Stephen Wools: My biggest asset is just sheer resilience, and I'll persist until the cows come home. I know that I'll outwork anyone, but I know I'm not the smartest person in the room as well. So I don't really care if people give me big challenges because I'll just find a way. It's kind of like the cockroach theory.
Geo George: I remember you were the first person that told me that. Be a cockroach because a cockroach survives everything. You know, you can chuck everything at a cockroach and it still comes crawling back out.
Megan: Welcome to Life After Launch, the podcast that takes you inside the hearts and minds of Founders navigating the startup world. I'm Megan Luttrell. I run Aussie Founders Club, a community for Founders, operators, and investors, and Kairos Recruitment, a company supporting startups and scale-ups.
Geo George: Hi, I'm Geo George, partner at Mayfly Ventures. We're a venture studio building industry-focused AI and software ventures.
Megan: This is Life After Launch from Aussie Founders Club. We cut through the startup noise with unscripted stories and tactical advice from the Founders who have built before us. This show is about what happens after you launch. The business lessons, the life lessons, and everything in between. That's Life After Launch.
Geo George: Today we're joined by Stephen Wools. He's a co-founder of Ballers Clubhouse and Good Times Tech. He started a creative agency when he was 23. He toured acts like Jordan Peterson and Theo Von, and then he signed the biggest commercial hospitality lease in Melbourne's history right before the city went into lockdown. But before the empire, the bars, the brands, the tech, there's a person underneath it all, because Stephen's the first to admit that there was never a master plan.
Megan: We wrap up with 3 life lessons Stephen's learned throughout his journey, so hopefully you don't have to. We delve into being mindful about who you surround yourself with, how you should actually think about risk, and knowing when enough is enough. He's learned these lessons after losing millions, losing a house, and building a hospitality business through a pandemic. So if you're building something right now, you'll want to stick around to the end.
Stephen Wools: Acting, I think I was a terrible actor and I got roles, but what it prepared me for in business was rejection. And I love rejection and I actually don't care. And I would talk to brands and, you know, we'd get given work or not given work and I just don't care. And a lot of the time when we spoke to brands, we'd make them come to us and we made them - that was our ethos. So you can't come to our place and look corporate 'cause that's not what we are. And, you know, we had all sorts of people in high positions of companies that were de-robing at the front of our office. What are you doing?
Megan: Like, stop. Do not come in here with that tie. Take your clothes off.
Stephen Wools: Well, that's what I mean. When you run an agency, I'm sure other people that run agencies, you do become friends with your clients. It's a natural relationship that evolves. So a lot of our clients became our friends. I'm still friends with people today that we serviced back then, right? And yeah, we made them, we made them change.
Megan: Just something you said there where you're like, I love rejection. Was that something you were just born with or is it something you were like, as you learned, you know, you got deeper in the journey, you're like, okay, cool, this rejection is getting me closer to the win or whatever?
Stephen Wools: Well, I wasn't born with it clearly because I won. I beat the other sperm to the egg. So no, I just It's - I just go back to foundational things in your childhood, I think, do prepare you for things in life. And rejection at a young age is a good thing, but it's probably the right kind of rejection. So when you're doing acting or even in sport, they say you're not quite good enough, maybe work on these things and then you're going to be okay. So it just, it just builds a bit of scar tissue.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: rather than say you're no good, you'll never make it, which I've been told that as well. I actually think rejection is a really healthy thing for people. You know, we're in a bit of a society these days where it's - people don't like to give kids rejection and don't like to handle that. But I think it's really good. It sets people up for the real world because once you try and fend for yourself, I'm sure you two know in the real world it's tough.
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: You know, even today I find there's things that are tough. So it prepares you really well. Rejection, you've got to have it in your life.
Megan: And actually, here's a really good point where we're giving participation awards out and yet if someone's going to go and stand on their own two feet or even like go build a business, we then are like, rejection's one step closer to the yes, which is contradictory of how we're bringing up our children, really.
Geo George: Yeah, there's no participation awards in business.
Megan: No.
Stephen Wools: In fact, It's the opposite. Business is by nature shrewd. You know, it's driven by data, money, it's all that stuff, right? So there's no real time for, yeah, just participate. It's like you've got to bring something to the table or you're not in. And I think having rejection in your life is a really good thing. Healthy rejection, of course. You know, I didn't grow up with a single parent or no parents and some sort of domicile place where I had no roof. Like, I actually had a very healthy upbringing. I was very lucky. And I even told my parents that at their 70th recently. And I said, you know, there's one thing I can convey to my parents while they're alive is that I feel very lucky because they chose me to a degree. And they also chose to parent me in a certain way that prepared me for the world. So I think, yeah, going back to rejection, it's It's a good thing.
Geo George: Were you competitive growing up, or are you still competitive?
Stephen Wools: I am in certain ways. I'm, I'm not ruthless in business. I reckon it's one of my flaws. I'm not ruthless enough compared to other people. I'm competitive in that I, I have goals and I set myself high goals with the understanding that I probably walk and breathe that I'll probably never reach them and that I'm probably not good enough to do it. And a lot of entrepreneurs set stupidly high goals for themselves. And we do have that imposter syndrome as part of our makeup. But I think it's a good thing because it spurs you on. And my biggest asset is just sheer resilience. And I'll persist until the cows come home. I know that I'll outwork anyone. But I know I'm not the smartest person in the room as well. So I don't really care if people give me big challenges because I'll just find a way. Do you know what I mean?
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: It's kind of like the cockroach theory.
Geo George: Yeah, I was just going to bring that up. Yeah, I remember you were the first person that told me that. Be a cockroach because a cockroach survives everything. You know, you can chuck everything at a cockroach and it still comes crawling back out.
Megan: I'm talking to a lot of people who are entering business right now and they're in their first year and they're like, this is really hard because I'm a recruiter as well. They'll come to me being like, so I'm looking for a job. This has been a bit slow. allow it to get to where I thought I need to be. And I just keep being - reiterating to them, I was so poor in my first year, I was getting my partner to pay me for half the house clean. But I was that cockroach that was like, there is no way this isn't going to work. And that's the only reason why it put like that - I did succeed was because I persisted to get to that point where it's now a sustainable business. And I don't think necessarily everyone who jumps into the business has that same determination. Mine's probably just a chip on the shoulder being like, there is no way that I'm going to be seen to fail, so I won't fail. Type. Yeah.
Stephen Wools: Well, I mean, failure is actually important too.
Megan: Fail in making the business come to life, not failing. There are definitely stories in there where there's failure. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Wools: I think, look, you're right in the fact that this next generation coming through probably don't have the the resilience of, you know, when, when I had to make do 20 years ago, it was literally go and do anything, go and wash some windows if you need to, to get by. But anyone I employ, even today, I talk to them about the 99 and 1, which is you're coming into a really - like one of the companies I've got is Ballers Clubhouse. It's a really fun environment. It's awesome. We're expanding. Has its own problems in expanding, but It's a really fun business and it's an awesome place to work, but it's 99% work and it's 1% fun. So don't come here thinking you're just going to eat lollies and have parties every day because you're not. And you won't survive in this organisation unless you work hard. You know, the founders work 100 hours a week still and you've got to, you've got to put in. And I think that mentality with that next generation. I want to pin it on the next generation because it's not all of them, because I see some great kids.
Megan: Right. No, so I'm talking about 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds that are jumping into this, that are actually coming. I think it's just a bit about a personality drive even.
Stephen Wools: I think so. I think you're right. I think it's some people have either got it or they don't. And also the world's tougher now too, and there's a lot of pressure on people. And I think social media and all of these, the external noise on people wasn't there 20, 30 years ago. I think also it adds another weight to people trying to get by in the world because I definitely know 20, 30 years ago life was really a lot of fun. You know, our social framework was going to events, going out, having a drink, meeting random people at festivals. Like, what a, what a thing to do. And hopefully the world's going to turn back to that a bit. And we're starting to see that real world lived experience being something that the younger generation would go towards. I think COVID really killed participation in a lot of those social things that I think kids need. They need to spend their 20s not fucking up, but just go and have fun, like travel. I mean, if there's anything I would change in my life, it would be go and have a couple gap years. I never did it. I went from school and I went straight to uni.
Megan: Wow.
Stephen Wools: And then I found a way at uni to get by, as you know, with that stupid story of passing one year. And then I quickly got to the end of doing a marketing business degree and then got the fuck out of there. And from there I was just like, ever since I was like, I've been working since high school, I've never taken a break and I still haven't. But if I changed anything, I'd go and have a couple of gap years. And I think I'm probably getting off the topic, but I think, you know, Getting kids out there and having lived experience and traveling and going to festivals, going to bars, nightclubs, having nights out, meeting random people. Get the hell off your phone. Awesome. That'll set them up for the world.
Geo George: Yeah, I do think like there is something to be said about people are just living less these days or like living in a way more sort of isolated or in a narrow way. And yeah, all of this stuff around getting out there, traveling more, it can only add to the perspectives that you gain. And ultimately, like, incredible entrepreneurs bring heaps of different perspectives and creativity to when they're solving different problems.
Megan: Everyone's been on that trip where they're like, I'm going to be a different person when I'm back from this trip because it's totally changed my life.
Geo George: Yeah.
Megan: Amazing. So, okay, so let's go back to the story of getting you to where you are now.
Stephen Wools: Good luck.
Megan: Yeah, I know, just like - So you are running a creative agency where you've also done some, some of your own TV shows. What's next? What wound that down to jump into your next venture, or did you add something on? What happened?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, we did a lot of work for alcohol brands. They came to us and they were like, how do we tap into the young kids? You guys got a cool crop of kids. And we're like, yep, we are cool. So we started doing a lot of work for alcohol brands. And from there we looked, we looked at, you know, we're running events and we're putting people in bars and we were pretty successful in doing that and promoting for bars and alcohol brands. Like, why don't we just get our own bar? So we did. We went and got our own bar and that's what started Pawn & Co in Melbourne in 2012, I think it was.
Geo George: Which is such a cool concept.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, everything's for sale at all times. It was actually built off the back of Josh and I going to New York and experiencing the the, the culture over there on all of their speakeasy bars. And there was one there called Beauty and Essex, which is a pawnshop bar. It's still there today. It's - I go there every time I go to New York because it's quite nostalgic. That's what spawned our concept. And yeah, we spent the first 2 or 3 years with our, you know, agency of kids making Pawn & Co cool and fun. And then it became, after the grind of 2 or 3 years going out pretty much every weekend, It became the place to be.
Megan: Yeah.
Geo George: Which, and if you're not from Melbourne, which Megan, I know you're not.
Megan: No, no, I feel like when I moved over here, is that Prahran? Yeah. Like, yeah, no, no. I've got my Northside friends. I've got my Prahran South Yarra friends and I know of Pawn & Co. Yeah.
Geo George: Cool.
Megan: Yeah.
Geo George: Yeah. And it was such a cool concept. I remember like just the idea that you can buy anything at the bar. Like no one else was doing it, which is -
Megan: What do you mean? What is this concept of buying anything at the bar?
Stephen Wools: Well, everything's for sale at all times.
Geo George: Everything has a price tag. Yeah, everything has a price tag.
Stephen Wools: Oh, is that wild?
Megan: Like, I could - what about the waiter?
Geo George: Okay. I mean, we're not into slave trading.
Stephen Wools: Funny you say that, but when we first opened the concept, we put price tags on our staff, but we made sure the prices were super high so people didn't want to buy them or they still wanted to buy them, but they couldn't afford them.
Geo George: What sort of numbers are we talking about?
Stephen Wools: Very high numbers.
Geo George: Yeah, very high numbers.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, but I don't - semi-illegal, who knows? But we actually - I mean, we had a piano. I still remember the grand piano we had in our first venue because we've moved around venues since then and we put, I think it was $5,000 on tag on the piano. And there was a guy that walked in one night and said, I want that piano. And we're like, sorry, dude, we're not selling it because he goes, your concept says I can buy anything.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And we're like, yeah, but it's 5 grand. He goes, I'm paying for it right now. I'm like, okay. So we, we sold the piano and I think it was 5 grand.
Geo George: 5 grand doesn't sound a lot for a piano.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, we said to him, look, it's also our DJ booth. This is really iconic for us. And we, you know, what do you want to do? Go do it. Do we get rid of it now and just put - get a little fold-up table for the decks? And the guy said, I think he was pretty drunk or happy at the time. He said, you know what, leave it here, put a plaque on it for me. So we ended up taking the money and we put a plaque on it with his name.
Megan: This is a lesson in pricing as well, to make sure that you're pricing things at a price which you would actually give away.
Stephen Wools: Yeah.
Megan: Okay.
Geo George: And then you jump into East 9th Brewing.
Stephen Wools: So doing, doing alcohol brands or working for alcohol companies, we again, being young, being resilient and bulletproof, we thought, well, we can make our own alcohol brands. This is pretty easy. And for 10 years we had our own alcohol brands and we were quite a large independent brewing company. We created Lick Pier, which is one of the - was one of the biggest ginger beers at the time.
Geo George: Still one of the most delicious beers I've ever had.
Megan: I'm not a beer drinker, but it's like drinking ginger beer, but alcoholic.
Geo George: Oh, I do. Yeah.
Megan: Yeah, I love an alcoholic ginger beer.
Geo George: Good play.
Stephen Wools: Well, funnily enough, we actually did produce a lot of that product out of Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. Oh, no way. That's why I really love New Zealand. Fresh water.
Megan: Yeah. Good beer.
Stephen Wools: Ginger beer.
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: So we did that and we developed a number of brands and unfortunately COVID crushed that business. It was - we were doing okay, but I'm pretty sure when you remember at the time, 2020, A lot of FMCG businesses went to the wall, especially little brewers as well, because they had to take back stock that they had sold. And then stock obviously has a date on them and perishes, and then you've got to pay to perish them. All of a sudden, before you know it, you're left with a giant $600,000 hole out of nowhere. So that COVID crushed that business among many.
Geo George: Yeah. What was some of the lessons that you learned from that? You could call it a failure, but, you know, In a way.
Megan: But don't get into your 3 life lessons.
Geo George: Yes. Without getting into the 3 life lessons, what are, what are some things that you've learned from that experience?
Stephen Wools: From that experience or COVID in general?
Megan: From that experience. But I think one of it would be, can we not have another pandemic again? Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Wools: I mean, I'll talk about that experience. It was at the time, the fail of that, it felt out of control. It felt like we were actually on a plane that was going down, but we're not in the driver's seat.
Megan: You know, the government - Just for context, sorry. Are you still running Pawn & Co at the time and have you shut down Big Dog Creative?
Stephen Wools: Big Dog was dormant at this time. So Big Dog had been dormant. We actually, we actually sacked all of our clients. We did an audit one day and found that a lot of our clients were just costing us so much money by the human resource and soaking up time. And we'd had enough of doing agency at the time. But fast forward, we're actually - we've just started doing some work for Big Dog today. It's like now we only do it with select clients and we do some high-level stuff to help them out. I'll get to that soon. Yeah, we were running our hospitality businesses at the time as well. And, and also we'd signed a lease for our very first Ballers Clubhouse in January of 2020.
Megan: Oh my gosh, this must honestly have felt like your world was closing in at this point when you got - I mean, when it's closing in. Probably the nice way of putting it.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, I mean, we felt like everything was ending. Yeah. Particularly me. You know, I'd never really dealt with hard failure and banks calling in their money and investors on the phone and actually our own money. You know, during, during COVID I think we lost millions each and we're still here today, I think. So the lesson out of that was you're going to be okay, you'll get through it, but there's going to be some serious lessons through the whole thing as well. particularly in brewing products that have a shelf life. We were never prepared for a pandemic. And mind you, I'm not sure when the previous pandemic was, but no one was prepared as well.
Megan: It was the flu, like in the 1800s, wasn't it?
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: Yeah. 1900s.
Geo George: It was a while ago.
Megan: Oh, 1900s. Okay. Don't cite me on that.
Stephen Wools: We weren't around is my point. And how are we as a whole community to have the lessons of a pandemic? No one had it. So we were on the fly and we lost our brewing business. It was, it was a crushing time because we actually broken through as an independent brewing business and we had some great brands. And, you know, you sort of see that cherry of success coming and then someone just shuts the door on it and you think, what the hell? And you just got to deal with all the things that fall off the back of that. And so we lost - I mean, I lost a house. We lost - we just lost a lot along the way. And But the silver lining out of that is learn how to navigate tough scenarios. So COVID was a great lesson for a lot of people. It was a great education period is how we look at it. And they say never waste a crisis. And I believe that. At the same time, I think avoidable crisis shouldn't occur as well. Not to get too political, but, you know, there was some orchestration going on there that crushed people's lives. And not just from the health sense where people died, it was more also from business health and people's wellbeing off the back of that. So many mum and dad businesses went to the wall and now they're soaked up into the public system, probably doing a job they don't want to do.
Megan: Especially in hindsight, because I feel like at the time I was quite a big like, okay, cool, we just need to stay inside.
Geo George: And then when you look at it in retrospect, it's, it's pretty sad to have There was a lot of fear at that time as well, you know, so it's easy for people to just go along with it. But looking back, we're still recovering, you know, the businesses that have shut down, they've never reopened. Like, we still haven't quite bounced back. So yeah, I think your story is sort of a microcosm for what a lot of people went through at that time.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, if I was ever to do another business after I'm finished over the next 5, 10 years, I think what I'll do is focus on how do I help Founders?
Megan: Mm-hmm.
Stephen Wools: Because I actually found through the pandemic and off the back of that, what I'm actually quite good at is kind of counselling, dealing with people and triaging problems and then working through them. I've become quite good at it for my, for my own wellbeing. But then also I'm quite good at it with other people as well. And also I've just got an interest in making sure people Succeed in their business. Like, it's - it should be fun, and you should have some enjoyment along the way, and you should have some help. And a lot of the time, it's quite a lonely space when you start a business. You just have to get through it by yourself.
Geo George: If you know Wools well, he often talks about the humble cockroach, almost as if it was his spirit animal. It embodies his find a way no matter what resilience that he lives with So before we got into any of the businesses, I wanted to understand where does that mindset actually come from? What's interesting is that it didn't seem to come from a plan. Stephen's the first to admit that there was no grand vision behind it all. There's no, this is who I'm going to be. The more we dug into it, the more it made sense. When there's no track laid out in front of you, you learn to make your own path. And you get comfortable not knowing where you're going. knowing all the answers yet. So we started there, right back at the beginning.
Stephen Wools: It's a natural healer too. So I grew up on the coast, kind of sporty, kind of into arts, kind of into all sorts of stuff. Probably nothing really suited me as a kid. There was no, I'm going to be a doctor, I'm going to be a lawyer, I'm going to be this or that. And my poor parents, I think, were just like, let's just let him go to uni and see what happens. Um, I'm the product of a nurse, my mother, and my father was in IT. He was a programmer. So I went to uni and did programming for a year and I learned how to drink really well.
Geo George: Me too.
Stephen Wools: So I became a professional drinker.
Megan: That's probably the best thing I - yeah, the skill I learned most at uni. Yeah.
Stephen Wools: So I did that for a year and, you know, funny story, but to pass the first year in programming, I actually failed the last project completely. I went out the night before it was due and had a massive night with 2 other friends, and then we rocked up to the lab an hour before the project was due. And then the smartest kid in our class left a floppy disk, the whole project. And this is going back a way, right? Floppy disk. I put it in the computer. I looked at the other 2 boys. We were very hungover, but we knew how to code enough to change the language to make it look like we wrote it all. So we did that in the hour and we passed.
Geo George: Yeah, copyright just wasn't a thing back then.
Stephen Wools: Wasn't a thing back then. So that was my foray into programming and probably going back a little bit, but I also did Childhood acting, loved the arts and loved music. So I was in bands and things like that. And as I said, I sort of did a bit of everything. And from there it moved me into owning a creative agency when I was very young, at the age of 23, 24, and did that with my now business partner Josh. So we're 20 years into business together.
Megan: So that's your longest relationship. Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And it's amazing, right? It's like a marriage.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And we reflect on that and talk about that a lot. And it's, it's had its ebbs and flows like any business relationship does. There's times when you want to go and see other people and there's times when you really want to just be with each other. So it's, it's, yeah, we started a creative agency and did a lot of production stuff very young and we were like the, the new hip kids on the block with an agency because we were in that 24, 25-year-old space where a lot of brands want to tap into that culture. We started doing creative work for, you name it, man. We were working for Crown Casino, Puma. We just had all these brands that came to us and we did a lot of guerrilla marketing and fun stuff, viral marketing back then, which is probably cool now. And when was this? In the mid-2008, around then, 2005 to 2008. And it was called Big Dog Creative. And we actually did a lot of music events as well. So we started doing festival stuff which spawned off into us owning a touring company and we toured, I mean, all sorts of acts as well. And we, we did that for quite some time, including podcasters. We toured Jordan Peterson, Theo Von, Brendan Schaub, who's a UFC guy but a comedian, Aqua, Sublime, Dead Kennedys. We did the Hanson Revival tour.
Megan: I know them. Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And Unwritten Law. We did so many bands and And we ended up selling that business pre - just on the eve of COVID actually to Ticketek as part of TEG. Wasn't a great time for any of it. I mean, touring industry went down then for a couple of years. But yeah, our creative agency was really the bedrock of what we do even today, which is commercial creativity.
Geo George: What is it that kind of drew you or attracted you to that kind of creative studio model? Like, it's not an easy business.
Megan: Yeah, well, I was going to ask, how did you even find Josh and jump into this?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, well, that's a story of its own.
Geo George: Fill in the color.
Stephen Wools: Fill in the gaps. Well, yeah, I mean, I was pretty lost at the time when, when I actually met Josh. We met at Big Brother auditions, I think the 2nd or 3rd year of Big Brother in Melbourne, which is just random, right? I was just in this zone of being a bit of a gypsy, and my mum still refers to me now today as a gypsy compared to my sisters who are - one's a vet nurse and one's a pretty high-up doctor working in stem cell research. So I'm the gypsy of the family. And but I met Josh randomly. We hung out that day. We both got through auditions, I think towards the very end. I think Josh was going to get on Big Brother at the time and we just started hanging out every day. And from that, we both really wanted to do TV. We both really loved being creative, doing fun, creative things. And that, that's what I think Well, I know brands were attracted to because we were kind of making content 20 years ago, which is now cool, right? A lot of kids are doing it.
Megan: What was the platform? Was it YouTube at the time?
Stephen Wools: No, we, we just did our own stuff and we filmed our own pilot and we tried to get that up on TV. Eventually we did get 2 TV shows up with Foxtel. One was called Free Shipmen. So we went around getting things for free. I've actually got a tattoo on myself. Josh has got one as well.
Megan: Oh, free shit. Yeah, I was going to say free shipment. Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And then we did a show called called Josh and Steve's 8 Ball, which is like a random travel story. The 8 ball tells you what to do, where to go. So we traveled all over the world doing crazy things, including sleeping with people underneath Vegas, the homeless there, also stripping with Thunder from Down Under, doing - trying to do a comedy skit in New York in the comedy scene. And, you know, we, we wrestled with sumos in Japan. We just did all sorts of weird stuff. And it was lots of fun and we got it all paid for by Foxtel, which was great at the time. So we've had a really weird and wonderful journey. I think if you actually went through our story, you wouldn't get to our tombstone and go, geez, they didn't really live. It feels like we just constantly live. It's just now I'm probably a little bit more risk averse and we choose to do things a bit wiser now. It was back in our 20s, we did everything.
Megan: So just so I can piece the timeline together and our listeners.
Stephen Wools: Yeah.
Megan: Was that - so you did that and then jumped into the creative agency, or was that sort of similar, like side by side?
Stephen Wools: That was the, that was the, that was the nucleus of our creativity was around TV and doing production work, which also led us to do a couple of films along the way as well. But the agency is what paid the bills. Yeah, we had brands coming to us asking, if we pay you this retainer, will you deliver this work? And of course we were just like, yeah, we can do anything. You know, you're invincible at that age and you wear all hats. We were getting paid really great money at the time for that age, and we ended up just hiring. I think we ended up having 50 kids, just a cool clump of kids in our agency. We got a warehouse in Prahran and we had a basketball court, we had ping pong tables, we had that kind of startup sort of you see in all the documentaries of Facebook and the rest of it. We just had that kind of vibe going in our warehouse. It was really cool. And we ended up doing lots of events there. Clients were like, no, we just want to bring people here. And so that's what, that's what sort of started our journey really, was having an agency and working for a lot of brands and getting paid good money. And then as we're getting paid money, Josh and I never had the nous to think, hey, we should probably pay ourselves. We're the most important people. We just kept farming money to pay -
Megan: Your 50 people.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, other people. And we never really thought about our own wealth and, and wellbeing in that sense. And I guess even today we're a bit more blasé about that still. You know, we don't really have to be the highest paid and be the first. I mean, as an entrepreneur, you kind of - your first thought is, how do I pay my staff? How do I make sure I'm putting food on the table for a lot of families?
Geo George: Right.
Stephen Wools: So yeah, that's, that's, that's the nucleus of what started us into owning bars and then owning more bars and then owning an events company and then working for a lot of brands. And yeah, it's been a, it's been a journey and it's, it's very colorful. It's still colorful now. Like it's still wild and fun just without maybe the risks that we took back in the day.
Megan: So it's now 2019 and Stephen has a lot of plates spinning, and every one of them was spinning quite well. The agency was Doing well, Pawn & Co was pulling crowds. A brewing business that had genuinely broken through as an independent. None of these are easy feats, and life was bloody good. And then 2020 arrived. I don't need to explain what happened, but everything started tipping over at once. The brewing company started buckling underneath a pandemic no one had planned for. Pawn & Co was still trading but needing to be fed as people were told to stay home. Home. And just 4 weeks before COVID hit Australia, literally 4 weeks, they'd signed the biggest, most expensive lease of their life on a 2,500 square meter venue in the middle of the city. And then Melbourne shut its doors. Yeah, I can imagine.
Stephen Wools: Yep. So we had - yeah, Pawn & Co was going great. It was awesome. Um, I think we were still doing some agency work at time. And, and we had our brewing company, which is going well. I mean, they're all making money, things are working. It's 2019, people are living normally. So it was great. Um, and we did a bit of traveling. So we traveled because the biggest insight that we have - what had was at the time was what's next beyond a beer for hospitality? Because we'd sort of done the nightclub game. It's hard, and it's hard work, nightclub game. You're sending out 1,000 text messages every week to people to get them to rock up. You're just going to open the doors and pray that people come. It's a really bad business model. So we travelled to America, went around Chicago, LA, New York, Austin, and then we went around to the UK and looked at all the hotspots for hospitality and looked at the next wave of concepts that were coming. And there was this emerging category, subcategory in hospitality called competitive socialising. And it was basically tech-infused games, activities in front of people, in a venue F&B setting. So we took all the know-how after we did the great junkets. They were awesome fun. We brought all the knowledge back in 2019 or early 2019 and we created Ballers Clubhouse, the concept. We did the brand, did everything because we had our agency background. We knew how to do F&B, created the whole thing and we were like, this is awesome and let's go find a site. And then Josh said, well, it's going to cost a lot. And he was right. let's go and find a partner. And he had a contact at the time for the founders of Funlab, the 3 of the 4 founders. They all sold out and we grabbed Simon, who was one of the founders, and we actually put this in front of him and said, hey, what do you think? And we just want to get some advice. And I remember at the time we met him at a cafe in Albert Park near his house and he looked at it and said, yeah, it looks great, looks awesome, love what you're doing. At the time the concept was more about ping pong.
Megan: Okay.
Stephen Wools: And then he said, just one little tidbit, you should do multi-game. It was the only bit of advice that he gave. And boy, was that powerful. What actually changed our business model. And then we went away from that meeting and he called 10 minutes later in the car as we were driving off and he said, I've actually got an itch, I want to come in. And from there it just spawned and it just, it just grew. And we're like, oh, this is amazing. And Cornerstone investor. He brought his mate in as a CFO and we're still all 4 founders today, which is really awesome.
Geo George: There's a really great lesson in that for Founders as well. Like, and it's a saying that I've heard often, ask for money, get advice, ask for advice, hopefully get money.
Megan: We've seen that happen a couple of times recently where people have gone for advice and they're like, actually, especially from those like exited Founders that are kind of like, oh, I'm not out yet of the game. Let me get in on this with somebody else who's going to maybe do a bit more of the grunt work.
Stephen Wools: I think it's really true. I think you can do both. But when you ask for money, just have a really good reason why. Like, actually have a sound reason. And if you can explain it and give people no option to say no, then you'll probably get money as well. But you're right, asking for advice is pretty powerful because people, they value their input. I mean, I know when people ask me for advice, you know, you come to me sometimes, say, hey, can I get advice? I'm like, yeah, fucking oath.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: I've made a shitload of mistakes. I can tell you all the things not to do. And, and people love sharing about themselves a bit. It's like a mirror effect, right? You like looking in the mirror.
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: You want to see what you look like. So from that, yeah, we, we, we got our group together, got all our money together. We self-funded the first site and we found this beautiful site. Josh found it in the city. The old Charlton's pool hall had a lot of heritage to it. 2,500 square metres. giant place. And we signed the lease in January 2020, and 4 weeks later the city started shutting down and we all just went, wow, we have made the biggest mistake ever. And it was, it was a pretty hard time for a lot of businesses. And we were juggling not just Ballers but other businesses as well.
Megan: Yeah, Pawn & Co was still around.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're juggling a few and I mean, Pawn & Co is really well run and really good management, so it could kind of weather the storm. It wasn't like a hand-to-mouth bar each week. We had reserves of cash for a rainy day, and that was the rainy day that come. We just didn't know the rainy day was going to be a cyclone that lasted years. So yeah, we signed that lease and as a group we got together and thankfully we were all really calm and we sat together and just spoke about what to do. And we said, we've just got to sit and wait. And patience is going to be your best friend. So we did. And it got to about, I think it was May or June. We'd gone through a lockdown and another lockdown and, and then we all decided, well, they can't keep us shut down forever. And if they're going to shut the city down, it's actually a really good time to build. We put all our money into the build and we ended up being the only bar to launch in Melbourne in 2020.
Megan: Where was the building? Which one was it? I know.
Stephen Wools: Chinatown.
Megan: Oh, so that's actually - so where was the first lease signed for?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, that one. Our city location.
Geo George: So it's a massive location.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, it's humongous. And, and it's tucked down a little laneway, which is not great, but in Melbourne the laneway effect works. So it's kind of a strength as well.
Megan: So the build is like the interior knockout and -
Stephen Wools: Well, it was funny. We, we qualified only for the build because it became a commercial build above 2 storeys. Otherwise, if we were just a single fit out, we wouldn't have qualified. And we qualified and our builders loved it because they had No parking inspectors, free parking, access to materials, and no one on the street. They loved it, right? It was the best time to build. So we ended up launching in, I think it was December 10th or December 12th in 2020. And we got all the media, we got everything except for the Lord Mayor at the time. She wouldn't respond to our requests and she didn't want to turn up. Well, the only - And she kept going on. And I remember this, she kept going on, on PR and you know, talking to the public about small business and how businesses are suffering and how hospitality is important but wouldn't come to our launch. And I still have a chip on my shoulder about it today, as you can tell. I was still like, why do you talk about supporting business but don't actually go and actually show up?
Megan: Like, this is an opportunity for a good news story to be celebrated.
Stephen Wools: And yeah, absolutely. And it was one of the best parties because the rules were 1 person per 4 square metres. We've got 2,500 square meters. We had everyone in Melbourne there. It was unreal. And it was like the pressure valve getting released. People wanted to go out and they wanted to socialize. And we could see that, including us. So we had, we had just an amazing launch and it really set us up. But then we unfortunately had to ride the waves of the next 2, 2 and a half years. And ever since 2020, I don't think we've had a real crack at it because You also then had the boom of people, but not the resource of staff. So you just had this crop of workers that there was only so much to go around. You actually didn't have a pressure on the workforce from backpackers and the rest of it in hospitality. So everyone is just trying to get who they can to work. And then now we're walking into an energy crisis or fuel crisis, and it's people are tightening their belts. So since 2020, we haven't had a real easy run, you know.
Megan: I was reflecting on this last night. I'm like, we've had COVID, we've had war, we've had genocide, we have bloody like fuel shortages now. We are not getting a good run of it since 2020.
Stephen Wools: Yeah. Which is, you know, I think if you can survive this period in business, I think you're going to do okay. And you'll find - look, we just find a way. And if not this, if this all falls over, we'll start something tomorrow. Like it's, it's just in our DNA to get up and keep working and doing things. We're creative by nature, we're party animals at night. As you get older, that becomes less, but we always show up. And that's probably the most important part. Show up for your business partners, show up for your staff, the whole lot.
Geo George: We were talking about resilience before, but there is something about not only bouncing back but bouncing forward from this, like using a crisis as an opportunity to do better than what you did before. And In this instance, you really did play the limited cards that you have in the best way possible and turned a fairly shitty situation, like having signed one of the biggest buildings in Melbourne right before COVID and then turning that into a really successful launch. And despite not having a proper crack at it, Ballers is an incredible place. You guys are expanding and doing really well. So I think that's a testament to Yeah, this ability to bounce forward from, from a crisis.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, they say don't waste a crisis, and I agree, don't waste a crisis. You learn probably more than anything in a crisis, but at the same time, I'm kind of sick of crisis. Yeah, I'd like a bit of non-crisis time.
Geo George: Some easy wins.
Stephen Wools: Some easy wins. But yeah, I mean, look, you know, I get asked often if it's down to luck or work ethic. And I always say you have to create a space for luck to occur. And with that, you have, you have to have a really, really incredible work ethic. Luck just doesn't fall in your lap. You create your own luck.
Megan: I mean, it's creating that surface area and increasing it with - yeah, I 100% agree. It's a bit of both. Okay. Also, everyone knows as well somebody who like that business that is only the business it is because of what they did in COVID or whatever. Yeah. Your expansion. Yeah, so you've been expanding ever since. Tell us about that.
Stephen Wools: Oh, that's a fun journey too. I really love startup space. I love creating something new, and just, I love - it's a wonderful period in business, is that first 1, 2 years, because you get to see something come to life right before your eyes, and you have a lot of influence. Whereas now, you know, we're at that other end, or in the middle sector, which is growth and Growth is a grind and it's very hard and things go wrong, but they go wrong on a bigger scale. But in saying that, yeah, we're 3 venues deep now, or 4 for Ballers because we've got an extra one in Adelaide. We're just about to build a sports bar up there too. We're building Brisbane this year and Geelong, so we'll be at somewhat bigger scale at the end of this year. And then we had a - even had a board meeting yesterday and we're looking at how do we get to 15? And what does that look like for us as a runway? And as I said before, creating those goals, I think the initial goal was to get one and make it really successful. Now it was to get to 5, make that really successful. And then the next part will be how do we get to 15? And just build yourself a 5-year runway and how do you want to get to it? And yes, you're going to make mistakes along the way. We're all human. But let's look back at the journey when we get there. So we're just getting to 5 and then we're going to go for 15. And then from there we'll see what we do with the business and we'll probably get to 15 and go, oh God, it's not enough. You know, it's global.
Geo George: Yeah, 50 seems to be a nice round number.
Stephen Wools: Well, yeah, it's funny you say that because I competitive socializing, I've kind of really got myself in there as a person who knows a bit about it. So I've done the speaking circuit overseas and I know owners of other brands. I wouldn't call them competition, I'd call them peers. because they go through the same problems we have right now, complex businesses. And I talk to a lot of the Founders overseas and all the problems are very similar and they're never, they're never sort of satisfied at having one venue either. They're like, how do we get to 20?
Megan: Because there's not, there's not a number or a thing that you're ever going to be like, if you've got growth mindset and you love that journey of growing, there's no like, okay, I've done enough now.
Stephen Wools: Like, yeah, I think so. We all need a purpose, right? We all need to do something. And I think I'm probably still too young to just stop and do nothing.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: I don't think I'd ever do - my girlfriend would kick me out of the house anyway. She's like, you can't do nothing. She's seen me sit down for 10 minutes and she's a nail tech and I'll sit there for 5 minutes and I'm already like - she's like, you want to go? I'm like, yeah, I got to go because I can't just sit there. I can't sit still, right? It's - I think it's just in your DNA to keep growing and doing something. So yeah, you're probably right. We'll probably look at overseas and we would definitely look at Auckland, right?
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: Cool place. A lot of cool people. And I think it'd go really well there.
Megan: I was already thinking because the - what is Archie's? It obviously goes across.
Geo George: Yeah.
Megan: And yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's Funlab. Okay. I was going to ask.
Stephen Wools: Yeah.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: So yeah, I mean, I've had conversations. I've got a meeting next week about America. And what that looks like with a partner over there. And, you know, it's really competitive. Socialising as a subsector of hospitality is blowing up. It's the fastest growth sector in hospitality globally. You know, Dallas is all new concepts, they're all in Dallas, and Vegas is crying out for these things now.
Megan: Experiential hospitality.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, it's experience-led hospitality. It's exactly what it is because the next generation really craving that in-person experience. And 5 years ago, if you asked me what Ballers was and what we do and what we sell, what's our commodity, I'd say we, we sell fun. You know, you want people to come in and have fun and we sell to corporates and we get people in and they just have a good night. We want you to have the best night out ever. Right. And it's a hard promise to live up to, but that's kind of what we did. But you asked me today what we actually sell, and this is, this is one of the silver linings of the pandemic. Is we actually sell connection. We're a great brand for connection. But what I mean by that is the pandemic saw a lot of people not even get to meet colleagues. I mean, people are still working today virtually and not even got together and met people. So we, we get them in a really great environment, fun environment where if you're a non-drinker, it's okay, you can play games. If you're a drinker, you can have fun, you can eat, you can do your thing. So we, we're really trying to sell connection. and getting people to actually have moments together. Get off your phone and go and have some fun. And I think it's really powerful when we look at that. It's, it's, it makes me excited. Like what we're doing is the right thing. It's not like I'm just trying to push people in and get them really drunk. It's like, makes me - I know we're doing the right thing by people in helping them have a great time. And I still remember out of the pandemic, someone posted something or sent it to me and said, It was something negative about hospitality, and I rarely get emotional and angry, but I got really angry because I was like, you know what, hospitality actually provides more than you think. If you look back at all the moments in your life where you've had moments with your family, friends, loved ones, it's highly likely you've gone to a hospitality setting and celebrated something. So hospitality does that. It's a connector. It's that connection piece and bedrock of memories for people. And from that moment on, I was like, cool, I'm passionate again. I'm ready to go.
Geo George: Yeah, it's a great mission.
Megan: And what do you do when, like, I had someone come over and their partner wasn't into eating or drinking, which is unusual. And I was like, well, what do you do in Melbourne if you don't like - if you're not into these? I mean, you go on a hike. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Stephen Wools: Well, yeah, we get that, right? Yeah. It's dietary requirements. We actually create our spaces where people can exist in the limelight. People love being in the limelight. There's some people who just will kiss a mirror in the morning and that's okay. And then there's some people that just want to be in the shadows. And we create spaces for people to also go and sit down, just have a quiet chat to their colleague or friend. And I think it's really important. So when we look at our design, we curate our spaces to accommodate everyone. And I'm not saying we'd get it right all the time. But that's our intention, is to make our spaces just awesome for anyone to come to. And that we hopefully we live up to that as we go.
Geo George: You guys are also doing some cool stuff with the technology side of it all and Good Times Tech. So talk about like, how did you get into that? Like, where are you guys up to now and where do you see it going?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, great question. A space I probably wasn't prepared for. I'd done some work in the tech space previously and failed and learnt a lot as well. But my business partner Josh, he said, we're over in London actually at the time and we're talking about Ballers was going pretty well at that first venue. And we thought, well, if we're going to go and scale, we're going to have a lot of these dart lanes, shuffle lanes, tech-infused games. We're going to have a lot. We're going to be buying them from somebody. And it's going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. So why not make our own?
Megan: I love that.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, well, I did too at the time until we went and spent millions of dollars. But it's - that was the impetus of it. And from there we just sort of fumbled our way and I still - we're still fumbling our way, right? We're not perfect. Again, I know all of our competitors and I know them well and we've got a really good team and we sell our tech to venues all over Australia, all over the UK, all throughout the US. We've got inquiries at the moment through all of Europe. We've got customers in France and customers all throughout Southeast Asia, Dubai now as well that are coming to us. And we've just signed a deal with Sega. They're one of our distributors through Europe. You know, it's a great brand, Sega. And so we've sort of just stumbled into it. We had an idea. threw money at it, built a team. The team have done a great job in building some amazing products. Taken lots longer than we thought, taken way more money than we thought, lots more headaches. But to your question, where do I see it going? Do I think it'll succeed? It'll succeed. It's already doing it and it's going to go really well. And I think for the team of people who have put the hard work in, they'll see a lot of joy in years to come. And sometimes it's really hard to feel the joy and to see it, but it's already coming. I mean, we're just fielding so many inquiries for sales and people love the product and we've done some trade shows and have someone like Sega come on board. It's really powerful, right?
Megan: Yeah.
Geo George: Is there something unique about this experience, like being technology founder that's different to the creative studio stuff that you've done before or the hospitality Work that you've done?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, they're all different. They take the same amount of energy, problem-solving ability. Tech takes a lot of money, but they've all got their different - they've all got their different journeys. Tech's its own journey, right? You can create a product and break it in the same day and then build it tomorrow and it's amazing and someone loves it. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it breaks and you've got to go, What's going on? It's like having a fire. Hospitality, same sort of thing. You can create a great business and all of a sudden people just stop coming. Like, what's wrong? You look at - you look in every part of the business and then you realize that you've just got one tiny thing wrong in hospitality and you've got to fix it. Or it's marketing or it's sales or it's just these people are doing this wrong. So in an agency, same sort of thing. You could be the hotshot agency and doing amazing work and then all of a sudden it just drops off and you're just not as good as you were. It's like any business. You create it, you're good at it, you just gotta keep putting in. And as soon as you take the foot off the accelerator, it just - it'll expose weaknesses in your business and you've just gotta keep working at it.
Megan: What do you see is going to be the bigger side of the business? So you've got Good Time Tech and you've also got the obviously, yeah, Ballers, but like the physical bars. I could see a world where the tech side becomes bigger than that. Well, what do you think?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, I think it'll - That'll be a rocket ship. Yeah, it's absolutely - I mean, the volume now with sales initially when people order a Neo Shuffleboard from us or an Ultra Dart Sling, they'll order 2 or 3. And we also qualify them to make sure they're the right customer for us. And then what often happens -
Megan: If they want to buy from you, they have to take their tie off before they come to the meeting.
Stephen Wools: No, we don't do that anymore, but we qualify them in the sense that we don't want to give them these assets and then run them poorly.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: So we make sure we qualify them upfront because we also don't want to go through the exercise of ripping out that tech and a year later I want them to succeed as well. I want to make sure they're the right people and the right business to sell it. The tech will go really well. But the point I was making was we're seeing these sort of early orders. The first order is always the smallest. The secondary orders are really big. So when you look at the LTV of these customers, we sort of know you can do a bit of math around how many venues they've got. We know what the first order is going to be, but we know what the secondary order is going to be. And I'll give you an example of this is the guys at Roxy Leisure. If you're going to look up a competitive socialising beast, they're the biggest brand in the UK. You've got 22 sites, I think, and growing still. They're like a version of Ballers. And I never came across them in my journey when we were designing Ballers. It just sort of happened after a few years and then I found them and I was like, holy shit, this is the same as what we've done. And the guys who own and run that are wildly successful brothers, great guys, incredible what they do. But their first order was one board and now I think they've got 12 boards and they're putting in more orders and like, this is pretty cool.
Geo George: That's a great sign.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but to answer your question about what's going to be the biggest, the tech's definitely going to be a rocket ship on its own. Yeah, I'm absolutely certain of that. And I think we've done - we've laid the foundation for that to happen. But the venue side, I think, is going to go really well too.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And I just can see the wave of hospitality moving away from - they're moving away from the pot and parma and they're going to more experience-led things. And it's just going to be - it's going to be the norm. And I think that'll be a really - we've got the growth phase happening now. I think it's going to be a really big side of our business. And we're not going to stop at Ballers. We want other brands, other things to do in there as well. We looked at Ijingo Bingo, which is tech-infused bingo. It's phenomenal as a concept. I looked at the Central Perk Cafe in New York and there's one in New York and somewhere else. I was like, Central Perk, that's my childhood, the '90s with Friends. Give me that concept. So we might do things under license as well and bring them here to Australia for people to enjoy.
Megan: I'm excited.
Geo George: Yeah. It's interesting that you've got like these 2 businesses which are kind of very different in the sense that one's like bricks and mortar hospitality, another one's tech, more scalable. And yeah, you're kind of running both of them. And it really goes to show like how you've been able to create across different formats, not just in like one creative format or one hospitality format. Yeah, I think you've really managed to do it all. One question that I had is like, as you said before, at the end of the day, it does all come down to solving problems and building systems. And great entrepreneurs are those that can kind of build the machine that then solves the problem. What have you learned about building systems and, you know, working with people and solving problems?
Stephen Wools: That's a really long question. That is a big question, that one.
Megan: We were just telling ourselves we need to start asking shorter questions.
Geo George: Oh.
Megan: That was a good question though, but that was like, yeah.
Geo George: I do want to hear the other side.
Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Wools: I love it. It's a super question. And I'll go back to when we started business. We thought, you know, it was just about us and we just tell people what to do and it would work and it would happen. But you're dealing with humans who don't take to that well. And it's taken me 20 years to realise that actually having a system is the best way to go about it. And I'll, I'll admit now I'm still, I'm very, I'm still learning as a leader. And I find it very hard sometimes when I come against problems. I'm like, oh God, how do I solve that? And why can't I do that properly? But creating systems, I think, are really important in any business that wants to scale. You've got to do it. You know, I, I'm not a techie guy, but I did do one year at uni and I did pass. I remember that.
Megan: Even if there was some creative license applied there.
Stephen Wools: Don't worry about the details. But in saying that, I've I had a little bit of tech experience and Josh and I, we work across our tech stack at Ballers a lot and we're constantly trying to fine-tune and consolidate it to the point where it's like, this isn't just about us, it's about the consumer. How do we make the consumer have the easiest, most seamless experience in purchasing and coming to us, having a great night out? That's got to be what we just - our north star. How do we make it frictionless? And it's simple. So we've had to sort of by necessity get our heads around tech and get our heads around systems and get our head around Claude and OpenCLAW and ChatGPT and all these wonderful AI things that somewhat feel like they're changing every day like the wind. So we've got to get our heads around it. But in saying that, we're constantly looking for the best system and I think we're never going to - we'll never have it because we're always trying to improve it. But I feel like when you look at our business at Ballers, our marketing team has a great system. Our sales team are wonderful with their system. Even though we did some brush-up work on it the other day to make it more white-gloved thanks to AI, you're just constantly trying to improve it. But I think systems are by design there to help people and also give them the expectation of how to deliver what the business is trying to do.
Geo George: By this stage of the episode, we'd already covered the businesses, the growth, the tech that Wools reckons is about to become a rocket ship. But the part that I really wanted to know was underneath all of that. It's not what he had built, but what the building itself had taught him. And as the conversation went on, it naturally drifted there. 20 years in, a house lost, millions gone, and 4 venues deep and counting. That kind of a journey leaves you with a few hard-won truths, and Wools shares them with us here to close us out.
Stephen Wools: You've got to be really careful about who you surround yourself with. That's probably my biggest learning in business and life, really, because their energy, their thinking, uh, their attitude, their way of going about things, whoever it is, it affects you. Mood is contagious. Energy is contagious. You just gotta be super, super selective. But you don't do that when you're young. You get that as you get older. People you don't want to hang out with, they sort of fall away a bit. So I think that's one of the biggest life lessons I've had is just be careful who you surround yourself with because then they're a reflection of you. But also you're going to impart things on them and they're going to impart a lot of things on you. And I've got awesome people around me and I'll say there's probably a few that'll fall away in the next 5, 10 years, and that'll just be the natural attrition of me getting more selective of who I hang out with and why. I think in business you've got to be super careful about who you work with, who you hire, and just in general who you surround yourself with. I think networking back in the day was a great idea, but networking sort of opens that vortex of just hang out with everybody and try anything. As you get older you get to see through the lens of lessons that working with the right people is actually way more effective.
Megan: There's a couple of things there. The first bit is, I think, especially as a founder, the busier you get, the less time you have to give to people. So then you place your time with the people that are going to, oh, they fill your cup up, or you're having, you're growing together and doing those types of things. But was there a sort of an experience and you don't need to go into detail about it, where that became particularly true, where you were like, okay, this has been the moment where I'm like, I need to really focus my energy with the right type of people?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, I've had, I've had many. I've had business transactions and sold businesses because of getting in scenarios where I just couldn't work with someone anymore. I won't be specific about certain scenarios, but I've had a scenario where I've just had a completely different outlook on how to run this business with someone else. And I knew it was either him or me. And I've just gotten to the situation where it's just like, you know what, just make the call. And often I'm very slow at making the call, but I'm getting quicker. It's kind of like when you hire people. I used to just hire really quickly and then I'd get a few bad eggs and go, oh God, how do I get rid of this person?
Megan: I can't.
Stephen Wools: Whereas now you've got to be more selective in the way you hire. And you'd know this as well when you're triaging talent, just make sure you know exactly what you're after. Because if you are really well versed in qualifying what you're after, you'll probably get the right person. If you're not and you're just in a rush to get somebody, you're going to get someone bad because they probably won't fulfill all the things that you have or want to have in a staff member. So yeah, it happens with hiring.
Megan: It also happens with the people that you have in your life. Um, like using hiring not even as a metaphor - I literally say this to clients - being really -
Stephen Wools: You're hiring friends again, are you?
Megan: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Geo George: Yeah, being intentional about who you surround yourself with, like, it extends further than business relationships or employees, you know. It's also like picking the right mentor. I think especially when you're early on in your career, you're so grateful just to have anyone to support you along with this journey that you don't really think to evaluate, okay, is this the right person where they're able to help me grow, but I can also provide something back to them in return? And also extends to friendships as well. I think the overall lesson that I'm getting from what you said, Wools, is have a certain level of intentionality to surrounding yourself with people because they either change the trajectory of your life in a very good way or, you know, it could go the other way as well.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, like I was saying, there's - I mean, your biggest person you choose, I think the most influential person you choose is your life partner. Second biggest is your business partner, partners. You spend a lot of time with them, so it's super It's super critical. And you've kind of got to be harsh sometimes in who you select in life. And that's why people do go through life and, and have less friends probably towards the end.
Megan: I have a quick question. Do you think it's your life partner or do you think it's your business partner that like is the most influential in your life? I mean, I don't have a business partner, but I think my business is almost more influential on me than my partner.
Stephen Wools: I think that, I think the relationship with your yourself is the most influential because you talk to yourself more than anyone.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And I think the way you treat your thoughts and talk to yourself is probably - that's where you've got to do the most amount of work. I think your life partner is super critical to the bedrock and foundation of you as a person.
Megan: Very true.
Stephen Wools: And having someone that aligns with your core values and just how you want to be seen in the world, but also how you want to treat people in the world is is super critical. And then, yeah, business partnerships. You're not going to get people who see the exact same thing as you, and nor do you want to have a business partner that walks and talks like you, because then you wouldn't get the crossover of thinking. I mean, my business partner Josh, he's wildly creative and a lot of fun. And, you know, for a 48 or 49-year-old, he still throws out a good night better than most kids. He thinks completely differently to me, but we cross over really well commercially and we sort of arrive at the same outcome most of the time. And if he's tackling a problem over there that I just don't have time to tackle, whether it be this business or another business, I've got complete confidence that he's got my best interests at heart and that he'll get the outcome that I probably would've arrived at anyway. So we think in critical nature, Very similar. But yeah, you've got to be selective about who you surround yourself with. That's humongous in life and you don't always get it right. I mean, there's still people hanging out with their high school mates and they, they still go back and go, I don't really like Dave. He's a bit of a dick. It's like, well, cool, get rid of Dave. Dave doesn't need to be there.
Geo George: Dave's the problem.
Stephen Wools: Dave's the problem.
Megan: It's hard when you're like, got like these existing friendships though, because you become the drama if you try and kick them out or like try and separate them. Okay. I think that was awesome.
Geo George: There's like 3 life lessons there.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, I think there was 2 life lessons.
Megan: There was yours too. Yeah. No, awesome. I love it. Second life lesson.
Stephen Wools: Look, I think the second life lesson for me is about managing risk, which I still today I'm not great at. You know, when you try and raise money or talk to PE firms, the thing that they point out most is risk. And so it's taken me a lot of conversations over many years to realise that risk is the most important thing to look at. But when you're young, you just don't think about it. Even when you go out at night, you just don't think about risk. You just go and have fun. But as I get older and wiser, I start to look at risk more and more. And I think when people are trying to raise money, a lot of Founders try and raise money and they walk in with optimism and so they should. That's why we effectively invest in Founders, right? Because of their optimism and their idea. But they've also got to have a balance of risk. And by that I mean they've got to understand or at least have a cursory look at the risk factors that are there about what they're trying to do or a problem they're trying to solve in their space. And a lot of the time Founders and business people don't do it. And the more astute business people do a lot of it. So I'm still learning now, right? I'm still looking at, ah, they don't like my business because of that reason, of that risk factor, but they've ignored all these 10 amazing things that I do well. It's like, yeah, dude, you're the founder. All you do is walk out with a cup of optimism and that's what you sell. So I think looking at risk and really trying to hone in on risk is the side I'm still working on. And but it's - that's again permeates through business and life. you've got to evaluate risk. When you're young, you don't. As you get older, you do. You drive slower, you go to less risky locations when you go on a holiday. So as you get older and wiser, you balance risk better. I still remember when I was young, I'd pitch ideas to capital firms and people with money. I'd just pitch ideas, right? And people always said no to me. But you loved it. Not because of my enthusiasm and not because I don't And I didn't give a shit about rejection.
Geo George: So what?
Stephen Wools: But I often wondered for many years when I pitched ideas and people wouldn't invest in some of my companies, they want to invest. What's going on there? But now, as I'm through my journey and at a certain point, I understand that all they're doing is looking at risk and going, cool, you're excited, I get that. But have you thought about the risk and how are you going to manage the risk when it happens? And now I understand it. as I've lived, I've gone, ah, I kind of get it now. I kind of get why they didn't invest. And they were actually looking for me to say, here are some of the problems that could occur and this is how I'm gonna attack it. But here's all the optimism side, which is easy and you get what I'm doing, but here's how I'm gonna balance the risk. So I'm still a work in progress on that.
Megan: Yeah. And if you understand your risk and you can mitigate that for the people that are gonna be investing in you, you're in a better position to be taking their money, I feel like, or for them to wanna give their money.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, they're looking at the money side of it and a lot of the time they're also just looking at you as a person. I mean, you look at some of the biggest investments and a lot of the time they're just investing in the person, not just the idea. They're like, what do you like as a person and how are you going to carry it out? That's what they're looking for. They're looking for, is this person going to live and breathe it? Are they going to be okay when things go wrong and how are they going to treat it?
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: how they're going to sort of effectively not just bandaid it, but how they're going to really triage a problem, get to it, fix it next time, preempt it, and just be a better founder and leader. That's what investors look for.
Geo George: Yeah. I used to be a risk consultant, and one thing that I picked up is most people are just inherently bad at thinking about risk. It's easy to be optimistic because you're only looking at the positive sides, but it takes a certain kind of courage to think about, okay, in a very rational way, what are the other things that could go wrong? And then actually having plan some mitigations in place to manage that.
Stephen Wools: Yes. And I will say I'll sort of balance this up with I'm not great at it. I'm still not great at it. There's many things I'm not great at.
Megan: But you know that you're not great at it though as well.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, to a degree.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: But you've got to have some humility in business and I think ego plays a small part. And actually, if you know me well, I, I just don't care about ego at all. And I've got nothing to - I don't walk around and say, I own this, I own that. I think it's one of the worst things you can do. When I owned a nightclub, I walked people in the front door and walked out the back door straight away. I didn't want to be there. And not because I didn't like the business or because of the journey. I just didn't want to be the nightclub guy. I never wanted to fall into the trap. And there's many people that have done that and fallen into the trap. And yeah, you've got to have a bit of humility and get rid of ego and you've got to have an eye on risk. And like I said, I've - I'm not great at it and I'm still getting better and better as I go. And the last 6 years of Ballers, we entered in with humongous risk and we scaled and grew with risk. We're still doing it now, but we're getting better at it. We're getting better at pulling it apart and seeing the problems and kind of anticipating what's coming up the road. Do you know what I mean? That's, that's sort of the learning as we go. But Look, it's tough to balance it out because Founders are, we are eternal optimists and so we should be. We're trying to bring something new. We're trying to do something revolutionary or something we think is the best thing in the world and it's way better than Facebook and anything else. But that's our world and that's what we do. And you kind of want Founders to have that enthusiasm, but you've got to balance it up with a little bit of risk assessment as you go as well.
Geo George: And I think the the best Founders are a bit of a rare breed because they do walk this tightrope between having that optimism but also being realistic about the risks involved. I think that's a great life lesson. Should we move on to the third?
Stephen Wools: What was my third one?
Geo George: What did I write down? I'm sure I was just about to remind you. Yeah, more is more. And I wrote a comment down just to kind of unpack what this actually means.
Stephen Wools: Do you want me to talk about more is more? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So more is more. I mean, far out, my beautiful partner, she would hate me saying this because I think I say it every day, but not because of the service spaghetti, it's because of life. More is more. And what I mean is the more you grow, the more headaches you're going to have. So the bigger your business goes, the more things you have to solve, the more people are going to have to hire. And at what point is it enough? So I think the lesson is, when is more enough? Why do you need more and more and more?
Megan: Do you know, we were talking about this earlier and just being like, you know, when you want to grow, nothing's ever enough. But as I was saying that, I was thinking about the fact that Nicolas Cage has been talking. He's basically -
Stephen Wools: Shout out to Nicolas, by the way.
Megan: Shout out. Yeah, he's probably watching the podcast. He actually has completely stepped back from the limelight in a lot of things that he does because he's like, I've hit it, I've got enough. And I think that is almost - I mean, I don't know if I'm ever gonna hit that. Is that enough, right? But you're on this journey to figure it out.
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And it's so pertinent. I mean, at the moment I live in a big, beautiful house on the coast and it's a dream.
Megan: Can we come stay?
Stephen Wools: Yeah, absolutely. There's heaps of room there. It's a perfect lifestyle. I live near my parents. I've got a big Dutch family. We live within walking distance. It's amazing. And that even still, my partner and I talk about it every day where we're like, this house is too big. We don't need it. And so now we're actually actively looking at selling our house, which for me is like a - I'm unpacking that. I'm like, oh man, I worked so hard. I renovated this house during COVID I did everything in here with my cousins and We built this empire. I don't want to sell it. But she's right. She's like, we don't need it.
Megan: And there's more dusting to do here.
Stephen Wools: Well, that's her rationale, is that it's more to clean. It's, it's, it's more to run. You're going to fill up every cavity. You'll just buy more things to put in your more house. I mean, there's the 2 guys from The Minimalists. We toured them many years ago. I spent time with them and And man, I'm not going to say it had a profound effect on me, but watching their show, I was just like, they're so fucking right. Don't need all the shit we have. We just don't. And I look at it now and more is more always is in my head because I'm just like, okay, so at what point am I happy with Ballers and how many venues we have? At what point am I happy if I ever sold it and I've got enough money to - what? When am I - when am I going to be happy?
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: and go, cool, I'm good with this. When am I going to do the Nicolas Cage? Is what I'm saying.
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: Do you know what I mean?
Megan: When is more enough? And then also, can you balance the 2 parts of like the entrepreneur journey where you're like, potentially you're never going to want to stop growing until you get to a point where you're just like, okay, I'm 70 now, I really should just calm down.
Stephen Wools: Shout out to Jim's Mowing. Well done, Jim. He's still going.
Geo George: He's still kicking, yeah.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, he's amazing, that guy.
Megan: But then also, Like you, there's, there's 2 tracks here, right? Where you can continue growing, but you just don't need all the stuff that comes with it because that's fulfilling. But maybe this is the physical assets that you're gaining. You don't really need so much.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, I think it might have been, might have been Jordan Peterson that talked about this, but don't quote me because I might have got this wildly wrong.
Megan: But I said the flu pandemic was in the 1800s.
Geo George: You never know.
Megan: Could have been. Probably both won, actually.
Stephen Wools: I think it's either him or someone else. They talk about how, you know, just be careful of what you own and what you have because one day someone's going to drive the car you've got. One day someone's going to live in the house you've got. One day someone's going to wear the clothes you've got. So who the fuck cares? Like, more, more is more. You just, you just don't need it. You know, growing businesses is great and it's adventurous and it's fun. It's got to get to a point where you just go, okay, yeah, I think I've had enough and I'm done here. I want to balance out my life. But it's - I think it's wrong of us to just constantly want more. And it's also a trap, right? All we want to do is have more. Like, look at your phones now. It's there. You might as well strap the phone to my head. It's on me all the time. I'm constantly there. But I've got to create - I've now got to create reverse habits where I put the phone away and I don't see it for hours on end. And it's hard to do.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: Because you've got friendship networks that they don't call you or rock up to your house anymore. They text you on your WhatsApps or whatever. So you've got to, you've got to just be careful of wanting more and everything around you. You've got to balance it out.
Megan: It's almost like a lesson that we, we just need to figure out. It's like acknowledging that there's something here that we're still learning in terms of how much is enough and when do you stop type of thing.
Stephen Wools: I don't think anyone ever really knows, right? And we, we often do a lot of things out in the necessity. And we create our own necessities. So I've got a big house, therefore I've got to work harder. I've got to get more things to put inside it. You know, you just sort of necessitate, but you create your own necessity. Now, if I lived in a tent, I just need a dustpan and brush to clean it. I don't need a lot. So just be careful of what you create, you know. So that's why, I mean, we're actually looking at now selling our house and looking at downsizing into something a bit more Maybe not a tent, but yeah. Some people, I mean, some people live in tents and they're happy and I kind of get it. It's kind of like you're camping every day. I'm sure they're going through rough patches, but yeah, it's, it's, you've got to be careful about the necessity you create. And more the lesson for me, like more is more. You just keep constantly wanting more. But we do that in business as well. And at some point you've also got to balance out and go, I'm going to die one day and maybe I want to do a bit of traveling and see Australia. Maybe I want to -
Megan: You need to do those OEs.
Stephen Wools: OEs?
Megan: Oh wait, you didn't call it an OE. In New Zealand we call it an OE, but like the trips away when you were younger to go like spend a year somewhere. I never did it. The gap period. Yeah, that's what you guys call it. But we, we call it an overseas experience in New Zealand.
Geo George: You guys have a very particular way to name things. It's very descriptive.
Megan: We don't call it the overseas experience. We call it the OE.
Geo George: The OE.
Megan: Yeah.
Geo George: I will say this, because I have heard this life experience, life lesson from you. But I've heard it in a very different context, which was we were thinking of growing the team and expanding. And you told me more is more, more people, more headaches, more money. You know, more need to like feed the pipeline, all of that. But this is such a crazy like business life experience all rolled into one because yeah, like I think there is a certain art to like knowing when to tap out, you know, knowing when enough is enough.
Stephen Wools: Well, it's not tapping out, um, and in your sense it's probably, you know, how many clients do you want to service? And we did that with our agency. We just grew to a point where we had so many clients and we had 50 kids working for us. And for some reason we're going, why isn't it working well? Why all of a sudden we're not paying ourselves?
Megan: And how old were these kids? If they were 12, I can tell you the answer why.
Stephen Wools: You're probably right. I should qualify. When I say kids, I mean mid-20s.
Megan: Yeah, I know.
Stephen Wools: At the time I probably was a kid. No, no, no. But yeah, you just got to be careful of more. I think there's some great agencies that are well run and they just have 3 or 4 clients.
Megan: You also, you get to a point, right, where no matter, like if you've got more clients, you have more people servicing it. But at the end of the day, as a founder, if you really care about your business, you're still accountable to that. And that's a lot to be thinking about and to be accountable for and to feel like your name is tied to that as well, which is a stress in itself.
Geo George: Yeah. By the way, I use this expression tap out because I used to work at the casino. And people would just be on these crazy runs. And I wasn't meant to do this, but I would go, hey man, like, you know, like, let's tap out while you're ahead. They never do. They never do.
Stephen Wools: This is what I mean, right? More is more. And you win at the casino and then you want more. Yeah, it's almost like it's the Bart Simpson theory, right? Keep reaching for that cookie and Lisa's sitting back going, dude, it's going to zap you.
Geo George: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And we We just do that unconsciously as humans. We just want more. And I think the biggest trap these days is social media. We, we look at other Founders and look at what we look at, these 5-second stories about people having wild success and driving Ferraris. That's not real life. There are people out there that have done really well and do that. But just be careful what you strive for or what you benchmark yourself against, because balance it up and have a good bloody life. You're here for 80 years if you're lucky. Have a bloody good time doing it and don't overextend yourself to the point where you feel like you need all these things to make you happy.
Megan: Maybe that's the takeaway from the pod though. If everyone can, if you're thinking about going on your entrepreneurial journey, maybe you're on it, being able to sit down, reflect. I was gonna say over Easter, but by the time this comes out, it's probably end of the year. Like being able to sit there and be like, what's actually gonna make me happy? And then having some sort of idea about that that you can keep in mind. I mean, no one's ever gonna be like, oh, I've ticked that box. and now I'm going to, you know, stop here. But having that as a thought process.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, it's - I mean, life's funny, right? If you stop and look back, you've already reached the goals you set yourself to a degree along the way. You keep reaching them, right? But yeah, what was your point? What were you just saying then? Because I had a really good thought bubble. I was going to go -
Megan: I was going to say that people could go and have a think about where they actually want to go. Like if they can stop right here and have a really good think about what's going to actually make them happy.
Stephen Wools: Got it. Yeah. Thought bubble came back. This is what happens. I have a lot of people that come to me and ask me, how do I become an entrepreneur? And when they ask me that, I say, don't.
Megan: Just quit your job.
Stephen Wools: Just don't become one. Don't do it. It's okay. You want to work from the moment you wake up until the moment you're - not your eyes shut, your brain shuts off. Because my brain sometimes keeps going till 2 a.m.
Geo George: I dream about work stuff.
Stephen Wools: That's what you're saying.
Megan: I've been going to sound baths and I have like the most like meditative Work thoughts.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, but just, just like people come to me and say, like, I want to become an entrepreneur, how do I do it? I'm like, don't, don't do it. It's not, it's not fun. It's, it's a hard life. But if you've got something you're really passionate about and you think you can really go and nail and make a difference, fucking do it. Go for it. And if you want some help, I'm here to help. But at the same time, here's lessons I've learned. It's not easy. And gone are the days where having just a good job and having a balanced life, wife, kids, mowing the lawn on the weekends is sort of somewhat frowned upon. But actually I look at, and I talk to other entrepreneurs all the time, and one thing we talk about is, gee, if it all fails, we're all gonna just pick up a Jim's Mowing franchise and we're gonna go mow lawns. That looks damn satisfying. You know, you can seed a lawn, you can trim the lawn, walk away an hour later, get paid and go, look at a beautiful job I've done. Whereas business, it takes years and years and years for that to occur. That transaction happens in a moment.
Megan: I think also the other piece of the puzzle is if you were born to be an entrepreneur, and I think I was, 'cause as soon as I stopped working, I was always quite a challenging employee, good at my job, but very challenging to manage. And then it made sense when I worked for myself, 'cause I had an ideas brain. But make sure you really want it, 'cause it's not an easy ride to get there. And if you're just thinking, oh cool, I would rather not have a job, That's not enough.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, I think if when people - and I do talk to people when they say, how do I become an entrepreneur? And I say, well, if you're comfortable with rejection, with constant problems, if you're comfortable not getting paid for a year or 2 years, whatever it is, you're comfortable to undergo all that and still smile and be motivated, go for it. No problems. Um, get used to uncomfortability. Get used to big problems, get used to not being perfect. Because actually everyone I come across in business and I talk with people all the time that have wildly successful, they're not a finished product. They've still got things about them that they're still working on. There's guys I know who have sold businesses for an extraordinary amount of money and then they're lost.
Megan: Hmm.
Stephen Wools: I'm like, yeah, you got nothing to do. Go and find something to do that you're going to make a bit of a difference, or at least going to keep you out of the casinos. You know, it's - you've got to have a bit of purpose as well because we're not put on the earth to just sit there and play golf, although I'd love to do that. It's just not what we're here to do. We've got to have some sort of drive, some sort of purpose. So yeah, none of us are a finished product, and I think you're never going to be. So just be careful of being self-critical as well, because that's my biggest thing, is that I was like, far out, why am I not this, that, and that. Why can't I do that? And we're all human. And even people in - maybe not Donald Trump, but most people reflect and go, I'm not perfect.
Megan: Yeah.
Stephen Wools: And even though they're stupid successful, a lot of people know that they're not perfect. It's okay.
Megan: So what stayed with me from all of that, I think - I mean, the reason why we do it is because The 3 life lessons are generally pretty juicy, but the be careful with who you surround yourself with, I think we've all sort of had a lesson in our founder journey, no matter how far you are down that track, um, where we've realized this. I love the idea of respecting risk the way smart money does, um, and working out when more stops being more. The idea of more is more, that we can just keep reaching for the cookie, building the bigger house, chasing Chasing the next venue and never quite stopping to ask when enough is actually enough. I think I find that with all the ideas of what I could build, sometimes too much is actually too much, or more is actually too much. And coming from 2 people still very much in this phase of growing, this is some timely perspective.
Geo George: Listeners, if you want to see what Stephen and the team are building at Ballers Clubhouse and Good Times Tech, we've provided links to both in the show notes. Next time you're in Melbourne, make sure you go check them out for a great night out. If you know a Founder who needs to hear this episode, someone in the grind, someone wondering whether the resilience is worth it, make sure you send them this episode. Thanks for listening to Life After Launch. We'll see you in the next chapter.
Megan: Also, I think people are looking at you being like, oh, I want to be him. And you're thinking about the person beyond you being like, I want to be, you know, yeah.
Stephen Wools: Don't want to be me at all. And I could, I could rattle it off for hours why you wouldn't want to be me.
Megan: Let's not. Let's not. We're trying to like get people to listen to this podcast. Yeah.
Geo George: Awesome. I think on that note, yeah, Wools, that was some incredible life lessons. Thank you so much for being on the pod.
Megan: And sharing your journey.
Stephen Wools: Yeah, it's still going.
Geo George: Such an incredible journey.
Stephen Wools: Crazy.
Geo George: Yeah. Well, looking forward to the next chapter when we catch up next time.
Stephen Wools: Maybe I've scaled more and I can talk about more problems.
Geo George: Maybe we can afford more than a cupboard.
Megan: Maybe we could do it in Auckland when you open the office.
Stephen Wools: I like the cupboard.
Geo George: I mean, it's hot.
Megan: Yeah, it's hot.
Geo George: Cool. Awesome.
Stephen Wools: Thank you, guys.
Geo George: Man, that was amazing.
