EP132: "When the odds are one in a million, be that one - How we built the worlds leading accountancy & finance event" - Dan Cockerton, Founder, Digital Accountancy Show

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dan Assor show. Inspiring and insightful conversations with trade show exhibition and conference professionals. Be notified first about new episodes by hitting the follow button and visit the YouTube channel to watch episodes of the show and enjoy bonus content. Hello and welcome to Dan. How you doing today?

Speaker B: Hi, Dan. Yeah, really good. Thanks, thanks so much for having me on. Big fan of the podcast, so looking forward to, uh, having a chat. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker A: It's always good to say you're a fan at the beginning, so I can, I can treat you kindly. Not that I'd do any, anything else. So, Dan, for those that uh, aren't aware, we read a few weeks ago an exciting development that the Digital Accountancy show, which is the show that you set up a few years ago, is, has been acquired by Easy Fairs and it's going to form part of their portfolio. And we're, we're going to get to that in a, uh, in a short while. But I'm always interested, Dan, to understand a bit more about the guests that are sitting in front of me and I guess specifically for yourself, your journey to, I guess, becoming an entrepreneur. Right. So I'm interested. Take me as far back as whether it's, I don't know, selling sweets or conkers or whatever else at school. Um, I'm interested to know where you thought that entrepreneurial spirit came from and sort of bring to life your background before you launched the Digital accountancy show in 2020.

Speaker B: Yeah, cheers, Dan. So I think from memory, my, my lot, my, my back end, if I think back into my childhood, I was very fortunate to come across a couple of things that made me think, wow, there's a wider world out there and you can do things outside of the norm. And, you know, I came from a very kind of middle class upbringing. Dad was a gardener, mum was a pa. Never any kind of big issues at home, loving family, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, but a couple of things that I was exposed to kind of growing up and my first job that I went into from university just gave me an insight into actually, wow, you can be an entrepreneur, you can build businesses and you can do great things and have a bigger impact on the world. And one of those things that gave me access into entrepreneurship was my best friend's cousin was the guy that bought Cash converters into the UK 20, 30 years ago from Australia. Um, and I met him kind of growing up when I was very young and heard his story and he exited the company and lived in a big house in Hertfordshire and stuff. So that kind of got my mind thinking around entrepreneurship and building businesses. My first job out of uh, university was working for a media business in the dental publishing world. And uh, the guy that owned, that had sold the company. And it's just something that I've always, I've always wanted to do and you know, I'm always one of those guys who constantly tries to come up with new ideas all the time. And in my last previous role I was working for a company called Xero. Yeah, and in my time working for Xero, I could see the amount of digital change and transformation happening in the accountancy and finance space. Zero was really, I would say the catalyst that really began to open up the eyes of accounting and finance people around the benefits of working in the cloud. And I just saw so much change and transformation happening in that space. So I, I have a uh, half kind of events and media background, half kind of working in the accountancy world, put the two together and then that's how the show was, was formed.

Speaker A: Okay, interesting. So I guess what you're saying is you took inspiration from some people around you at an early age. I guess you saw, you know, fair to say, some material wealth and you thought maybe, you know, that looks good, want a bit of that. But also um, I guess creating, creating value for a community probably started there as well. Would you say like the seeds of, you know, creating something beneficial?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like in the accounting world, one of the things that I was really passionate about and one of the things that is happening in the accountancy space is the, the role of the accountant is really changing quite a lot. Accountants traditionally would work retrospectively, work on kind of out of out of date data and provides compliance services onto their clients. But as a result of tech and moving into the cloud and digital transformation and apps and software, now what's happening is accountants are beginning uh, to serve their clients in new ways and opens up a number of new income streams and able to grow bigger and better businesses and more interesting work for their team members. And what we, what I was really passionate about doing was trying to play a supporting role in that evolution that's happening, trying to support the profession, trying to drive change and that was really at the core of everything that we did. So yeah, absolutely, the driven by driving change within the profession and supporting evolution that's happening in the industry.

Speaker A: So you went from a media experience and then you ended up at zero. How did you make that, that leap? You know, talk to me about the, was it a straight line Was it something you always wanted to get into? How did, how did that manifest?

Speaker B: Yeah, so, uh, in terms of connecting the dots. So yeah, first job out of uni was in dental publishing. That's where I learned the trade of advertising, events, media, that sort of thing. I, uh, then followed my sales director into an insurance company that sold insurance as well as some other products and software and some other bits and pieces into the accountancy profession. I was there for six years, right. And then I left there to go and work in the Middle east for a year. So I went and worked for a company called ITP who were uh, based in Dubai, but I was heading up their kind of their media business on the construction portfolio in Qatar. So we were there for 12 months. The plan was to stay out there for a little bit longer. But our uh, timing couldn't have been worse. The oil price fell through the floor, things were quite difficult out there and my job, my wife's job didn't materialize the way we thought it would. So we decided to come back, come back earlier than expected. But that's when the guys at Xero reached out to me. So where I worked, uh, the insurance company where we are partners, uh, and community were accountants. I used to bump into the Xero team and other people around the exhibitions and events and stuff. And someone at Xero reached out to me and said, you want to come and see what we're doing over at Xero? And that was a really cool business to work for. Learn a lot about developing tech and tech first and winning the hearts and minds of the community and the accountants and finance people. And then when I was working at Xero because of all the change and transformation that I could see happening in the space and whilst there was a um, minority of accounting firms making this switch over from legacy desktop software into cloud software and doing it really well and kind of adding on all the bolt on apps and software that could help their clients run more efficient businesses. I would say the vast majority of firms, um, were, when we're talking about five, seven, eight years ago now, the vast majority was stuck a little bit, you know, couldn't quite get their team members bought into it, couldn't get their uh, clients bought into it, uh, didn't really communicate that well in the business. All these new apps and the ecosystem surrounding Xero and QuickBooks and Sage Online products was expanding at a rapid rates and rapid rate of knots. So that's where the idea really came from. We were trying to play a supporting role in this kind of big Picture, uh, digital transformation, cloud adoption side of things really. And that's where. That's where the idea came from. So. And that's kind of my journey into actually thinking I think I can play a role in not only looking after the 300 accounting firms I'm looking after for Xero, but actually bigger picture as well. How do we drive, how do we support the industry in what's happening on a much bigger scale? And that's where the idea for the Digital Accountancy show was born.

Speaker A: Interesting. And what was the, the time period from you leaving university to when that seed of an idea. When you're at zero.

Speaker B: Oh, so I left university in 2006.

Speaker A: So 13 years. Something like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. So I set the business up in 2000. 19.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The reason why I ask is because there'll be people listening to this that, uh, I can't. What did you do at university? Just out of interest in business. Right. So lots of people go to university. They don't know exactly. Unless you've got a professional qualification, you really want to become an accountant or a lawyer, whatever, you know. I did a history degree. I didn't know where it was going to lead me. I don't know if you had an idea when you went to university what you wanted to do with that degree. No. So I guess the lesson for that is as well, who would have thought it, you know, Dan, of have, uh, you know, when you were 21, 13 years later, all that experience. It's not a straight line, is it? You know, it's about meeting people along the way and being influenced and sort of using all that experience to craft a new, new opportunity for yourself.

Speaker B: Would you? Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I'd say the two things that, uh, when you come out of university, the two things you should really be thinking about is what industry do I like the look of and what in. And what industry am I interested in?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And where should I build my network? Because ultimately it all always comes down to network and the people that you know, and that's where opportunities really come from, is within the people. So if anybody is at uh, university or thinking about what to do next, just think about which industry do I like the look of and what people do I want to meet.

Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. So you were at zero. You had this sort of German germ of an idea. Talk to me about your relationship with your co founder, James. Was he at zero with you? How did that sort of manifest?

Speaker B: No, so. So James was actually the sales director, uh, at fmc, the dental publishing business. Uh, and he joined. He took me with him. He joined the insurance company pfp and I went with him. So we've known each other since 2006. Uh, and we've always worked really, really well together. So. And it was whilst in my time at Zero and James's time working for, I think PFP at the time, we just got together over a Nando's at Houston station and we were just talking about what's kind of next in our careers and where we're going. And we had this. I had the idea for the show side of things, he had the idea for another business. He was looking to do his own thing as well. Like he'd worked away a lot from home and wanted to be closer to the kids and be able to do school pickups and that sort of stuff. And it's something that I've always wanted to do. And what we actually did was launch both businesses at the same time and run them in parallel. And actually it was a blessing because we all know what happened in March 2020. And luckily we were running the recruitment business alongside the show because we were due to launch our, ah, very first show on the 26th of March 2020.

Speaker A: Okay, right. You'd left 09 months before.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You had the Runway of about what, nine months to do the show or whatever. Okay, right.

Speaker B: And then I was all. So for me personally, I was all in financially, everything kind of everything got the kids and wife were in the business and then we had the, uh, March 2020, kind of three, four weeks out from the show. And. But luckily we had the recruitment business that we were running in parallel that managed to go through it.

Speaker A: And then that decision to leave zero whenever it was sort of spring of, I guess, 2019, February 19th.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's a big decision. Right. Even if you're doing it with a founding partner, so you're sort of sharing the risk, if you like, and you, I guess you've got to have that con, you know, have that conversation with your partner.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Did you have children at the time?

Speaker B: Yeah, we did. Harry was born in February 18, so he had been just turned one.

Speaker A: So you've got responsibilities. You know, the more responsibilities we have as we get older, the. I guess the appetite for risk is slightly reduced. So how did those conversations go? You know, what, what, what sort of. What did you. Did you try and de. Risk it in any way? Did you have a conversation? Others have said, look, worst case, if it doesn't work, I can go back to what I'm doing. What was. Talk to me about that.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, luckily, Dan, I have a very, very supportive wife.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, um, she always gives me encouragement, even when my ideas are somewhat. A bit crazy. Ah. She's always a positive. A positive. Generally a positive human. And, yeah, look, we said if this doesn't work, she was, at the time, she was doing agency nursing because it didn't quite work out for us in Qatar. She was having to fly back from Qatar, do some agency nursing, fly back to Qatar to be with me. But she carried that on and she just said, look, if this, if things start to get tight at home, then I can up my shifts and we'll be okay. But, uh, when you kind of go into business for the first time, you don't know what you don't know. You're a bit naive. And I'd never run a P and L before, so it was a real. One of the things that when you're running your own business, there's nowhere to hide. You are fully exposed. And. But I had, you know, Lucy kind of backed me all the way. We drove over to James, my business partner's house over in Cardiff, so we could get everybody together, have a chat about it, make sure we're all kind of in this together sort of thing. So, yeah, we, we had the support of our. Of our partners, which was really nice and reassuring.

Speaker A: Thank you. I think, again, it's just interesting to hear that, you know, and, um. And I think what you've said, it's been similar to other people that I've spoken to, whether it's a female founder and the husband supported her or it's the other way around. I mean, clearly you need that support and you need to then think about, you know, what you're going to do if for whatever reason it doesn't, you know, materialize and have a, I guess, Plan B. Not everyone has a plan B, but.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I was just going to say one of the things that I probably hadn't anticipated or thought about much was actually the mortgage costs and the bills at, um, home that have to go out on a regular basis. You're thinking business costs and venue deposits and that sort of thing. But yeah, money starts to. Starts to go down very quickly when you're not paying yourself any income.

Speaker A: Yeah. But sometimes you don't want to think about everything, otherwise you never do anything because you're too fit to move. So actually, naivety helps us sometimes. Right. You know, I found as I got older, the more I know, actually it reduces My appetite for risk. Because you think, oh, uh, what I know of this, actually I don't want to do that. Better sometimes not to know too much and again like this to be educational. When you first sat down with James, James Howe, your partner, how did you go about crafting your proposition? Why do you think there was a gap in the market or how did you identify it? Talk to me about that process.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean when we looked at the, the events landscape, there was one big exhibition in the accounting world which kind of covers all things accounting, technology being kind of one piece of that as well as tax and compliance and insurance recruitment and all sorts of other stuff. Whereas because of my background at zero and I could see the amount of transformation happening in the space and the amount of change happening in the industry, I felt like there was an opportunity to really just focus on the technology side of things. Let's just focus on the technology, let's focus on the digital transformation, let's focus on the app, uh, ecosystem that is surrounding these products. Because the role of the accountant was changing. Where accountants historically would deliver compliance services, whereas now they're delivering advisory services, management accounting, business plans, forecasting, financing, technology advice. And um, what we decided to do was well, let's just double down on this space. And when you look at the addressable market in terms of an exhibitor point of view, this is where there's a lot of activity happening. This is where there's a lot of startup, there's a lot of bigger businesses and we feel like we could grow a business and um, develop a niche just focused on the technology side of things for accountants and finance people.

Speaker A: But at that point neither of you had run your own exhibition, is that correct?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair to say. Yeah, yeah, we'd been involved in smaller events, I would say kind of more conference led events.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: But no, neither of us had the uh, background or experience in running a full blown exhibition. I mean we started fairly small. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, tell me about, tell me about the start.

Speaker B: Yeah, so like our, my kind of thesis was. So I spent the first six months just going around looking at other events, cross sectors, gaming, tech. Yeah, you know, any, any event that I could kind of get my, get to, uh, I would go to, to try and get inspiration and, and I made the decision that actually I think it'd be better rather than starting somewhere like an Excel or an Olympia or Battersea. Actually let's start small, let's find a smaller venue where we're confident that we could fill it with a number of people, fill it with a nice number of exhibitors and get the energy, get the energy going, get the noise going, get the kind of general suppose hassle and bustle of an exhibition. Keep the exhibitors happy, put on great content. So we decided to launch our, uh, very first show at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

Speaker A: Right. Unfortunately, I'm a Chelsea fan, but I'll let you off.

Speaker B: It gets worse. I'm m an Arsenal fan. Dan. So you were jinxing.

Speaker A: So you're responsible for the pandemic, really? I mean, that's the reason

Speaker B: it was, it was, you know what? We were, we were looking for a few months for a venue. We looked at all the, uh, traditional venues in London. We looked at hotels and the moment we walked into the Tottenham stadium. So outside of Tottenham's main four or five sponsors. Yeah, we were their first event booking in the venue. So we were there, we were in the venue whilst it was still being built. Hard hats, high vis, jackets on. The venue wasn't finished. If you remember. The. The profile of stadium kind of five, six years ago was quite big because there was delays and it was costing a billion quid. And so when we launched, people kind of saw the email or marketing, saw where it was and thought, oh, I've heard so much about that venue over, uh, the last kind of, so many years. People wanted to come and see the venue and it just allowed us to put the show on people's radar in year one, which was, which was the aim of it. So year one, we had 600 people, 50 exhibitors, and it was, it was round. Well, we managed to get the first show over the line, delayed, delayed, delayed through Covid. And then we got the first one over the line in September 2021, um, which was actually one of the first. Which was actually one of the first shows to happen in the, in the space.

Speaker A: And I mean, you say it sort of quite matter of fact, 50 exhibitors for a launch, that's not insignificant regardless of the size. You know, you're still trying to convince people through a pandemic because you would have had to have those conversations whilst you're still locked down and couldn't do the show. So actually the certainty for them is still. It's quite risky. They don't know you, really. I guess. Okay, people listening that might be in the same boat and they're launching a show or thinking of launching. What are the things you did to try and convince people, you know, build your credibility with both sponsors and visitors to convince them that, uh, you were going to Put on, you know, because this is, this is Dan and James coming from. Okay, zero background and other bits. But tell me about that journey of two things, Dan.

Speaker B: One was because of my previous role working for Xero, I knew a lot of the ecosystem that potentially might exhibit. I just met them through other events and in my time working for Xero. So if people are out there thinking about launching their own show, uh, one of the bits of advice I would give is start building your network, start thinking about who those potential exhibitors might be and get out there, be front, you know, get to the events, get to the smaller events and start meeting and shaking hands with some of these people. Like I, you know, getting your foot in the door on day one because you know some people and you can start to build momentum that way was, was a massive benefit to us and to the show. And the second thing I would say in terms of advising people that are launching is rather than focus on the specific show and the numbers that you're going to do and the features make a large part of what you're selling, the story and the mission and the purpose of the business. Like, whilst we care about the commerciality of the business and making sure that we're growing a, uh, profitable, sustainable business, actually for me it's about driving impact in the industry and supporting the profession on all of this change that's happening. And especially with AI kind of coming down the line in the accountancy and finance space, it's going to have a massive impact and we want to help provide a platform that's going to help accountants be at the forefront of that. And for me that's what you've got to think about is we hear about this why, what's your why, what's the why? Purpose and mission of the business and people and exhibitors to this day really buy into that. And it is truly the core of what we're doing. Everything that we do has to kind of come back to this core mission. And um, I think a lot of business owners and a lot of events people will launch the event and talk about, right, we can introduce you to these amount of buyers and we're going to have this many people. But actually what people really care about is the purpose and mission of the business and where you're going and can we align to it as a business ourselves? Especially when you're speaking to the CEOs and managing directors and a lot of the time what the exhibitors say back to us is, well, this is perfect for us because this is exactly how we're aligned as well and these are the values of our business and this is the change that uh, we're trying to drive in the profession as well. So they're the two things I would focus on. Network and your.

Speaker A: Why Interesting. Was there a sort of pinch me moment in the first cycle of sales? We thought, wow, I can't believe we've got this company on board. Was a, uh.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it was, yeah. Just seeing, seeing the show go live for the first time and the relief of running that first show was amazing.

Speaker A: Yeah. And then you obviously took the decision to, to move from spurs to I guess, maybe more traditional exhibition environment. What gave you the confidence to do that?

Speaker B: Yeah, really good question. So we felt like we had outgrown the space at Tottenham. Did two years there, both years absolutely buzzing. The place was manic. We were running out of space to sell Sands Dan. So we knew that we needed to move to a new venue, but we wanted to move to a venue that allowed us to incorporate. What people loved about the Tottenham venue was it was different. There's LED screens everywhere. There's ample opportunities to put branding on. Brand spanking new stadium, it's clean. So we wanted to move somewhere that allowed, uh, us to use our imagination a little bit, create some magic. And in my kind of six months of doing research and going to different events, I came across some events doing some things differently outside of the traditional trade and expo show.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And moving to Battersea allowed us to do that because it was a black box essentially of all the windows draped already so we could really do some cool stuff from uh, a production experience point of view. That was like really, it was really important to me that when people walked into the venue it didn't feel like a traditional trade show or expo. This was something that I'd never seen before. And ultimately we wanted to blow people away. So moving to Battersea really allowed us to do that. But come back to your question. We were really at Tottenham. We were really bursting at the scenes. From, uh, an attendee point of view. We could see the growth. I think we were 600 people year one that we doubled the growth in year two to 1200. And we were just bursting at the seams. But it was the perfect stepping stone for us really to move into evolution in Battersea.

Speaker A: And uh, that was 2023 and that's where you've been for the last three years, including the addition that's, that's recently just gone. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, we were just, just touching on that like again this for people that are thinking about maybe launching a show and thinking about one or two day events. We were a one day event for the first three years and we did that on purpose because again, I uh, was always of the opinion I didn't want to have a venue that felt a bit scarce in footfall because, you know, I'm a big believer in energy and you can feel the energy when a hall, an exhibition hall is quiet and there's not many people there and I didn't want that. I'd rather be bursting at the seams and then we make that next move into the next venue or two day event.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and we got, we. So for the first three years we were a one day event and then in year four we went to two day.

Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah. Okay. So you wanted to build the demand up before you sort of open. Open the floodgate, so to speak. You know we talk a lot about community building. What are the things you did over the last few years which has allowed you to integrate within that community? Interested to sort of understand that journey both from, I m. Guess from a visitor perspective as well.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we, you know, because again, because of my background, I Active, I would say in the community. I've got lots of relationships. We go to lots of events. We put on lots of webinars for our community to kind of keep that 365 communication lines going throughout the year. I think we do as a business. We did the Collingwood startup program called Crescent, which really kind of helped us lay the foundations and really understand our audience, our community, really understand their pains and gains and that was really fundamental for us, really important, um, something we still carry through to this day, like really staying in touch with our audience on a regular basis. We have phone calls with them. We really try and put ourselves in their shoes and in their world to really understand what's going on in their market, in their profession, in their jobs and in their lives. To make sure that when we put on content that we are, you know, we are putting on content that's super relevant.

Speaker A: Um, talking to the community, listening to them, implementing their feedback, which seems obvious but not, not everyone does it.

Speaker B: Yeah, we also. Yeah, absolutely. We also put together an advisory board. So we had 15 accounting firm owners sit on our advisory board. We would jump on three or four calls with them a year. Kind of go out for beers and stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Just to really understand what's going on in the market. Developed our social media accounts as well and yeah, just made sure that we were, we were out There on the lots on the road and just engaging with these people as much as we could.

Speaker A: Sure. So your first edition in 21 was 600 attendees, 50 sponsors. The one that's just gone give us a sense of that. I'm just interested in the growth.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we were, we were 150 exhibitors and 5,000. 5,000 attendees. So um, yeah, we've nearly 10 XED it in that time in terms of attendees. And then exhibitors obviously go up three times.

Speaker A: Plus they're spending more opportunities I guess for them to spend sponsorship and so on. Just want I'm interested to know. Obviously I guess it wasn't just a straight line. I'm assuming everything going brilliantly give us pick out one or two moments where they're really challenging and maybe how you strove to overcome them outside of obviously the pandemic and delaying etc. You know, maybe there was a logistical challenge or content challenges or something that maybe springs to mind where you thought.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think like the thing when you're moving from a uh, venue like Tottenham where pretty much everything is in place for you. I mean bar bringing in some AV for staging and screens and stuff, you don't have to think about chairs, you don't have to think about power or WI fi or that all kind of comes as standard as part of a venue like that. When you move up uh, into a traditional exhibition venue, the costs obviously rack up significantly. So managing that profit and loss, that uh, budget costs coming up that we had not even thought of, whether it's like an extended wide WI fi or power distribution or. There's just so many things that come into running a big, bigger, uh, more traditional exhibition and managing that jump up from um, almost conference 50 exhibitors into 100 exhibitions at a traditional exhibition venue. That profit and loss and really kind of getting a grasp of those budgets and everything kind of being miles over what you'd anticipated. That was, yeah, that was, that was huge and. But luckily we commercially the show, the show's gone really well and it's all worked out. But managing that budget and that step up from conference venue into exhibition venue is I would say one of the things that we really had to grasp of.

Speaker A: And I guess you rely on external device mentors. You mentioned Collingwood because also I guess you, you know, you've. How big is the team now in terms of, you know, I guess you have to hire staff.

Speaker B: Yeah, well we, there's only a kind of a handful of us kind of full time in the business and then we Tend to use freelancers where we can in marketing, in ops, admin, that sort of stuff. So yeah, we're still a fairly, fairly small team. Luckily we've been working with the right people so we don't have any issues on that side of things. We also had to begin to think about software and processes and CRM systems and that sort of stuff. But yeah, just making that jump up from somebody that's never run a traditional exhibition trade show before, making that jump up from a, uh, conference venue into exhibition venue was probably the toughest thing we had to do.

Speaker A: And what about the journey you've been on? Because as you said you started off, it was much smaller. With the seed of an idea, you now have to do a whole heap of different things that you hadn't done before. P L's cash flow, managing people, managing external suppliers and so on. How's that been for you? How have you found that? Were any times where it was incredibly tough? Have you found it seamless? You know, what, what, where have you drawn strength from in the guess the difficult challenge?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think you, I learned on the job done.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, one of the things, you know, dealing with suppliers and dealing with venues and you kind of learn as you go. I mean I, you know, the person that I am today isn't the person I was five years ago. Like you don't know what, you don't know when you're starting out and now you kind of learn the tricks of the trades. You learn more about yourself, you learn more about people. You, you know, you need to make sure that you're in constant contact with people and making sure they're meeting agreed deadlines and you know, you're constantly spinning lots of plates. I still don't think I'm, I mean luckily I've got a great, an amazing team around me now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So, yeah, it's been a, uh, it's been an interesting, interesting journey. I've learned loads of my personal development has come out is really improved or improved is, you know, come on a lot in the last five years.

Speaker A: What about moments of self doubt? Because we all have them. You know, how do you, how do you deal with those?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean if I had a video, Dan, of um, when I went into Tottenham, um, to discuss floor plans. I'd never done a floor plan in my life and I, at the start I just, I didn't know what we were going to do, didn't know what sort of stands we were going to have. I didn't know what the floor plan looked like because we were one of the first events to happen inside the Tottenham venue. We. They didn't have any floor plans that we could potentially use or base the show off of. I remember coming home on that just so stressed and, um, my wife must have felt really sorry for him because I couldn't. Yeah, it was just such a stressful, stressful time because I didn't know. Yeah, you know, I didn't know anything about it, but you just, you just get through it. Just understand your mind, you try and speak as positively to yourself as possible and yeah, there were some stressful times, but you managed to get through it.

Speaker A: Yeah. And he also recently shared a post, a powerful post, I think around the time that EasyFairs announced the acquisition about undergoing open heart surgery. I think it was. Yeah, last summer maybe, or definitely in 2024.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: How did that experience shift your mindset and sort of outlook on life and work?

Speaker B: Yeah, it was quite a. It was quite a humbling experience. Anybody that's been through a major operation like that can probably relate to it giving you a different perspective on life. And I think that, you know, I still feel like I'm very driven and motivated and want to do great things in my life, but I think, like, it just gives you a feeling of just enjoy the present, enjoy now, Enjoy your family. Your kids only grow up once and you know, when you're in hospital you see some things that, uh, you know, not only from a recovery process and me, but, uh, you see things, you know, you see kind of quite ill people and children in these hospitals. It just makes you think, God, uh, you know, I'm very fortunate. I feel like my operation last year was the best thing to ever happen to me. And yeah, it just made me think, you know, family first and that sort of thing. Enjoy the kids now, enjoy your family, be close to home. And uh, yeah, that alongside I've got a five year old who also has a health condition called Usher's disease, where he was born deaf and means that when he hits his teenage years, he's also going to begin to lose his sight as well. And just all those things like, you know, just all kind of came in at around the right time and yeah, just kind of shifted the way I think about things a little bit.

Speaker A: Sure. Thank you. Appreciate you giving us an insight because, you know, we see what we see on social media and we present one side of ourselves to the world sometimes and it's good to understand the, the human interest behind it as well. Just want to move on to talk about the, the deal with Easy Fares, was it always or should. Let me position it another way, at what point did you start to think about, you know, potentially selling the event?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think, you know, as an entrepreneur, uh, you're always thinking about one day exiting the business. I think for us, Easy Fairs were at the event last year. Absolutely loved it. We started having some discussions over the summer and into the autumn. And for us, uh, from a business point of view, we always wanted to take the show overseas into new territories, impact the accounting and finance space on a global basis, not just in the uk. And we had always envisaged partnering with somebody who had the experience of geo cloning, taking shows overseas into new territories, had the resources to do that. Did it happen earlier than we had anticipated and were expecting? Yes, but sometimes the stars align, you meet great people, they've got great ideas and everything works on, on your side, from a commercial point of view. So yeah, we did the deal. But, but as an entrepreneur, uh, and going back to what I said to you earlier about my childhood and being exposed to people that have been there and done it, it was always in the back of my mind. And I know James is as well, but yeah, we've been so far to date, we've been really impressed with the EasyFares team and the business and if the business has a culture anywhere near what their leadership team are like, then we're in the right place. You know, they've, they've been amazing to deal with so far.

Speaker A: If I'm not mistaken, you also did, uh, you have some support from. We got a mutual acquaintance in Ralph Collet. I think he was. Yeah, yeah. How, how, yeah. So Ralph, was it to get sort of external advice of that type?

Speaker B: Oh, uh, Ralph has been uh, amazing for our, uh, for our business since day one. You know, he started as a consultant for us and right from day one we could see the impact that he was going to have on us as a business. James and I, like we mentioned, don't have or didn't have exhibition Expo experience. Ralph came along, looked at things, we'd built a great product with a great vision, with a great experience, highly engaged audience. But there was some quite obvious things that we weren't doing that a kind of, is kind of standard practice in Exhibition World. And we made those changes and we optimized the floor plan and we started doing things a little bit differently. And not only did the business start or kind of continue the growth that it was doing, but from an M and a perspective it was really Ralph that instigated uh, the uh, and ignited uh, the interest from EasyFairs. And then during the process he was, we couldn't have done it without him. Yeah, he was the kind of go to person. He was EasyFairs's go to person. He was our go to person. He was the kind of middleman, almost like the, I suppose the role that a normal broker might, might play. And you absolutely need that because it's like uh, going through the, the M and A process. It's an emotional roller coaster as well as us trying to prepare for the show that was coming up.

Speaker A: That's good to hear because I guess as, as owners you're always a bit, I don't know if worried's the wrong word, but there's a bit, you know, nervous you're going to get, you're going to, you're going to seed a little bit of control. Also, I think you're moving the show to Excel, right, Because, because I guess you're a bit wallbound where you are at the moment. So there's another moment there, like I guess when you moved it from Tottenham Hotspur to uh, Battersea that you're going to have to, you know, speak to your community about, also talk to them about the new ownership. If you started to do some of that. What, what's the sort of post sale process? Because you're still staying with the business, right? I guess you're very much continuing.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we're moving, we're moving to Excel again. We've just, we're bursting at the seams at uh, evolution in Battersea in terms of footfall, in terms of staging, in terms of stands. So for us the next step, we were looking for a venue where to go next. It was really in London. You're looking at Excel Olympia. Olympia's got a big glass roof which doesn't really suit uh, our brand and the way we do things from a production point of view, you know, you go into Excel, big black box. We can use our imaginations and creativity and maintain a lot of the magic that we currently have in Battersea and bring it across into Excel. But yes, we've started having the conversations. The move is going down really well with the audience and um, with our exhibitors. Uh, the message from us is we are still maintaining the magic. We're going to create an amazing experience, but we've just got more room to do so. And um, yeah, the feedback from the community on the acquisition, on the new venue is really, really positive. And from an easy Fares point of view, they've got the experience in taking these shows into bigger venues. They own some venues themselves, so they've got the resource to help us do that as well. And from a geocloning perspective, it's kind of what they do. Right. Like it's their bread and butter. So we're in the right place.

Speaker A: Were there any non negotiables in the process? Because I get, I don't know, maybe you spoke to some other potential suitors as well. You know, like, if we're going to do this, we're definitely not going to go down that road in the process.

Speaker B: Uh, I don't think so.

Speaker A: And. Okay. And in, uh, terms of your relationship with James over the years, how important has that been? Because again, I've had people on, they've either done it by themselves or they've got a, uh, founding partner. You know, sometimes I guess the relationship could be strained because you diff, you know, how do you decide if two of you have got a difference? Want to plot a different course? Talk to me about.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: How that's manifested.

Speaker B: Yeah. All I, all I can say from my own experience is I'm really thankful and grateful that I went into business with someone. We would talk to each other and still do five or six times a day where we can bounce ideas. You know, how do we deal with certain, uh, situations or does that email copy sound right? And just having that sounding board for me personally was, has been amazing. And my experience is I would absolutely recommend going into business with someone. I think along the way you always have ups and downs and when you are experiencing a down, just know there's going to be ups again. I think partnerships can fall at the first hurdle because it's their first discrepancy or argument or disagreement rather. And you know, actually if you just give it time, it will work itself out. You'll get back on the roads, back on the right track and. But yeah, from my experience, it's been a blessing. You know, as I said at the start, first time running a business, first time delving into a P and L and being on the numbers and you know, a lot of businesses fail in the first few years probably for those reasons because they're not on top of the money situation and the P and L, what's going on. And yeah, I'm just very thankful that I went into business with someone. But in terms of going back to your previous question, in terms of our involvement moving forward, we're still involved in the business for the next couple of years. So we'll be still around, still driving the business forward, still engaged with the community. And for me, it's. It's something that we love doing as well. We're really passionate about the sector and about the profession, so we want to continue to be in it as long as possible.

Speaker A: Sure. You posted a picture of a packed show recently, just after the most recent edition. And you had this. You had a quote at the bottom or the top of it, when the odds are one in a million, be that one, which I thought was resonated with me. Talk to me about that. What do you. What do you mean by that? Is that sort of take a risk or what? What's.

Speaker B: Yeah, so it's something I saw online a number of years ago, and we played it on at the start of the digital accountancy show. Each year we run a big video. Turn all the lights off, run a big video to the audience. And the idea of that video is just to really get the show off to an amazing start, get the energy levels pumping and really try and like, uh, a glimpse, a bit of inspiration in there as well. That, you know, I think it was Elon Musk that said something like, those people that are crazy enough to think they can change the world often is the one that do. And it was just. It's something I saw. It's something I saw online a few years ago. When the odds are on a million is actually, I think as human beings, I don't think we think big enough. I think a lot of the time we have invisible ceilings of what we can potentially accomplish and some of the things that we can do in our life. And, um, the message that I was just trying to get across to our audience with that, uh, and continued it kind of after as well, is, you know, give it a go. You know, be the person that, uh, drives change. Be the person that makes the difference you like. You know, we've all got the same brain. We've all got. We can all make decisions. You know, we can all help people. Is. Is to. To go for it and be crazy enough to think it, and you never know.

Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you. I'm just gonna go down. I'm gonna go back to. I've got Another question about EasyFairs. I'll cut it into that. That section again. Just a bit of learning, and then we're almost done. Um, Dan, for people listening, obviously they read a lot about M A in the industry at the moment. There's, uh, a lot of private equity money, and people are, uh, buying up different Shows all over the world educational interest here. Tell us about the process. So you know, you get introduced to the powers of being. Easy fares. How long does it take? The sort of due diligence? Just maybe just give us a step by step summary of.

Speaker B: Yeah, so what, what, what, what happens? The process is, or certainly in our case was easy fares. Express some interest. They say they really like it or the buyer really likes it. You're going to have a few meetings just to a bit more about the business, get into the numbers a little bit. You produce something called an information memorandum, which is like a sales document for the business and then you get an offer. If there's any negotiation, it kind of goes back and forth for a few weeks until everybody's happy. They then produce a document called heads of terms which basically outlines the framework of the deal. Once that's all agreed, you then move into due diligence. And what happens in due diligence is you start to get questions from the buyer's team. Um, and that will come across in blocks of 20, 30 questions at a time. They normally fall into 1 of 3 buckets by memory surgery. Right now you've got commercial legal and I think business was the other area. I can't. So you kind of answer all those questions as quickly as you can. You kind of get back to them and then what happens is you also have a bit of software which our legal team presents us with called the data room.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And that's where you upload all the documentation. So all the profit and loss documentation, all of the financial information, legal information, insurance information, everything that you have relating to your business insure they've requested, everything goes into the data room. And then in terms of the period, it. I think it was around three months. Right, three months. The three month process.

Speaker A: Uh, and then you wait for them to come back with a big offer.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, the offer's all. You've already agreed the offer.

Speaker A: Uh, okay. You agree the terms of principle subject.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You go into due diligence once you've agreed the, the heads of terms and.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: At which where the offer. You've already had the offer.

Speaker A: Dan, thank you so much for the opportunity of coming on the show. You know, I guess it's easy to sometimes forget the journey we've been on, but congratulations on everything you, you've achieved alongside James and you know, I guess you couldn't have wanted for a better experience. Looking back over the last five, six years, when you first had that chat in Nando's where every good business should start. Normally it's the pub, but you all started in a chicken establishment.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we, we look forward to seeing what comes next, both for, uh, for you guys and for the show.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Thank you, Dan. Thanks for your support and thanks for your time this afternoon. Really appreciate it.

Speaker A: I hope you enjoyed the episode. Notified first about new episodes by following me on Apple Podcasts and Spotify platforms, and by subscribing to my YouTube channel. Search Dan Assor.