Diane Perlman - Microsoft Ventures - UK Startup Lead

Full transcript: Diane Perlman on London Real

0:00 In London, technology is the silicone roundabout. Introducing a new talk show dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. Silicon Real. Each week, interviewing entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, financial technology, accelerators and incubators in an exciting three-person format. Learn about the people behind the innovation.

0:31 Locally filmed, locally sourced. Silicon Real. It’s about the people. This is Silicon Real, the weekly talk show dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. I am Brian Rose. I also host London Real.

0:48 It’s the same studio, but it’s not always tech people. We’ve had some BAFTA-winning filmmakers, some politicians, some musicians, some, what, What, cage fighters? Did I see an NBA player? Yeah. Yeah, so the guy this week, he used to play in the Houston Rockets and the New Jersey Nets, and he went head to head with LeBron James and he was just telling me, and he was saying, now he plays for Barcelona.

1:09 And I was like, is the trash talk, is it always in English? Because he plays in Europe, and he’s like, yeah, always in English. So all the guys know the English trash talk, which apparently goes on the whole game. Yeah, so anyways, it’s all good. If you want to check that out, it’s londonreal.tv.

1:23 But today we’re here to talk tech. My co-host is back Colin Pyle, you’re here for good, kind of good, right? Kind of good. Okay. How’s being back in London, how’s the coffee scene, how was the carnival last weekend in London?

1:36 Yeah, things are good. I took off for the carnival. You jetted, okay. Yeah, I went and saw the English countryside for the first time. Oh nice.

1:42 For really, relatively first time. So South Devon, beautiful. Yeah, even got some decent weather. Coffee’s good, new website launching soon, new blends out, so we’re just really excited. We’ve got four months of a lot of hard work and a lot of push and really make or break if we’re either going to win or lose in the next four months.

2:00 Awesome. Exciting time. That’s kind of exciting, but that’s kind of nice to have a very specific goal that you got to get there. And you’ve got the decaf blend, you’ve got the other blends, you’ve got everything else working great. Coming out, absolutely.

2:12 And some big news, I won’t share it just yet because I don’t like to count my chickens before the hatch. trying to get into a big-named retailer in mid-October. Very good. And a lot of people that have sat in this chair here are now drinking your coffee. So if you’re in the tech startup space, get on board.

2:27 Support another tech startup, not those Swiss conglomerates, which we won’t mention. Nestle. So yeah. OK, Nestle. All right, on to the show.

2:36 Our guest today is Diane Perlman, who is Microsoft’s UK’s startup lead, driving Microsoft Ventures initiatives in the UK to help startups grow, partner, and prosper. You came to London 14 years ago, riding the internet bubble, or surfing the internet bubble, as a startup marketing director. Then you went to an agency, and now you are back in the trenches with the startups. Diane, welcome to Silicon Real. Thank you very much.

3:00 Great to be here. It’s nice to have you here. I was watching an interview with you, and you had been quoted as saying, Microsoft is the original tech startup, which is hard to argue with that. With Bill Gates, I mean, I could think maybe Intel before that, but you really were, But you also said you guys have been out of the space for a while, you want to be back in the conversation and build relationships with startups. I was wondering how you’re doing that here in London.

3:25 Great, well, that’s absolutely right. I mean, we’ve been working very hard over the past year, building the accelerator program, which basically is a 14 week full, fully immersive accelerator program. It’s basically a mini entrepreneur MBA. So we take, well, at the moment we’ve got 12 startups starting on Monday in our new cohort. We’ve done one full cohort already and a pilot last September.

3:47 And basically we’re working with the teams kind of in the trenches to help them get from whatever point they are at seed stage to launch or to the next stage of their development. So we’re there with them focused completely on helping them succeed. And the other thing we have is a program called BizSpark which you might have heard of before which you’ve been doing for about five years now and that’s a global program as is Microsoft Ventures Accelerators. But I think we’re in about 50 different countries, and we’ve got about 500,000 startups on BizSpark, which gives them free tools and technology, especially during that time when they need to get over the hump when they have no money to pay for software licenses, et cetera, and cloud.

4:28 So some great programs that are really focused on helping startups succeed. And BizSpark kind of provides that free infrastructure, but they don’t actually accelerate. That’s what you guys do at Microsoft. That’s right, that’s right, yeah. We had Roxanne Varsa here from Paris, your Paris visit, about a year ago.

4:42 I don’t know, like 10 months ago. And we had Bindi too, who used to… She used to do bispark 4i, took the role as a set-up team. But do they do an accelerator program in Paris? Or is that just a bispark?

4:51 They do, yeah. So now we’ve got seven accelerators globally. We’re in Tel Aviv, Beijing, Bangalore, Berlin, Paris, London, and now in Redmond, Washington at our headquarters. Okay. We just opened there.

5:02 So yeah, so we’ve got a really nice and growing accelerator footprint. That’s a good spread. Yeah. Lots in Europe, which is exciting. What will the next few weeks be like?

5:10 It feels like you’re going back to high school. It’s like you’re going to a new teacher and you got your new cohort coming in. It must be like going to a new high school and you’re like, don’t know who’s gonna be in there and don’t know who’s gonna be like the cheerleader or the football coach. I don’t know, what’s it like those first few weeks? Is everybody a little nervous?

5:25 Yeah, it is, it’s amazing. It’s very much like first day of school. And yeah, there’s a real buzz. I mean, on Monday morning, we’ll have probably around 50 people in the door amongst those 12 startups, because they’ll probably bring all their teams. And there’s just so much energy.

5:43 We do an orientation. We do some fun kind of icebreaker exercises. We do some pitch coaching on the day to get them kind of mixing and mingling and getting to know each other. And then one of the other big things that happens during the week is we have a mentor matching evening on the Wednesday. And so all of our mentors come in, and all of our advisors, and our partners.

6:02 And basically, it’s a big kind of meet and greet chemistry kind of evening where we, you know, get everybody to figure out who they want to be mentored by and who the mentors want to mentor, which startups are really exciting them. So you know, those are kind of some of the highlights. And mentor speed dating? A bit like that. Yeah, it’s a bit like that.

6:23 Who gets the final choice? Well, at the end of the evening, the mentors will tell us their top three choices and the startups tell us their top three choices. And then well generally sort of myself and one or two of my colleagues we sit down with a spreadsheet and then work of it as a bit of science and a bit of magic and we make it all come out. But the track record is pretty good so far and we take it really seriously because if you get the chemistry wrong, if the match isn’t right, it can set the guys back.

6:50 So it’s really important to put the right people together. But it’s like the first day of school and I was saying earlier to one of my colleagues I feel a real responsibility with it because these 12 startups, they’re at a really crucial stage of their development and they’re putting their trust in us and they’re coming to us for 14 weeks when they could be doing lots of other things. It’s a big responsibility. I feel the weight of that. Yeah, because you can make or break that company.

7:17 I have a firm opinion that Accelerate could be the wrong move or worst case, there’s an opportunity cost because they miss out for three months, which I guess can change the market in a big way. Yeah, I guess, what does help mean? Do you know what I mean? So maybe you can explain, what do you guys do? You provide mentors, you provide space, but is there anything else you’re relatively hands-off?

7:36 No, it’s a very hands-on program. So during the 14 weeks, we have a core curriculum that we deliver, everything from lean startup to technology to storytelling, pitching, funding. You know, we take them through the help of our partners like Barclays and KPMG and Wiggin and Edelman and Wolf Olinz and Jensen and a couple of others. We give them everything from IP law, to UK tax, to social media, storytelling, brand, all the full gamut. So it’s really a mini entrepreneur MBA.

8:07 So the guys are busy when they come in. It’s full on. And they’re doing workshops. They have one-to-ones. And the mentoring is also quite intense.

8:16 We have quite an interesting philosophy on mentoring. We don’t have a large group of mentors who dip in and out. We have a very small group of very experienced mentors who are all entrepreneurs in their own right, who’ve been very successful and built and grown and exited companies or their prolific early stage investors. And so they commit an hour a week to the team that they’re paired with. So it’s really great.

8:41 It means that those guys really get to see them through. And another thing that we do, which is part of the program, which I love, which I’ve been working a lot on, is around getting our startups together with our customers. Because one of the great things about Microsoft is that every big company in the world is a customer of ours, basically. And so one thing that startups need as much, if not more, than they need money, they need customers. So we’ve got this great program where we put the startups together with customers and help them build those relationships.

9:10 So those are just some of the things we do. And we don’t take any equity. So that’s a key piece of the thing. How does that change the relationship when you don’t take equity? Because I’m always curious about that.

9:19 Because if just a few programs don’t take equity, does that, yeah, how does that change the relationship in your opinion compared to the other accelerators? In my opinion, I mean, I think it’s, I think it gives you more of kind of a pure relationship. You know, we can be completely focused on the success of the startups, whatever that means for them, you know, it could mean that it’s a, you know, that they raise a round. It could mean that they pivot. It could mean that they get a licensing deal. You know, it could mean a number of things, but if for example, we, we’ve, we’ve taken equity, you know, we’ve got certain other motivations and goals around what success looks like.

9:48 That’s more about maybe our goals than the startups perhaps. So I think, you know, I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way to do it, but I think it’s great that we’re able to do this. We’re not in the accelerator business, you know, like some of the others are, and so it means that we can just focus on helping the startups be successful. Yeah, it’s interesting, you mentioned the accelerator business. We’ve had, you know, Wera on here, and they talk about the customer bases there, you know, potentially Telefonica people, that kind of thing, and they have a lot of places and a lot of places, but that’s what Wera does.

10:18 You’re in central working. We had James Dayton on here a couple months ago. What a great guy. He’s so passionate about his space and everything they do. But you’re also with other accelerators.

10:27 I mean, the escalators there, which is the Techstars, Barclays, JV. How does it feel being around other accelerators kind of in the same space? And what do you see out there that accelerators that do it right and do it wrong? Well, we love it. I mean, we very much want to be and are more and more becoming in just a short space of a year that we’ve been doing this, part of that community.

10:52 And because we have our BizSpark program, we’re in partnership with all the accelerators and kind of co-working spaces and incubators around London and around the UK, even because they all offer BizSpark into their communities. And so it’s very much a community thing for us. And we’ve been over, we had some of our tech guys in at the Techstars next door to talk with the teams about what they’re doing in the cloud and Microsoft Azure and how they can scale their business.

11:20 And so we really wanna be there to help and work with those other accelerators. And even at our pitch day, for example, last in April, we actually invited a handful of other accelerators to send one team to come and pitch at our pitch day, which was quite unusual. I don’t think anyone’s done that before. So we very much wanna be very inclusive and are being very inclusive with the community. And we want to help everybody out.

11:47 So you invited the accelerator to come and listen to the final pitches? We actually invited. So for example, at our pitch day, it’s called the pitch. We had, actually, in the end, we just had one other accelerator pitching. But we had a team from Seed Camp that came and pitched on stage with our startups.

12:02 So we had our 12 startups. And we also had somebody from Seed Camp. Oh, from their final. From one of their cohorts, yeah, came. So I think they were in a previous graduated cohort.

12:11 But it’s just a way to, you know, we’ve got the room full of investors, so why keep it to ourselves? Let’s bring in other parts of the community and share the love. Do you ever feel, or you must get asked this question, whether the space is over incubated, because we know Cisco’s there, and Waira’s there with Telefonica, you, Barkley’s doing the JV. You know, there’s a lot of different accelerators. Does it feel, and is it true that the other top 20 corporates on the FTSE are gonna bring their own in the next two years?

12:36 Is there a point where it gets to be too much, Or is there not enough love for this community? Gosh, it’s a really good question. I think that there might be a bit of an accelerator bubble going on. I think there’s a lot of activity. And every day, there seems to be a new corporate accelerator happening.

12:52 And a lot of corporates are coming to talk to us and saying, you guys are doing it. You seem to be doing it well. Help us get started. Or can we do something with you? So that’s, of course, massively flattering about the testament to what we’re doing and building, which is great.

13:07 But I think there’s a lot of startups in the UK tech scene. And also, startups are coming from all over the world to come and be in London. We have startups coming into our next cohort from as far away as Japan. We have a Belgian team. We have an Italian team.

13:23 So London is a magnet. So I think startups are coming from other places to be in London. So I think there’s enough to go around. But ultimately, we will get to a point where we’re just maybe cannibalizing each other. I don’t know.

13:40 How many applications at Acuracity did you get? We get a couple hundred applications. It’s always a popular question. I’m a big believer in quality over quantity, and I think it’s really true. I guess you noticed it’s staying on par to last year, or are you finding that that pool is getting a little bit diluted?

14:02 Well, I mean, we increased our numbers of applications since last year. It was our first intake, was the spring intake that we did. So we were still very, when we were taking applications at that point, which was sort of this year, last time. I mean, last year, this time, we were still very unknown in terms of what we were doing in this space. So we continue to see that increase as we get better and better known.

14:28 You mentioned the speed dating night of mentors coming in. Is that a large percentage of Microsoft staff? And is that one of the assets you bring to the table? Or is it a mix of everyone? It’s a mix.

14:39 We have quite a few Microsoft people from all parts of Microsoft, from Skype and from Yammer and from Microsoft. So it’s a mix, but we have a lot of people who are entrepreneurs that are really keen to give back. We’ve got, for example, one of the founders of the founder of Secret Escapes. We’ve got one of the original founders of 3, Mobile, TalkTalk. We’ve got quite a range of really experienced entrepreneurs who have given their time to come and work with the teams.

15:08 And they love it. And we are very grateful that they want to do it and want to come and work with us in the teams. I mean, you guys have huge assets, because you have the team from Microsoft. Like you said, you have the customers. I mean, so do you think you bring a lot to the table when these companies are coming in?

15:22 Are you like this is a no-brainer for you because we have all these assets? Yeah, I mean, of course I say yes. I think Microsoft is really well-placed to do this. As one of the biggest technology companies in the world, it means that we can really offer a lot to the startups from that perspective. So whether it’s a technical expertise that we have on the inside and the technical mentors that we can bring to the access to customers, our partners, our ecosystem, I think we have a lot to offer.

15:54 And I think it does set us apart in that way. Talk to me about platforms. I know you probably accept things from all platforms, but obviously you have a Microsoft platform. How does it come when your selection process, obviously BizSpark, you’re pushing your products, and how does that all work when it comes to acceleration? Yeah, that’s a good question.

16:11 A lot of people think that we only take startups that are using our platforms, and it’s not true. So we’ve made a decision when we started the accelerator programs that we don’t require that startups are building on our stack, on our platforms, when they come into the accelerator. We will ask them to trial Microsoft Azure, which is our cloud, which is an open, it’s not limited to our own technology. You can build on any platform and use Azure. It’s a fantastic cloud product.

16:38 And as a BizSpark member, they get it for free anyway. And the teams that come into our accelerator get onto BizSpark Plus, which gives them $60,000 of Azure over one year. So it’s a fantastic deal. And so we will coach them through that. Not all of them will go on, but most of them will at least try it and take it from there.

16:57 So it’s a very light touch. And if the platform’s not right, then it’s not right. The focus is on helping them succeed. And your pitch day is in December now for this class? Yep, December 3rd is our next pitch day.

17:08 And like when you go on New Year’s Eve and you’re toasting wherever you are, what will be a success in your mind with this class? Like what is the success? I know you don’t have an equity stake, but is there something in your mind where you’re or January or February, where you’re like, this means that I did a good job. Yeah, I mean, I think there are probably quite a few factors. I mean, we have a set of metrics and things that we look at internally.

17:30 But I think from my perspective, we had a really strong cohort last time. And our pitch day was fantastic. We had it at Milbank Tower. And we had the auditorium set 300. And I think we were overflowing.

17:43 And it was the day of a tube strike. So we were sweating it out. But we had a fantastic crowd. The startups performed like magic. It was great.

17:51 We had a massive party on the 24th floor afterwards. And it was great. So I think for me, it would be that and better. And also, we spend a lot of time at the beginning of the program. In fact, next week, one of the other things that we do during that week, one is we have something called the Startup Pulse, where we sit down and we bring in all the people who are going to be delivering workshops and courses during the program.

18:12 And we sit them around a table. There’s probably about 10 or so people, including myself and our own residents and other people on the team. And we basically do an hour-long deep dive with each team to really understand, really get underneath the bonnet, and make sure that we understand exactly what their business model is, what stage they’re at, what their finance is, what’s their corporate structure, are there any skeletons in the closet that we need to know about, and we want to find out right at the beginning.

18:38 And we also ask them what they want to achieve out of the 14 weeks. And so we’ll look back at them and say, OK, where are we? So success, I think, is knowing that actually we’ve helped those teams get to where they want to be and that we’ve helped them get funding, get new customers, whatever that goal is. What’s a typical skeleton in a closet? Is it like some founder that no one knew about or some LLP agreement that’s not correct?

19:06 Typical is around corporate structure. Usually there’s like five founders and they’ve said, let’s split it five ways. and there’s no equity to give to an investor, or there’s a poor corporate structure, or they’ve given away too much already. That kind of thing kind of happens a lot. We might find out that they’ve got a lot less runway than they thought, and they’re in dire straits, or it’s a range of things, but those are some of the…

19:33 What stage are companies that enter generally? They’re, I’ll say, broadly at seed stage, which could mean a variety of things, but we’ve had companies that are in sort of prototype, ready to do some integration with a customer. We’ve had Alpha and Beta stage. We’ve had teams that are already selling products and have paying customers. So it’s just a real range.

19:58 So quite a range, I mean. Yeah. Because it sounds like a pretty intense sort of mini MBA for startups. If you had to run business while going to do that, it would be quite time consuming, so. Yeah, it is.

20:10 And it is challenging. We’ve learned a lot over the pilot and the first cohort that we did. And we were constantly refining the program. And we’re now, in this one that we’re doing, we’ve shortened a lot of the workshops to make them a lot punchier. We’ve learned a lot about not loading up the days too much and how we kind of the cadence of things.

20:32 So we really try to make it such that it works. But it’s very full on. Yeah, it’s pretty full on. And you don’t give them cash. You just give them space to work in and all of the education.

20:43 That’s right. That’s right. But we’ve been really fortunate that two of our partners, Jensen Solutions and Ventures in Motion, I don’t know if you know those guys, but great guys. They’ve been partners of ours since last year when we started. And they like what we’re doing so much.

20:57 They created a fund specifically for our accelerator. It was called the JVM Technology Fund. And so every startup that gets accepted into the program, starting with this cohort coming in next week, is eligible for 75,000, up to 75,000 pounds in funding. It’s a convertible note, very, very favorable terms. Okay, is it for one of those or anyone that they deem?

21:18 Every, each one of the 12 is eligible with some light due diligence. So basically, you know, if you were one of the 12 that got in and you wanted some cash to help you, you know, get through the program and fuel your growth at that stage, then, you know, they would start the process and you would be eligible for that. and convertible at a discount to the first round after. That’s right, exactly. And they spend five days a week, or seven days a week, maybe at your space, or do they only come in on a few days?

21:45 No, they come in their full-time resident at the program. You know, I didn’t realize why Combinator in San Francisco, they only come in one day a week. And they make them find their own space, because they think it’s so they can get their own identity or, I don’t know, maybe they’re going to be roommates somewhere or something. But I didn’t realize that. I didn’t know that.

22:00 I find that interesting. Probably not the most practical thing, especially maybe not in central London, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think it’s really great. And in this cohort that we finished in April, it was really amazing to see just the way the teams bonded with each other.

22:15 They became such a strong group. And I’ll be interested to see how the next cohort gels, because everybody’s going to be a different set of personalities and all of that. But they just really became this amazing support structure for each other. And there were lots of tears on the last day of class, so to speak, before the pitch day. And it was really interesting to just watch everybody come together.

22:37 And I think a lot of them were surprised about how that social structure and the support of the teams almost became a major feature of the program. Yeah, but they’ll stay in touch for a long time. That network effect, I’m sure. Yeah, it’s amazing. Do you kick them all out at the end?

22:52 Is it just like clear you’d ask or go? That’s a really good question. That’s awkward. We don’t, actually. What we do, and this is another area where we started.

23:02 We kind of looked around the accelerator scene to say, how could we improve on what’s out there, find the things that are going well or are not going well, and do them better. And so when we finish the program, we offer each of the teams to come back and be in residence with us for another three months. So that gives them another three months of runway. So if they are raising money, they don’t have to put all their newly raised funds into operational costs to pay for where their office space is, et cetera, and keeping the lights on.

23:32 And so we think that’s really great. Some of them stay, some of them go. I mean, obviously the teams that aren’t based here and have relocated for the program may go back to their home countries, but maybe about half of the teams will stay. Yeah, so it’s really great. And how were the companies from last year?

23:46 Where are they now? They are, some of them are still with us actually. Still hanging around. We really love them, so it’s okay. Yeah, they’re all good.

23:56 One of the teams, UXCam, they got into 500 startups, so they’re in California at a minute doing that, which is really great. UX cams? UX cam, yeah. They’ve got a very cool little API that essentially is for web developers, or sorry, app developers, where you can put it into your app, into the code, in about two minutes. And essentially, it lets you do live field testing of your app so you can better understand how people are using it.

24:27 But it also uses the camera of the phone. So essentially, they can see where people are looking and how people are interacting with the app. Because part of their pitch is that only 1% of apps make any money, and the other 99% don’t make any money, and the guys who make them don’t know why. So basically, this sort of democratizes the ability to do field testing, which we normally do in a lab, which is a fabricated environment. So you can watch people typing and swearing at the app or something like that.

25:00 Well, basically it’s just when you’re using the app. So you’re out and about using your app. So the meditation app you mentioned, if they installed that API on there, they would actually know how you’re using it, how often, where you were looking, how you were doing it. Hopefully you weren’t watching the app while you were meditating. My eyes were closed.

25:16 Wow. That’s interesting. So it’s a cool app. And some of the teams have raised some funds. One of our teams is, I won’t say which one, is about to announce a really nice size fundraise.

25:32 So things are going well. Teams seem to be getting traction. Let’s talk marketing. That’s your background. You are also the CMO for this venture.

25:42 It seems like, and I want to hear your pet peeves, in the startup space there’s always the tech guy, there’s always the this guy, but there’s barely the marketing guy. And yet when we see these huge successes, it’s because of sick UX and fantastic marketing. If you look at all the things that have come out of, say, an accelerator like Y Combinator, Airbnb, or these names. So what do you see? Is that something that you’re constantly thinking about for the next 14 weeks, about the marketing aspect, which probably gets left behind?

26:10 Yeah. I mean, I think our program is quite well-rounded, and I’ve worked hard to bring in Wolf Olens and also Edelman on the PR side, so that our teams get exposed to that kind of stuff and I bring in Jam has been doing our social media workshops and you know so we try to to make sure they get that kind of exposure I mean in 14 weeks and we were doing 12 weeks now we’ve moved up to 14 just to give it a bit more bit more air you know but there’s a lot to cram in you know and you can’t you can’t do everything but you know I think just trying to get you know get some of the basics because you’re right these these teams you know tend not to have you know any of that marketing experience occasionally you’ll find you’ll find and some that do come from a marketing background.

26:51 And they can help each other in that way. But yeah, it’s a big deficiency. But a couple of the teams I’ve done some work with where, because I used to do one like branding workshops and naming workshops and things, so a couple of them were really struggling on how to articulate their brand proposition. And so I spent a few hours kind of helping them get a brand wheel and working through. And the other week, one of our teams, I was helping them with finding a new name.

27:19 So we did a Brad Will, and then we did some name storming. And hopefully, they’re going to use one of the names we’ve come up with. So I try to dust off my old skills every so often and help the guys out if they need help. Let’s talk about names. We had the CEO of Nutmeg in here last week.

27:36 Nick Congerford, they’re running a fabulous business, just raised $30 million. And he said they spent 500 test names before they came up with Nutmeg. And they ran all the numbers, and they had, I guess, a few choices they could do. He broke it down in three ways. One was a name that’s associated with the brand, one was something else, and then one was a very generic name, like an Amazon or a Nutmeg or something.

27:59 And he was really serious about that name and it being so important. How do you feel about names? And how do you name-storm? I never heard that name-storm. Yeah.

28:07 Yeah. I mean, God, it’s one of the hardest things that you have to do. When I used to consult, so before I started at Microsoft, I was running my own branding and marketing consultancy called Branding Matters and I used to get paid to come up with names for companies and it’s very hard. So after I did a few of them, I just kept putting my rates up and up because it’s bloody hard and everywhere I was going and this kind of thing. But I think it’s hugely important how you put your brand forward and a name is only part of that brand language and that overall kind of envelope that is your brand.

28:43 But I think it’s really important and I see a lot of names come through that aren’t massively inspiring and I see some that are really good, but yeah, it’s a big one. Have you ever been wrong about a name and can you think of that name? Or have you seen a name and you’re like, there’s no way, Amazon, what does that mean? Oh gosh, I might have to come back to you on that one. Okay, fair enough.

29:06 I’ll give that some thought. Is there any kind of rule of thumb with names? Is it like don’t make it too long or don’t make it too specific or is there anything you usually tell people? Well, I mean, you know, everybody always want every every client I’ve ever ever had doing name and they always want one the one syllable Name, you know, that’s what they always have one syllable name It’s incredibly hard and and I think I think the thing I always encourage is that is that you have to actually Set some some guidelines up so that you because because you can come up with loads of names And if you don’t know how you’re going to evaluate them, then You know, it’s kind of a wasted exercise. So I really encourage during that process, to really put that list of how you’re going to evaluate the names.

29:49 So what are the things that are important? Does it have to bring out a certain particular aspect of the brand? Maybe if they want it to be short or catchy, or maybe they want it to also be able to be used as a verb. There are certain things that you’re going to hold up, and if you’ve got that list of names, you can kind of say, okay, does it do these things? Ultimately, sometimes it just comes down to a gut feeling.

30:11 We usually go with a test audience and try some people and double blind tests and that kind of thing. We usually do that. I think it’s good to do that. I think it’s really good to do that. It depends on the budgets and whatever.

30:22 But the guys I was helping, the team I was helping last week, I’ve suggested that they just buy some AdWords, put up a couple of just kind of one page, holding pages with the different names, and test out some messages and then whichever one gets the most. And so it’s quite a no-cost way of just triaging it. Didn’t Tim Ferriss do that to name his book or something? Yeah, Ryan Holiday did it to name his book, definitely. But Ferriss might, he’s big into A-B testing.

30:49 So I think he did, and his cover as well. So he put a bunch of cover. I think he actually, for the four-hour work week, I think he made up his own covers and stuck them on the bookshop, and then he just went in there and stuck them up there and saw if anybody walked by and pulled out the book. Like, without them knowing, I think he did that. But you know, actually, it just made me think, because one of the new teams coming in is a company called Wijoo, and they’re basically an app for the indecisive.

31:10 So basically it’s like would you, wouldn’t you kind of thing. So you could actually do some brand testing or test your book cover on would you and you can just crowdsource whether people would or wouldn’t, I suppose. So that could be quite fun. Did you test your crew cafe? It’s a great name.

31:25 Yeah, no, not really. We got a good friend of one of my founders, Bido, he used to run a marketing agency and he’s been sort of mentoring us through. And so originally when I came on board, It was Buzz. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we got rid of that, and so we decided crew to the luxury brand and stuff.

31:44 Yeah, a bit more up the air kit kind of thing. There must be hundreds of coffee companies in the world named Buzz. Yeah, well, it’s like an energy drink, right? We didn’t want to be like that, you know, get a buzz or get a high. It’s like, you know, this is like a nice wine or a nice, you know what I mean?

31:58 I want to get, Diane, your thoughts on Bubbles, OK? You moved to London on the back of the dot-com bubble, right? Was that 2000 you moved over here? Was it before the NASDAQ? Just only just before.

32:11 It was like first quarter of 2000. Something like that. And I was funny enough in that bubble as well. I was at a dot-com startup. We were selling luxury goods in New York City.

32:19 I was a CFO. I was 27. That’s a long story. But I barely remember what it was like, but it was crazy. And I’m not saying we’re in another one now, but people say it’s frothy.

32:30 We’re seeing some great big rounds here, nice checks being cut to TransferWise, DoDil, Nutmeg. We’re seeing things in San Francisco heat up as well. How does it feel to you? It feels amazing. I mean, this is an exciting time.

32:45 I mean, there’s so much going on in the tech scene in London. And I think it’s amazingly exciting. And I’m hopeful that we’ve all learned from the previous bubbles and that we’re doing things smarter. And I think with the movement around lean startup and everything, I think the approach is good. So I’m hopeful.

33:07 Did it feel like a bubble back in the day? Or do you remember a couple of things happening where you were like, this is just a little too much, where it’s like pets.com and things like that. What do you remember? Oh yeah. Oh gosh, I mean, I think when I moved here, the whole Boo thing was going on, boo.com.

33:23 Boo, they spent like $100 million on Boo, or some crazy amount of money, and they were doing online fashion. It was a Swedish company or something. Boo. It was boo.com, B-O-O.com. That’s like the famous UK kind of…

33:35 And they were going to sell shoes and clothes. But I don’t know if the site got launched. It was just like this. Yeah, I’m not sure what happened. But that was kind of going on around the time that I moved here.

33:44 But I mean, where I was before I moved to the UK, I was in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. On that, there was a kind of a silicon tech corridor going on. And AOL was there at the time. AOL was big and strong at that time. I mean, times have changed so much since then.

34:01 They owned a mail for a while. But even the little startup that I worked in that sent me to the UK to help them get started in the UK and Europe, there were just ridiculous things going on there, we got like five rounds of funding and it was just, it was great, great times and it brought me to the UK so it changed my life. And you stayed, did you ever think about going back? Never. And what do you find different in the UK as opposed to the way things were in the US as far as tech wise and why stay?

34:30 So I’ll tackle the why stay part first. So I think that, for me, I just love London. It’s sort of home to me now, although when I go back to the States, I say I’m going home, and when I come back this way, I say the same. But I just love London. I think it’s a fantastic city, and it’s a great jumping off point for travel, and there’s just so much going on.

34:50 The kind of people that you meet, the things you have access to in London is just incredible from a personal and a business perspective. I think that, yeah, it has a very different feel. Also, I think because, for example, in Northern Virginia, and I don’t know how it is in Silicon Valley, maybe you can comment on that. I think it was quite spread out. In London, everything’s so dense and intense, you know what I mean?

35:14 So I think you really feel it, and because there’s so many events going on every night, you could be doing startup drinks and pitches. Twice a night. At least, at least, if you wanted to do that. So, anyway, I think it just feels denser. I think it feels more buzzy and vibrant, in a way.

35:32 And do you think, as an American, you have an advantage over here? Do you think you’ve seen some things there, and you come with just a different perspective than, say, other people that are from here? It’s interesting. I mean, I think I’ve been here so long now. Even in the past decade, kind of American reference points for things, I don’t really have them anymore, because I’ve been here so long.

35:52 But I do notice, and people have told me, especially if I’m out giving a talk or something, that people in the UK, startups in the UK especially, really look to America as leading that way, especially on marketing and some other areas. So I think there’s a credibility piece that comes with being American in London, in the tech scene, I think. That’s an asset, definitely. Are you always looking to the West Coast and looking at that as far as what they’re doing for marketing, that kind of thing?

36:25 Are you reading TechCrunch, and are you always kind of looking over there and watching what they’re doing when it comes to what you do here? We do. I mean, you have to watch the whole scene, don’t you? But we’ve been hearing a lot from people in the Valley that they’re like, don’t come over here anymore. We’re all coming over to London.

36:41 So I think things are changing. And when it comes to Seattle, is it hard getting their attention like we’re over here or we’re doing these things with this venture, because Microsoft’s a huge company. It is a big company, but we have a new CEO, Satya Nadella, and he’s very big gone entrepreneurism, and doing things differently, and changing the company. And so the work that we’re doing with ventures around the world has really caught his attention, for what I understand.

37:08 And so I think as a company this is exactly the kind of stuff that this company at this time should be doing. And I think it’s a real beacon in that way. Would you have gone into an accelerator program like this? Um, maybe, maybe I think I, I feel like for me, I sort of really jumped off selling a product, like a physical product that was shipped and I think it, I couldn’t have gone in after I’d started because I need space for dispatching and warehousing and stuff like that.

37:40 Um, but I absolutely could have used it before I started shipping goods. You know, I think about the money I spent and you know, some legal fees and just sort of getting the incorporation down and some patents and some trademarks and all that sort of stuff probably would have, because I learned all from the start and fumbled a few times. So yeah. And you don’t know what you don’t know at that point, so it’s very tricky. So for me, I think they make a lot of sense for my business to actually before I had the physical product.

38:10 All right. Talk to me about tech bikers. You’re part of this crew, right? We had EZ Vidra in here. He’s always pushing tech bikers when he’s not throwing, he’s not, when he’s not doing the ice bucket challenge. When is the tech bikers? When does that happen?

38:21 It’s on the 19th of September. Are you going? I’m not riding this year. You’re not riding this year, but you went last year. You’re not getting shamed into riding this year. Wait till easy hears about this. He watches every show as well. It’s quite a crew though that go, right? Yeah, there were 70 of us last year. Okay, how was it? Was it fun? Was it dangerous? A little bit, perhaps. We had one injury, one One guy got hit by a car, which was really horrible.

38:49 Well, actually, because it’s London to Paris, right? It’s Paris to London. Paris to London. Yeah, so you wake up really early, take the Eurostar over. They ship the bikes over in a truck or something, and then, yeah, we get there.

38:58 They take us in an open-top bus to the Eiffel Tower, and all the bikes are there waiting for us. It’s really awesome. Wow. It’s really, really, you know, very cool. How long’s a ride to get back?

39:08 You ride over three days. It’s 200 miles. Okay. And it was, yeah, it was one of the coolest things I’ve done. I mean, before I did Tech Bikers, the longest I’d ever ridden before I started training was maybe three times around Regents Park, so it was pretty ambitious, and I trained for maybe a month and a half, if that, maybe five weeks.

39:26 And yeah, it was unbelievable, unbelievable experience. You know, I always wanted to ask people that come on here, what kind of social events do you go to when it comes to tech? You know, I never really asked anyone this. I mean, besides like, something like Tech Bikers, is there, are you at a couple times a week? Are you going to certain events?

39:42 Do you try to, do you do women in tech stuff? Do you not do that? I’m just curious. Yeah, I mean, there’s so much stuff, and it’s tricky, because when we’re in session with an accelerator, we’ve got a lot of our own events, so it’s really tough sometimes to get out to other events. So some of the stuff we do, you know, we go to our own events, we run, when we’re in session with an accelerator, we run a series called Inside MSVA, which is Inside Microsoft Ventures Accelerator, and it’s kind of a, you know, sort of open the kimono a bit and show people what it’s like, what the life is like inside the accelerator.

40:09 So we do a panel of some of the teams that are in the program. And we do that three times, once a month during the program. And we invite startups. We get 60, 70, 80 people coming to hear what the teams have to say. Because people want to know if they want to apply.

40:22 What are they in for? What is it like? And mingle with each other. So we do those. We also host Astia every month or so, which is Women in Tech.

40:33 Yeah, Astia, they’re all about. That’s probably why I haven’t gotten invited. Or is it for men, too? Yeah, there are lots of them there as well, yeah. It’s not exclusively for women, but their organization is about supporting women and women co-founders or founders, especially around the funding area and some other areas.

40:50 So we do that, occasionally we pop over to Three Beards, which is always nice on a Friday night. You know, there’s so many things going on, Startup Grind, there’s the Hipsters Hustlers and Hackers. I can’t even say it. I don’t know that one. Triple H.

41:05 That’s a slightly new one. Hipsters Hustlers and Hackers. Yeah. of that one. What is that?

41:10 Just to get together or do they? Yeah, they do something really cool. Actually, I haven’t been yet, but one of my colleagues who focuses on app developers, we’ve been sponsoring, we’ve started sponsoring them and they basically it’s, they get, I don’t know, I think at least a hundred, maybe more, 200 people at the event and they go around and everyone has, I think, 30 seconds to pitch, to intro and literally they go around the room fast and they also have apparently a big like water gun, oozy kind of thing.

41:36 So if you go over, they will douse you. And basically, they do that at the beginning. And so everybody gets 30 seconds. And then basically, it’s networking. But that way, you know that the person across the room is like, I’ve been wanting to talk to that person, or whatever.

41:49 So basically, that’s how they structure it. But that sounds really good. I’m hoping to go to the next one. I like that. I mean, how many times have you gone to an event and you talk to four people, and yet there were 40 people there, and you would have liked to know what was going on?

42:01 I mean, it’s hard sometimes, because you go to these events. There’s only so much time to chat. Yeah, you don’t know who’s in the room. So I think it’s quite a good concept to make it. Let’s talk about Women in Tech really quick.

42:10 A lot of big companies have started publishing their whole demographics of their companies at Google, and you see obviously this huge propensity for men, for white men, and it’s just something that the industry’s trying to address. What’s your view on Women in Tech? I know that’s a really general question. I’m trying to think of a better way to ask this, but is there a problem? How do we fix it?

42:28 Where do you come in on this? Okay, it is a good question, and it’s kind of a hot topic, I suppose. I mean, Microsoft, as a company, we’re very interested in growing diversity. And we have a lot of programs around girls in tech and getting more girls into coding. We do a program called DigiGirls, and we have some other initiatives.

42:48 So as a company, we’re very supportive. And we sponsor Astia globally through Microsoft Ventures. And I think, as I look around the tech scene, and I’ve been in technology for a long time, from back in the States and over to here, And it’s still very largely male-dominated. I think we need to see more women in tech. I think it’s just about really encouraging women to go and take those risks and not feel.

43:20 I think in talking to some women that I’ve spoken to recently, they really get a feeling when they go into a room full of entrepreneurs, they don’t see people like them. There aren’t other women. And they feel that maybe it’s not the place for them. And my message would be, it doesn’t matter, go and do it, because it’s all about making things happen, starting a great new venture, developing great partnerships, and finding co-founders. And I think we just need more women kind of saying, I’m going to go and take the plunge.

43:53 Does it have to start young, like we had Claire from Code Club on, whether teaching eight-year-old girls to code. have to start on that level? I think it’s a good place to start. And we’ve been working really hard at Microsoft. We were very instrumental in getting a change to the STEM curriculum, I think, in primary schools.

44:15 And now they’re teaching computer skills in the primary school as part of the core curriculum. Here in the UK, right? Yeah, in the UK. And that’s been a big coup. So that was very much driven by some of my amazing colleagues who work in that area.

44:30 And we’ve actually just done a partnership with, announced a partnership with the Nominate Trust and the Duke of York. They’re running a program called the Idea Program, which is all about, I think their website is A Million Young Minds, and basically it’s about building digital skills for young people in the UK. And this stuff is so important and obviously it’s not focused specifically on girls, but this is part and parcel of it. Just getting more people thinking about how they can build digital skills and what that might mean for them and for the future.

45:02 Yeah, I think it has started early. I mean, because they were looking at the demographics of, say, at Google or at Twitter, and then they were comparing them, say, to the computer science program at Stanford. And there was a trend just in computer science degrees for them to be very white and male oriented. So it’s, they’re like, well, that’s what we’re getting our applicants from. So it seems like, yes, you need to push from both sides.

45:19 But typically, computer science, 20, 30 years ago, it was not only white males, it was the white males that got beat up when they were kids. It was a really tight demographic of people that would code when they were kids. Yeah, I think it’s going to take time, you know what I mean? It’s like a bit of an evolution. It will take 10 years or so to really see a massive change.

45:38 From the ground, like the 8-year-old girls who are starting now, but do you know how to code? Me, I don’t know. Neither do I. And so I think it’s also, it’s like, yes, start early. But if you’re not 8 years old, you can still be part of tech without being able to the code necessarily, right?

45:54 And marketing is such a huge part. And there’s so many different things. Everything’s tech now, everything. And so all these companies that are tech still need products like my company. And they need lots of different skills.

46:06 That’s right. And do you guys know Decoded? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We know Catherine.

46:10 We haven’t had her on yet. OK. Yeah, she’s great. And we actually did an event with them where it was all about learning to code in a day with women in tech. And actually, the woman who won that, We gave her a co-working place at the accelerator, so she was with us for a couple of months and just got to soak up the atmosphere, and she had a finance background, so she helped a lot of the teams while she was there.

46:34 It’s those kinds of initiatives. I think also, I was having a chat about this the other day, we had one of the founders of Mumsnet in, and we were talking about the fact that there is a bit of a stigma for young women. Maybe they don’t think it’s cool, and it’s too geeky, but there is a need to to change that, to change that thinking and create that kind of the cool currency. Because they also, you know, they can learn that actually they can find ways to do things that realize some of their passions, whether it’s music or fashion or whatever it might be, you know, through learning to code and they can build things that actually help them, you know, put that stuff out on the website.

47:13 I know Campus London has a mom’s day, you know, they can come in for like one day a week. I think one of the people we had here six months ago, it might have been John Bradford from Techstars, I’m not sure, but he, one of his recommendations was get a woman on your team, when you’re a startup team, get some female energy in the room, and that’s good advice, especially when you’ve got a bunch of TV stars sometimes. It’s just, yeah. It’s your product, you know, you think about demographics of your customers.

47:36 For a lot of reasons, that’s one reason, and then just to get a different perspective sometimes. Yeah, but they do talk about that, that leadership teams that are, that have that diversity and that have women on them are, have higher success rates and things like that. I’m going to have too many issues. A sexist comment is what that is. I’ll just throw that in there.

47:51 I have seven women in my office and two guys. Do you? Do you? Look at you. Completely.

47:55 No wonder you’re so successful. But it’s 70% of people that buy Nespresso’s are. Is it? So you really need that. Yeah.

48:00 Smart. I didn’t plan it. It’s just how it just happened. Diane, I’m going to give you a few questions that we hit everyone with at the end. So here we go.

48:09 If you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old Diane Perlman and give that young lady a bit of advice. I’m not quite sure what she was up to. But what would you tell her to do? The 20-year-old me. Gosh, what would I say?

48:23 What were you doing? What was I doing? I was the 20-year-old me. Well, I was still in uni, wasn’t I? I was still in uni.

48:33 So gosh. Oh, I know one thing. I would have not dropped Spanish as an elective in university. That’s one thing. Because it’s the second language in America?

48:47 No, because I love to travel to Spain and to Latin America. And I speak Spanish because I learned it in high school. But I got some very bad advice from a guidance counselor. But anyway, that’s not about tech, though. But I think the other thing is just like learning much as you can, you know, and finding great mentors, you know, as early as you can that can really help you kind of guide you in your way.

49:15 I think, you know, that’s, that’d be a good thing. Did you have those mentors? Eventually I did. I mean, obviously, you know, well, I’ll say my parents were, you know, great, great woman. My dad’s, well, he’s sort of an entrepreneur.

49:25 He’s, he actually is an entrepreneur. In fact, he wrote a book called, called Making It On Your Own, when, back when I was a kid. That’s cool. So, you know, he’s a psychologist, but he used to work for himself and he anyway, so I kind of grew up in that in that culture. So I, you know, I always have that kind of kind of attitude, but but when I am I in my first and second jobs out of out of uni had some very strong mentors and beyond.

49:52 Good advice. One thing about mentors, people like don’t realize sometimes, because we’ve had a bunch of people on here that have had great mentors is it’s not always a formal relationship of I am your mentor, we bring my renter, it happens in all sorts of guises. So you don’t have to just call this person up and says, we’d be my mentor and we’re gonna have coffee once a week. It can like have lots of strange forms. So don’t search too much sometimes.

50:12 On that same note, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received? It could be business, it could be personal. Oh gosh. I think actually the one that always comes to mind is, so when I, before I joined the startup that took me to London, I was working in a kind of a communications agency. I had quite a cushy job, you know, nice salary, nice title.

50:32 I was young and basically I’ve been offered this role at a start-up. There were 13 people. I was going to join the leadership team as a marketing director. It was kind of big and scary. I was going to take a salary cut to go there, but I was going to get some shares and this kind of thing.

50:57 I really didn’t know what to do and I felt like it was quite a scary time. And I called, actually, a then mentor of mine, a guy who was a very successful tech entrepreneur. And I said to him, a guy called Mario Marino, he might have heard of in the US, he was quite famous. But he, I said, you know, what should I do? How do I know if it’s the right time to jump off?

51:18 And he just said to me, Diane, don’t think about us jumping off. Think about us jumping in. Nice. And it was a beautiful metaphor. And for me, it was like, it took that, you know, you’re at the edge of the precipice and instead of that fearful kind of creeping onto the edge and plunging down to someone known fate you know you’re all of a sudden you’re just kind of soaring and you know that’s kind of driven me I always give that advice to startups that’s good advice yeah jump in jump into that bad decision that’s right with your eyes closed jump in the last part of that question is to the 20 year old that’s listening to us around the world that’s thinking about going to tech not sure that could be in China they could be in Australia or South America what advice to give to them what should they do I think the main thing is you don’t be afraid to fail.

52:01 I think when you’re young, you think you need to pick a career or do something, and that’s a thing you’re going to do. And it’s the be all, end all of decisions. And I think the thing is that the more you try and do and fail, the more you’re going to learn, and you’re going to get that experience, and then you’re going to get stronger the next time. So I think the main thing is don’t be afraid of failure. And learn those lessons early.

52:20 The earlier you learn that, the more you’re going to put yourself ahead of all the other rest of the pack who are sitting kind of on the sidelines afraid to dip their toe in the water, but you’re going to have those lessons, and then you’re going to be stronger and move forward more quickly. Fail fast, as they say. Yeah, fail fast, fail forward. And the last question is, how many Bikram yoga sessions have you completed in your lifetime? In my lifetime, oh my gosh.

52:46 You know, I’ve been doing it for about 12 years now, maybe. So not hundreds, maybe. And when I used to work on my own, when I worked from home for about seven years, probably four or five times a week for quite a number of years. So thousands. Probably yeah, a lot. Okay you’re addicted. And if you had to convince someone like Colin to go, what do you tell people? Have you given up on talking people in a bikram? Like what do you say to people? I’m convinced already. You’re going to feel great.

53:15 You’re going to smile ear to ear. What are you going to tell people? What do you tell them? I think what I normally would say is that it’s a bit weird, it’s not for everyone it’s very sweaty but you know you it’s amazing how what it can how it can transform your body your mind your approach it’s been it’s been really transformative for me and I think I think it’s just an amazing you know it’s amazing thing thing to do and you kind of think people think oh yoga you’re just kind of standing around and it’s for wimps or whatever but this is pretty hardcore. I did yoga for the first time and I remember the day after I was more sore Yeah, like for my muscles and then sort of like a big workout. Exactly That’s what got me hooked because the day I did it I the next day I could I could barely move, you know And I was like this feels good Something was and I went back the next day and then never stopped to say there you go But you go to a different mental state to like when you’re in that heat like you definitely kind of on a weird high When you get out of there, right?

54:15 Yeah, I think every time is different and that’s something I like about it as well because some days I come out I feel really energized at the end of class, like when you’re at the end of class that you’re kind of in a little meditation of lying down. And some days I could fall asleep in that one minute that we lie there. And some days I can’t even close my eyes, I’m just so energized. So I think it depends, every day’s different. But yeah, get a lot out of it.

54:38 Exactly. All right, fantastic. Click here for the lecture. Click here to go.

54:44 Diane, thanks so much for coming. I love this story. It sounds very cool what you guys are doing, and you have a sick asset structure in Backbone with Microsoft, so can’t wait to see this. Is there still time left for them to apply to show up on Monday, if that’s all I need to know? Well, if they just show up, who do you have it in?

55:01 If they just show up, what will we do? I don’t know, maybe we’ll just find out. That’s a good question, right? Yeah, exactly. I like your tenacity.

55:06 Yeah, that would be good. We know, we always say that. We respect a bit of hustle in a startup, so you know. Yeah, well, they would have to have been watching it live, so there’s gonna happen, right? That’s right.

55:15 Check one. You still have two days left. How do they contact you? Is Twitter the best? Or should they email you at Microsoft Ventures?

55:21 What’s the best way? Yeah, Twitter is a great way to contact us. We’re MSFT Ventures UK on Twitter, or me, it’s Diane underscore Perlman. And then you can email us, msvuk at microsoft.com. Okay, fantastic. And you will do another one next year. Is there any chance you’ll do two next year?

55:37 Cohorts. Okay, yeah, yeah, cohorts. Yeah, we run two a year, so we’ll start again in March. Yeah, so sometime this This autumn we’ll open applications again for the March batch. Okay.

55:48 Fantastic. Awesome. Excellent. That’s episode 60, I believe, somewhere around there. It’s all good.

55:54 We’ve got two or three people doing all sorts of work for us on Silicon Real. If people want to help, it’s hello at siliconreal.com. If you’re watching us on YouTube, you can get this downloaded free to your smartphone. Just go to iTunes and download the podcast. There’ll be a link somewhere down here.

56:09 We’ve got to give you a Windows phone app. Give us the Windows phone app. Sorry. there we go. And and rate us rate us how ratings actually help so yeah if you’re listening to us if you’re on YouTube just you know if you like it rate us if you don’t like it rate us yeah and on that note yeah click us a like on YouTube share with your friends this is a total gorilla viral network grassroots movement so tell a few your friends and yeah if you have any guest suggestions let us know we’re working on getting uber on here to find out everything that’s going on with them a bunch of other people were yeah I’ve been really look I spent a lot of time in the last few weeks trying to sort of line up guests over the next few months and there’s some really cool stuff going on so If we reach out to you on Twitter, and you’re interested DM us and and we’ll make it happen. Yeah, it’s all good And yeah, it’s a fantastic platform. Diane just had so much fun I can tell and there you go as we say on silicone reel. It’s about the people Diane Thanks so much and all the best. Thank you. All right. Take care