PortfolioCast
PortfolioCast
PortfolioCast from The Portfolio Collective: Ep.7 with Founder & Apptreprenuer Anthony Main
Episode 7
We interview Anthony Main, on:
- fuelling your entrepreneurial spirit
- disconnecting to create better balance
- networking consciously, even online
- sharing, and keeping it human, and
- little pivots, not full 180s.
Having started his work with a portfolio career, Anthony has gone on to create The Distance, an award winning App agency, and is now looking back to his portfolio roots to carve out the next chapter.
Welcome to the seventh episode of PortfolioCast. Today we're speaking with Anthony Main. Having started his work with a portfolio career, before it was even known as a portfolio career, Anthony has gone on to create The Distance, an award-winning App Agency, and is now looking back to his earlier roots to carve out his next chapter. Welcome, Anthony.
Anthony Main:Hi, nice to see you.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Great to have you here. I'd love to start right back at the beginning before you created The Distance. As a developer and as I said, you had a portfolio career before it was known as a portfolio career, as a freelancer. How did you use your freelancing portfolio career to your benefit?
Anthony Main:I've never really thought about it like that. There was a lot I learned without realising it. So when I had a full time job, I also had lots of freelance work on the side. So when I actually did step out into the business world of my own, with my business, I actually already had a wealth of portfolio and customers and everything else. So my first year, I earnt the same as I did in my full time job. And that was only because I had already created this collection of existing clients, and everything else. So without realising it, I guess I did have a portfolio career.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:And networks are really important to how we all work. But even more important, right now. Do you still have people that you lean on from the past, or people that you have been inspired by when you were first setting up, etc?
Anthony Main:Yeah, when I stepped out, I relied heavily on my network. So before I stepped out, I'd had six full time jobs at various agencies around Yorkshire. And if it wasn't for those and the close relationships I built in every single one of those agencies, the startup business I had, and the immediate clients I had, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have got anywhere. I didn't know how to do sales, I didn't know how to do marketing. And it was simply I was inundated with calls from my previous colleagues and managers and employers who needed me to carry on doing my skills because they knew how good I was, at whatever I did, and it fit what they needed. And that just became my client base. And nowadays, I have very different networking, my networking is now my peers, various other business owners, and especially in this this certain time that we are all going through, they're really, really important. So I'm part of a growth group on the back of a course I did. We've known each other now for the best part six years. In the real world. We got together every three months, and we've visited each other's offices, and we know each other's businesses intimately now. But we got together and every week, we have a call every Thursday morning, just supporting each other making, helping each other make some really, really big decisions this year. It's been absolutely invaluable.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:That's fantastic to hear. You went on to create The Distance, obviously. And this year, the business was named App Agency of 2020, which is amazing. Congratulations.
Anthony Main:Yeah, we've done, we've done well, awards-wise this year. Really well.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, of course, like most startups, it wasn't all plain sailing. And I know that everything's fantastic now, but would you mind going back a bit and talking about the pivot that you had to make to get to where you are now?
Anthony Main:Yeah, I guess those two things kind of came in the other way round for us. So we have been through a rollercoaster over the last 12 years. At one point we have have nearly closed. And I've been quite open and spoken about that in the past. But the first and the most major pivot we did was right at the start. So my skills were originally as a web developer, I stepped out as a freelance web developer. Within probably nine months, I wasn't doing any web development. I was, I'd use my technical skills to embrace the mobile space. I found it fascinating. I've been doing web development for a long period by that point. And I wanted a new challenge. So I ended up merging my business with someone else, he took on the web book, and I focused purely on mobile. And that's where I planted my flag. And I've been flying it for the best part of 15 years now dedicated purely on mobile development, because the market just flourished. And I guess that's one of the important things when you're running a business, you have to look for those opportunities. I'm already seeing what potentially needs to be a minor pivot for us right now, based upon some changes in technology. And if Apple make a decision quite soon, we're gonna have to pivot a little bit, quite quickly.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah. Understanding your market and understanding who your potential client is going to be or your clients are going to be, i's so so so important, but also taking on, like you say, taking on new challenges that you're passionate about. And I'm guessing that your passion has led you throughout all of the development of so many different apps. And that changed from web to mobile.
Anthony Main:Yeah, I'm - my friends I used to live with when I was slightly older used to call me - a social geek. I was blowing up computers at the age of 13. And thanks to my mum and dad's support for that passion of mine, but I found that my mum and dad made me quite rounded individual. And so I was able to communicate and everything else with people, yet still talk about technology and dumb it down to a level that becomes a conversation, whereas the typical outlook of what a techie was, was glasses with a plaster between them, only came out between the hours of midnight and 4am and had long greasy hair. So I kind of broke that mould a little bit. And now we're all technologists, right? We have to be.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there definitely was those those stereotypes that were very hard to avoid. But well done for flying flag on that one too. A lot of people, professionals, business owners, are going to be facing the sort of struggles that you have done in the past. And, you know, you've been through, you know, 12 years running, you've been through a recession, or you've come out the other side of one recession. And they may be looking with concern to 2021. What advice would you give to somebody who is where you were at, you know, having to make those decisions about what to pivot or what to change?
Anthony Main:Everyone would love to have a crystal ball with the answers in, but they don't exist. So the best that anyone can do is think plan, strategise, try and predict things. There is a book by Richard Branson. And the whole topic of the book is basically how he'd make big gambles, but they weren't really gambles because they're always calculated. So he knew that he could spend 2 million pounds, taking a risk.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah.
Anthony Main:And it was a complete risk. And but he was, he knew that he could throw away that 2 million pounds. So we have to be in that sort of mindset, we have to take the risks, we have to be very wary of what we're doing. But there is always going to be a bit of a gamble. Just try and be as calculated, plan ahead, make sure that you do have a buffer or something to support the fallback plan, I guess, like we're talking about here, portfolio careers - go for that. If you've got fingers in lots of different pies, some may fail, thers may succeed. And then you an quickly make your pivot ecisions based upon the success tories and not the failures.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, we've actually just published an article looking at startups, or how rather, startups can be created from portfolio careers. What sort of advice would you give to someone who has that burning entrepreneurial spirit, and is looking for an outlet to create a new startup, potentially?
Anthony Main:Yeah, I mean, it drives a lot of us. And it is very, very tempting because people see the new stories of these massive success stories, that people have had with these these side hustles and everything else. The problem is the big news stories are thin and far between in terms of the massive success. Any startup, well, all right, 99% of startups need a lot of work, there is a massive commitment to get them over that line from a great idea to something that is got longevity, as we all know, most startups fail within a few years. And it's gutting to see. So, any entrepreneur or an apptrepreneur, as I call those that want to focus on the app space, they need to be really, really committed. And that commitment needs to be thought through carefully because the time commitment is one thing but it then will look at affecting your family life, you have to have the support of other people around you, willing to let you have that. And as you sort of say, you need something else. If you have plenty of cash and you can go all in, then great. But a portfolio career is the ideal way for people to support that ambition, that opportunity, but you've got to then try and get that time balance right. If you then look for VC funding, for example, they're going to want you 100% committed. So you've got to think carefully about where my time commitment is and are you going to be resilient and patient enough to wait to get to that point of confidence. That is a long term goal, rather than just a short lived dream.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, I mean, there is a difference between starting up a startup and having a business that recognises the different roles you have. So you can be self employed, stick a company name on it, you know, attach yourself to different roles, etc. and still have a portfolio career. You don't necessarily have to go down the startup route. But there's definitely the excitement there with startups isn't there?
Anthony Main:Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And there's a lot of support for them. There is a huge amount of businesses that are able to support you with a lot of free advice, free content, everything else. Starting a business in 21st century is very, very different to what it was before. Even the local governments have lots and lots of provision for new businesses. So the opportunities there for those that have the confidence and the bit between the teeth and the sheer strength to do it, to be fair.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah. Bringing us up to the present day. You're now embarking on a new chapter of your own career and you're developing yourself as a mentor, a consultant, taking on board positions. How are you approaching these new opportunities having run your own business for a number of years?
Anthony Main:Sure. So the two kind of very intermixed so our clients come to us and many of them are the startups that we've just been talking about. And they have great ideas. But their background can be anything, they aren't necessarily technically astute, they won't necessarily know the right decision. So I've always worn a bit of a hat in their camp. And so in many cases, I've acted as an interim CTO, or digital director, or whatever the title might have been, to help them with that, that vision from the technical aspect. That's what our whole business is able to provide. As the business continues to develop, and the startups we start to support, start to grow. I am often asked to take a more formal position in that sort of space and help with a more permanent role. And I do see that some time in my future, it's not immediately. But as our business continues to grow and develop, I will be able to have a more formal commitment to some of our clients and give them that more permanent fixture.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Will you be looking outside of your client base for new opportunities? Or are you keeping it close to home? Close to what you know?
Anthony Main:So very good question. We've started to structure our proposals in various different ways. So we can now offer parts of our service rather than necessarily the full app development lifecycle.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yep.
Anthony Main:One of the most important parts is that discovery element at the start, where we help work with businesses just to define, structure and explicitly capture the requirements for that client. And that's then used to go on to development or go for a funding round, put it out for crowdfunding. And we're doing a lot more of that initial piece of work, which is what someone in my sort of position can help a business do. Find that idea, justify it, do the due diligence about the technical side of it, before they start to make that big investment. We will end up doing a lot more of that for a much wider number of customers than those that do go through a full development lifecycle with us.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Where do you find the most interest? Is it still in app development? Or is it in that initial phases? Or is it helping and mentoring people with fantastic ideas, but need that support?
Anthony Main:I've always found it in two places. So one, I never stepped out because I wanted to run a business. It just happened organically. For me. Some of the proudest stuff for me in business as having a team and watching them and being able to support their careers. And one of the my most satisfying things is watching some of our staff getting mortgages, knowing that they work for us, we're contributing to the next stages of their life. The other side of it is the business side. Luckily, in our agency world, we service and support businesses in most types of industry, everything else. So I've been able to experience business from window manufacturing, to lorry drivers to markets, to you name it, I've been there other coalfront seen what's going on and tried to help them put mobile and digital into those spaces. And that's what fascinates me, the different types of business the way they work, everything. And from every single one, I learn more about how to run our business, but also more about how we can then support businesses in completely diverse markets. So the sort of stuff we do for big enterprise, we can use in small startup, and the cool innovative stuff that's happening in startup, we can help improve big enterprise. So it is fascinating, and the diversity is what's always always excited me in business.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:We definitely see that happening. Even on our Catapult course, f r example, within the communit, are so diverse. You have peop e from completely different wal s of life in completely differe t industries coming together a d talking about ideas that they' e never faced, or, but you c n find the connections and you c n find the similarities or the y u know, pinch an idea from he e and an idea from there and ma e it work for somebody els. That's definitely an exciti g space to be within. Have y u found anything that helps y u balance between your main ro e in the agency and your n w adventures and where you want o g
Anthony Main:Well, I think this sort of networking element that we've we've been talking about, and the number of different people that I see around me gives me this passion to go and do other stuff, see what other businesses are doing and the opportunities that people carve for themselves in the startup world and, and even in the general enterprise world. And I like that variety. And I like that and that's what drives me. I see the passion in people. I just want to work with as many people and support them as I can I've always have. In the earlier days of The Distance, our office was on the university campus in York and we ran boot camp programmes for the students. It became part of their extracurricular scores, they could run to go through our boot camp, learn about app development, and then pitch to us what their app ideas were in order to win a prize. I love sharing my knowledge, it's one of the things that that does drive me in business. And, and I want to find more ways that I can share my, my 15 years of developing apps and to make more people more successful.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Mmm. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely something, especially having the kind of niche that you do, and having the experience that goes along with that niche, is so hard to find. And often people who have that experience are tucked away in full time jobs and not able
Anthony Main:That's it yeah,
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:share their experience, or haven't taken that jump yet to start changing things up. On top of all of these different roles that we've been talking about, there is, of course, real life. Not just all work. Your wife is part of The Distance, and you've just welcomed your daughter into the world, 12 weeks of madness. How do you create balance between work and play and given not just the fact that you know, you're both involved in the company, lockdown, various different ways that we have had to deal with this year.. definitely come into play because the boundaries are so blurred. So how do you keep that balance between all of the all of the elements in your life?
Anthony Main:I think this is hold my hands up time and say I'm not a person to ask. I am absolutely terrible at this. So it's more of a do as I say, not as I do answer to be honest. It is really difficult. Running the business together has been fantastic. But it does add those sort of challenges as you sort of highlight there. What I've always been terrible at is being able to disconnect one from the other. And we would often be sitting in a bar, taking some time out for ourselves and over a glass of Cosmopolitan or something similar, we'll be discussing what the next few months of the business looks like, which they would end up with heated discussion, not exactly what you want. Yeah, I mean, even now more, so now I have a daughter, I'm having to make sure I take that commitment. So I am taking more time, fixed out of the business to make sure that I get that balance. Because even 12 years in business, the hours I have to put in every every week is is still more than most people would commit to their full time job. So no matter what business you run, you're always going to find that and weeks will be long, and other weeks, you'll have more flexibility, but you just have to have a try. I say have, try and have as much separation of those concerns as possible. And try and segment time, make sure you've got the time allocated in the right amounts, because work life balance and health and wellbeing and everything else is becoming even more the headline stories of the news all the time. And I'm a very, very resilient person with pretty leather skin. But not everyone is. And you need to make sure that that balance is continuous, especially when we're talking about the startups earlier, is you've got to prepare for that. Because you need the people around you to appreciate what's going to happen in the next few months of their lives. And and what that disconnect is going to be like so they've got to think that through carefully make sure as a team, they're properly committed to it rather than an individual.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, it's amazing how many news stories there are about it, and how often we can tell other people, especially when we're running businesses, you're probably telling your staff to make sure that looking after themselves.
Anthony Main:Yeah, we we have lots of very, very conscious wellbeing and mental check-in processes that we have with our team, which we're forcing people to take holiday when we think they need it. We've moved to a four day working week, whilst everybody's working remotely because they're finding four days of solid coding or whatever it is they do in our in our roles.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah.
Anthony Main:Is hard when they don't have the general office banter in the water cooler chat and a break over lunchtime and things like that, people do spend more time at the keyboard and we try and force them to to have more of a balance.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:We've talked about lockdown, you know, obviously it comes into a lot of conversations at the moment. It has affected our lives in so many different ways. As we've discussed. I know networking is a big part of how you work. You know, we've talked about the fact that without your network that you created originally, you wouldn't have been able to do the things that you did when you when you started out and stepped out. What advice would you give on making the most of networking in this new remote normal?
Anthony Main:I think it needs to be a much more conscious thing for people to do. In the normal times. I'd be bouncing around London going from a client meeting to another client meeting and I'd have a few hours here or there to spare so I'd hit up one of my contacts and treat meet for a coffee. If I was down for the night. there would always be events happening. So I could find something to attend. Those things don't happen anymore. That spontaneity, the diversity of those encounters. You have to find them. And networks like yours and various other online professional places. We need to take advantage of them. I think what are the events that I would normally be going to where I would do networking? I think quite a lot of them are missing out on actually having a networking sessions at the end of them.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah,
Anthony Main:So it's important, the event creaters help create more networking opportunities, because the events become very dry, you finish.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:And move onto the next thing...Yeah,
Anthony Main:And there's 100 people you could have chatted to, if, if you're in an event space, or whatever it might have been. So you, I think we do, we all have to take advantage of it. Or we need to commit more to social media and put ourselves out there at least even on a common thread where we're communicating, we're still talking to people, we're still sharing our stories and everything else. So I think LinkedIn is an important place for everybody right now, despite what people might think about it, and how some people are using it to share their family stories, that it's a space where people are, and they want to communicate, they want to talk, they want to engage in a conversation, because it's just as important for them as it is for you to share it.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah.
Anthony Main:So we need to take full advantages of these online platforms and make sure we do engage and not be scared to share because everyone else is in the same boat right now. So
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, I find it very interesting that there is this whole debate about how much we should be sharing on a professional network. I mean, my question is always, how much would you share in the office? If you needed to talk to somebody if you needed to reach out your network and ask for help? Why shouldn't you be doing it online as much as you would have done in an office space?
Anthony Main:Well, yeah, you don't really want to know how much I share in the office, because it's always way too much. I've got a baby grow with the branding on for our daughter. I'm trying to judge whether that LinkedIn suitable or not...
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Oh it is, 100% LinkedIn suitable, because I want to see it!
Anthony Main:Then I'll make sure you get tagged then, Lexi!
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Excellent! Boundaries can.... we've already talked about it, boundaries are blurred at the moment. But I think, you know, showing yourself as a human being in the stories that you tell, whether that's on your website, or whether that's on your blog, or whether that's on your social media, or the conversations you have over the phone, or on a zoom call is so important to keep that human element because that's what we buy into, right?
Anthony Main:Yeah, yeah, 100%. And especially people that are selling themselves, they're selling their own consultancies, their skills, their knowledge, all that sort of stuff. They have to be putting it out and sharing their personal opinion. And don't be scared of doing it. In my opinion. That's what people want to hear, the people buying into, you want to see you not some nice, packaged up, overly produced, whatever it might be. I mean, you'll hear me talking very straight, very honest. And I've always been able to be like that, I wear my, my life on my sleeve, really. And it's worked well for me. It's worked well for me for years, I'm always brutally honest with customers, we weren't on board a customer if we don't think their business is going to be a success. So get stuff peer tested, if you're in a startup world, don't trust your friends and family, they are not enough of a litmus to justify long term investment in a business. So better put on social if it's not too exclusive. Get it out there, you get to get some real public feedback. Why not?
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, and that I mean, that works for startups, and it works and portfolio careers in it. If you're deciding to take the step. You know, maybe you don't want to do it as publicly because of you're still in a role. But you know, you can still market research, you can still find out ideas. Yeah,
Anthony Main:Yeah. I just say, your networks there, right. So that person is about to step out, will know, half a dozen people that probably would consider paying for that services at some point in their future. Give a message drop them a WhatsApp, just to see what they think. I'm sure you'll get some honest feedback, whatever, whether it's good or bad. It's worth having. Absolutely.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:This is a question that comes up a lot. How do you define success right now? And how has that changed over the years?
Anthony Main:I've kind of covered some of that earlier about people getting mortgages, that that's a big thing for me. I've kind of had an informal unwritten mantra to what I want in life and business. And I think this is what underpins what drives me and everything else. And what I've always wanted to do is create a business where everybody wants to be or everyone wants to be part of it. And nobody wants to leave. Whether that be customers, staff, suppliers, you name it, I just want it to be a great place which does what it does. People enjoy doing it with us, whatever that relationship looks like. And I just want to keep doing that. I want customers to walk away happy and I want them to write great reviews about us because they've had a great experience with. We aren't just a lock and shut company and we don't just deliver onto a brief. And you'll get the relationship and the advice and career experience of all of our team. So it's going back to those human journeys. That's exactly what people are buying. And people want that. It's not about a box ticking exercise. So success is just, I guess all those things, sharing that knowledge growing everyone else, not just ourselves. And they're the sort of things that drive me that's what I find is success. To me. It's not just us as a business, it's our clients doing well, our our client app is getting downloaded our clients making great headway getting bought out, getting investment, whatever it might be, its its success comes from all those things as much as it does from the work we've done for them.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Mmm, that's a really good way of putting it and you can definitely see that in how you are as a business owner, but also, you know, where you're going with mentoring, etc. At the heart of everything you're doing, is how it's gonna affect other people. That's definitely heartening to see.
Anthony Main:It helps my vanity and my insecurities, my my own personal validation in the world, but your way was better.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Can you tell I'm in marketing? So with entrepreneurial spirit that comes with creating startups or going out on your own and stepping out and being a portfolio professional, there's also curiosity. And I think I'd like to ask a curious and nosy question, If you could...
Anthony Main:Mmmm, fascinated!
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:If you could do anything career wise, what would you do?
Anthony Main:That's a good question. I always thought I would be a good private eye. Being a technical person, I have a problem solving nature. I'm not necessarily nosy or nippy, I don't think I necessarily would be a good one.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah,
Anthony Main:But I would have loved to have done that investigative problem solving world, and if not, I'd have loved to be in some form of public service like the firefighters or a policemen, I just would love to be the saving people. I just never knew I had the confidence to do it for people to be honest, but I don't know, something along those lines.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:I love that!
Anthony Main:I was born and bred into digital. And so in the my path was carved from an early age, the passion was there. So I never really had to question where I was going in life. And as is, I've got where I have completely organically without much pressure, much decision. So I feel quite lucky. Other people pivot, chang,e flex, they'd have to find themselves in their path and everything else, whereas mine has been. It's just kind of happened. And it's happened the way I guess my passion has driven it.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah.
Anthony Main:So I've always been slightly cautious. But I'll gamble and I'll make the next step. And I'll see where that takes me. If it doesn't work, I'll guess I'll pivot. But there are little pivots. They don't have to be like full 180s by any means. It can be 10 degrees off here. There are if we're, we've had to do that as as an IT in the app industry. We've only been the Acme industries only been around 1112 years. Yeah, we've had to change so much in that time. Because the industry has changed. When we started with iOS, we moved to Android. We had a quick go with Windows Phone, because that existed for a brief history by Microsoft.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, we did.
Anthony Main:I had a great Windows Phone it was fantastic. And now we're looking at web being back again, as the the platform of choice. It is continually changing in the tech world. And that's why I like it. But to me, those things are little pivots. That's, I guess, natural progression of technology. And we all have to brace that in our careers nowadays. So yeah, miny pivots, I guess is my top tip.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:That is a very good tip. If you were to start again, go back to the beginning, is there anything that you would have done differently?
Anthony Main:I'd of probably planned ahead a little bit more, before I stepped out. I stepped out on just one day purely on a whim, because I got frustrated with a previous MD, but I knew I had confidence doing so it wasn't a blind leap of faith for me, I was lucky. End of year one, I hadn't accounted for corporation tax because I never know it was the thing. So a little bit of planning a little bit of education, before you make such wide wild decisions is probably a good thing. And now I have a good team around me We have great accountants, various other things business advisors that we make very strategic decisions. Some of them are gambles, but they are gambles with as much confidence as we possibly can get to beforehand and the best thing is to think ahead before you've made that wild decision, and it will be it'll be feel a big step but it will give you more confidence to push yourself harder, if you know a bit more of the plan rather than taking it on a whim.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yeah, that is really good advice to end on. Thank you so much for your time and for the giggles I'm glad that we've got a pre Christmas one where we can have lots of giggles
Anthony Main:We need flashing lights really in the background. So is it time for some eggnog now? It's nearly five o'clock somewhere.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time Anthony, and I look forward to seeing everything that's going to come from The Distance and from you.
Anthony Main:Thank you. It's been a pleasure, Lexi and good luck to everybody that's taking this trip along a portfolio career. It's a great opportunity and hopefully our paths will cross.
Lexi Radcliffe-Hart:Yes, brilliant. Thanks very much.