Introduction 

Joining us in this episode is James Brown, founding director of Mobiloo, the world's first mobile accessible toilet and changing place designed to cater to disabled people requiring extra equipment and space. Mobiloo has created a huge range of opportunities for tens of thousands of disabled people around the UK.

Show Notes

James shares his journey, highlighting his motivation to improve accessibility and inclusivity for disabled people, stemming from his own experiences as a visually impaired individual and a Paralympic athlete. His flight in becoming a social entrepreneur exemplifies the power of innovation driven by personal values and a deep understanding of the community's genuine needs.

In this episode, we also cover:

• From A Paralympic Athlete to Social Entrepreneur
• Making Your Brand Stand Out
• Solving A Genuine Need
• Branding Is Also Culture
• Choosing Your Brand Values
• Excellence In A Business
• The Power of Word of Mouth

Facebook: Mobiloo UK

Website: Mobiloo UK

Valuable Resources:⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Transcript

Shireen: All right. Hello, and welcome to the Brand Tuned Podcast. I'm delighted to be welcoming James Brown to the podcast to discuss his branding experiences with me, James, welcome. Do introduce yourself and your company, and then we'll get started.

James: Thank you very much, Sharon. Lovely to see you. Yes. So my name is James Brown, and I, I am the funding director of a project called Mobiloo. And so Mobiloo is the world's first mobile accessible toilet for disabled people. And specifically for those who require extra equipment and space when using the bathrooms. So if one needs to be hoisted from the wheelchair onto the toilet, or onto an adult size, changing bed, all of that equipment, and of course, the space for carers, family members to assist with changing, that all comes inside a mobile space, which means that disabled people can attend public events, music events, sporting events, go to the seaside as the New Year's Day Parade in London, whenever you and I want to go to and for whatever reason others are excluded from we can solve that problem by providing the the toilet that these guys need when they get to the event.

Shireen: Wow, what a wonderful idea. So were you already a business owner when you had the idea, or?

James: I've dabbled on and off sort of in entrepreneurialism throughout my life. But I've kind of looked at, at what my actual motivation has been for for, you know, sort of my odd mixture, my old kind of composite career, I guess, you know, I've been teaching I've worked in local authority. I've been in business. But I think there's an underlying sense of duty sense. So it's kind of social enterprise a sense of wanting to make the world better for I'm disabled and visually impaired. So it's about trying to improve the world for other disabled people in any kind of entrepreneurial endeavor I've ever done has kind of had a big element of that in it.

Shireen: Okay, so you had the idea. Tell me, how did you go about implementing the idea? What were your first steps?

James: It's really interesting. I guess Originally, the idea came from a piece of work that I was doing with a local authority at the time back in sort of the late 2009 10, somewhere around about there. And we were running a variety of events for disabled young people. And we call the program of course we can. This was based on an experience I had his nine year old child, I was growing up in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, I knew where I was, I was off school sick a lot. I was sent off to a terrible boarding school in Belfast. And you know, there were bombings and shootings going on around us. It was traumatic, it was horrid. I didn't like it, I withdrew, I was depressed. My GP prescribed driving my mom's car on a local racing circuit, as a means of addressing my kind of depression, anxiety, and so on. And it changed my life. So throughout my life, I have been involved in setting up other programs that support other disabled people to have, you know, similar life changing, or even just ordinary experiences that they wouldn't be able to have otherwise. So the idea kind of came out of there, of course, these things don't happen. Just through the efforts of one individual. There were a lot of people involved in the early days, I was actually competing as a paralympic athlete at the time I was completed and competed in London 2012 as a cyclist. But my involvement with the group of people who were kind of making mobility happen at the time was to keep coming back and saying, Okay, guys, no matter how difficult this might seem right now, this is going to be a game changer. We have to keep going. And I had that privilege of not being too closely involved with being able to come back and look and say, Guys, this is worth doing. It's really hard. I know, we have to keep pushing. This is remarkable. And I'm going to talk more about the remarkable pneus of it. So I could then see that there was a need for somebody with a little bit of entrepreneurial flair to take this on and kind of turn it into something real something into into kind of a social enterprise, if you like. So that's kind of where my personal rule really kicked in. And where I started to kind of drive the drive it forward. I inherited the name I have to say so that that kind of came from the committee of people who did some of the grunt work and some of the investigations into design and so on. and feasibility. But I kind of got involved at the point where I could see that the business had a massive potential, not just in the UK, but globally. And that was kind of where the branding journey began.

Shireen: Okay, so did they have to design a specific type of glue? Or how did that part of it work?

James: Yeah. So if we just think about the kind of the physical stuff, the mechanics are, what we've got a van with an empty space in the back, the sort of thing you would you hire to move here to, you know, to do a self home move, if you like three and a half ton van, we add to it a lift, that can then lift somebody in a wheelchair inside it in. Then we also add in an accessible toilet with plenty of space and grab rails, accessible washbasin, shower facilities, adult size changing bed, and then we put a full ceiling track hoist in it as well, so that somebody could be lifted from their chair. So, in a way, there's nothing really unique about that. I mean, anybody can take a van and put some stuff in it. So it wasn't really possible to protect the design as such, there was nothing patentable about what we were doing. We did look into that. But what was remarkable, I think, was we started a whole new market where one didn't exist previously, I think I think that was the key.

Shireen: Right? So Mobiloo is is quite evocative of what it is. So a committee had had designed this name had come up with the name.

James: Yeah, yes. Yeah. And when you think about it, you know, it makes complete sense. You know, it's a mobile loop essentially, has a nice little ring to it. It has really stuck in and it's proved itself to be a really good choice.

Shireen: Okay, so how did you go about creating the business and brand in terms of who did you I mean, not the person, but how did you choose someone to work with?

James: On the project, we spoke to a number of different people. So we got sort of three agencies to pitch in ideas, and they were all really, really different. One Agency wanted us to go with a sort of a black and gold, sort of image, black van gold rating, you know, looking at the kind of the, the sort of the luxury side of what it was we were doing, you know, because we provide these units, we provide somebody who takes them to the event, they keep it clean between every single use and of course, that is essential for many of our many of our beneficiaries who are medically vulnerable. So, so one agency kind of really took that as their lead. Another. Another agency was really, really interested in understanding us as individuals, those of us who were behind the project, and I think in conversations with the agency that we ultimately chose, it was because they wanted not to tell us what to do, but to get to know us and get to know what the business idea was. Because this was something that had never happened before. There was no blueprint, there was nothing to copy. At the time, I was reading a book by Seth Godin, who's an American marketing author. He one of his books, which I remember to this day, it was called Purple Cow. That's That's the excuse my Northern Irish accent, purple Cosio W. story that goes down if you know the book sharing, but you do, yeah. But this Purple Cow in the field, and it goes, Oh, my goodness, that is remarkable. So he then goes on to sort of write a book about how sort of the conventional approaches to marketing and so on are, you know, possibly had their time. And he talks an awful lot about, you know, making your business remarkable. And if it's remarkable people will come. And it's no accident that purple is one of the two main colors of the Mobile Theme. Because we really took a big lead, because everything he was saying and that but really, really applied to us, you know, and it has proven itself really over the history of Mobiloo. We've never advertised everything has happened through word of mouth as soon as you get one of these vehicles out at an event. It's visually vibrant. The coloring is really striking. And again, that's no accident. You know, somebody like me is visually impaired, conspire to Mobiloo from a long way away, because it's such a distinctive color.

Shireen: And we know exactly what is the van purple or what?

James: It's a combinationof purple and teal. And again, the teal is no accident, because another author who's significantly influenced kind of our culture and structure is a guy called Frederic Laloux, who's written a book about reinventing organizations. And he, he color codes, organizational structures, through their evolution, arriving at, you know, sort of what he calls an evolution of consciousness, or an organization, which is fit for the modern day fit for the modern world, if you like, and the color he gives to that is teal, of course, he's not the only one who talks about kind of teal in terms of organizational structure, but that's where I picked it up from. So yes, that's why we have that color combination. And the agency we worked with, were very happy and excited actually, to discover that something that they were going to propose had meaningful context and had a degree of richness in terms of the sort of the thinking and the writing that others have done. That kind of led us into the ultimate choice of color brand. You know, all the all the stuff that goes with that if you like.

Shireen: Yeah, so were you self funded at that time, or had you raised investment.

James: We said it was a community interest company, I am very personally in engaged in the whole notion of social enterprise. I think that in many contexts, social enterprises are the organizations of the future. We, we are eligible for grant funding. But if you set up our Community Interest Company, which is like a sort of a limited company, but it has an agreed community purpose, which the Community Interest Company regulator has to agree with, we also have an asset lock so that, you know, directors can't just simply disappear off with the assets from the company. It's all very, very strictly controlled, but at the same time, it's small enough not to become unwieldy. And it's also eligible for grant funding. So for me, it was the perfect vehicle for this kind of project.

Shireen: So we, you talk in terms of we, who else was involved, I mean, apart from yourself.

James: And well, there are that, yes, there were other. So we started this off in the context of one social enterprise on one community interest company that was offering these activity opportunities with a local authority. This was in Gloucestershire, we moved to Mobiloo out of out of that entity because it was drowning it mobile, you took off really, really fascinating, the growth literally was exponential. You know, we went from 16 events with one vehicle in our first year to 278, with five vehicles, and then 1500, with a fleet of 10, in year three, was unbelievable.

Shireen: Through changing the structure of the business.

James: Just just the demand, the you know, the demand was just unbelievable, and still is. And so I did put quite a lot of my own money into the project at that point as well. I'm not a wealthy person, but I'm still committed to what my blue is and what it can do, and to its future potential, that I kind of risk to the vast majority of my life savings on it. And that was kind of what enabled it to grow, as well. And, you know, with the structure that we that we have, and I'll talk more about we in a minute that that structure allows for that combination Investment grant giving earned income, it to me, it seems like a personal preference combination. So when I say we Yes, we have so we took Mobilio out of its original container, if you like because it was swamping it. And we set up a sort of a triangle of three entities, one being a charity, that took care of the operational side of things. So it owned the vehicles employed the staff, it took the phone calls, it made the arrangements and got the vehicles to the events and provided the service. But we then have another innovation on because we recognize that myself and two other colleagues who have a long history in vehicle conversion. So we work together in a small workshop. And we kind of we're constantly innovating we're constantly coming up with new ideas, better designs, whole new concepts, and we've got one just about come off the production line, which could be a global game changer for individuals and families. Because this will be a mobile view that an individual can tow behind their car. It's not a three and a half to half ton van. It's a nice, small, lightweight unit, which has all of the kit that they need inside it for them to be

Shireen: Their own little loo.

James: Yeah, yeah. I mean, think about it, you know, if you're able to be wouldn't go if there was no loo there. So, if you need to change your battery, you need space for carers or family members to help you when you're in the bathroom. You know, an ordinary even an ordinary accessible toilet isn't big enough. So yeah, I mean, taking your own toy, the rescue if, if we can find a way of funding that it's obviously the perfect way of doing it. Yeah.

Shireen: It sounds brilliant. So how do you actually get paid? Is it the organize the event organizers who pay you?

James: Absolutely, yes. So we charge and the whole concept behind charging for the event was for the for the service was quite tricky at the start. Because we we looked at it, we said we could do this on a commercial basis. And we could charge sort of commercial rates. But what's going to happen? Most organizations, most event organizers for whom this was a brand new concept, you know, they most organized, most organizers don't know that there's a quarter of a million people in the UK who require these facilities, because those people don't go to their events because the facilities are there. So it's like, once folk become aware, then they go, oh, yeah, we get to we need to do this, this is the right thing to do. Arguably, we have a legal duty to do it. And we can earn more money at the turnstiles because we will have more customers coming in. So the challenge there was to say, Well, do we set this up as a commercial thing? The problem with that we could see was that many fewer people would have even considered hiring a mobile UI for their event. And to answer your question, yes, that's how we generate almost all of our income. So we set the bar as low as we could, in a way we set the bar low with, with the specific intention of rapid growth. And I think, based on the figures I gave earlier, I think, you know, it's pretty apparent that that was a successful strategy to pursue. Yeah, so So as I said, we are also eligible for grant funding. So we do bring in some grants whenever there's a specific piece of innovation work to do, or a particular project or whatever. But generally, the project is sort of self funded through charges to event organizers.

Shireen: Okay, so what did your branding give you? In terms of assets? What did what how did you? What did you come out with after that branding experience? And why did you understand the what and why of brand through the process as well?

James: I think I've come to understand it. I think maybe we were lucky in a way. In that we, you know Seth Godin have already mentioned, he talks about, you know, starting don't look for a gap in the market, create your own market. And that's what we did, inadvertently in response to a genuine need. We were solving a problem and we inadvertently created a whole new market that never existed before. So in terms of assets, yeah, the agency that worked with this, they were very, very committed very helpful. They loved what we did. And I've kind of been reading your emails recently, and looking at other to work on branding. And, you know, it is so clear that branding is not just the color scheme, the name, the fonts, the Logos, the trademarks, which you've got to register and protect other than that, it's also a culture. And we we had a very clear culture from the beginning, which was a culture of inclusion and openness and trust. And through social media, a sort of a big family has emerged of followers. And, you know, if, if we want opinions from either our users or our customers are more most often actually parents and carers of those who come to us the Mobiloo. We can just pick up the phone, or we can just get online. And we can say that we're thinking about this. What do you guys think? So having that kind of community involvement is a big part of the culture and a big part of the sense of belonging that people feel in relation to the brand. And it is really interesting, because of course, whenever you whenever you get a good idea, it's inevitable that others will copy it. And we're seeing that now. And nobody is coming close as far as we can see on the sort of community buy in. You know, the love for mobile is huge. And I think fit that is part of some kind of magical Package, which includes brand and community and the people behind the brand as well. So it's much bigger than just something that an agency can give you.

Shireen: Sure, but what did they give you? Did they do a website for you? So they suggested that your cars should be purple and teal?

James: They did the full design. And we work closely with them on that every time we came up with a new variation on sort of what our vehicles were going to be like, you know, they would jump in and provide sort of new ideas by Oh, okay, if you're moving the door to there, then maybe we can do this with a logo, or maybe we can turn that bit of graphic or writing around. So it was a very close working relationship with them. They, they themselves didn't do the design their website, somebody else did it. But of course, they were already heavily involved in terms of providing the, you know, all the right kind of color references and font references and other materials that they have worked on themselves.

Shireen: Sure, yeah. So did did they? Did you go through a workshop sort of with them to work out your values and what you stood for how you were going to be remarkable and all that?

James: Yeah, we did. Not, again, not directly with branding agency, but you know, working closely in parallel with them, we did bring in somebody to help us kind of do a values based workshop. You know, values is something that I'm very conscious of very aware of, I mean, I've done a TED talk, called what matters motivates. And, you know, it's about water, our individual core values and how they affect the choices we make in life, and therefore our motivation, because these things matter to us. So we're very conscious that companies often May, I don't know how other organizations come up with their list of values, but I have a little bit of insight through talking to others. And very often, it comes through a group of people sitting down saying, hey, what's our business? What value should this business have? What would values would others expect a business like this to have? So if it's a, you know, a doctor's surgery? Well, the customers will the patients want to know that there is a kind of a core value of, you know, care, and nurturing, and so on. And, you know, the list could go on there.

Shireen: So how do you come at it?

James: What we did was we brought in somebody who looked at us as individuals, and said, what motivates you guys on an individual basis. And that work was all done with that was done with a team of five that you had at the time. And the facilitator then took our kind of individual list of core values, and then plotted them sort of an event diagrams and write these whether over overlaps are, does it does this feel like Mobiloo does this feel like the team that people who are running this project? And we all agreed, we all bought in because it was quite simple to do that? Because we had gone about it in a sensible and individually focused process?

Shireen: Yeah, sure. I think the brand starts from the inside out. So given that there were five of you on the project that makes sense of your values. What are your values?

James: Really interesting. I mean, I've spent most of my life as a paralympic athlete, I've had a lot of success with, you know, gold medals world record that that that long career, 35 years. And most people would say, oh, yeah, winning is obviously a value. But actually, that's not really the case. For me, it's about excellence. It's about discovery, it's about fun, all of those core values are more than adequate to, you know, take you into a sporting career. And in in pursuit of being the best I could be a byproduct was that I want events, I won races. So I was sort of competing with myself, I was I was looking to see how you know how I could pursue the value of excellence if you like. And I did do a lot of different sports at a high level. And again, that's the kind of the discovery bit in me, you know, I get bored easily and I want to be doing new things. I also have a strong social justice value. And that is apparent through all of the work I've done. And I think I've already mentioned that so you know, the thread the common thread between running through my entire career. And you know, someone know that I've become a climate activist recently and again, that's just pursuing that social justice. This party if you'd like to say, hey, there's something that needs to we need to make a bit of a noise about here because, you know, those many, many don't have a voice to to speak here. But yeah, I mean, you know, other things that really motivate me. I mean love and fun. And I've already said sort of discovered rechallenge. Learning. Community again, that's sort of the big thing for me.

Shireen: Well, I can understand social justice community. But how does excellence come into a business like mobile?

James: It's about the entire process. So when we receive an inquiry, it's about making sure that the customer gets a timely, helpful, and accurate response. It's about looking at the entire booking process, making sure that it's absolutely spot on that this is the best we can make it be. It's making sure we're there on time, it's making sure we keep in contact with the higher you know, if a driver sort of hit some traffic on the way, it's about getting in touch with the organizers say, Look, don't worry, we're 15 minutes behind promise we'll be there, we'll get set up really quick, no doubt of that. And it's like then, how you interact with people when you're at the event on the ground. And this is something that's been really, really important to me, right from the very beginning, is that the most important people in the organization aren't those who sit in an office, and those who sit behind the computer. They're the people who go out on the road and do the difficult work of the organization. And those people are the public face of the organization, and how they interact with our users and with our customers is absolutely critical to our pursuit of excellence, then there's the kind of the builds, the way we build the vehicles. The attention to detail is incredible. My two colleagues on the build side of things, they are kind of the stereotypical, I mean, everybody has different sort of Team rules if you like and we use it, maybe you've heard the Belbin system here, but I'm going to refer to one of the rules, which is the Completer finisher role. My colleagues who work in the on the production side, they've, they tend, they lean very heavily into the complete finish side. So they are always pursuing excellence, whether it's in a concept or whether it's in the finished product. And you can see it you can see it in their thinking. I was listening to her think about different types of intelligence racing, one of my colleagues doesn't have a degree, you know, he, he wouldn't consider himself to be the most articulate person when it comes to, you know, writing or speaking or whatever. But boy, does he have an aesthetic intelligence in bucketloads, he can see what projects going to end up with, we're going to end up looking like before, we've even sort of drawn a sketch of it on a piece of paper. And you can see any follows that through so that that excellence, you know, it drives through every single aspect of the organization, you know, from the kind of the, the people behind the funding of it my role, you know, the people who do the build work, but most importantly, people who go out on the road and actually do the difficult side of the work.

Shireen: Yeah, thanks for explaining that. That's, I'm sure very interesting for viewers to, to understand how values have to run through everything you do, and your people. And you know, when you're recruiting, you can use that as a yardstick by which to decide whether to take someone on or not

James: On set. And if you look at any job ad I've ever written, the first three questions are about values. So if we're looking for somebody to join as what we call a driver facilitator, to be a person who takes one of the vehicles to the events and operates it, whilst they're, I mean, you could argue that they're just a toilet attendant, that they're there just to clean up other people's mess, right? But that's not what happens, they can see themselves, what differences makes the people who come to use the loo, they were really focused on the experience that the toilet enables. It's not about going to the toilet, it's about going to the thing you want to go to, and want to practice. That's right. So I kind of lost the line. There again.

Shireen: So it was just a comment that I can understand the importance.

James: Yes, it was it was a job. So to you know, start off by asking three questions about values, you know, do you want to be involved in an organization where your opinions matter and where you're hurt? Do you want to help to change lives of disabled people around the country? Do you enjoy traveling, meeting people going to different kinds of events? And then the next bit is then read on, you know, so you can, it's like the elevator pitch, you know, in business isn't that you start off with that kind of quick fire hook, which people can look at, and they can relate to straightaway or not, as they choose, they see fit. And if the kind of the questions about sort of what motivates them what their values are, resonate, then they will read on. And the result is that our recruitment is very, very straightforward. We invariably get great people applying to work. And we are quite good, I think are avoiding the people who may not be in the right headspace to do this work really well.

Shireen: Yeah, that's great. So I love the sound of this. Take your own loo, you should look into whether you can patent anything that you're developing. You know, this new?

James: Let's, let's talk about that another time. Yeah, obviously, that's the I don't want to talk about people. You know, what, by constantly being on the podcast, but But yes, we probably haven't got the time.

Shireen: Yeah, no, it sounds like a brilliant idea. Really. Yeah.

James: I wish I could say more of it, for obvious reasons. I can?

Shireen: No, no, you shouldn't actually, because the whole point of patenting is that it must be kept secret, until you've actually applied for a patent, otherwise, you lose the possibility of patenting. Great, so it sounds like a wonderful business, wonderful idea you had and much needed really in the world. But I imagine also non disabled people would need access to lose as well. I mean, you know, people as they get older, or pregnant moms, etc, often, the facilities aren't adequate for them.

James: So we've got a very limited capacity. So we use a thing called cassette toilet in our vehicles. So it's like, do we get in a motorhome or caravan? When it fills up, we have to take we have to take what's called cassette read about we have to go on tip that summer. So we can't have a very heavy sort of flow of people through. And bear in mind most, most of the people who genuinely need mobility, will use the Change bed. So they will use you know, adult size nappies or pallets or whatever. So the biggest demand is more on our bed than it is on our toilet flush. And sorry to get into the details here, but it is. And so our way of policing, and it is a bit of a job of policing, actually, when people come to us Mobiloo at a festival, there's 20 People in the queue for the poor to lose their disgusting, you know, we all know the story. And people will come and say, you know, please tell us a little bit and we have to have that conversation with them. And if there is a reason that somebody is not able to use the ordinary lose, then of course, they can use the Mobiloo that's simple. It's not are you disabled? It's not sort of let me see your ID. But you know, it's simple question, is there a reason? And so for somebody like me, if I came along, I'm visually impaired. And my reasonably Yes, it's dark, I'm at a festival, the toilets are disgusting, I can't actually see which of the door handles have a red bit or a green bit on to say it's, it's open or not. So I'm going to go along trying to open all the toilet doors, and then eventually get into one and then find that it's in an unholy mess. And, you know, I'm not able to see the mess, of course, right. So I would go to the movie and say, Can I use it, please, because I'm visually impaired, this is contextual is dark, I can't use the ordinary lose if somebody was pregnant. Likewise, you know, there's all kinds of reasons somebody might have a temporary condition, which means that, whilst they may not consider themselves to be disabled, they need a particularly hygienic space in order to change a catheter, for example, you know, so they're avoiding sort of risk infection by using the mobile and that's the sort of stuff we want to support.

Shireen: So you apply quite a wide definition to yeah, we've learned that.

James: And it's obviously something we keep under constant review as well. We we talk about our experience, we talk about what are the things that we say when we're not particular types of so if there's an event where there's alcohol, the picture is completely different, because then people behave differently, they need to use the toilet more frequently, and they're also less inhibited, so they're more likely to be more insistent. You know, so it's a tricky, it's a tricky job to do. And that's why, you know, the, the I consider the most most important and probably most difficult part of the job is that bit that bit out on out on the road at the events on the ground. doing the work of the organization.

Shireen: Sounds pretty difficult. So that I hope you get widespread exposure then and you know, have more and more events wanting to use you. It sounds like a wonderful facility.

James: Yeah, it's just happening. Our best marketing is to take mobility to an event. Other people will see it there. They'll come along, they'll speak to the driver facilitator and say, Oh, this is amazing. How do I get one of these at my events, so that I can include the people that I'm currently excluding. And that's, that's simply, you know, it's the word of my thing. You know, it's the, you know, I used to also be involved in the restaurant business, my brother and I built a guesthouse and restaurant in Ireland in the 90s. Which, of course, you know, from what you've heard from me, you probably guessed that it had to have a bit of it. Had to have a bit of a special feature, which was that it was the most wheelchair friendly, mainstream guesthouse in the UK at the time. But yeah, so that got me into the restaurant industry. And again, you know, you're only as good as the last meal you serve. It is all about word of mouth, if you want to. If you want to be extraordinary, you got to get people talking. And mobile is extraordinary. And it gets people talking.

Shireen: Well, I love the fact that you've got distinctive colored bands. I must have a look on your websites, you see them, but we'll be good. You own that. ust like UPS has the brown vans that you know, they've actually trademarked the color brown as well could actually look, ultimately to trying to trademark that color and becoming known through.

James: That's really interesting. Yes. Yeah.

Shireen: Well, I'll look at your website. It sounds very interesting what you're doing. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you very much, James, for coming on to the podcast. Just one last thing. How did you actually select the three agencies who pitched?

James: I was involved in a couple of sorts of business incubator programs. So I I was involved in one called entrepreneurial spark, which was a national program sponsored by I think RBS and NatWest, back in 2006, to finish and it was also involved in the school of social entrepreneurs in London on their scale up program. So we obviously had lots of talks, lots of opportunities to network, meet people and so on. And one of the agencies was actually a fellow participant on one of the programs I was on. And the one we ultimately chose was a friend of a participant of one of networking events that I was at so so word of mouth. So word of mouth thing. It's it is about networking. It's about getting to know people having conversations. Yeah. Okay.

Shireen: Great. Well, thank you very much for appearing on the podcast then.

James: Pretty good to talk to you