Work Worth Doing

Dean (00:00)
How's everyone getting on? Welcome back to episode two of Quiddable with your boy, Dean. If you're new to the show, this show exists to help people who are stuck in corporate worlds, in jobs that they maybe dislike or don't care for, to find new paths that they can take, something that maybe they do care about. And this is something that connects very strongly to me because I was in this position.

a short, time ago. So you'll hear me talk about my transition from going from the corporate world into owning my own business now, alongside bringing on guests who have charted their own path in an attempt to give you confidence and belief that you can actually take many, many other paths that may be more

suited to you what you're doing now.

So my guest today is Steve Mappo. Now, Steve Mappo is someone you can learn a lot from. He has his own thriving e -commerce business.

He's generating 4 ,000 pounds per week in sales.

And what we get into is how he started it We go into what day one looked like. We go into what he recommends to actually get started. And what he learns from his favorite brands So you have a ton to learn from him. And besides all that, he is just

truly one of the kindest, warmest, most welcoming people and just has the most infectious, kind energy and is truly a joy to be around. And I can't wait for you to listen to the episode. before we get into that, I also want to say a huge thank you for all of you who tuned in to the first episode last It was

extremely kind of you to spend time with me and to give me feedback and to let me know that it connected with you. That was something that meant a lot to me. thank you if you did tune in and I'm excited continue the good work we're doing.

So without further ado, please welcome Steam Apo.

Dean (01:47)
Stay, welcome to the show my man.

Stephen (01:49)
mate, good to be on. It's nice to see you.

Dean (01:51)
It's good to have you, man. You know, you have genuinely been a for me when I look back on my own journey along from going from, you know, into business and out of sales. I remember I was dabbling with drop shipping and you were a big part of me getting into what I've now gotten into. So I don't know if you know how much of an influence you are in me. So yeah, I think I owe you a thanks.

Stephen (02:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you very much. Yeah, I kind of see where you mean. Small little intervals in time where we've just had an exchange. I guess I've always been on the entrepreneurial side. I think you've had a keen eye for entrepreneurialism. And yeah, we've just bounced off good vibes really, haven't we?

Dean (02:24)
Mmm.

For someone then who doesn't know you, right? And maybe they're just tuning in, give them an idea for who Steve Mapo is.

Stephen (02:44)
So it's funny that you said that I've been a bit of like a beacon of light for you. My girlfriend says that to me as well. She kind of had a job and she used to see me working online and being an entrepreneur. And she wanted to do the same thing and kind of followed suit. The more we got to know each other. But for me, if I was to explain myself,

I put myself out there quite a lot. I always do my best. I kind of wear my heart on my sleeve. Yeah, I don't know. I don't really speak too much about myself in that respect. I'm normally just out there trying to get it really. So if you don't know me, I'll always be welcoming. I'll always be willing to give you what advice I can.

Dean (03:18)
Mm.

That was something I remember when we met many, many moons ago now. And I remember you being quite open about your journey into entrepreneurship and me with my questions being like, why do I do this? How do I get out of this? And you're, you're always quite, quite forthcoming with it. So when did it kind of start for you?

Stephen (03:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll tell you a few funny things. The first one was when I was a kid and I used to go to school and that my both my mum and dad, both my dad and me mum, they're both entrepreneurs, they both have their own businesses and they used to sit in school and I used to completely ignore the teachers because in my mind I was always going to have my own business and

when I was in school, they'd always say, you know, pay attention. You you want to get a good job when you get older. So I just shut off at that point. But my dad always had fish and chip shops. So I'd sit there and think I'm going to own a Chippy one day anyway. So that's kind of where my entrepreneurialism started, was basically carrying buckets of chips when I was maybe five or six, passing them to my dad so he could put them in the fryer.

Dean (04:43)
Mmm.

That's a proper day's work.

Stephen (04:48)
Yeah, and that was it. I remember I used to sit in the corner and people used to come into the chippy, know, train them young, get them involved. So that was kind of...

Dean (04:54)
Mm

And did he have like his own chain of chippies?

Stephen (04:59)
Well, he'd have like three, that was the most he had at one time, but he'd generally have one or two. And eventually he just worked his way down to his favorite one, kept his favorite one and he ended up selling that. He's opened a different business now. That's like a vegan cafe. He's just opened a bar with my sister and my dad. Yeah, my sister and my dad have opened a bar. So it's definitely, it's in my blood.

can't remember the first... Yeah, it's always been in my nature. And the second thing I was gonna share was one night my mum and dad went out and there was this tape on the side and I wasn't allowed to watch this tape. They said, you can't watch this tape. And that just intrigued me. So I thought, I've got to find out what's on this tape. I had my friend Pablo over and I was like, yo, me mum and dad don't want me to watch this tape. You know, let's watch it.

Dean (05:29)
like you've been surrounded by it.

Stephen (05:57)
Thankfully it wasn't anything dodgy. It ended up being the secret. And I must have watched the secret when I was maybe 12, 11. And at the time I was quite positive and I had a good mindset and the secret just reaffirmed everything that I believed. And that set me off for like a good, maybe like 12 to 21, literally like nine years of just building character, strong mindset.

Dean (05:57)
Obviously.

hahahaha

Stephen (06:27)
like focused. Yeah, so that's kind of where comes from.

Dean (06:27)
Mm.

For anyone who hasn't seen or heard of The Secret, what is that?

Stephen (06:35)
The Secrets, it's like your old school manifestation book. I actually watched the videotape the first time I seen it and it's just about being positive and having a good mindset and reframing situations and thinking about them a little bit differently. It's definitely worth a listen. People think it's a little bit culty and to be fair back then,

Manifestation was quite new and it wasn't refined as much. So now you've got like some better refined versions. Just think of the book. Roxy Nafusi, that's kind of like a refined version of the secret now. But yeah.

Dean (07:13)
Well, I mean...

Well, yeah, nobody was, I can certainly attest to that. Nobody around my neighborhood when I was the age of, I don't know, below 10 was chatting about manifestation. No chance.

Stephen (07:28)
Yeah. Have you listened to The Secret? Have you read The Secret?

Dean (07:37)
No, I haven't.

Stephen (07:38)
Yeah, do you know what? I'd probably say Read Manifest by Roxanne and Fruity because I think that's a better book. But The Secret is definitely a good one to maybe just tune into.

Dean (07:51)
I mean, getting that into your system at the age of what were you, eight, nine? How old are you?

Stephen (07:56)
I was young. I must have been maybe year seven, maybe younger. Yeah, I must have been younger. But yeah, it was good fun.

Dean (08:01)
That's definitely going to have an imprint.

Mm. And so what happened then after you read that book, you know, your dad's doing the chippy, you read this book with your mate, Pablo, like what happens after that?

Stephen (08:14)
Yeah. I just thought anything was possible. I just thought the world was my oyster. I thought I could do anything. And I used to work for my dad. So fast forward a little bit, finished school, did a little bit in college, did a little bit of like, laboring courses, bricklaying, decorating, that type of stuff. Wasn't really into it. Came to my second year and my dad was like, right, it's time to get you into the chippy properly now. So I did six days a week.

Dean (08:21)
Wow.

Yeah.

Stephen (08:44)
from about 17, but I was always on and off in the chippy anyway. And then that's when kind of work started. So that was me building. So I had quite a few duties when I first started, it was cleaning plates, just learning the beginning parts of like the business. I used to clean the spuds in the morning and I used to hate it as well. It used to be like something I'd despise and then just something changed in my mind and I was like,

Dean (08:52)
What duties did you perform?

Stephen (09:15)
I'm gonna be here doing this anyway, I may as well enjoy it. And then I turned it into this like fun thing that I would do in the morning. I'd wake up at 6 a I'd go down into the basement, this dark like damp environment and I'd peel all these spuds, I'd do nine bags of spuds. I'd squat them, I'd like press them, it was hilarious. Something out of a Rocky movie. But yeah, so I worked my way up, did the plates then did the tables, cause it was like a

Dean (09:34)
Uhhh...

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Stephen (09:44)
I sit in, take away from his chip shop, then I learn to cook, start to like serve over the counter and cook, it was handle the money, I've helped manage the staff and I kind of built it up that way. And what I used to do was, I don't know if you know those big sheets of paper that you get in the chippy that your food gets wrapped in.

Dean (10:04)
Yeah, yeah, I do. I do. We used to get them in we used to get them in newspapers as well. Did you ever get them in that?

Stephen (10:06)
Do get what I mean? Like, get your box and like, shh, they wrap it up there fast.

Yeah. So I used to get them in newspapers, but my dad used to just have plain ones. And what I used to do was I used to just write my ideas on these big pieces of paper. I used to just dream and kind of look out the window. And then eventually I just said to me, dad, like, look, I want to start my own thing. I'm ready to leave. I had no idea of what I wanted to do. I just knew I had to leave.

Dean (10:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephen (10:41)
and then I left. And to be honest, that kind of set me on a really mad trip where I had lot of like depression days and like a lot of highs. And that was where we actually met. So I think we met four years from that when I was 25 and we were traveling in Asia. And obviously we met in like a hostel in Malaysia, wasn't it? In Kuala Lumpur.

Dean (11:00)
Mmm.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. And I rocked into a, I just remember as kind of a, a dark dorm in my memory. I don't know why it was a dark dorm. It sounds really creepy. And I just remember you were about friendly, skous, welcoming energy. And I was like, I like this guy and yeah, we hit it off, man. And, and you know, hearing you say about that you had

Stephen (11:11)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dean (11:33)
being exposed to this from quite an early age is kind of no surprise just from knowing you and hearing the way you speak. You speak very positively. speak, you know, one of the words you said earlier was reframing. You're great at reframing things. So I can't remember quite what you were doing at that point specifically. So bring us up to speed then. You're 25, Kuala Lumpur, or even after that, what was happening then?

Stephen (11:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so essentially, you know, when I left the Chippy, I had no skills. I couldn't really get a job anywhere. I'd spent all my time working in a fish and chip shop. I was only ever gonna go to another hospitality business. So I had to kind of recreate myself. And through recreating myself, I had to go to like a depressive state. And it was almost like a Phoenix burning and being relit again.

And what I had to do was I had to, well, I decided to learn computer code and go into web development. So I locked myself in my room for six months, learn how to write code, started developing websites. And I actually made enough money from websites to go traveling. I wanted to be a digital nomad. And I thought, you know, the play, well, I researched online as you do, and all the digital nomads seem to be in Chiang Mai.

in Thailand, in Bangkok, in Bali. So thought I've got to get myself to that part of the world. I flew out there, started all the web development stuff. That's where I learned dropshipping as well. And obviously we've had quite a few conversations on dropshipping. But yeah, long story short, so what I've got myself into now is when I was doing my web development, I had a contract with a big company.

And it was going to be like a quite a big payout was like 15 K over two months. I was so happy. And for whatever whatever reason, it just backfired. So the company ended up running out of money. They couldn't afford to pay me. And they left me in limbo for about six months where I just wasn't making any money. Couldn't take on any work because I was waiting for this big job. So I didn't want to like have work and then not be able to do their job. So.

Dean (13:44)
Yeah.

Stephen (13:45)
In between that, I did this course. It was only a month. It was like a government funded thing. And it was essentially to become a DEA and retrofit assessor, which is now kind of what I do for cashflow, which is like a self -employed role. So I get paid per job that I do and that kind of fills my days. So I generally do that day to day for cash. And then I have a business on the side, which is a health food, CMOS e -commerce store.

Dean (14:04)
Mm -hmm.

Stephen (14:14)
And then I still do a bit of websites as well, but I'm kind of coming away from the websites, go more into e -commerce and doing my like surveying on the side as well. Yeah, bit of a long story. Yeah.

Dean (14:25)
Yeah, I'm, it's very interesting. It's very interesting. I I definitely want to hear more about CMOS because I, for one, I'm very under educated in the realm of CMOS. So very keen to hear about that. But during this period then, the road got pulled from you when you were in Malaysia. What period did those guys send you on a different path through their financial hardships?

Stephen (14:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Funnily enough, this was last year. So when I was doing the website stuff, it was always on and off. I would always rush to find a big client, get paid, rush to find a client, find a big client, get paid. It was like that kind of cycle. And then I was doing that for ages. It was fun in my life. It wasn't necessarily great, but it was enough. And I was striving for more. And then, last year, the rug got pulled and I just thought,

Dean (14:58)
Okay, why?

Mmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

And you had...

Stephen (15:24)
while I've got an opportunity and want to jump to do something else. Thankfully,

Dean (15:28)
And you had, had CMOS business launching or in the early stages.

Stephen (15:32)
So the CMOS business launched just after COVID. So I launched that when everyone was kind of scrambling about lockdowns and stuff. And I was basically really into my health and still am. And I was looking for a way to have a natural multivitamin without having like a powder or a capsule. I wanted to get it in its raw form, which led me onto the CMOS. And yeah.

that led me down the path of like applying my drop -shipping e -commerce skills, building my own store, creating a brand, and then yeah, launched my first product, which was the purple sea moss gel, and then just started stripping it, Yeah.

Dean (16:16)
Right.

So treat me like a six -year -old now. Give me the rundown on CMOS and why I should be taken. Go ahead.

Stephen (16:24)
It'll give you sick. Yeah. So if you're a six year old cousin, I'll be telling you, gives you superpowers. It makes you grow tall. It's a little bit like, eat your beans, eat your peas, eat your vegetables. Seamoss is so packed full of micronutrients. It supports your body and helps it thrive. So a lot of people...

Dean (16:34)
Well, if I was a six year old with a wallet, I'd be buying it straight away, wouldn't I?

Mmm.

Stephen (16:54)
will eat their food as normal but they'll be lacking key nutrients in it. As we're, because the sea moss has 92 minerals and vitamins, you actually get a lot of your micronutrients just through that pure source. So you wouldn't want to have only sea moss, well you can, you can fast on sea moss to be fair, and a lot of people do, but you want to have it as an addition to your diet. But yeah, it's essentially a,

multivitamin that's natural that comes from the sea. it's seaweed. Funnily enough, it's very popular in Ireland. It's Irish sea moss. If you've heard of that. You've never heard of Irish sea moss? it was popular in the famine, wasn't it? So people used to survive on it when they couldn't actually get access to food. This is how nutrient dense the food is. And people would go days without eating and they'd just have sea moss and that would keep them functioning.

Dean (17:33)
Where do you think that is?

I mean, I've heard of CMOS.

rice.

Okay.

So would you liken it to something, let's say, Huell, where Huell market themselves and position themselves? I mean, I know Huell is more so like a brand and CMOS is more of a naturally occurring thing, but would you, because they market themselves as a nutritionally complete supplement and they've got all their micronutrients down. Is it in the same bracket as that or is this something different?

Stephen (18:06)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's in a similar bracket, but obviously theirs is synthetically made. They're using powders and they're altering things to get it to how they want it, which is fine, but your body doesn't naturally respond to that. The Seamoss is like a living natural multivitamin that has like energy and it has life in it, which is quite a beautiful thing, really.

Dean (18:35)
Yeah.

Stephen (18:42)
But yeah, we want to get to that same level as Huel. Obviously, we probably need to get more products in the line. But yeah.

Dean (18:51)
I'm big on think, well, I mean, when I say big on, I'm certainly thinking more about what I put into my body. Maybe it's just being in your thirties, but I'm far less likely to go for a process stuff now. feel, feel this like reluctance in me. I've probably listened to one too many Huberman podcasts and all that side of the things to spook you, but I am quite conscious of it. So it seems like something that I would.

Stephen (19:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dean (19:19)
I'm going to I'm going to definitely have to look this up a bit more.

Stephen (19:21)
Yeah, I broke, obviously check the site, get some more information. But I'll send you some as well. you to try it. want you to see what you think. It doesn't taste good, I can tell you that. Yeah, it really doesn't taste good, but this is how our world's transforming. Everyone's becoming a little bit more open to having things that are good for you that don't necessarily taste great. I think we've become a little bit more aware that...

Dean (19:31)
Yeah.

Disclaimer.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Stephen (19:50)
Things that like that suck are actually really good for us and anything that that kind of like doesn't suck, anything that's a bit easy is probably going to feel great in the short term but affect us long term. Yeah.

Dean (20:05)
for someone listening, right? Maybe they've like never looked into e -commerce or haven't the slightest clue like where to even start or, know, at the beginning, embarking on something like this can be very daunting, especially if you've had no exposure to trying anything before. And a lot of people are probably in that position. So maybe if you could talk about

Stephen (20:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dean (20:31)
what it was like at the beginning of creating like the CMOS brand and how you actually found it, stumbled upon it and sort of kickstarted it.

Stephen (20:38)
Well, yeah.

Yeah. I was quite lucky in a way because I learned e -commerce through dropshipping and I didn't have to like try and learn everything from scratch. I learned like a segment of it and they kept learning different parts. So I'd say if someone was to start getting into e -commerce, I'd say learn one aspect of it. I'd say focus on the web development, focus on the

product development, focus on the marketing, because there's so many aspects of that. Yeah, obviously, if you've got a small budget, you're going to have to develop your own site, develop your own product, do your own marketing as well. Generally, I'd probably say focus on the marketing. The marketing seems to be the most key aspect of it. You can have a great product, but if no one knows about it, then it's not going to go anywhere. You can have a half great product.

and good marketing and then everyone's going to know about it. So like a lot of big companies at the minute, they're generally just great marketers that the products aren't very good, but the branding is on point and they sell to you exactly what you want. But yeah, to get started, I would say probably start with drop shipping first before building your own brands. Just experiment with like

Dealing with customers, experiment with the problems that you'll have on your website, experiment with uploading products, experiment with shipments from China and other countries. That would probably be the place to go. Yeah.

Dean (22:20)
What do you think stops people from actually starting? Why do people not do it when it's in theory, accessible now?

Stephen (22:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, so I'd say the key components is uncertainty. think that's what keeps people from doing anything, especially when you've never done it before. So when I left my dad's business and I went out to like figure things out on my own, the level of uncertainty was like damaging on my brain. My brain was like trying to figure out what to do and trying to find things.

that were certain that I could do. I wanted someone to tell me what to do, essentially. And I think that's where the challenge comes. People feel very comfortable being told what to do. And they feel very comfortable knowing when they work, when they start working, when they finish work, and the tasks they have to do. To be taken from that to not knowing and having to figure it all out on your own. It takes a lot of energy. And sometimes just figuring out what to do.

It takes all your energy. So it's literally a slow process. If I could recommend it to anyone, I would say probably maintain a level of cash flow, have a job or have something that makes you money and then kind of build your side thing on the side. Don't just rush into it and kind of, I'm panicking away. Like don't drop everything and just start something new. Build up to it slowly.

And then what will happen is there'll be less uncertainty with that. Until you can kind of guarantee what you'll be doing every day and guarantee how it's going to develop. But yeah, think uncertainty is probably the biggest thing.

Dean (24:13)
It's so interesting the thing you said about comfort and being told what to do. Dude, that's what I remember when I was in the process of leaving and it just felt so scary and I didn't know what to do. I actually just, and I still like honestly, even up until recently, I would still have days where I just thought, you know what? I just wish I had a job. I wish somebody was just giving me orders and telling me what to do.

Stephen (24:18)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dean (24:42)
because there is a lot, it's a lot easier, but the price of entry to getting into having your own business is certainly uncertainty. And I think one of the hardest parts is actually just figuring out what you want to do or even trying. But the thing you said about dropshipping as like just a tester, I think is really good. Just go in, play around, get used to doing the thing, get comfortable with it, make your mistakes and...

Stephen (24:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Dean (25:12)
and go from there.

Stephen (25:13)
Yeah, it gives you a framework to work from and it gives you a model to work from. But even saying that like nowadays, TikTok shops, the best way to go. If you can figure out a TikTok shop and you can drop ships through that, which is what a lot of people are doing. There's some serious money to be made. You don't even have to like set up a website. Like websites really are kind of dead. You just need an Instagram or social media account and you just literally sell products through that and you can have it.

products embedded into your social media accounts. So it's lot simpler. You just got to get good at making content really. I think that's the key now. Something I'm not very good at in personal perspective, but my girlfriend's fantastic at it. Yeah.

Dean (25:55)
Yeah.

think as a starting point, that's definitely a good way to start. Your first attempt is definitely, well, very rarely, shall I say, not gonna be your home run. The big brand, you're not gonna build a brand off dropshipping. You're not gonna build this cool, you're not gonna build a Huell off just dropshipping, but maybe you'll get the skills needed to then go and build a Huell or an ASOS or whatever.

Stephen (26:05)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's not. It never is.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I can tell you like, you don't want to get too attached to the first thing you make. You kind of want to fail fast and you want to just keep developing different things and take different lessons from each project you do. Like I watched something recently that said the worst thing you can do is fail slow. And like you just fail over years and you've got no time to move to something else.

Yeah, it's so interesting when you look at it like that. So fail fast and hard and just keep changing and keep adapting. That's probably the best.

Dean (27:02)
Because that was that was that that is the hardest part is well, one of the hardest certainly is like having shit days, days when just nothing goes to plan and you're just sat there scratching your head wondering why am I doing this? But think I was just if I look back at myself, I was just a little bit delusional. I wasn't expecting any of that.

Stephen (27:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Dean (27:25)
I genuinely thought everything was gonna be rosy. I was like, I've got this. This is great. I'm laughing here. Once I put all these things in place, nothing is gonna go wrong. How wrong I was.

Stephen (27:27)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we all do. That's like the delusion, isn't it? The delusion, yeah. I think when things are good, I think that's when you're most susceptible to fail and you're most susceptible to like heartache, isn't it? So it's like you've got to, when things are good, you got to be the most vigilant. It's like when you're at the end of the race and like, and you're running or you're at the end of a project and you start to like slack off a little bit because you know,

Dean (27:41)
Mm.

Mm.

Stephen (28:04)
and you're nearly there, but you gotta just keep that same level of focus and intensity the whole way through whatever you're doing. I think that's the challenge. I look at like this three parts, obviously there's the beginning, which is getting started, starting the project, there's maintaining the project, and then there's obviously that finish, which is finishing it. And I think different people struggle across different points. Once people get started, they're fine to carry it all away.

Dean (28:26)
Mm.

Stephen (28:33)
I can generally get started, but I can struggle towards the end because I know I'm going to get it. My brain starts thinking about the next thing I want to do and then that then becomes creating different projects and another project without finishing my last one, if you get what I mean. But thankfully, I've kind of grounded that and I've become aware of it. Yeah.

Dean (28:41)
Mmm.

I have had the rug pulled for me like so many times now that I, when things are going really good, I just remind myself and this is actually something I think I'm getting, I would almost call it a skill because stuff is going really well. And I think to myself, haha, and maybe I'm being too paranoid you might say, but I'm like something, something, there's something here, you know?

Stephen (29:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean (29:24)
And also what's one thing I found to be helpful is trying to train my reaction muscle. So thing happens usually triggers ex emotion, which is usually rage, fear, not fear, but just frustration and just like, you know, why, why me? I'm all this. but just trying to react more calmly. And I think you, you, you were at least in my mind, I was a guy who does that quite well.

Stephen (29:35)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I definitely always like, yeah, it's just reframing as well. It's just like a lot of things happen and I just feel like there's no reason to get upset about them. Like to be fair, this was something I worked on when was like a lot younger and it was almost just disconnecting and seeing the situation from above and not being emotionally triggered. Obviously some things do get me.

Dean (29:51)
You're calm.

Stephen (30:16)
But generally, I just allow things to happen as they are and I see them as they are, just things happening. Nothing's personal. Everything's just existing and we're all kind of just watching what's going on. But it's definitely when you're having a shit day, obviously I have shit days. I still sit in situations and think, what am going to do? There's always that bit of uncertainty. And I think that's...

part of the enjoyment now is being an entrepreneur. Things can go good, things can go bad, but it's like just keep trying and keep evolving and just see where you end up. And I think as long as you know you're improving just the slightest bit, it's that compound interest effect, isn't it? You're gonna get somewhere eventually and then you're gonna get there and everyone's gonna be like, how did you do that? And it's just been an accumulative effort of grind really. Yeah.

Dean (31:13)
Have you ever seen that image of a guy and it's like a 2D image of the guy and he's like chipping away or he's climbing a mountain, I think. And all he can see is this big, mountain ahead. And then he can't see how far he's come. It's quite a cool, it kind of captures what you're saying. But what I was going to ask was bringing it back to your business and how, how it's going. And you've got the side hustle. You're, you're, you're, you're, all in on the CMOS business.

Stephen (31:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dean (31:41)
Like how is that performing? What do you see? How do you see that progressing over the next 20 for 12 months?

Stephen (31:45)
Yes.

Yeah, so I want to get to quite a high level. I want to get myself into that like, your heights on it. I want to be within that supplement range. I know we're far away from it. So my plan at the minute is about building the team and I'm building more of a range. So performance wise, we add like a bit of a dip.

mainly because my focus had shifted. But I brought my girlfriend into the business and she's running like a little bit of the day to day. I run all like the backend stuff to like the finances, the stock, the product. She does the team meetings, she does the packaging, she does things like that. So I think the most we probably made from the CMOS business.

like 4K a week, something like that, which is good. Wasn't really what we were trying to get to. Obviously we wanted to build like a bigger brand. And then my goal was like 20K months and I didn't get it. And I was like a bit disheartened and I got distracted. And now I wanna like come back to that. But yeah, I wanna get us to a really high level.

Dean (32:52)
Solid.

Stephen (33:17)
The thing is, it's quite a saturated market. So the way my mind's thinking now is how can I stand out in saturation and what strategies can I build to grow my product? The team's in the right place. Yeah, and it's just about building them.

Dean (33:36)
I mean, you've certainly got no shortage of the wellness movement in your favor where people imagine chatting to our parents about CMOS, you know, back in the eighties and nineties, nobody, nobody give you a second, a second look. So there's definitely a market there. It's like, seems like just a case of how do you get your brand to be the one.

Stephen (33:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, not a chance. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Literally, it's how can your brand stand out? And people are so creative with it. And like, once you start to do it yourself, you start to look at how other brands stand out and you think just the geniusness of it. Like Nike's been quite dominant in the sportswear industry for like the last like 30 years, 20 years. And you watch like back to back how they just excel and the little things that they do.

like even with the Olympics and having all the athletes wear their shoes. Like I believe Adidas was the sponsor and they managed to just, it'll be the standout sportswear brand. So it's just mad. Yeah.

Dean (34:42)
Who else is a standout brand for you?

Stephen (34:45)
I pay a lot of attention to Shule. I pay a lot of attention to Macron supplements. I think they're really cool. They're like a bit of a random one. Yeah, there's dozens. like Onnit as well. Onnit's really good. Apple are insane. Them promoting their company, saying it's the best. It's the best product every year. That amazes me. Who's stand out for you?

Dean (35:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

funny you say that I was only I don't know how the algorithm spat out a little Steve jobs video at me last night and how he was just a master of marketing. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean how you can't appreciate what Apple do is they're they're just an obvious one. And I also really like you. I love what you're doing.

Stephen (35:22)
Did it? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, to be fair. Yeah. Hewlett -Clever, aren't they like? Yeah, I think what they did with Stephen Bartlett as well and had him come in. Yeah, I find it really interesting what they're doing. But their products are good and they meet a demand. It's a good product at the end of the day and it's marketed quite easily.

Dean (35:49)
school products.

They get my subscription every month. I'm locked in. Yeah, I'm a subscriber. Fifty seven quid a month they're getting off me for two beautiful bags of powder.

Stephen (35:58)
today. I was gonna say who to buy. Wait, where'd you get your supplement from? Wow. Nice work. So I was gonna say that. they got popular didn't they? With their instant food. And then when they first came about it was about like, it was about entrepreneurs wasn't it? And like,

Dean (36:16)
I haven't had that.

Stephen (36:20)
having food fast and having it healthy. And that was their kind of target market. Now it's kind of branched off into sports. So for me, for the CMOS, I want to be like a high performance brand. A lot of athletes will take our CMOS. Yeah, and they love it. They can't like not have it before a big event or, you know, a couple of months coming up to it.

Dean (36:40)
Yeah.

So you have athletes in your ecosystem that take your product.

Stephen (36:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I don't know, you've a Shem Rock. He's like an up and coming MMA fighter. There's a bunch of the guys from Shredfast, you've had a Shredfast. That's like, that's quite like an intense, like exercise routine that's like filmed live to do like recordings every day. And you kind of like watch it as you go. And then I obviously go to the gym and all the guys there and they're all

Dean (36:58)
Nice.

That's it, that rings a bell, yeah.

Stephen (37:19)
obsessed with the sea moss because they're very much into the natural source of nutrients, know, like your grass -fed meats, your organic vegetables. So it of fits in line with what they do. I think the world is moving in that direction. You've seen Eddie, Eddie Huber, haven't you? And you've seen why he's become so popular because there's just no bullshit advice, isn't it? It's just like, look, all this packaging stuff is...

Dean (37:35)
Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot of...

Stephen (37:48)
It's just packaging. The food inside isn't actually, it's not that good for you. Yeah.

Dean (37:54)
That certainly sounds like a angle for you to position yourself with, with athletes and maybe specifically if you wanted to niche even further, just, just MMA or Jiu -Jitsu, which I know Jiu -Jitsu is a big part of your world, isn't it?

Stephen (37:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. I do quite a bit of jujitsu. I've been slacking a little bit recently, I've got to admit. I've been on holiday quite a lot, but jujitsu is such an important part of my life and it's definitely given me lot of that calmness and lot of that confidence. Before I went traveling, I wanted some type of like...

like training inside of me just in case I get back into a corner and jujitsu was what I found. I did a little bit of the MMA stuff as well, which was fun. But I generally stuck with the jujitsu just because there's less damage on the body. And then, as time's gone on, I've just kept going. And that's kind of what allows me to detach from the day to day.

Dean (38:55)
It's one of those things where if I am standing with somebody who I know trains Jiu Jitsu and they have this little calmness about them, it's like they're saying, I don't need to tell you, but if you tried anything, I would fuck you up.

Stephen (39:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely there, isn't it? Have you not tried any Jujitsu? I feel like you've done some.

Dean (39:15)
Mmm.

I did. I did once. I've trained boxing a fair bit. I did a little bit of Muay Thai. Loved training Muay Thai and I did one jujitsu lesson. And I have to say I...

Stephen (39:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, and that was enough. was smelling some guys crotch was enough to...

Dean (39:37)
Yeah, I took one whiff and I thought, you know, I'm out of here.

Stephen (39:40)
Yeah, no, that's it for me. Yeah, it's good. And you are right, lot of the Jiu -Jitsu guys are calm. I think anyone who can fight, I think generally they are quite calm because they know... Well, they get a lot of their nervous, wanting to fight energy out in the gym with people who know how to fight in a controlled setting. then when you don't... I think as a man especially, you almost have a little bit of frustration.

Dean (39:43)
But was good training, I loved it.

Stephen (40:09)
and a little bit of aggression in you that you need to channel into something. If you're not channeling into like a hobby or a passion, generally you can wanna put that out into the, start fighting people in the street.

Dean (40:20)
just bringing it back to the business then. what do you think the next 12 months, 24 months, is the goal for you with this business to, I mean, you talked about growing it into like a Hewlett -esque brand. you want to grow it and have a big exit? Do you want this to be, do you feel like this is your calling, so to speak, or do you feel like there's more ahead that will be totally different to this?

Stephen (40:38)
Yeah.

I want to definitely stay in the business and I want to develop it and I want to have it as something that's always there to support me essentially and to support my family. I want to grow to the highest level possible and I want it to be like a well -known performance enhancing brand and I want people to almost rely on it to develop their game, develop their sport, whatever they're in. I don't want it to be like a competitive edge against everyone else in there.

in their competition. That's kind of where I want to take it. There's definitely always more along the way. There's going to be things that come in and get involved. But my focus is the CMOS and I'm just trying to think how I can evolve it from what it is now because the brand isn't necessarily just CMOS, it's Royal Minerals. It's that whole encompassing natural product, performance, science and product. But yeah, there's more to come.

Dean (41:33)
Mm.

Stephen (41:38)
Yeah, what I will say is like for anyone starting out, I think the world we're in now is a skills -based world. Information is so easily accessed and anyone with a laptop can almost find a way to do what it is you're trying to do. So to learn skills, you can't be beaten. And when people want to hire you for a service or if you want to build something, you need those skills to provide that, to develop that.

So I think doing like just small courses or just small projects to develop your skill and actually have something under your belt. I think that's the place to start. Never underestimate a short course. A short course will hugely develop you like in ways you can't even imagine. So my like month course that I did that really helped secure me and helped me build.

other things along the side. No, I want to take as many courses as possible. So I'll take like a trading course. I'll take like an Airbnb course. know you're really into Airbnb as well. So yeah, I'll try and Yeah.

Dean (42:48)
That's how I got into that myself as well. I did a course. That was it. It's just information.

Stephen (42:53)
There you go. You know, yeah, yeah, people are skeptical and they're like, I'm not giving this person three, four grand or whatever it is, but you'll have to waste your life away in a job you don't enjoy, but you're not willing to to like maybe have a loss like having a it's that loose fast type of mind, like give them your money or, you know, go and do like a random meeting that you found on a meetup or on Facebook.

Dean (43:01)
Mm.

Dude.

Stephen (43:20)
Go and like explore things and just take a chance. And that's how things develop.

Dean (43:26)
It's really, you've just highlighted something there of how much of a lot of what might stop people is actually just a fear of loss. And whether that fear of loss is loss of money from investing in a course that doesn't work out. Maybe it's loss of respect from their friends. If it fails, then they think their friends will think they're stupid or whatever it might be. it's kind of scary almost how much loss can get in the way.

Stephen (43:35)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Loss is massive, isn't it? You're right there. It is the possibility of losing, but I think if you don't put yourself in a position to lose, you're not putting yourself in a position to win either. Obviously, you've got to do some research. You've to be a little bit diligent, which isn't that hard in reality. You've got the internet at your fingertips and everything's accessible for us. So it is a matter of just researching.

But yeah, lot of it's content based as well, isn't it? If you're actually really good at just speaking in front of your camera, that'll just do like volume for you.

Dean (44:22)
Dude, I think

Man, I think your story is definitely something that a lot of people can relate to. I, for one, worked in a job I really didn't like when I was in my teens, really hard manual labor job. And I think your story's so cool the way you've come out of that and, through ups and downs, which is, as you said, the most important part of it all to get to where you are now. And I just really hope that anyone who is stuck in that job, who maybe is

Stephen (44:38)
Yes.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Dean (45:02)
on the fence or almost there can just listen to this and just think, right, well, hang on, if Steve's doing that, he's got himself to a business that is now generating that much money. Why can't I?

Stephen (45:04)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely there for the taking, isn't it? It's available for people to go and do it and it's not easy. It's challenging. You are going to struggle. And yeah, but on the other side of that, if you stick to it long enough, you're going to grow. And if you're willing to change and adapt, yeah.

Dean (45:31)
100 % man. So where can, if I had never heard of steam appo and I'd never heard of Royal Mineral, where do I go to find

Stephen (45:41)
I see my bow and then my business is at Royal minerals so it's it world spelled slightly different so it's our Wiley and minerals so that's if you want to order the sea moss have a look at the the Instagram account if you want to I don't really post on my personal but my Business is always posting

Dean (45:58)
Definitely.

Awesome man. Well listen, I really appreciate you Doug.

Stephen (46:07)
Yeah, man, thank you very much for the time, brother. I appreciate this time. It's been amazing. It's been amazing, sweets, yeah. Thank you very much. We'll have to meet up and have a beer at some point. If you still drink, are you drinking?

Dean (46:10)
and you.

and you too, brother. Great conversation.

Most definite.

I dabble. I dabble.

Stephen (46:25)
You're dabbling the arts. Are we getting a CNO? What is it you're drinking?

Dean (46:30)
I would, there's only a certain couple of Guinness I'd be having in London. Not that I'm a connoisseur, but there's, there's a, there's a lot of shit Guinness, man.

Stephen (46:35)
Yeah, really?

Did you know? I just thought it was me. I just thought I was tasting Guinness and I just thought I was being silly but some Guinnesses are really watery. It's not the erm...

Dean (46:49)
It's unacceptable and it's a great tragedy.

Stephen (46:50)
It's actually unacceptable. I think we need to file some complaints and let the Guinness factories know that the Guinness has watered and it's ruining the brands. Yeah, I think they would to be marching down there. Much love, man. Thank you very much, bro. Nice to see you. Enjoy your day.

Dean (47:00)
They'd be horrified.

All right, brother. Much love to you. I appreciate you and thanks for coming on.

So.