The three steps you need to win are to crawl, walk, run

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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Candace Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: So Ron, welcome to Candace Podcast and I should say to people that we have met in the past, so there may be some familiarity that isn't always the case on these things.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: But as I say to everybody that comes on the first thing is, you know, people probably don't know who Ron Townshend is.
[00:31] SPEAKER_00: And so tell us a little bit about yourself, your entrepreneurial journey, you don't feel the 25 minutes that we're going, you know, why you started it and where it is today.
[00:43] SPEAKER_00: And in your industry, which is really the media side of things, you know, what the future, what do you, what you see the future of that might be basically.
[00:59] SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks Phil, nice to see you again. It's been a while and what a pleasure to be on your show.
[01:05] SPEAKER_01: I am an entrepreneur in the media and entertainment industry, also heavily covering the tech side of the business.
[01:14] SPEAKER_01: I've been involved in the industry for my entire career. I come from the television industry.
[01:19] SPEAKER_01: And the global industry, which is where I started my career pass 35 years or so ago, it's got to be almost 35 years.
[01:30] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm an entrepreneur. I've actually had, after I graduated from University of Edinburgh in Scotland with a graduate degree in English and communications.
[01:39] SPEAKER_01: I worked for MediaSet in Italy, which was an interesting challenge and learned the television industry.
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: Went from there in the middle of a recession in the early 90s, back to Canada, to my family and picked up with through my father relationship that led to me founding a company called CypherTech Systems Inc.
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: It was a technology company for providing any piracy technology to the media, music industry and the film and television business.
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: It was a great learning experience. We raised tens of millions of dollars and created some wonderful technology.
[02:16] SPEAKER_01: It commercially was not as successful as one would have liked and that led to its being wound up and my founding another company called AudioTrack Watermark Solutions in 1995.
[02:33] SPEAKER_01: And that was much more successful, actually, and we raised enormous amount of capital and deployed it.
[02:39] SPEAKER_01: I think I left the business when we were over 400 people in the company.
[02:44] SPEAKER_01: That really was a great success story and that went off to do other things.
[02:48] SPEAKER_01: I ultimately decided to move on and take what had been a serial entrepreneurial background and become an entrepreneur, a parallel entrepreneur, four other people, and essentially do what I do as a business to productize the idea of helping people grow,
[03:12] SPEAKER_01: and finance, and succeed with their businesses.
[03:17] SPEAKER_01: Always in film and television, media, advertising, publishing, and the music industry.
[03:22] SPEAKER_01: And that's that TMT, which is really technology, media, and telecoms, has become my mainstay all these years.
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: And in 2000, I found a Cameron Thompson group, which is my own company.
[03:38] SPEAKER_01: I think the first office we had was in Milan, until they were where I started the business, and helped.
[03:45] SPEAKER_01: But then one of the leading founding conglomerates, the Medvede family, they grow their company.
[03:51] SPEAKER_01: It was quite exciting and fast-paced and that led to other clients in the Italian market and then being brought into the UK market to help people at Kierch.
[04:04] SPEAKER_01: And a business that they started in the UK that was quite exciting.
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: And I got involved in that business that owned Formula One racing and World Cup soccer and helped them essentially create a digital business with their various rights that they owned.
[04:23] SPEAKER_01: And so I went off and creating all kinds of companies and financing those for them.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: And then I was a newlyweds, so I had to come back to Canada to see my wife and started family.
[04:37] SPEAKER_01: And so we started the office in Toronto here.
[04:40] SPEAKER_01: And we had to sort of try and go to Toronto, Milan, London, that was our business.
[04:44] SPEAKER_01: And that went on for years and years. And actually, it still exists today.
[04:47] SPEAKER_01: And so my business is now 23 years old.
[04:51] SPEAKER_01: And I have been involved in over 110 client mandates where I've been involved and been engaged to help companies finance themselves, help them package what they have, help them address expansion opportunities.
[05:10] SPEAKER_01: And that's always done with a team that's led by me and others in my team.
[05:16] SPEAKER_01: And we have these sort of many kind of groups that we create a sustainable business model.
[05:22] SPEAKER_01: And then we basically spearhead whatever is required, whether that's sales and marketing, whether it's finance, whether it's corporate development, whether it's technology development.
[05:30] SPEAKER_01: But it is always acting as an entrepreneur.
[05:34] SPEAKER_01: I don't see for hire, but I think regularly my company has been referred to as Black Ops in Changes.
[05:43] SPEAKER_01: And the concept is that we get sort of parachute it into to fix or to create a sort of a roadmap or to basically execute.
[05:53] SPEAKER_01: And so I've been interim everything.
[05:56] SPEAKER_01: CF CEO and head of Corp Dev and director and executive chairman and whether it's in the film studios industry, which I've been involved in,
[06:07] SPEAKER_01: and formulating and building several major studio complexes around the world, whether that's in Italy, in the UK, here in Toronto, in states, in Taiwan, in mainland China.
[06:22] SPEAKER_01: I've been involved heavily in the film studio industry.
[06:28] SPEAKER_00: So Ron, I'm listening to you about all these relationships.
[06:35] Speaker UNKNOWN: You are an entrepreneur and you've also been in the position.
[06:42] SPEAKER_00: You're an entrepreneur and as I said earlier, you're coming into that also, so you've been out of it for 23 years.
[06:51] SPEAKER_00: You've really built yourself a global operation fundamentally.
[06:58] SPEAKER_00: And you've met some fairly significant entrepreneurs.
[07:03] SPEAKER_00: Yes, a lot of the media business, but that's fine.
[07:08] SPEAKER_00: Do you think entrepreneurs are kind of wired differently as a unique compared to others?
[07:16] SPEAKER_00: Because you have that across the continents, you have the opportunity to meet people that have created things and often brought you in as a guide on them as well.
[07:28] SPEAKER_00: Do.
[07:29] SPEAKER_01: I think that we are wired a bit differently than many people out there.
[07:34] SPEAKER_01: And I also think it's not just simply a matter of there are sort of hunters and there are farmers, where there are people who go off and sort of generate and sort of go on the front lines and close business as opposed to those who basically mind and build and support.
[07:54] SPEAKER_01: I think this is something different.
[07:55] SPEAKER_01: I think entrepreneurship is one where it's a lot of thinking laterally.
[08:01] SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of survival and innovating, adapting constantly, whiteboarding and re-whiteboarding and re-whiteboarding, looking over your shoulder, optionality.
[08:12] SPEAKER_01: It's constantly having to find a way to differentiate so that you're always relevant and you're always on the cutting edge.
[08:21] SPEAKER_01: That's a concept in entrepreneurship.
[08:24] SPEAKER_01: And doing everything that it takes to get there and to be successful and to move the needle.
[08:29] SPEAKER_01: And so that is I think the, if there's anything that I am a company, but that I represent to customers or clients or companies in the inner industry,
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: is that I will do what is required to cause them to be successful.
[08:47] SPEAKER_01: Obviously always respecting ethical standards and compliance and and screw pulls and everything else and doing the fact that our industry is very small.
[08:57] SPEAKER_01: And it's, you always do the right thing.
[09:00] SPEAKER_01: And so ethics is such an important part of it.
[09:02] SPEAKER_01: And it's both people.
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: And so motivating people is a, because by yourself you can't do all that much without being able to leverage skill sets.
[09:13] SPEAKER_01: And whether those financial skill sets are marketing or legal or operational or technology, whatever.
[09:20] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I think you do being an entrepreneur, I think courage is a significant attribute.
[09:28] SPEAKER_01: It's easy to say. It's hard to do.
[09:31] SPEAKER_01: It's terrifying. I think regularly I'm, I think I'm a person who's motivated through fear, fear of failure.
[09:41] SPEAKER_01: Fear of not, you know, not living up to your potential fear of being, you know, mundane and not, and not, accomplishing things.
[09:49] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'm a, I am a driven person. I don't know how that happened, but I have been pretty much my whole life.
[09:57] SPEAKER_01: So it's, I'm very, very driven.
[10:00] SPEAKER_01: And I, it's a disease, I think, that entrepreneurs suffer from.
[10:04] SPEAKER_01: And it's so on the one hand, it's all very wonderful.
[10:06] SPEAKER_01: And the other hand, it is, it is absolutely, you know, it's a, it's something that needs a remedy.
[10:13] SPEAKER_01: And the remedy is the expression of how you get from A to B with that, with an idea, with a company, with a concept, with everything.
[10:23] SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I've a lot of entrepreneurs, emerging, emerging, you know, owners of emerging companies, being media technology, all kinds of sectors.
[10:35] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's, it's a being successful.
[10:40] SPEAKER_00: Inevitably, they come to that financing, you know, side of things, which you've been into.
[10:46] SPEAKER_00: You know, can you give us a kind of, you know, guide on, you know, what are the key elements that you think are needed to attract and win the confidence of investors?
[10:57] SPEAKER_00: Because to me, let's talk about money, unless you've got confidence, you don't got money kind of thing.
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: I think investors, well, there's the interest, it's different between investors versus lenders.
[11:13] SPEAKER_01: And sometimes they're one and the same, but I think the, they share that common, not just interest, but requirement that they can not just get a return on their investment.
[11:26] SPEAKER_01: And get their principal back, but also that it will be a healthy return.
[11:31] SPEAKER_01: And, and whatever they're getting involved in has some scalability.
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: So they can create a very positive ROI.
[11:38] SPEAKER_01: And I think that is something that, that investors seek.
[11:43] SPEAKER_01: All of the companies that we look at are at various stages of financial independence.
[11:53] SPEAKER_01: And, and having either demonstrated that they have the ability to, to be cash flow break even and profitable or not.
[12:04] SPEAKER_01: And so I think if you are an investor, you know, you will tend to look at a business both in terms of what is, how successful could this be?
[12:17] SPEAKER_01: What is it? What's the, you know, what are we talking about here? Is this going to be a, you know, as they say in the industry, this is going to be a, an eight bag or a 10 bag or how, how scalable is this idea? Is this business is not opportunity?
[12:30] SPEAKER_01: How much? And then, and then you say, if you intuitively look at the company and the companies in the, I don't know, it's a blockchain company or it's a, it's a film business or it's a whatever the business doesn't really matter.
[12:43] SPEAKER_01: You know, can it get there? Do you instinctively feel that this is something that's going to make it that's going to have this kind of ability to be super profitable?
[12:54] SPEAKER_01: So that first of all kind of gets you in the tent and gets you looking at it. And then, you know, my job is always to say, okay, well, how, how is that possible?
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: So it's really the engineering of, you know, what is, where are you today? How do you get to where you need to be to show that kind of scalability?
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: And almost engineering backward to where you are today in terms of how do you get to cash flow break even and beyond? And so I think I tend to look at businesses almost like a senior lender in the sense that we,
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: you were very conservative in terms of cash flows and in terms of understanding, you know, every deal that we look at, we kind of treat as though it's, you know, you're looking for a car loan.
[13:46] SPEAKER_01: So the idea is, you know, it's all very routine stuff, you know, what kind of collateral have you got? What, you know, what's has the business scaling, you know, what are, what's your uptake rate? What are your assumptions on pricing and on uptake?
[14:00] SPEAKER_01: And so essentially, it's always about trying to finance the deficit, if you like the delta between, you know, what's happening with your cost side and where your revenues are and until you get to a point where your cash flow break even and beyond.
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: And that's, you know, that is ideal for the companies that we get behind. That is the challenge. After that, once they're cash flow break even, it becomes,
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: it is a different kind of a, of a structuring of the offering, but I tend to find that, you know, we, we really focus on putting these steps in place to cause these companies to reflect their, their financials in a way that we can show and de-risk getting to cash flow break even and beyond.
[14:53] SPEAKER_00: What, like the best piece of advice you've ever received, you know, the one you carry around in your back pocket that you, you keep going back to kind of thing.
[15:07] SPEAKER_02: I've had many. I think one of the ones is, is, is that you have to have faith and you have to believe in yourself.
[15:21] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's important for you to maintain that leadership and faith, you know, irrespective of what kind of obstacles you encounter along the way, because those are the people that tend to be the ones who are that very few that are very successful.
[15:40] SPEAKER_01: I had a guy that the day I talked to in the phone as Italian guy actually. And I'm not going to finance this company.
[15:49] SPEAKER_01: Because he has a different view on things, but I really, I knew he was a superb entrepreneur and that he will make it just by the way, the kind of fearlessness, the kind of not self confidence, just the kind of focus and the ability to kind of believe in himself.
[16:13] SPEAKER_01: Because everybody around him essentially will say no, and we'll say, you know, here are all the reasons why this is not going to succeed. Like, good tell, he was that guy. And I love when I see guys like that, because that's the way I am right.
[16:26] SPEAKER_01: So you tend to have a lot of empathy for people who are like you in that way.
[16:31] SPEAKER_01: For a bunch of other reasons, I won't be involved with him for in the short term, but it's exactly the kind of guy when I saw out of us like that was me 20 years ago.
[16:41] SPEAKER_01: And I just love this kind of his fearless and he's focused and he's everybody's trying to throw, you know, little obstacles in his way.
[16:51] SPEAKER_01: And I know he's going to go over that I know he's just going to stay focused and get that.
[16:55] SPEAKER_00: You've got a couple of new things going on. I mean, what are you, you know, most excited about in your business these days?
[17:03] SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you, I mean, I obviously in the camera Thompson business goes on and I've got a lot of help these days, because I needed.
[17:10] SPEAKER_01: And that's and we've got lots of cool stuff going on as always.
[17:14] SPEAKER_01: So many different parts of our of the film and television and media industry.
[17:18] SPEAKER_01: So we've been a bunch of active things that are happening, but I think the probably the most exciting thing at the moment is liquid media group, which I got asked to join a buddy just over a year ago, CEO and have been involved in taking this public company that trades on Nasdaq.
[17:36] SPEAKER_01: It's symbols YVR and is been around for a little while and helping if you like recalibrate the business into into something which is is very exciting and has a massive value proposition for the independent production industry for film and television, which is being underserved right now.
[17:58] SPEAKER_01: It's just there's a massive demand for if you like a competent business solution or partner to help support independent content creators be it for film or television.
[18:10] SPEAKER_01: And it's such a something that I saw at camera Thompson for the last 10 years or 12 years.
[18:15] SPEAKER_01: And it's been I've constantly been involved in helping on a kind of an ad hoc or a project by project basis, whether it's financing a TV series or series or financing films.
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: I've been so many some quite big films, some quite successful films actually, we're saying goodness, we were integral to getting them done.
[18:35] SPEAKER_01: And but you know what was broken is there's a lot broken and what I saw was an opportunity to fix it with a scalable solution that was is structured where we could utilize this public company as a perfect vehicle to to to service this need to finance that.
[18:54] SPEAKER_01: That if you feel like that equation and provide an elegant solution which is scalable international and we're in the process of doing it now we've announced four acquisitions three of which we've closed.
[19:07] SPEAKER_01: And so now we're a real business we've got you know revenues and we've got people and technology and we have an entire solution which now is becoming a real something.
[19:19] SPEAKER_01: And you know we've it takes some some convincing people around the table it takes demonstrating that actually your big idea is sensible and it's a bit confusing at the beginning because it's not kind of it's not one size fits all and it's not just one thing that we're doing we're doing something which is quite sophisticated and needed.
[19:45] SPEAKER_01: And we're doing it in a way which I think we can we can build an enormous business so I'm very very excited about that I'm spending all my time on it and it's a stencil the all my time on it as I said thank God I've got some good help in care of Thompson because I need it now.
[20:02] SPEAKER_00: Good you know if you had to be one more to describe yourself what would it be and why you used to work driven but I think a little deeper that maybe you know.
[20:19] SPEAKER_02: I'm a catalyst that's for sure you know I get sat down.
[20:25] SPEAKER_01: You know I think I've heard myself described as a you know as a hunter as a person who goes off and and accomplishes stuff I never really referred to as a quote unquote manager although it is one of the things that I have also been told that I'm pretty good at so I have had to manage I do manage a lot of people I have my own particular style to it which I found has been incredibly effective.
[20:55] SPEAKER_01: The manager would not be one of those things although a lot of people say that that about me that I'm pretty good manager I don't think so I think I'm just I'm effective maybe it's it's that I'm so busy building but I am a builder I build stuff that's what I did.
[21:12] SPEAKER_00: It's gone to some less serious questions what books are you actually they're pretty serious for me there's anyway what books are you reading now or listening to whichever and what would you recommend someone pick up read and you know.
[21:32] SPEAKER_01: The the autobiography of Mel Brooks it is absolutely read that is going to get it this weekend I cannot say enough good things about the guy is just I mean look I work pretty hard I work all the time so I don't have enormous amount of time to read these days but when I do that's what I'm reading at the moment I read the Elon Musk autobiography that was that was interesting as it is a little.
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: It was a little hard going frankly but he's there's a guy just torment he's torment that's the word I think I was looking for that I think that's a good one I'm sorry about.
[22:11] SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's it's be called worse than that yeah I'm I'm tormented and a good way and a good way I love building stuff and doing stuff and and and you know moving the needle and causing people to be successful that's that's definitely what I love to do but definitely torment.
[22:30] SPEAKER_00: Another fun thing you a morning or night person.
[22:34] SPEAKER_01: You know I used to be a night person and now I'm a morning person and I because I have kids and their teens and someone's going to get up early and get you know get their asses out of bed and everything so I become a morning person I am I really like it now I didn't used to but at night I'm not I used to be a night I'll stay up to two three in the morning every night now I just just no way I just.
[22:56] SPEAKER_01: I got too much to do during the day is I can't do it anymore.
[23:00] SPEAKER_00: And this is a tough one to you know it was no crap but you you've got years of crap yeah.
[23:09] SPEAKER_00: You know I have four steps to to reach it go in the project starting focus execute okay I'm going to give you three steps is there is there are three steps.
[23:24] SPEAKER_01: Then you take you know when you're building what we're more than three but what would be the key steps the three steps so you then you say it goes through it goes two different ways one is with everything you kind of have to set your expectations first and so for me that's always I say and thing that everyone knows I say all the time and it's crawl walk run.
[23:51] SPEAKER_01: So first of all is the approach what we're let's set the kind of expected course your crawl walk run we're going to go slow we're going to then we're going to walk and then we're going to do something.
[24:01] SPEAKER_01: And I think for me that 50,000 foot view of whatever I do getting the big picture of wherever I'm going into situation on the analysis is credible it takes them it takes a beat or two to get there to understand.
[24:16] SPEAKER_01: So what are all the variables that you have there with the building blocks what are the pieces what's missing and then it's saying looking at sideways and saying what could you know first of all what is the addressable opportunity here and you know how could I change things around to really be a powerful thing and so then it becomes road map and a sensible way crawl walk run again and then it's so good.
[24:46] SPEAKER_01: So it's building out an execution and you back in step by step and all along the way you've on the one hand you have operational on the other hand you have constant I don't want to say sales but it's persuasion it's education it's evangelism it's marketing and it's everything else in one supports the other and so that is definitely.
[25:11] SPEAKER_01: The way that I if I was to put into three phases on the kind of execution phase that would be definitely formulate the big idea, create a road map execute and and always do it in a sensible fashion which is crawl walk run you create you're never going to be able to hit the ground running out of the gates with unless you've done your own work unless you put a plan in place until you built an infrastructure or a place where you're going to be able to do it.
[25:40] SPEAKER_01: At least you start building an infrastructure to execute and and then you stay on top of it and you follow it through when you methodically step you know step by step you know you shaper on that process through the completion completion it's a years I mean you know some of these companies I'm involved and I've hit.
[25:57] SPEAKER_01: I think of a devastating and it's really we were five or six year execution telenoir was eight year contract revolving contracts.
[26:07] SPEAKER_01: ITV in England I mean my god for years we were for those guys so many clients we incredibly interesting people but they tend to look to me to have a very structured approach.
[26:21] SPEAKER_01: Not at the gates but once I've done my kind of I figured out kind of what's the big picture that I'm able to structure something where at least I know understand what we've got to work with and to create some directions and I'm going to do it.
[26:36] SPEAKER_01: Always some some flexibility so you have to change course or you have to abandon something and move into another direction you've got that plan B you know in your pocket.
[26:48] SPEAKER_02: So in business to the business one what's your favorite word and what you least favorite word why.
[27:00] SPEAKER_02: Can.
[27:04] SPEAKER_00: Can is my favorite can can do yeah what you least favorite word I guess can would be at least for now.
[27:13] SPEAKER_00: It's pretty pretty up.
[27:16] SPEAKER_01: It's it's there's no other word those are those are the words.
[27:21] SPEAKER_00: It's really good.
[27:23] SPEAKER_00: You know we could talk all day but unfortunately we're reaching that time that I said we would and it's just flown by.
[27:34] SPEAKER_00: Someone listen to this how do they get hold of Iran without being intrusive but how can you get to.
[27:42] SPEAKER_01: Probably the best place at the moment is through liquid media where I sit every day all day long and I'm spending enormous amount of time through either my is it our Thompson at liquid media group dot CEO.
[27:57] SPEAKER_01: Or just bring me up on the phone and and but I'm on the website liquid media group dot CEO is all my details are there I'm easily.
[28:07] SPEAKER_01: I contact the boat and I tend to get back to people pretty quickly.
[28:12] SPEAKER_00: Ron thanks so much it was really great seeing you again and great having you on the show and so similarly so good.
[28:19] SPEAKER_01: Some good words in there thank you felt listen I really appreciate you having me on and great to see you again and any questions that you have or or any of your.
[28:29] SPEAKER_01: Your listeners are in an audience I'd be happy to.
[28:33] SPEAKER_01: Thank you see you soon.
[28:35] SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
[28:36] SPEAKER_01: Cheers.