Mike Bank: Welcome back to part 3) of our interview with Brett Akker of Lovespace. Brett, obviously Lovespace doesn’t take up that much of your time at the moment is that correct?

Brett Akker: I probably spend a couple of days a week on Lovespace. So after I founded it and brought it to market we hired a very, very strong managing director and got a team of five other people as well. So they are very involved in the day-to-day.

I’m always at the end of a phone but I tend to be in the office one or two days a week for Lovespace.

Mike: I see, so what else are you doing with your time?

Brett: I’ve invested in about six other startup businesses and I’m involved in some degree or other in all of those. In an advisory role, a little bit less formal or as an non-exec directorships which tend to be a couple of days a month on each one. So in terms of my time its fairly busy.

Mike: Maybe we could pick out one or two of those businesses that you’re most excited about and tell us a bit more about them and also your role how you’re helping them.

Brett: Sure, a lot of the businesses that I’m involved in have one thing in common in that they’re disrupting current markets. Similar to Streetcar and similar Lovespace as well.

One them I’m involved with is called YunoJuno and they are in the Freelance creative recruitment field. But rather how typical recruitment works with freelancers is you go to an agency. You get some CV’s. You look through the CVs. It takes weeks to get them in. And then you get charged 20% at the end of it all.

The way YunoJuno works, the reason why we got talking originally is they have basically a booking system, similar the Streetcar booking system and they have the best pool of freelancers. That’s their background. That’s where they come from. A fantastic pool of freelancers.

The client will go on and say “I want this particular skill set for these particular days.” The list of 3 or 4 that match their criteria and are available will come up. They then are put in touch with each other and they can be onboard within a day.

So literally from the start of the search they can actually be in the office working the next day and also it is hugely cost competitive. It’s around 5% rather than around 20% that agencies will charge.

Mike: So in term of your involvement with that business. How do you help out? Are is it just lending your name or are you actively involved?

Brett: I’m involved. Certainly whenever they wanting to run anything by me I’m always on the end of a phone for them. I think there are certain similarities to what they are doing to what I’ve done in the past and to what I’m doing with Lovespace now. So I hope I’ve managed to help them with the growing pains of an early stage business. They are looking to raise financing at the moment as well which I’ve been involved with in the background.

Mike: In the US the startup scene is slightly different especially on the west coast, particularly in Silicon Valley. You have the ‘PayPal mafia‘ . You have successful entrepreneurs who’ve exited and they come back, and they give back. It sounds that you are doing a lot of that here. But we don’t see too much of that. Do you think that might be as a result of not having so many stellar exits or of people disappearing?

Brett: I think we’ll see more of that because I think there are certain things in place now which will help people start there own businesses but at the same time if they’re successful it will help at the other end as well. So Entrepreneur’s Relief for instance, EIS, SEIS all of these things that have been brought on board relatively recently will help people then invest in other businesses I think.

If somebody exits and their tax is at 10% rather than 28% on CGT  for instance that means a big, big difference to their Net worth at the end of it all and they’re probably in a better position to then give back to other businesses rather than just going abroad or for tax reasons.

I’m involved with other businesses because I see them as an investment because I love the startup and could never go back to corporate life now I don’t think. I love being involved in various different startups. So I’m fairly involved in them all. Some more actively in others but to have 6 or 7 businesses where they are all at similar stages of growth and they are all young, dynamic entrepreneurial teams. Being involved in that is hugely satisfying.

Mike: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us.

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