like, step changes and they'll... That this thing actually improves your life?

Mark Tilbury 1:32:09 Well, I think it's widely accepted about 80K buys you just about-

Ali Abdaal 1:32:14 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:32:14 ... most things you want, and you can go wherever you want. You can do pretty much whatever you want-

Ali Abdaal 1:32:20 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:32:20 ... over a certain amount of time. You can do all those things. So if you wanna go to Cuba, for example, you can fly economy to Cuba-

Ali Abdaal 1:32:28 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:32:28 ... have a week in an okay hotel and all the rest of it. So I, I think the first key for most people is to get to that sort of level of wealth.

Ali Abdaal 1:32:36 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:32:37 Um, beyond that, it does several things. It allow, enables you to go in first class if you want to, or premium even. You know, there's a, a plus to that isn't there? You know, it's diminishing returns, but the comfort is so much better. Like for myself, when I first traveled to China and I was doing my business there, I was traveling economy. Now I would never go less than premium because I know that if I go a better service, I can work that next day that I arrive. Well, when I was traveling economy, I couldn't do that. You know, I'm all [retches] like this, and being a larger sort of chap, it, it's very difficult. So as you become better off, it affords you just those better ways of doing things, the better hotel, the, the better travel, the... You know, some might say the better experiences, you know, really, because, you know, rather than sitting on the beach watching that guy paraglide along behind the boat, that's you-

Ali Abdaal 1:33:32 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:33:32 ... paragliding behind the boat. Obviously, it is a diminishing return, but you can also buy back a bit of your time as well, and I think as you become wealthier, that, that's the thing that you're buying back, you know. Because you can get other people to do other jobs for you-

Ali Abdaal 1:33:50 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:33:50 ... other things that you'd be tied up doing. Anything that takes your time away, if you can buy that time back, then-

Ali Abdaal 1:33:56 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:33:57 ... that's a great thing, isn't it? And we're all on a limited timescale here, all of us, and it's too short. You know, we all think we're gonna live to 100, but the facts are we're not. I don't know what the facts are.

Ali Abdaal 1:34:08 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:34:08 It's probably 86-

Ali Abdaal 1:34:09 80 something. Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:34:10 ... isn't it? Something like that. It's not a lot of life, is it-

Ali Abdaal 1:34:13 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:34:13 ... really? And you've got a lot of things to fit in. You know, I had an accident not so long ago. Uh, you may have seen the video.

Ali Abdaal 1:34:20 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:34:20 Um, and that, that's... It wasn't a life-threatening... Well, it could have been life-threatening. It was a punctured lung and, uh-

Ali Abdaal 1:34:27 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:34:27 ... ribs gone on the back and all the rest of it. It was, it was pretty shocking. Um, but as I laid there and I looked at my wife and my son, I thought, "You know, hopefully it's not the last time I see them, but if it is, they won't be able to write on there, 'I wish he'd done more,' 'cause he's had a pretty fulfilled life up to this stage."

Ali Abdaal 1:34:46 Nice.

Mark Tilbury 1:34:46 And I think that's quite a nice way to be. I mean, I, I also believe, you know... I, I don't like live every day like it's the last-

Ali Abdaal 1:34:54 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:34:54 ... because otherwise you'd end up with no money-

Ali Abdaal 1:34:56 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:34:57 ... doing all sorts of things you shouldn't be doing. But I think you should live this life like it's your last life-

Ali Abdaal 1:35:02 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:35:02 ... because it is. You know, so enjoy everything as you go. We have one guy who works for me, he said, "You should spend more money. You should do more things. You should do this. You should do that." And I said, "But I'm having a great time. I'm 55 years old. I can't remember a year I didn't enjoy."

Ali Abdaal 1:35:18 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:35:19 So there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

Ali Abdaal 1:35:21 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:35:22 I take enjoyment from all sorts of things. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:35:24 Yeah, it seems like it.

Mark Tilbury 1:35:25 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:35:26 Um, there's a bit of a debate... Well, it's, it's not much of a debate. Uh, I'd, I'd love to hear your thoughts on these two, two scenarios. Number one, I don't like doing the laundry. I don't like doing the cleaning in my house, therefore I'm gonna outsource it because my time is worth 50 quid an hour. I can outsource it for 20 quid an hour. Versus-

Mark Tilbury 1:35:42 100, 100% agree with that

Ali Abdaal 1:35:43 ... versus it builds character and it's good for you to clean your own dishes and wash your own clothes. Stop being a twat. Like, do it yourself [laughs] kind of thing.

Mark Tilbury 1:35:51 When you couldn't afford it, you did it yourself.

Ali Abdaal 1:35:53 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:35:53 You understood what you needed to do, and when that person phones you up and say they can't come in, you know how to do it. It's all about understanding those, those jobs. Once you can afford to buy your time back, 100%, that's what you should be doing. I, I, I think that, you know, wholeheartedly. Um, but doing the jobs I think is quite important as well. If you have the money as a birthright, and it's gifted to you, and you never, ever do any of those jobs, then I think you've lost something there, without a doubt. And within my business, um, or businesses, there's not one job I haven't done, and also used my carpentry skills in there as well. You know, so-

Ali Abdaal 1:36:33 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:36:33 ... everything, yeah, everything I can do I've done. And then when I ask someone to do a job, I'm not asking them to do a job of y- from a position of, "I don't wanna do that."

Ali Abdaal 1:36:42 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:36:42 "I hate that job. You can do it." I'm doing it saying, "Well, I have done it. You know, I've done my time. It's now your time to go through that."

Ali Abdaal 1:36:50 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:36:51 And that's how it is.

Ali Abdaal 1:36:52 Nice. Um, couple more questions. Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:36:54 And also you're making employment as well.

Ali Abdaal 1:36:56 Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Tilbury 1:36:57 I mean, for someone who does your laundry or does your ironing, that's another little side hustle, isn't it? You know, it's something rather than sat there watching Emmerdale Farm or Coronation Street, which if they enjoy it and they get enjoyment from, nothing wrong with that, but they could be stood in front of an ironing board doing your ironing and earning 20-

Ali Abdaal 1:37:14 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:37:14 ... 30, 40 quid an hour.

Ali Abdaal 1:37:15 And they can watch Coronation Street while doing that. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:37:17 Exactly.

Ali Abdaal 1:37:17 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:37:18 Perfect. Perfect scenario.

Ali Abdaal 1:37:20 Absolutely.

Mark Tilbury 1:37:20 And then they can invest it in an index fund.

Ali Abdaal 1:37:21 That's the one. Um, we'll put links to Vanguard and stuff down below.

Mark Tilbury 1:37:25 Yeah. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:37:27 Um, what, what are some things where you've found that spending more money has actually led to more fulfillment? A lot of people say, like, business class is way better than economy, so if you can afford it, it's totally worth it. Are there any oth- other things where...

Mark Tilbury 1:37:41 Well, first class I wouldn't say is necessarily better [laughs] than, um, than premium-

Ali Abdaal 1:37:47 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:37:47 ... to be perfectly honest. So we flew, uh, first class back from the States because Virgin offered a, a deal-

Ali Abdaal 1:37:54 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:37:54 ... that we couldn't say no to. You probably had similar deals. Um, so we said, "Yeah, okay, we'll do it." Um, but the lie-flat beds for me being 6'4" and a half, 6'5"-

Ali Abdaal 1:38:03 Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:38:04 ... it, it, it was no benefit-

Ali Abdaal 1:38:05 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:38:05 ... 'cause I was still cramped up. But in a, in a premium seat I can sleep no problem at all.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:10 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:38:11 Um, sorry, I wonder where we're going there. So buying-

Ali Abdaal 1:38:14 Oh, um, what are, what are some areas in which you've found that spending more money has actually led to a better experience or more happiness or?

Mark Tilbury 1:38:23 I think being able to... Going back to the airline thing-

Ali Abdaal 1:38:26 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:38:26 ... is, is being able to up. You know, but you don't have to go the full hog. You know, I, I, I spoke with Graham Stephan recently, who most of your viewers will recognize that name.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:36 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:38:36 And he, he is more frugal than I am.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:40 He's ridiculously frugal, yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:38:41 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:41 I'm always surprised whenever he says-

Mark Tilbury 1:38:43 Yeah, he said, um... 'Cause we said about, um, traveling first class and premium, this, that, and the other, and he said, "I always travel economy." I said, "Really? You know, you're worth $20 million. Why would you travel that way?" He said, "Well, the only time I've traveled, um, upper class is when it costs me less than $30 an hour to tr- more to travel first class." He said, "That's why I value that first class at."

Ali Abdaal 1:39:09 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:39:09 So that's the way he looks at things.

Ali Abdaal 1:39:11 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:39:11 I think that's too far. I think, you know, you can't get... There is a diminishing return. Obviously we know that. But if you arrive in comfort, that's gotta be worthwhile. And also I'm sure you've been in the Virgin lounge at Heathrow. What that... You know, that brings back the, the jet set way of traveling. You know, you go into that lounge, you're fully relaxed, you feel like you want to get on the flight. You stay in the normal area, you're fighting to get something to eat, your drink's been knocked over by someone. There's... Everyone's screaming, all the noise. So it does afford you certain benefits, that's for sure. So spending a bit of money is a good thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:39:49 Nice. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:39:50 And rewarding yourself as well, you know. At the end of the day, having a reward keeps you positive and focused on what you're doing, you know. So again, talking of rewards, my son bought, um, a Rolex because we got a million subscribers. That was the target. If we ever got to that, he would buy that. He did, and he rewarded himself. And I think if you build in rewards to your, to your, uh, business, then that, that's a good thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:40:15 Cool. Final

Ali Abdaal 1:40:16 question. Um, what was it like interviewing and meeting Andrew Tate? [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:40:19 Amazing.

Ali Abdaal 1:40:20 Yeah?

Mark Tilbury 1:40:21 Yeah. He's, um... He w- You know, some people will find this hard to believe, but he was a perfect gentleman. Um, he arrived early. He gave willingly of his time, as much time as we wanted. We thought we were overrun him, and we stopped because we'd filled a, a, a card up on the camera, and, uh, we said, "Oh, we feel the... You know, he's gonna wanna go." And he said, "Oh, that's fine. Yeah, time to get another coffee, and, uh, if you want any more..." "Oh, yeah." So we went for another hour on top of what we thought he would allow us. Um, some of his thoughts and ideas, of course, are not, you know, great with everyone. I understand that. Some of them aren't great with me. We did a reaction video to it, and I would say 80% roughly is what we'd agree with.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:06 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:41:07 20% isn't. Um, talking of hate comments-

Ali Abdaal 1:41:11 Mm

Mark Tilbury 1:41:11 ... 'cause this brings some up. That, of course, we had some from that. Um, and people... The, the, the biggest comment we had is, "Why are you talking to this guy?" And we get that quite often when we interview people.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:24 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:41:24 You know, from time to time. You know, "This is not what we expect from you." And the reply is always that we interview interesting people because they're interesting, not because we agree with them 100%. And if we only interviewed people we agree with 100%, guess what? We'd have no guests.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:45 Mm.

Mark Tilbury 1:41:45 You know, you take what you can from an interview as a, as a viewer. Learn what you can. Discard what you don't want. You know, throw it in the trash. It doesn't matter. But take what you can, learn what you can, and that's how you move on. You can't be black or white-

Ali Abdaal 1:42:00 No

Mark Tilbury 1:42:00 ... totally polarized. "I hate that guy, so nothing he says is gonna be of benefit to me." Or the opposite, "Everything he says is gospel. It's, it's what I believe 100%, whatever he says."

Ali Abdaal 1:42:12 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:42:12 You, you can't be like that, and I think it's a shame when people are, because then they don't have their own opinions.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:18 Yeah. Yeah, I'm... Yeah, I'm with, I'm with you on this one. I think-

Mark Tilbury 1:42:22 I mean, it's the people that you meet that form your opinion, surely.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:25 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:42:25 You know, that's, that's what it's all about. They're the only ones that can change the way you think-

Ali Abdaal 1:42:30 Mm-hmm

Mark Tilbury 1:42:30 ... the things you understand.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:33 Yeah. We, we, we, we had a bit of a debate amongst our, amongst our team about this sort of stuff, like what sort of guests do we wanna give a platform to?

Mark Tilbury 1:42:39 Hmm.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:40 And there was a lot of back and forth, and I really appreciate everyone who kinda shared, shared their opinion on this. But my view was that if I could get an interview with Vladimir Putin, I would be like, "Hell yes." I wouldn't be like, "Oh, this is the sort of person who's so evil that they cannot be spoken to."

Mark Tilbury 1:42:56 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:57 Uh, and if you can... If I'd... If you would interview someone extreme like that, then the, you know, basically reason to have a conversation with basically anyone-

Mark Tilbury 1:43:05 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:43:05 ... and figure out what you can learn from them. 'Cause everyone, everyone regardless of how we think of them, has an interesting perspective to share.

Mark Tilbury 1:43:11 I think so.

Ali Abdaal 1:43:12 You know, if J.K. Rowling wanted to be on the podcast, of course, we'd talk about her writing. Probably wouldn't talk about her trans views, but we'd talk about the writing.

Mark Tilbury 1:43:17 Hmm.

Ali Abdaal 1:43:17 It's like you, you can learn something from everyone regardless of what you think about the totality of their opinions. But then some people would say that, like, "Well, you're giving a platform to someone that is, is spreading their messages of hate even more." How do you, how do you, how do you feel about the whole platforming thing?

Mark Tilbury 1:43:32 Um, oh, what being de-platformed or-

Ali Abdaal 1:43:34 As, as-

Mark Tilbury 1:43:35 ... giving them a platform?

Ali Abdaal 1:43:35 ... as in giving, like, f- freedom of speech does not necessarily mean the right to a platform. So by having a big platform and bringing on someone like an Andrew Tate or whoever evil person is currently evil in, you know, in the, in the media, then you're allowing their message to spread more than it would otherwise.

Mark Tilbury 1:43:54 Well, what's your opinion on Andrew Tate, as this is what this actually is referring to?

Ali Abdaal 1:43:59 My opinion is broadly similar to yours. I think 80% very reasonable, uh, 20%, uh, I disagree with significantly.

Mark Tilbury 1:44:05 Hmm.

Ali Abdaal 1:44:05 I think the, the way in which he phrases a lot of things rubs a lot of people up the wrong way-

Mark Tilbury 1:44:10 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:44:10 ... and he knows it does, and that's kind of the whole model.

Mark Tilbury 1:44:14 My first question-

Ali Abdaal 1:44:15 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:44:15 ... to him was, "Do you believe 100% in what you say and do?-

Ali Abdaal 1:44:19 Hmm

Mark Tilbury 1:44:19 ... or are you just poking the bear?" His answer was, "Well, I'm poking the bear. I'm getting a reaction."

Ali Abdaal 1:44:24 [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:44:25 So that was the first question we posed-

Ali Abdaal 1:44:28 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:44:28 ... and he answered that honestly.

Ali Abdaal 1:44:30 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:44:30 Um, obviously, he believes in some of the, the, the, the women stuff he believes in, and that's what we kicked back on. We pushed back on it on the actual interview-

Ali Abdaal 1:44:40 Hmm

Mark Tilbury 1:44:40 ... and we pushed back on it even more on the, you know, the, the follow-up video we did. Um, so, you know, you're gonna learn something from everyone.

Ali Abdaal 1:44:48 Mm-hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:44:48 I, I, I think it's wrong necessarily to de-platform someone. Um, and I don't... Are we giving him a platform? I think we're giving people a chance to, um, listen to a good debate and a good conversation.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:04 Yeah. Yeah. I'm-

Mark Tilbury 1:45:06 And we're in control of the edit.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:07 Oh, yeah, exactly. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:45:09 You know, so-

Ali Abdaal 1:45:09 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:45:09 ... although I, I'll be absolutely honest-

Ali Abdaal 1:45:12 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:45:12 ... with you, 10 minutes edited out of that one. Yeah, just off the top of my head. Not for- Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:18 Nice.

Mark Tilbury 1:45:18 About 10 minutes for flow. So that was a pretty everything video.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:24 Nice.

Mark Tilbury 1:45:24 In fact, it's the least edited podcast I think we've probably ever done.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:30 Hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:45:30 So that shows it was very genuine, doesn't it?

Ali Abdaal 1:45:33 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:45:33 And he'll find a platform anyway. Mm. Yeah, he will. He's on Rumble, isn't he?

Ali Abdaal 1:45:37 There you go. Yeah. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:45:38 All his fans will find him, no problem at all. So-

Ali Abdaal 1:45:40 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:45:40 ... um, I think it showed, um, I think it showed pretty much the true side of him, which I'm quite proud of, to be honest, and it was the last interview with Andrew Tate before he was, uh-

Ali Abdaal 1:45:52 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:45:52 ... arrested.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:54 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:45:55 And the charges keep changing, don't they? So-

Ali Abdaal 1:45:57 Seems like it. [laughs]

Mark Tilbury 1:45:58 ... uh, you do wonder if he's being pinned with something he hasn't done. Who knows? I mean, anyone who's had the background he's had probably has a skeleton in their closet. Probably.

Ali Abdaal 1:46:11 Hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:46:13 So it's very difficult, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 1:46:15 Yeah.

Mark Tilbury 1:46:15 Very difficult.

Ali Abdaal 1:46:17 Yeah, I think I'm, I'm with you on this one. I think I can see why people would say, "Don't give someone a platform."

Mark Tilbury 1:46:22 Hmm.

Ali Abdaal 1:46:23 But I think the net value to the world of exposing people to opinions that they don't like-

Mark Tilbury 1:46:29 Hmm

Ali Abdaal 1:46:29 ... with appropriate degrees of preparation-

Mark Tilbury 1:46:31 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:46:31 ... and ultimately freedom in the final cut [laughs] -

Mark Tilbury 1:46:34 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:46:34 ... I think is always a reason to have the conversation at least.

Mark Tilbury 1:46:36 I mean, we obviously did clash on the, the, the woman side of things-

Ali Abdaal 1:46:40 Yeah

Mark Tilbury 1:46:40 ... because I personally believe finding the right partner, be it male, female, whoever you are, that is one of the most important things in your life. That will make you a stronger person.

Ali Abdaal 1:46:51 Hmm.

Mark Tilbury 1:46:52 Not having multiple women. All that does is spread your time out, waste your time. Find the right person, have a full, loving relationship, and that's what I've had, and that's what I'll continue to have.

Ali Abdaal 1:47:06 Fantastic. Mark, I think that's a good place to end this. Thank you so much for taking the time. Where can people learn more about you and, and the work that you do?

Mark Tilbury 1:47:12 Uh, they can come and see us on YouTube. Uh, just type in Mark Tilbury, I'll come up. Uh, or watch the Strike It Big podcast, where I think you'll be appearing very soon. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:47:22 Exactly. So we're gonna do that interview now. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Mark Tilbury 1:47:24 You're more than welcome. Thank you very much. Pleased to meet you.

Ali Abdaal 1:47:27 Likewise.

Mark Tilbury 1:47:27 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:47:28 All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching. Uh, do hit the subscribe button if you aren't already, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.