Richard Dennys: Business Has No Feelings: How to Scale by Being "Strategically Boring"

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Business doesn't have feelings, right? It's just not your friend. Commerce, your competitors, everything about life in business is trying to kill you or get you fired. When hard decisions have to be made, you have to be dispassionate about them and just let common sense prevail. It's one of the hardest things and not everyone can do it. And that's why not everyone's a CEO. My mother died when I was 25. My business failed when I was 38. We lost all of our money. All that kind of stuff. When you go through those sort of personal challenges, it does build a second skin. You do realize that

life goes on. You just withdraw and then come back later stronger. And I thrive on that. We grew by 40%. All the things we tried worked. The first year of lockdown, our profits just exploded because we got everything in place. We were already remote. We already had the systems there. We already had the team in place. It just meant that when the wind blew strong, we went fast. You can't have a whole team of people like that because in the end it becomes too aggressive and everyone just kills each other. If you've got the right blend and balance of people that actually are up for

the transformation, you can see that there's a common enemy. Whether that's a competitor or internal systems or the market's changing, you've got something to fight for. That could be very powerful. punch up. So if you're going to complain complain upwards, don't complain downwards because if you complain down, it spreads and then you get negativity which kills the flow. But also the managing up is very important much more than managing down. I've always thought that in my entire career. I've always really invested in the relationship with my line manager and then one above. And it wasn't trying to get around the person above me. It was

just to understand and empathize with their problem who they're having to deal with and report to and all the emotional vagaries of that. >> Welcome to the i Gaming Leadom podcast. I'm your host, Leo Judkins, founder of I Gaming Leader Mastermind. And on this show, I sit down with some of the most inspirational and forwardthinking leaders in our industry, diving into the real challenges, highstakes decisions, lessons that shape our industry. If you're a VP, director, or an executive in I gaming, this podcast is built for you. Before we dive in, a quick thank you to our sponsor, Sumsub, the full cycle verification platform trusted by

top i gaming operators worldwide. Sumsub helps onboard players quickly stay compliant and prevent fraud all without slowing growth. More information in the description. Hey everybody, welcome to the i gaming leader podcast. I am here with Richard Dennis who's a two-time CEO who spent the last decade building, acquiring and scaling digital businesses in performance marketing and I gaming first at web game for seven years and then recently at game lounge for the last two where he's recently left. I would describe you Richard as a as a turnaround CEO whose leadership styles and decision frameworks are really grounded in some of these best business books that we've

talked about a lot but also sharpened through you know some real tough battle scars. and that's what I'd love to talk about today. So, I'm really excited to talk to you. Uh, first of all, welcome to the podcast. >> Yeah, thanks Leo. It's really nice to talk to you. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, you covered it a lot in a sentence and before that I was doing all sorts of marketing roles and I had my travel startup. So, I've kind of seen a lot, you know. I feel like that guy at the end of Gladio. I've seen things that people will never see. It's that

kind of situation. >> Let's start off there. you started off quite um in traditional business working with traditional businesses and I'd love to start there because from there you started your own thing without a safety net. Can you talk to me a little bit about that start of your career and why you went from kind of the traditional to I'm going to take some risks here and the things that you learned from that? >> I'm kind of the Thatcher generation. It's a UK thing. You people grew up in the 80s. I was 11 in 1981 when Margaret Thatcher kind of became all about there is

there's no such thing as society. It's all about business. It's about small business. Get on your bike, you make money. The big bang in financial services in the London city, everybody's was was leaving school and making a fortune. Um university wasn't so important. So I kind of followed that mantra really. I couldn't wait to leave school and then drifted around for a few years. I wanted to be successful. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. My parents moved to another place. So I ended up working on a beach, in a bar, in a shop. I was just always trying to think of ways

to make money with my friends and in the end I kind of stopped and did finally go to university when I was 22. So I was a mature student and actually that was the making of me that my thinking. I grew up there made some really good friends I'm still friends with now and then realized that I had a pention for data even though I started it was a degree in textiles I did which is a weird one but I started textiles but then I migrated it was a manage university I migrated into a much more of a business and management degree in the school

of management and I it really kind of brought my business thinking out and I really enjoyed it. So I left there and I ended up working in this is before the internet I ended up working in in database management. I found I was a kind of focused on I really like data patterns. I really find maths stimulating. I know it's not everyone does but I just do. And that's kind of guided my career. So I've always been the guy in the team in a kind of marketing team where I was working for PWC very early in my life. It was before it was called PBC

it was kids and my brand working on market research working on very early stages of email broadcasting systems and then got hired by a digital startup in Bristol which is why I went to Bristol called Sift and they were doing online communities which is very very early stage and realized that it was all about relationships and I had come from professional services marketing which was partners and lawyers and accountants you know trying to make relationships with these business people and I realized very early on. It's all about that personal relationship. Doesn't matter how technical you are. At the end of the day, humans are humans

and people by people. And it was all about that reputation and trust. I took that through with me. I was there 3 years at the startup. We did the classic thing where, you know, we're all worth millions because the valuation went to like, I don't know, 200 million, 300 million something. We all had shares. Everyone was like, woo. And of course, the com drop came in 2020, 2001. So that all dropped away and I ended up still being friends with them but leaving and just thinking well what can I do? My wife and I just dropped out into Italy and we went to live in

Italy because we just founded a bit of an adventure. Set up a travel business just literally guiding people who were arriving there. Turned that into a group travel business. It got very big very quickly thanks to SEO. So I learned SEO. I love NCM. I was part of of that world when web master whilst the world was starting. So our friends will have found us at that when Google bought Goto which is the online auctioning system which became Adwords. So very embionic and then when that business unfortunately died at the end of the with the financial crisis in 2008 kind of took those principles and

applied them into publishing and again long story short was turning around businesses that had trouble and you know they were I think the thing was there was a lot of stress in these companies. They didn't know what to do. they were panicking and because I'd been through the stress of a failed business before and I had a bit of resilience it was helpful me to be able to turn those things around and then long story short uh got invited to work in web games which was you know it's noisy there's lots of people with opinions and lots of people doing things that aren't core and

really focusing well I go I've just got people to focus which is exactly what happened to the game now lots of things going on lots of investments lots of acquisitions lots of people kind of hanging on the edges assets that weren't really driving anything and um I focused on really kind of core home zone work and being not boring business but being strategically boring you know trying to make sure that everyone understands what is supposed to be done and what the extenttosis are making sure that stakeholders are happy and confident in your plan. Tell me a little bit more about this turnaround the resilience that

you built and the turnaround idea because that's not for everybody right like a lot of people come into businesses they want security a salary whatever that is right it doesn't and there's nothing wrong with it but it takes a special type of person I think to want to go through that and then also to have the focus the sharpness of mind the calm to be able to really focus on that what you call home zone so where do you think that came from Richard >> like a challenge I always like to be in the center of a room in a party. I always be in

a rugby term, I'm always going for the middle of the pack. I just want to be in the middle of it all. And and also when I'm being valued, the last thing I want to be is sitting there taking a wage and hiding and not doing anything. I've seen plenty of people in my career that done that. They go into business and they don't cause trouble and they keep it easy. They hide down. They sit on other people's meetings just to look busy. I've seen all that. I was at Nokia for a bit. I saw that. I was at PWC. I saw that. You know, in

these big companies, I'm just not that person. I thrive on energy. I thrive on positivity and it doesn't always work. People don't always warm to that because they sometimes can think I'm a bit bit too aggressive just in terms of my motivations. But, you know, when I'm looking for things, I've been quite lucky that I've been able to choose my bosses mostly. And that's very important to make sure that you care and give a [ __ ] about who you're working for. Certainly, when I went into into game, people kept asking me before that, what are you going to do? And it wasn't about that. It

was who I want to work for. and and I met the board there and Jonas and I'm still very good friends. you know, we, you know, things are very good between us. Nice people with a good on this Monday, but something to do. Not just because somebody's left, somebody needs to take their place. It's like we have a mission. We've got a transformation plan. And that's exciting. And in terms of resilience, my mother died when I was 25. That was very difficult to get through from a family point of view. My business failed when I was 38. That was very difficult. We lost all of

our money. All that kind of stuff. So, you know, when you go through the sort of personal challenges, it does build a second skin. You do realize that life goes on. You just go, you know, you with withdraw and then come back later stronger. And I thrive on that. I thrive on the challenge. I thrive on the kind of ring the bell sort of commercial person. I like it when things turn around in the positive. So I think I sent in the pre-notes that the first year of gamers is amazing cuz we just broke every record. We grew by 40%. All the things we tried

worked and similarly again that web gains. The first year of lockdown, my profits just exploded because we got everything in place. We were already remote. We already had the systems there. We already had the team in place. It just meant that when the wind blew strong, because that's what affiliate is really. You're waiting for the wind to blow. When the wind blew strong, we went fast. So that's knowing that that could happen, I think, helps with resilience and also bringing people in or working people with people who've got a similar feeling for it. You can't have a whole team of people like that because in

the end becomes too aggressive and everyone just kills each other. If you've got the right blend and balance of people that actually are up for the transformation, you can see that there's a common enemy. Whether that's a competitor or internal systems or the market's changing, you've got something to fight for. That could be very powerful. >> One of the things that you said, you say that you really value in others and also in yourself is that you don't want to bend your leadership to somebody else's will, right? Like we've all been in those type of businesses where people try to do that, right? or where

people try to feel that there's a certain way of leading. Where did you discover that? Whether and did that ever break for you where you felt that you had to lead in a style that perhaps wasn't right for you because it's something that's quite like I I hear you talking about it quite pronouncly and I so it's for me that's sounds like that's one of your core principles and I'd love to understand a little bit better where that came from. >> The leadership team is always the most important thing and I can't remember actually saying that but you know it's not my way or the

highway. I'm just thinking about most recent examples and the ones before that. If you've got flow in your management team, the concept of flow which is like everybody's working in it, working well and you know there's little conflict. You need some conflict but not too much conflict. You know when you've got that position of flow there's no better feeling. It feels like you are winning top of the league, Champions League, you know, all those kinds of great feelings. And even if you stumble, it doesn't matter because we all pick pick each other up. And if you've got disharmony or disunityity or somebody that starts pulling

against it can be unbelievably difficult and demotivating for everybody else. So I think that's the most important thing. It's not my way as a CEO, a business leader. You're not saying look, you have to follow me. There's a lot of listening. My primary job would be listening but at the same time sometimes pushing through and not and not compromising on a vision because it can easily get diluted with five people around the table. Not everyone's going to agree but you just have to kind of disagree and commit. It's a phrase that one of my very valuable coaches goes through about that ability as a board

level team to disagree and commit and move forward even if you don't fully believe in it. And then review and review and review and if things do start to work then that's good. If they don't, they can change. >> I think it leads quite nicely to this concept, the three horizons for people that don't fully understand how that works in leadership style. Um, could you maybe start with just explaining what it is and then secondly why you kind of stay out of that first horizon, focus more on the second and how that then evolves into business strategy. >> I think it's originally from McKenzie. It's

an McKenzie concept from years ago. Three horizons. It's basically saying horizon one is what you're in BAU. Horizon 2 is just literally kind of what you're planning for. And then horizon 3 is right out on horizon which is you know the world is changing. We're going the challenge right now is that those three horizons are so constantined. I mean if you look at what's happening with AI and claude and I mean we had a conversation yesterday or this morning was somebody had a know last night I had a conversation wouldn't it be great if we had this and this morning I got email saying I've

just built it and like whoa. So that third horizon is like right in our faces at the moment. So you have to work out if you've got a business that's like 200 people, it's really difficult to to flip around to to try and meet the the needs of there's no point in in a CEO being in the first horizon. There's no point. You've already set the strategic direction. You have a team of oper operators within your company. It's their job to do the BOU. That's exactly what Horizon wants you to be. So if you have an operations team or COO or those kinds of people, uh

even a CFO, that's very much business today. business as usual, what you don't say. And then my my as a CEO, what I tend to do is focus on the second rise and alongside somebody like a a chief strategy officer or something like that just to plan. So you're slowly, you know, maneuvering the BAU in a gentle direction as opposed to saying, "Right, okay, [ __ ] we we've got to do this tomorrow. Let's just change the business right now." Because that's very difficult to do, especially with multiple people. If you're a smaller business, it's easy. And then with the minds horizon, what does it

look like? what what what are the generations coming up behind us looking like and what are their taste profiles and how do they buy things? I've got two daughters in their 20ies and they consume and behave in a completely different way than I do and my wife and my generation in a completely different way. I mean, yes, they're humans and yes, they're eating and loving and driving and all the other things, falling in love and getting married, having children like we all will do, but their pathways to get there are completely different. They don't use Google, they don't watch TV, they don't consume the media

that we consume. So you always having to understand what that might look like. Now you don't want to go marketing to 15 year olds especially I gaming and gambling but you need to understand that in sort of 6 7 8 9 10 years what the world will look like and okay horizon 3 tech technically is sort of between years 2 and five but nevertheless you still need to have that view of the far horizon which is otherwise what are the obstacles in the way where the opportunities. I think one of the big challenges that people have is not being led by the shiny objects, right? And

actually focusing so what you call the home zone. And I jumping a bit ahead because I want to talk a little bit about one of the first things that you did when you came into game lounge is actually in an environment where people are focusing on many many different areas. One of the things that uh happened was selling betting.com sportsbook oriented US-facing not your core strength something that people have been working on for a long time and then buying near casino which is regulated Europe casino based which is your core strength. So I think one of the things that people have even when they're focused

on long-term strategic second and third horizon areas is that they still get distracted. Right? How do you do that? How do you make sure that you're steering the ship in the right way without everybody going left, right, and center? >> I mean, betting was kind of underway when I got there, right? So, it wasn't as if I I woke up one day and said, "Right, let's sell it." But, it was definitely the decision to finally get that over the line. It was a good deal. It was a good team that was working there and I I gone well with them. We set them a couple

of challenges when I first arrived and it was it was clear that it was going to be too hard and it was a it was a second horizon purchase basically. It was something, you know, buying for the future because they were trying to insulate from I gaming SEO which they'd gone through a previous period of difficulties and it probably would have worked. It wasn't that there was an offer on the table when I got there and you know people said oh yeah we're going to do it but I said look well it looks like we're going to do it then the board wanted to sell

it and therefore I just happy to do it and the idea was that we take that money and you recycle it into a horizon one purchase which is what Maner was. It was home and it wasn't just the asset, it was the people. It was very clear because when you're in this world of M&A, there's a load of people that just want to, you know, sell and run. Yeah. Here's my site. I'm off. Thanks very much. Give me the money. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but if anything does go wrong in the years to come, it's difficult to turn it around. And

if you've seen some of the competitors and there's lots of purchasing going on from the other well-known affiliates out there that grew and grew through acquisition, the founders just disappeared. when the bad times came then there was no real kind of resilience to bring it back. This Martin the CEO and I got really well I think it was one of the reasons why they chose us. They had lots of offers from lots of different people and they chose us because I think they thought the chemistry is better. I really liked him in terms of his approach. He's a very strong financial journalist. We got on

very well chemistry wise. He had some really really good ideas on content generation and how to manage a regulated market and the relationship he had with the regulator. So we were buying him more than the asset really and that's what happened. So it was an easy one. We had lots of things on the table. That was the one that we got over the line. There were still some other good businesses at the same time. But no, that was a very very very strong deal and it worked out in everyone's favor. It was a BAU horizon one because it just meant we could scale and get

the uh the multipliers. >> So let's dive into the lesson there for a sec. So home zone, explain that a little bit more and explain please if you can explain a little bit more what you found when you arrived at game lounge and like how your mind works in seeing those things happening and then going all right what are our what is our home zone and how do I align everybody behind this >> the home zone is effectively you have a you have a the 2x two and you've got existing product existing market you got new markets new products and then if you try and

do both new product new market that's differentiation it's a high risk so it's about risk management you know where are the big risky areas and the biggest risk you can do is building new products. The second less risk is going to new markets with your existing products. So, you know, launching a new market as an eye gaming affiliate isn't that difficult. You'll spin some pages. You'll push them out, see what happens. That's quite straightforward. But if you're building new products like the sports betting products or we had some predictive analytics, sports analytics businesses, we had slot tracker. There's a number of things that we were

building in product and expecting to then sell them to our existing market. that's got a much higher risk profile that you need to push money into development of it. It might not work. There's a long period of iteration and gestation. So the home zone is really none of those. It's just basically doing what you're doing, investing in investing in people, investing in systems, making sure that the efficiencies are there. There was 260 people I think when I arrived at game and then when I left it there was about 130. So the trick is to not necessarily slash the business, but just look at all of

the working processes and all of the duplications. And what you tend to do when you you see a business that's grown through acquisition, there's lots of people sort of hanging around with great ideas, really really good people, but there just too many of them. They're getting each other's way. So you have to think of a way of teasing the efficiencies into the business. Unfortunately, let people go, but in a friendly way, in a positive way, keeping them on side as you do that, it's difficult. It's not easy. And you know, letting anyone go is very traumatic. contracted for the rest of the company. I'd arrived

and they'd been done around there was going to be another one and we delayed it and the beginning of the second year was very positive. And in terms of what I found, yeah, I mean the people are fantastic. You know, everyone there in gameland are brilliant. They're really, really good. The trick is to try and get everyone playing properly. You know, it's like being a football manager. You can have the most amazing players, but you don't work as a team. Then, you know, it's counterproductive. You've got to get everyone focused on the right thing. It was very difficult to do that. And the other thing

that's a challenge these days is the remote nature of work. and trying to get everybody really aligned when they're in 16 countries slightly different time zones and of course there's layers and layers and layers so it's difficult to get the message down to the right people that was really hard and that's really hard for every company now that's the biggest challenge I think any CEO has right now >> I want to I want to reverse a few years and talk about web gains before we talking about Horowitz and we didn't really speak about the his concept of management debt but that's really what it cames

down to you said that one of the lessons from web gains was that you learned that delaying hard calls is never kindness, it's just deferred pain and that usually that pain escalates. So tell me a little bit more about that. What was the specific moment when you understood that and what did you take from it maybe into some of these decisions that you had to make in game lounge? >> The hard thing about hard things is a good book. It's it's it's of its time. It's from the VC era of, you know, and Sand Hill Road in in Silicon Valley when they're investing big money

into these big technical bets and the concept of things like technical debt management. You know, that's that's where that comes from in in the way that you're inheriting bad decision. You're inheriting the results of bad decisions. And I this is something I had before before game legend before web games because I was doing some work previous to that in business that have got money from the west coast or in the euro. They then realized that the or they decided that the first thing they do as software businesses would to go to US. They hired a very expensive CMO, US Cso, CRO, you know, there's hundreds

of thousands of these people and then it wasn't working and then they got fired or left. They ran out of money and then it was like Richard gets called in. What are you going to do about it? And it's like you've got to get that debt out as quickly as you can. I mean, you've got to just chop chop chop, go back to home zone, work out where your money is coming from, become default alive, not default dead, which means you're making more money than you're costing, and then go from there. But I never that wasn't the case with either of web games or game. Both

are profitable. They were just a bit lost. That's just basically all it was. And it was just really making sure that identifying the key management people, bringing in a couple of people from ex outside and just trying to get back on the leading kill and then moving forward fast. That's it. But the hard thing about half things is you know people use that book is to say it's a justification for firing people. It is but you've just got to be dispassionate. You know the thing is you know business doesn't have feelings right? It's just not your friend. Commerce your competitors everything about life in business

is trying to kill you or get you fired. Right? So you've always got to bear that in mind and therefore when hard decisions have to be made you have to be discussion about them and just let common sense prevail. It's difficult. It's one of the hardest things and not everyone can do it and that's why not everyone's a CEO. >> It's one of the things that I heard you saying elsewhere as well is that really being a CEO comes down to your ability to make tough calls. That's that's really what differentiates you. And a lot of people see that position and and aspire for it. you

know, have the ambition, but that they don't want to be in that hot seats, right? Like you you spoke about investors above you. You still have a boss essentially, right? And and you're only as good as the as your last quarter in terms of in terms of of profits and and performance. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly it. And you some things happen and you just have to face it and that's it. You just move on, brush yourself off and go on. I mean, everyone's got a boss. Very few things in life mean you are completely autonomous and autocratic. I've said to you before, I

think I said to you before in the conversation, where do I get my centering from? It's not I'm not there to be the most popular person in the company. That's just not my job. I'm there to make profits for shareholders, which is what I've been hired by. And at the same time, if I can do that by having a happy company and and you know, in theory, happy companies are better than unhappy companies, then all to the good. But that doesn't always happen. And and life happens and people happen and humans are different. you know, you have a bad down round or you you go

through a period of time where you're very generous to your staff and then all of a sudden you can't afford that anymore and and therefore the mood changes and it's very difficult to get it back. You know, that's something you have to always be mindful of. >> And then talk a little bit more about your concept of the 10:30 talks. I love that >> the 10:30 rule. Yeah. Yeah. So, this comes down to I mean I can't remember where I got this from, but I mean it's definitely my rule. And um I was working in travel, you know, it's a very very it's like eye

game. You go out, you meet people and especially in my 30s, it all gets very exciting and fun and then it kind of stops being fun and especially as a business leader, you've got you get the honest conversations from your team or from other various people and I just remember being in the L once in the toilet in a bar in Bristol and just minding my business and somebody came up to me and said, "Why wasn't I promoted? Why didn't I get that promotion?" I'm like, and I'm like, "Okay." And then the next time I went out, it was another kind of very awkward conversation. And

it worked out in my head that 10:30 is the kind of cut off. If you start about 7, by 10:30, that's when everyone gets their confidence in and they feel as though they can say whatever they want to say to the CEO or boss. So, I just came up with 10:30 Roy as soon as that clock ticks. Unless I'm having a really really good time and I'm in a very social environment and no one's getting on with me with a career conversation. Yeah. Then I just 10:30 is enough. Nothing good happens after 10:30. One of the things you did say in that same conversation it's

it's a while back so maybe you don't remember but I'll jog your memory is that how important it is to manage upwards right so you gave an example of you gave some really direct feedback to someone that said that saying well actually you say it jokingly I don't know who you are I don't don't know exactly what you do it was maybe three four levels below you whatever that was and you said something like but I actually kind of mean it seriously as well because it's all about profiling it's not about being a you know being a dick but it's about personal branding inside the

company. So talk a little bit more about that if you will. >> Obviously from a CEO you're always managing upwards cuz your main people are they've hired you got to make sure that they're on board with you and when that ends you know it all ends but similarly with genius and I've said this to my kids who are in their first jobs. I think the original phase is punch up not down. So you know punch up. So if you're going to complain you complain upwards don't complain downwards because you complain down it spreads and then you get a negativity which kills the flow. but also

managing up. It's very important that you know you have a relationship or at least a hello relationship or a conversation relationship with people above you because number one things about being remote is that you don't have that chance to water cooler with a senior manager and listen to people and look what they look like and see how they react to things. You managing up is very important much lower than managing down. I've always thought that in my entire career. I've always really invested in the relationship with my manager, line manager, and then one above. And it wasn't trying to get around the person above me. It

was just to understand and empathize with their problem, my line manager's problem, to understand who they're having to deal with and report to and all the emotional vagaries of that and understand where your career path's going. And if you even want to follow that career path, because sometimes you can do that and meet those people and think, Jesus, I'm not going to do that. That's not for I want to do something else. But yeah, if you're looking above yourself, you shouldn't be intimidated by people above you cuz they were just like you were two promotions ago. And I think that's a very important thing for

all people in their first, second, and third jobs is to really invest in that relationship. Sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes you just think, you know, they're a dick and you just don't like them. But unfortunately, you can't work with people you like all the time. You just have to find a way of navigating it somehow where you do have a good working relationship with those people. When it's impossible, then you're in the wrong place. It's as simple as that. >> I'd love to talk a little bit about the period after after web gains if that's all right. Rich, you took uh six months off to kind

of recover physically, mentally. You were looking for the right opportunity, like right person really, I think mostly, right? The right environment to be in. >> It wasn't actually my intention. I just felt I'd gone as far as I could with with with web games. I could see difficulties with the way attribution was working. You know, the GDPR laws were changing. The thing about e-commerce affiliation is that it's very d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d

d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d driven and you're talking about last tech attribution that gets paid for and as a network it's very difficult to keep on top of that and with beta privacy and cookie tracking and all the other things it was just like god this is really difficult I just don't think I'm going to be able to take this forward any further and actually that's what's happened in the last two or three years the industry is really struggling with zero click attribution and lots of different types of so

I you know had a good conversation with the owners and he said I was going to drop out and then they just decided that as part of my notice period it makes more sense for me to go on garden leaves than to than to stay managing the company. I had a long notice period and anyway so I got put on leave and then it was a case of you know what do you want to do? I ended up renovating our property in New Yorkers for 3 months and just keeping an eye what's going on and yeah it was definitely it's like who do you want

to work with? Who are you going to get passionate with when things are going against you? Who are you going to trust? And it's all about who you want to work with. And that's definitely the conversation I had on the way into game lounge. And even now come the other fight still very good terms with those guys. So they're brilliant. J is fantastic. PR's fantastic board are very good. So it wasn't been difficult to move on. And the same will be next. You know, whatever I do next, I'm looking at all sorts of things. But I've been very lucky to have been able to make

some really really good network contacts over the last two years and before that in e-commerce. Some really nice good people. Obviously there's some sharks and some bad guys and all those kind of people out there and you know in the main it's good and I'm looking forward to doing more work with more people like that. But again I'm you know right now I'm I'm I'm I've got a business that's that's wants to work in corporate development. You know there's a big opportunity to consolidate in the industry. I'd like to be part of that. AI is now creating new inflection points. you know the whole thing

around canonical SEO that's really blowing a hole in the middle of SEO affiliation needs to be managed and understood and you know there's a big opportunity there somewhere so that kind of where I am >> you after those six months you obviously joined game lounge spoke about it a little bit next called you an industry novice which like I don't know everybody always does it in I gaming somehow right when somebody's new but you took gain lounge from 22nd to 13th in Eg power affiliate rank generated 60 million in in cash flow which is your number one KPI. We were talking about it before we

started recording, but then you uh you left recently. So, how did that happen? Talk a little bit more about what you can share at least. >> Again, I've gone as far as I can and I won't go into too much details, but it was very amicable. You know, it wasn't it was just we sat down one day and said, you know, this is just isn't working. And also Jonas's step back in as an interim CEO. He's a great guy. You know, he's got founder energy, which is something you need, especially in a business like specialist game with the people they've got. you know, him and

Frederick are just so fantastic at just getting [ __ ] done and pushing the buttons they need to push that. It just makes sense. It just made sense. So, yeah. And that's pretty much where we are. Again, it was very amicable. It's great company, very happy. We're all still friends, still messaging each other. >> And so, you're in that same reflective period, I suppose, that you were in perhaps after after the previous ro. What like what is that what's coming up for you now? What are you going do you know what you want to do and where you want to where you want to go? Well, I'm

good at fixing things and there's a lot of things that need fixing right now. I've been really busy the last couple of weeks, really, really busy with people just talking to people asking me about, you know, some of this tough stuff that's going on in our industry right now. You know, I can help them. I'd like to be some kind of consolidator. There's some good value in M&A right now. I've set up a partnership really, a consultancy partnership just to see that with products I can look at that are going to make a difference to the industry that it's massively in change. And spoke to

someone yesterday and then they delivered a product this morning. Now, what does that actually mean? What does that mean for the industry? What does that mean for regulation? What does it mean for player safety? What does it mean for black market, white market regulation? There's lots of things around that. I mean, there's so many things that this massive rate of change will bring in terms of opportunity. And it's people and you know, you can't replace the affiliate relationship, affiliate dialogue with machines. You just can't because at the end of the day, you're trusting it. So, you've got media, you're lending it to another partner to

then monetize and then bringing the money back. Now, if you think you can do that through agents and robots, it's just not going to work. That trust will never exist unless it's purely plumbing and that just will never happen because then you just got programmatic advertising. And business in general, if you think about, okay, I'm going to build I'm going to build a new business and buy a new business or whatever it might be. What you're building is the relationships you're building, the deals you're buying, the things that humans have put in place. And the moat may have changed, but that human to human is

still there. It's still it's a trust industry. And I know that there's a lack of trust in gaming and affiliation generally. There's enough of it there to make a difference and that's the most and even branding any kind of marketing is just a brand is a brand promise. It's all about trust. >> I've got three questions from our mastermind members actually. So Michael asks, "What's your take on layoffs taking place inside the industry? Do you think it's transitional or fundamental or just following the wider economy?" >> Yeah, I saw them. I've seen various different messages about that and people going, "Oh my gosh, you know, when

will it end?" We are in a transitional time. It's akin to when I said earlier about the the first.com boom. There's a there's an article by a guy called Clay Shery back in 1999 I think about what should newspapers do to survive the internet age and there's an article like the answer is there's no answer. You know there's a total disruption going on. Now I'm not saying I gaming is going through right now because it's a digital business. However, you know, the fundamentals used to be write very good highquality content, get it into Google better than your competitors can, and then Google rewards you with

positions. Now, you know, that position is completely disappeared. That's gone. And you can argue that yes, AI isn't as good as a gamer writer, but it's good enough. And and as we're saying at the moment with cononical stuff in the SEO results, people are gaming it. The news about how Google works is leaked last summer, so people have kind of worked it out. So that's that's a fundamental shift in how it's going. Now where's that moving to? It's moving away from like I say, you know, the kind of build the funnel and they you just guide the traffic down it to much more player relationship

management, CRM, rewards retention, making sure you have a really good relationship with your existing customers. So I think it's a replacement. It's not necessarily a killing fields. It's just it's just a recind kind of tooling of understanding. I mean we'll see what happens. I think what will happen is there'll be a big like let's get rid of all of our content. Let's get rid of all of that stuff. And then they'll realize that they gone too far and they'll start rehiring again. But maybe in a different way, but no, there's definitely again like I just built the dashboard last night. The dashboard that I always

wanted again just kind of built it in an hour that I couldn't get in two years. So it's those sort of things are just unbelievable. Data science and all those kinds of things you can put into the LLMs. That's just amazing. But there is a limit, right? And we'll hit that limit quite soon where people start to stop trusting it or the costs of running these things are so high that they're going to put the charges in. So anthropic might become very very expensive more expensive than you can afford. So you know don't build your business on that stuff too early because you know you

might end up costing more than you think. So Tom, you know, Tom Golanis is asking, uh, having worked in the broader affiliate marketing world previously. What's one thing that exists as a standard practice that I gaming has simply failed to adopt and should? >> Data privacy seems to be completely ignored. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've seen a secret list of 50,000 players with all their details on it. I mean, this is unbelievable. It's shocking every time I see it. And then people just happily stuck him into their dataces. But then on the other hand, it's a virtual product. So it

actually moves faster than e-commerce. E-commerce is limited by things like delivery returns and all those kinds of things you get when you're shipping products and product availability. And the profit margins are much much lower in retail than on gaming. And and that can be a good and a bad thing because they're making so much money. Oh, there's so much money to make. It draws in some very interesting characters that you probably wouldn't see so much of. You do see it in e-commerce. And of course you see there's plenty of uh you know bad affiliates there and their cookie stuffing and dropping and all the other

things that you don't tend to see so much here but this is a much more enjoyable industry to be in. I mean there's so many events there's so many opportunities to to meet people. It's like every week there's another thing and in retail you don't have I mean you might you might have one a quarter if if you're lucky unlucky but I think that's the main difference is is really around data and and what people are prepared to do and not do. It feels much more sharky in this world, of course. >> Well, one of the things I heard you saying before, Richard, especially in

e-commerce, because slower margin, there's so much more focus on yield, whereas, you know, when you think about the different stages of players and maybe the different buckets that you would put them in from a more traditional CRM perspective in in affiliate in I gaming, it's more about the acquisition, like the initial thing rather than the value optimization. >> Well, yeah, exactly. And I think the industry from affiliate point of view has been totally addicted to free traffic from Google. And that's not something you'd necess ease because that's the voucher codes, but that was never the real kind of focusing point of what it is. You've

got things like close user groups got blue light card or you've got money saving expert or deal. There's communities of users that are very a have a lot of affinity with affiliates that you don't really get. I mean, affiliate would use one of game manager sites or one of legend sites or one of gambling sites. They just flip around. There's no relationship to it. Even Ask Gamblers and Casino Guru, they're just there to moan about when they haven't got paid, they got the payouts. That's kind of what that is. I just don't think they I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't feel as

though they're fighting on their side. Whereas in some of these cases like Top Cashback or QuickCo, it feels like they are trying to bring the right deals into them to get discounts. It's much less sophisticated in in our gaming in terms of attribution and who's driving sales and the layers of influence. I mean, there's a bigger debate now, isn't there, in this industry about influences and whether they're worth it or not. But I think that's the wrong question. If an influencer is raising your brand and making your brand well known, there can be a lagging factor, but people remember it as long as it's promoted

enough. You don't have to get an FTD on day three. You just need to make sure that there's an affinity between that influencing brand and actually your brand. >> Yeah. I think that's always historically been the difficulty in I gaming. You know, there is so much focus on direct instant ROI and direct traffic rather than brand building and long-term value creation because it's not directly measurable, right? And that's the hard piece and I think that's as margins get squeezed and >> and it's the opportunity. If you look at those SERs that you're seeing at the moment with these guys and it's like best non-gamtop casino

UK, you know.com, that's not that's not a brand and that's just a funnel and those funnels can be replaced tomorrow. And I know everyone's chasing the money today, but if you can build a good brand that people trust and you've got the relationship from a CRM point of view and they really believe in you and they go to you first, they don't need Google. They'll just follow you wherever you go. That's very important that people get, but it takes years to do that. You can't just do it overnight. And the challenge with branding is I think it was Rory Southern somebody said it you know

the brand challenge is to make something new feel familiar and something familiar feel new there's always the challenge of that so you if you've got a very strong brand like toothpaste or cereal you're always having to strengthen the brand invention and if you've got a brand new casino or brand new whatever you need to make it feel familiar that's why they do these attachments to famous people to say well actually you know if they attach themselves to you can trust us but that's always the brand challenge of anything. Thanks. And and the last question is from Josh, founder, CEO, two businesses, and he asks, "If

you were running a UK focused eye gaming affiliate business today and been heavily reliant on SEO and just taken a major hit to traffic and revenue, like everybody, what would you do over the next 6 to 12 to rebuild it into something more durable? And what is the one thing most people in that situation are getting wrong right now?" you know SEO affiliation right now is a totally rims and red ocean with the players in and they're just so I think you've got to build and I'm having this conversation now with myself you know should I build another affiliate using the sort of e-commerce principles

that I know and yeah I would do but I would start as a user group I would start with 50 50 people that you know are loyal players I'd start with a small group of people whether it's a WhatsApp group or Telegram group or something and then build it that way the social media to a more a web media based or even an app media or product and go that way. I certainly wouldn't try and get number one on Google tomorrow because there's just too many sharks in that water. You need to work out where the blue ocean is. The blue ocean is an open

ocean you got to yourself and also really focus on a particular niche because if you're going for all players, I know that you know poker players but they're not the same and you got girls and boys and you've got older and younger and you've got people in one country, another country. It's all about niche to get going. And then once you can get that niche going, it's about pushing out from there. >> Yeah, makes sense. Blue ocean versus red ocean. I always love that concept. >> With the tax rises in the UK now, it's the reddest of red oceans. It's going to be so difficult

to do anything. It cost a fortune to get anywhere. >> Okay, that's my my question from the group. Last one from me, mate. if you like if you would go back to kind of where you were starting out as a as a new CEO at Game Lounge when you first moved into into eye gaming. What's something that now in retrospect you would kind of tell yourself to do differently in your first let's say 3 to 6 months if anything? >> I don't think I'd have changed anything in the first 6 months. I probably year two may have been a bit more aggressive on pushing strategy

away from SEO but I don't know. I've got no regrets. There's nothing you can do about it, so there's no point. I'm looking forward to the next whatever it might be. I I No, there's nothing I would change. Nothing at all. I think it was a good stint. I cleaned the business up. It's in a much better position structurally than it was. The guys are in there and they're going to do well. >> I love it, man. All right, Richard. Thank you very much for uh for being so open and honest and talking, spending your time together today. It's been fantastic. Thank you. >> Thanks

very much, Leo. It was great. Thank you. >> Thank you for listening to the i Gaming Leader podcast. If you're a VP, a director, founder or an executive in I gaming, making the biggest decisions alone, that's exactly what I've built I gaming lead a mastermind for. Small inner circles of vetted senior executives, weekly hot seats, and accountability from people who understand the effects of the decisions that you need to make. Find out more and apply at igamingleer.com. And a final thanks to our sponsor, Sumsup, the full cycle verification platform for i gaming operators. Player onboarding, AML, fraud prevention, all in one place. More at samsub.com/gambling. See

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