From Dancing On Ice To Esports with Purpose - Connor Ball and Oliver Weingarten | PEP Talk S3 E7

Key Takeaways

this week on pep talk do you ever wonder why some people make it and some people don't i think it's all to do with luck so how do you make luck happen so i'm connor primarily probably known for playing in the band the vamps i was playing pubs i was busking out in the street putting covers on youtube working really really hard to create that look i'm ollie weingarten i am the founder chief exec of london united but i often get asked by people how do you create a lock and ask people for advice for help for work experience or internship just bash doors down would be my single biggest piece of advice our mission is to help 10 million people start and grow a business for free we want nothing from you in pep talk we interview industry leading experts from around the world who share actionable know-how and life lessons that's why we're excited to partner with godaddy to power up pep talk i've been using godaddy for years and would promote them on this podcast even if they didn't sponsor us you can use their free website builder and start your online business at no cost and even get help these days with naming your business for 40 off go daddy tools click the link in the podcast notes below and use the code gdx pep talk [Music] do you ever wonder why some people make it and some people don't i think it's all to do with luck so how do you make luck happen how do you hack luck what is luck by two guests today you could call them lucky and they will share with you their secrets about how they're building what i think is one of the most important social impact businesses in the uk right now welcome to the show connor and oliver thank you so much for being here maybe we could start off by conor could you share with the audience a little bit about who you are and what you're about yeah absolutely uh firstly thanks as well for having us really appreciate it um so i'm connor uh i primarily probably known for playing in the band the vamps um which i've been doing for 10 years this year actually so it's a big anniversary this year uh we've been touring releasing music writing music for for as long as i can remember at this point um but also aside from that i'm a massive gamer um i've been playing games for all my life so um i recently just got involved in being a co-owner of london united which i'm super super super excited about it's like a bit of a dream of mine to be able to do this so uh yeah i think that's that's basically it i mean i have a few other musical projects and stuff and yeah never stopping so i want to get into in a minute how you got involved with the vamps and how that lucky moment happened um but ollie maybe we could kick off you also telling the audience about yourself yeah thanks simon and hello to everyone out there listening thanks for having us on as connor said i'm ollie weingarten i am the founder chief exec of london united and just before i tell you exactly what we do my background is quite interesting because i've come into esports from traditional sports having been a lawyer initially i worked at the premier league for seven years doing broadcast sponsorship deals protection of ip i then worked in formula one i was in the piranha pit for three years tried to take on someone called bernie ecclestone on behalf of the teams a fascinating career in itself for that journey and then i got into sports tech and you know was around the metaverse proposition a few years ago already and i saw the potential of esports and uh it set up london united ideally at the start as a grassroots path to pro esports organization that aligned with social issues we've clearly evolved since then we might get into a little bit about what we do but you know we work with the mayor of london the rio ferdinand foundation we have um teams that play for us we have content creators we host events that promote health and well-being and social issues simon so tell us how this got started ollie what was the first few steps to kind of creating this this this new platform so i think as i alluded to i was fortunate in the roles i had as a newly qualified lawyer i created some luck of my own and make a decision and actually ended up at the premier league which was a dream job and after 10 years of your two fantastic roles in high profile organizations you try and work out what you want to do i said i worked for the sports tech startup i recognized that esports was the future exponential growth fastest growing consumer sector and i started to do a little bit of research myself i dabbled in it a little bit with um the tech startup i was at called virtually live and i went to wembley arena one friday afternoon to the face at cs go final and when you see wembley arena sold out with um families and kids all wearing merch buying merch and the action is you know the production is bite size it's fast it's furious it's like the most incredible atmosphere you start you sit up and you go this is something this is something that i need to be involved in and for me it was then trying to work out where i could enter esports was it you go and work for a publisher like ea do you go work for a tournament operator do you go and work for another team and i think because i've had so much autonomy in my previous career i felt that the only way i could do this was by essentially working for myself but also being able to impose my own footprint on something and i wanted to harness social purpose as a result of legacy that i'd seen at the premier league compared to where there was no legacy in formula one and that was the start of london united amazing story and so great to hear that kind of process that i guess wanting almost having a desire to be involved in something and creating it yourself which i think a lot of people sometimes they think they need a bit of luck to get a job in it whereas you just decided to create it for yourself which i think is amazing connor i know that you are into nfts and you guys think a lot about the metaverse maybe you could share a little bit of your your thinking about where you think the metaphors is going and why you're into nfts and i know a lot of people listening are also trying to learn how this whole blockchain technology is going to affect them but maybe share a little bit of what you've learned yeah i think the whole thing is fascinating and i think we're only really at the tip of the iceberg i think there's so so much that's uh gonna happen in the next kind of like five years even a year to be honest um there's so much potential and we're kind of wanting to get involved with it which we we won't tell you we can't tell you too much about it um but yeah it's really interesting it's really really fascinating um i think in terms of nfts in gaming there's it's the biggest potential for me and there's you know the the play to earn side of it where if people don't know you would play a game and essentially earn uh an nft token or a cryptocurrency um which is really interesting it's hard to kind of get your head around right now but i think um there is some work that still needs to be done within um kind of nfts in terms of like sustainability um which i think as it goes on as i say it's the tip of the iceberg there's it's going to be coming in in the next kind of couple years for sure you know how these uh high-profile uh celebrities they drop or nft they bought and suddenly it triples um do you want to do someone a favor right now and tell us which entities you've bought you really like uh there's so many i yeah i don't have like an ape or anything to my name so well that's the apes i've just left the eight values i'm not fully invested but um you know i love it absolutely love it it is a fascinating space and and ollie how do you see the metaverse playing out is it what's your vision on on where that's all going to go for people i think it's caller says there's so many options around that you've got played around in the blockchain but i think if you take a step back i mean an nft or some sort of frontier technology related to crypto entities blockchain can act as almost a membership card for your community can't i think for us the important thing and we sort of learned this when we did a community purpose driven soft nft project last year is you need utility you need utility around it unless your snoop dogg or you know man city with us oh sorry i almost use a bad word there with a lot of ip then it's um it's quite challenging isn't it so you've got to be able to offer the community something that provides them with value but again i think conor was alluding to we need to take people on a journey there needs to be some education around it and that's part of what we're looking at doing i also think if you look at metaverse as a digital offering you know i'm sitting in camden at the moment in our center of excellence there's no reason that can't be recreated in the metaverse to offer people unable to attend physically the opportunity to participate digitally and come and meet connor and i come and play games against other like-minded individuals come and listen to sessions do watch parties when the valorem teams play there are so many opportunities that present themselves and i think it's just trying to get your head around it and put it into a business plan quite frankly that's the challenge yeah i think the education point is so valid i mean again for the listeners listening you know even the word utility to us we're kind of in it i'm in the metaverse space too and in the nft world myself you know utilities it might seem so obvious but for those listening utility really is a value attached to the nft beyond the actual let's call it the jpeg so access for example or almost like a key into into certain things so so adding value beyond the actual um art right um often yeah it's valuable enough but for a lot of people creating nfts they don't have a utility in it and it just becomes whether or not you like the art as opposed to the access it could potentially give you so just educating the audience there for a second and do you see with with what you're doing it's it's i mean i guess there's another element you can be global right with with the metaverse and so that's that's the other opportunity isn't it and how do you think about the opportunity globally for you guys well i i don't think the internet has any boundaries clearly we're london united by name only we have a partnership with durham university we have um fifa gamers in scotland we have a valorem team consisting of lithuanian and polls and italian coach so clearly we're not restricted to london and uh we're quite clear in what we do and how we operate but for me if you go down this um new frontier technology journey and you essentially could create a dow that becomes scalable you can easily then take that into other countries and you can have a berlin united dubai united as opposed to just doing it in the straightforward corporate sense of having a subsidiary so i think exploring technology from a scalability perspective for me down the line is quite interesting yeah i think you're touching an interesting branding point there too you know like london united people might think well it's only the uk but really you're setting yourself up potentially for a franchise partnership structure scalable through name and so i think that's relationship you also mentioned something they're called dao again for my audience that miss it you know decentralized autonomous organization so this is the future i think of how companies are going to get run and so it's not run by one person at the top but by a community and so and gaming has always been about this hasn't it and i i only found out this recently that ethereum which is the second largest cryptocurrency in the world was created by a gamer who was frustrated with gaming that kept all the things that he created inside the game because they owned it centrally right so this has all come and connor how did you get into gaming how did it all begin for you in that space i think uh i must have been like four or five i was pretty lucky my parents got me or maybe my grandparents got me a ps1 uh and an n64 i had before that actually so i am going got in the game early you know what i mean so i was like you look so young and you're talking n64 i mean i think there will actually be some listeners right now that don't even know what that is so uh that's upsetting yeah but you've been you mentioned earlier 10 years uh in the vamps how did that let's talk about luck for a minute how did that play out was it was it luck or was it did you how did it how did you end up in the vamps i think when talking about anything like this there's there's a a form of luck involved um i always kind of wanted to be a musician from a young age just started playing guitar like 11 or 12. and i think it's one of them things when you're that age you're like there's no way i'm going to be a musician like there's too many people trying it's too hard um you know it's not gonna happen um but i was always of the the mindset and the ethic of working really really hard and putting yourself in as many opportunities uh to create that look um and so i was doing everything i could i was playing pubs i was busking out in the street i was putting covers on youtube doing videos uh doing videos every other day um to try and just get myself in front of as many eyes as possible so i think through that um i was then spotted uh doing youtube covers and through that then met the rest of the band so they i kind of got involved and yeah from there it's it's been 10 years later so time goes by when you're having fun but i think the message i get from that as well is that it's a passion there isn't it the hard work you know you the passion is there so therefore doing the work didn't matter is that fair to say yeah it was always a love for me it was a hobby at the front of everything and it still is it's still something i absolutely love so i think if you learn to find something that you love and you just go for it that that's you know the best reward olly you mentioned earlier something fascinating about um fighting with bernie ecclestone during your f1 period i mean um tell us about that tell us about you know that that sounds like a lucky experience to be able to get yourself into a position where you're you're having an argument with such an individual but tell us about that your definition of luck is very different to my side and that's for sure i i just sort of hit a glass ceiling which is a term often you use in business isn't it when you feel that you can't go anywhere further in the uh existing business you're at so you're sort of looking for an exit and again having been at the premier league it's where do you go and this opportu opportunity presented itself and in no honesty i wasn't sold on it at the beginning um and you know we've got enough time to tell you the process i went through but ultimately i did decide to make the move and you know go out to geneva and um work for the teams and um the first essential project that was given to me was do a commercial finance financial analysis of the sport because the agreement within between bernie and the teams is up for you and we all want more money but let's show him we can grow the pot as opposed to just ask for a bigger slice of the pot and within three months of having taken on the job he picked off ferrari and red bull with a huge check and the rest of my stakeholders went down like dominoes so it was rather challenging um but for me what i decided to try and do was as much put a brief face on the positioning etc around what the organization could do was actually find some benefits and we did quite a lot of good fan engagement working with lewis and some of the drivers taking events away from the race track and live streaming these events um called fans forums and carbon emission reduction programs and working with the promoters to because bernie didn't have a pr office to just try and help build up interest in the sport so whilst the biggest thing that i was brought in to do didn't quite come off and through no fault of mine sadly because it was a way barely worked with divide and conquer i uh i tried to put a positive spin on the other staff it's all learning for what you do today as well i guess you probably learnt um how to how to structure things and how to make things fair and balanced because that's definitely one of bernie's weaknesses wasn't it was a lot of criticism about that not making it equal for everyone involved i just want to take a moment to thank taylor brands for sponsoring this podcast have you ever been told you can easily start a business that will make money while you sleep only to realize it takes a ton of work to get a business started tailor brands make starting a business easy with its ai powered platform you can get your business a logo social media designs printed merchandise and so much more all in just a few clicks that's why i love taylor brands whatever your idea is you can make it look legit in a day and actually start selling through the taylor brands platform for 40 off your first order check out the links in the podcast notes below and use the code pep now let's get back to the podcast but i mean jumping kind of back to basically right now you know you personally invested in london united tell us about that process what what what brought you to uh to do that what what makes you feel this is the place to put your love and energy and and tell us a little bit about how how that that bit of luck happened yeah originally um i did an event with ollie and london united um at the samsung kx in london and uh i mean immediately i was drawn to the team to the kind of ethos around the whole thing um and the main point of me being attracted to london united obviously the gaming thing is amazing but the fact that we're really trying to tackle social issues um outside of gaming as well and we're trying to bring that together and kind of infuse it as one that was the main main thing and so through more chats with ollie um we kind of just came to the point that i was like i'm really interested in this this is something i i would really like to be involved with um and not just on the surface i really want to kind of get involved with everything underneath and through the events and the business side of it as well which i'm i'm kind of new to as well so i'm learning that with ollie um and all he's a great mentor so as you know he's he's done so much um so yeah no it's really exciting for me and i'm really excited for what's to come in the next kind of few months and and you've always been very honest and open about your own personal battles with mental health you know suffering of anxiety and panic attacks and depression and i think first of all thank you for being so open to someone so high-profile sharing that i think is important but how have you dealt with those issues how have you how have you managed to um i guess uh deal with them yet i think through many forms of different things to be honest like originally i didn't even know it was anxiety i didn't really know what i was experiencing i thought i was like physically ill i was going to the hospital with panic attacks and breathing issues and all this and i didn't know so i think if i'd heard about it earlier when i was like 16 17 then i probably wouldn't have it wouldn't have got that far so um i think through speaking to people being open that was the biggest step for me like actually opening up and telling someone i felt this way because i kept it to myself for so long and that was that just snowballs into something so much worse um so i think yeah through speaking to people through exercise and also gaming to be honest gaming's been a massive form of escapism for me um i took it on tour i took like a console with me on tour a laptop and that kind of allowed me to speak to the people back home that i knew were like my comfort blanket in a way um so that was massive for me um and then yeah exercise speaking to the boys in the band um and yeah therapy as well i went to see therapists as well i think the the the uh the strongest people ask for help i really believe that 100 such an important part of of of life and and i and i know myself during lockdown um my uh my nephew we used to play uh call of duty a lot um and we'd talk to each other and like you say just sometimes having someone to talk to but it does feel like a lack of organizations around to help people um so i guess that's in part why uh olly you're doing london united right yeah and i think everything that connor's just said shows why you know i wanted conor to get involved with london united because he's authentic he's a gamer he's had issues that we're trying to address we don't do badge badging exercises at london united even when we talk to brands we want to have true partnerships and the fact that connor wants to get so involved in the business was a huge plus for me and actually to be honest if he hadn't wanted to we probably wouldn't have got to where we are and you know the other point around what we do and how we address social issues is that we recognize that we're not going to have the biggest impact if we can have some sort of impact and raise awareness and show people there are channels like as you just said you're playing call of duty with nephews a great outlet gaming isn't bad the stigma attached to gaming isn't there anymore but you have to game responsibly and there are outlets um you know to address these issues whether it's toxicity whether it's mental health and anxiety whether it's physical health and participation in sport these are all things that we're happy to address and showcase in the right way it's interesting isn't it social media does bring this kind of incredible power to connect but does also create anxiety i know myself you put a youtube video up and doesn't get many views you're like oh no you know like what does it mean no one likes my stuff you know it's and it does create that stress and anxiety in life but equally the ability to connect to people in that way and at scale when you get a good comment and but it does play with your head a bit doesn't it yeah because you've actually recently interesting conor has got 2.6 million followers and he's got this great way to talk to them yeah and we look at ourselves and we're building our twitter profiles slowly and i could look at the numbers over the last however many couple of years and we're you know five five thousand something but our engagement level is higher than any of these other organizations that got hundreds of thousands millions of followers and we do analysis in this but you know you need some luck i know this actually you know if you look at the topic of the podcast you need some luck thereafter in business like with brands because brands will solely focus on your numbers and they sometimes don't get into the engagement so that's what we're trying to showcase that actually look at the engagement levels actually they're really high try not to be so focused on traditional mechanisms um and yeah if you do want to talk to a lot of people then we'll bring connor in yeah but it's a really good point though i i completely agree about the engagement i personally got 10 600 followers on twitter it's taken me seven years to get there i've only done organic i've never paid for reach and i and i and i i feel like it's a community and so connor i know that's something you've worked really hard on if i look over what you're doing the community is very strong it's not built for the simple reason of scale it's built to connect to like-minded people that you can help right yeah i think being open and honest on social media is it is the way for me and that's how it's always been for me i've been open with my followers and and our fan base like from the very start and i think people people aren't stupid people see through a lot of stuff and so if someone sees something that isn't genuine they know it's not genuine um and i think that's the same for business as well like people can see through a strategy that isn't genuine and so i think yeah consistency as well that's that's been a massive thing for me and just keeping it up throughout the years um yeah it is tough though as well like it's not easy to be able to post all the time and think about your likes and your streams and whatever because if you think about that too much you you start boxing yourself in and you you don't you create i don't know like the creativity goes for me yeah well how do you get your creativity back what do you do inspiration from everywhere like you know even watching a film in terms of music like watching a film like listening to other music um looking at people's lives and listening to other people's stories is huge um but as i say like try not to box yourself in um be super open-minded with everything you do and i think creativity will come to you true i personally go for a walk i know it sounds really old and boring maybe but sometimes just going into nature and having 20 minutes and not feeling the pressure right it's uh it's some simple little things i think well look um just to end the podcast because i know you guys have got a lot to do so i don't want to keep you much longer but just before we leave i wanted to maybe ask you both um if you could pinpoint a couple of really lucky moments in your life that you feel really grateful for we'll leave some people with that positive uh grateful feeling so olly do you want to go first i think the the luckiest moment i had was i decided as a lawyer as a newly qualified lawyer as well i didn't want to stay in private practice i didn't want to work at a big law firm and i was going to go and become a football agent actually and i actually had an offer to go and be a football agent but i decided just maybe i'll board him at a coincidence i don't know how to pick up the law society gazette which is like the the trade rag and i flicked through it and i saw the advert to be a legal services executive at the premier league and the rest is history and that moment of luck has shaped my career no doubt about it if i hadn't been at the premier league i wouldn't have ended up in f1 i wouldn't have had all the experience i wouldn't have the network that i have that moment of me just deciding do you know what it's bloody boring newspaper i'm gonna pick it up anyway the first positive review for the lawyer gazette i feel like we should put the link below and connor what about you uh i think in school uh you know how you do gcses i in my school it was a performing arts school and originally i went with art as my performing art you had to pick one um and i didn't pick music which now seems really weird but i think i had one bad art lesson and i was like no i don't like art anymore which is a weird thing since having one lesson a bad lesson is a is not a bad thing but i quit art and i did music instead and from that point on i think i probably have that to to not blame but to credit for i mean simon go ahead ollie yeah i'm just thinking about this i often get asked by people how do you create your luck and what to do and the single biggest tip i have for anybody listening is bash doors down don't be afraid to go and bash doors down and ask people for advice for help for work experience for internships just um you know sitting and shadowing just bash doors down would be my single biggest piece of advice i i such a good advice i studied luck for three years intensely so there's a really interesting formula around luck which i can share another time because this podcast is about you not me but i really think when one thing you just said there um i one thing connor you just mentioned um almost like um let's call it a bad luck moment you've got a teacher that perhaps didn't inspire you or you had a didn't have a good class session in a subject you thought you were going to go for but thank god for that bad luck exactly right thank god for that bad luck bad luck can sometimes over time become good luck and as hard as it sounds or is it as awful as it feels at the time when you're having the bad luck it can it can strengthen your resolve it can fine-tune what matters so you know that bad luck moment turned into what an incredible piece of luck over time for both the people that get to enjoy your content but absolutely but also for london united who now have you supporting their incredible initiatives so so you know it's it's interesting but i i just want to say thank you to you both for taking time out to come and share your story for all of uh your links to your different social media channels and and what you do we'll put it below in the notes of the podcast i i beg my audience to please go and follow you share comment say hello it doesn't cost anything to do it and i know um it would mean a lot to connor and ollie and colin thank you so much for coming and sharing your story with us really real pleasure to have you both here thank you thank you so much honestly really appreciate it thank you see you guys [Music] thanks for listening to pep talk we hope you enjoyed it don't forget to follow the purposeful project on all our social media channels where we're giving away even more free business secrets and entrepreneurial value again we'd like to thank our sponsor godaddy for powering this podcast from naming a business to buying a domain name to building your website for free godaddy has you covered for 40 off go daddy tools click the link in the podcast note below and use the code gdx pep talk see you next time entrepreneurs and remember you're not alone