Episode 33 · 5 April 2023 · 1:10:11
Stella Smith: How pirkx is Redefining Employee Benefits
Stella Smith: How pirkx is Redefining Employee Benefits
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Word of the week: QuitTok
ChatGPT's new capabilities
Low dopamine mornings
Defining well-being from the dictionary up
40+ benefits, one platform
Listening to customers — and acting on it
13,000 customers with same-day doctor access
The misdiagnosis story that changed everything
Leanne's own story — and why access matters
How pirkx keeps it affordable
'Finally, I'm in charge' — building the culture you want
5 lessons from an hour with Stella
Al signs up for pirkx (and the big red cancel button)
Show notes
How pirkx Is Redefining Employee Benefits — the Stella Smith Founder Story
Founder Story Series — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) kick off a brand-new series with Stella Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of pirkx. From the McDonald's drive-thru to the financial markets trading floor, Stella shares how she built a platform that gives small businesses access to 40+ health and well-being benefits — including GP and counselling services — for less than £5 a month.
This isn't just a story about a successful startup. It's a masterclass in why success has nothing to do with luck, why "being nice" is a non-negotiable hiring criterion, and how one misdiagnosed customer changed everything.
💡 What We Learned
1. Success is not about luck. Stella's parents called it the Midas touch. She calls it something else: showing up, working hard, and being ready when opportunity appears. As Al puts it, "You're lucky" is one of his trigger phrases — because luck is what people call it when they don't see the work.
2. Well-being benefits shouldn't be a luxury. Stella founded pirkx in 2019 after growing frustrated that small businesses couldn't access the same health and well-being benefits as big corporates. Today, pirkx has secured millions in Series A funding and is on track to support 1,000,000 users by 2025.
3. Listening to customers changes lives. pirkx's early data revealed a customer who'd been misdiagnosed — a hard-to-discuss condition that went unnoticed until the data flagged it. That single story reshaped how Stella thinks about the service. She now says: "You gave me somebody to speak to on the same day, and I'm still speaking to them."
4. "Being nice" is a hiring prerequisite. Stella's definition of culture is simple: "Anything below this line is not tolerated." And at pirkx, that line starts with being a decent human being — for employees and for the businesses they work with.
5. Give people a reason to care. Whether it's Gen-Z development opportunities or workplace culture, Stella believes reason is everything. If people understand why, they'll bring the how.
🔑 Top 5 Lessons from Stella's Founder Story
- Stand up for your people — even when it's uncomfortable. Stella learned this early on the trading floor, and it shaped her leadership forever.
- Give them a reason to care — purpose isn't a poster on the wall. It's the answer to "why does this matter?"
- Ensure your service is congruent with your beliefs — Stella could have targeted big corporates. She chose small businesses because that's who needed it most.
- Do something for your people — pirkx or not, the message to small business owners is simple: do something. Your team is watching.
- Being nice is non-negotiable — culture is what you tolerate. At pirkx, anything below "nice" isn't tolerated. Full stop.
🎧 More From Truth, Lies & Work
- Recovering from and preventing burnout: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/burnout-the-pandemic-you-didnt-see-coming-part-1-of-3
- The Founder Story of Co-Host Al Elliott: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/al-elliott-story
- How to Lead Gen-Z and Millennials, with Sophie Wade: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/the-secret-to-leading-gen-z-millennials
🔗 Connect With Stella Smith & pirkx
Stella Smith
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stella-smith
pirkx UK
- Website: pirkx.com/director-welcome
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/pirkx
- Twitter: twitter.com/pirkx
- Instagram: instagram.com/wearepirkx
- Facebook: facebook.com/pirkx
- TikTok: tiktok.com/@wearepirkx
pirkx Australia
- Website: pirkx.com.au
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/showcase/pirkx---australia
- Instagram: instagram.com/pirkxaustralia
- Facebook: facebook.com/pirkxaustralia
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team Can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. I'll get the quote wrong, but it's essentially that if you can make a small ripple, you can create a wave of change. And I, I subscribe to that.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottAnd my name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of people. That's one thing that we do well. What's the other one?
Al ElliottYou would have thought that an episode after 30-odd episodes would be a little bit smoother than we are now. But yeah, mainly we're here to simplify the science of people and to create amazing workplaces. Um, we're all about work culture. Um, and Leanne—
Leanne ElliottPlease, in the name, guys.
Al ElliottLeanne, Leanne is the expert And I'm the idiot who sits next to her and goes, what the hell does that mean? And if you've— if it's your first time listening, then kind of this is a— we generally do panel shows, don't we? Which basically is not like a panel show, but like a panel-style episode where we tend to have a few different guests on. A bit different today, Leah.
Leanne ElliottIt is a bit different today. And it's also nice to be back together in the studio. We were separated last week. If you're not sure what I mean, go back and listen. But yeah, we have a really, really cool founder story for you today.
Al ElliottSo we're hoping this is going to be a monthly thing where every month we're going to have Every month we're gonna have just one single founder, and we're either gonna talk about a business related to workplace culture, or we're gonna talk about someone who has implemented something to do with workplace culture in their business. I've got 3, I think, 3 found— no, 4, 4 founders I'm very, very excited about, um, who are all booked in and ready to go. So they'll be coming up over the next few months. Look out for this new style series.
Leanne ElliottIt's very exciting. So yeah, we will be meeting Stella very shortly. As we said, she's a founder and CEO of Perkx, which is an online platform, um, which was designed to increase accessibility to well-being benefits. Her company has already expanded into Australia, where it's led by MD Siobhan Wally. No mistake there, that is also a woman-led business. Um, and yeah, it's all on track to have more than 1 million users on the platform by 2025. Not bad for a business that started in 2019. Stella herself has been named in the LDC Top 50 of 2020. That's Lloyds Banking and the Times ratings. And most recently, she was the winner of the AccelerateHER Award 2023 in the technology category.
Al ElliottPretty amazing lady with a great story. So we're gonna go meet Stella in a second, but firstly, favourite time of the week.
Leanne ElliottYay!
Al ElliottIt's the news roundup. Cue the jingle.
Leanne ElliottDid you, did you miss this last week, Al?
Al ElliottI have to be honest, it was slightly easier to edit last week, but, um, usually transcends into chaos. So the news roundup where Leanne gives us 3 news stories, and the first one has always started traditionally with a word of the week.
Leanne ElliottNew word alert.
Al ElliottWhat have you got, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottWell, I can't take credit for this one. You, uh, you sent me this one, Al.
Al ElliottI did, I did. I mentioned it last week, I think, on the end of the podcast. I didn't know whether you were going to use it or not, but I'm chuffed to bits you have.
Leanne ElliottOf course. So yeah, our word of the week is quit tok.
Al ElliottGod.
Leanne ElliottI know, I know, I know. Unsurprisingly, it's something to do with, with the TikTok, which I believe is what the kids are calling it. You all right there?
Al ElliottSorry, I just banged my water into my microphone. Sorry.
Leanne ElliottUm, so yeah, it goes back to July 2021, a simpler time, Al, but there was a clip of, uh, in the UK, a McDonald's worker Um, who quit mid-shift. Um, obviously put it on TikTok, filmed that on TikTok.
Al ElliottWhy wouldn't you?
Leanne ElliottWhy would one not? Um, and it went viral. Um, so yeah, so that was, that was kind of the moment that started lots of other creators start to do similar real-time footage of the moment they told their bosses, I quit. Um, so yeah, these are the #QuitTok videos, taking different forms since, either people leaving on a Zoom call, documenting the point they hand in their letter of resignation, um, or clips of actually of telling their boss, um, that real-time moment when workers quit. Thoughts?
Al ElliottIt makes me think of when someone said Facebook groups are not like airports, you do not need to announce your departure. And I kind of— and I kind of feel the same with the whole TikTok thing. It makes me feel a little bit sick. And obviously that's because I'm Gen X, not 2 generations away from Gen Z. But why are you filming that shit? If I bet most of you just— most people who do that just want to have like loads and loads of views. I bet that's what they're doing.
Leanne ElliottThat could be, that could be one argument. Another argument is that, as you say, you know, Gen Z, they've, they've grown up digital natives. They've, they've learned how to be in the world through social media. If you grew up using, um, you know, using social media, recording and sharing things constantly, why wouldn't you do that to share the larger, more Significant moments in your life. I'm shocked by the number of live birthing videos that seem to be popping up on TikTok.
Al ElliottI'm sorry, whoa, whoa, whoa, back the fuck up. What did you just say?
Leanne ElliottYeah, well, not like, not like, not like business end, not business end.
Al ElliottJesus Christ.
Leanne ElliottYeah, but like the my birth story type thing. And to be fair, it's still quite graphic. You still see a little something, something come out of, out of another human. By that I mean another human child, a baby come out of a human. But Yeah, apparently, if— I mean, no judgment. If that's what you guys want to do and that's how you express yourself, then cool. And I think that's one of the things that people have said. They get a lot of support from it, a lot of, you know, I've been there, good for you, this is so inspirational. So yeah, I mean, we'll see. And of course, you know, we are not against quitting toxic workplaces. Absolutely stand up for yourself and do what's right for your own mental health and your own career as well.
Al ElliottLong-term implications?
Leanne Elliottcan't really be sure what, what they are. Um, I mean, if everyone's doing it, what difference does it make?
Al ElliottI can't see that ending well for a lot of people.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think, I think the thing is, yeah, as an individual, we don't know. Maybe it will affect your future career opportunities. It's— as a business owner, it's worrying though, in terms of employer brand, in terms of kind of employee engagement, attracting talent. That is, that is not— I know they say like, no, no, all press is— what do they say?
Al ElliottNo publicity is bad publicity.
Leanne ElliottYeah, in this case, I'm not sure that's true.
Al ElliottNo, I don't think that is true. And it's fair enough if that's what you want to do, but that wouldn't be my choice. But then I am 25 years older than you, so.
Leanne ElliottOkay, so what else is there this week, Al? Let me tell you. I'm not sure if you would have heard, but there's a little thing called ChatGPT-4 that's been rolled out. Chat?
Al ElliottNow, is it ChatGPT? Is that the way you say it?
Leanne ElliottChatGPT is exactly how I pronounce it. Yeah, ChatGPT. Um, so yeah, more capabilities And I saw, I saw quite an interesting thing. I'm not here for the technology, you know that. But I saw something that was, you know, lots of people have been experimenting with it. And apparently there's, there's a survey that's been done that shows that more than 40% of professionals have used it at work, but 70% of them did it without telling their bosses.
Al ElliottI love this. I love this. I'm a huge fan of AI, not just because my name looks like AI. But I absolutely love it. And I think, to be fair, you've gotta be living on the moon to not know what ChatGPT is now. What I've been using it for is just all kinds of weird things. Like I had to do, I had to work out what the interest rate on a mortgage would have to be based on the principal and based on what my target payment was. Now I could write out using my school algebra what the equation was. Could I solve it for Y? Could I? Balls. So I went to ChatGPT and I said, given that I've got this number, this number, this number represented by this, Can you write the equation out and then solve it for y? Of course it could. And so basically I put that back in.
Leanne ElliottSo cool, man.
Al ElliottYeah. And I put it back into Google Sheets and it worked. And I was like, right, you know, that would've taken me probably an hour to work it out before and go and research it and probably go and put, post it on a help desk and wait for like 3 days for someone to come back to us. So that is brilliant. I wrote some code for, uh, some code with it the other day, came out, worked perfectly first time. I asked it to rewrite the bio for this particular podcast. Leanne wrote out, it was brilliant. And we both said, should we have a go with ChatGPT and see if they can do a good job? I said, this is the bio. This is the— that's the other thing about ChatGPT. Sorry, I'm getting excited now. Is that each conversation remembers what you've said above it, even if it was like a few weeks before. So I've named the conversations like podcast. And so I can go back into the podcast and go, and I asked it, do you remember what we were talking about with my podcast? Our podcast, obviously, but ChatGPT is not about you. It's not sentient.
Leanne ElliottI thought we'd You introduced me.
Al ElliottYes, but in a different chat. Although to be fair, with the recent data breaches, then perhaps it does know everything about both of us now. It knows we're connected. But, but the fact is that I could just go in there and go, you remember our podcast? They went, yeah, yeah, I remember it. It's this, isn't it? Yes. Now this is our bio we've written. Please have a go at rewriting it. Rewrote it. Brilliant. First time. So I think what it's probably going to scare a lot of people because you think, oh my God, it could take our jobs. Yes, it's gonna take some of the jobs, but it's also gonna create others. There's something called a prompt engineer now, which is a proper job. And it's people who will, who will basically create prompts for Midjourney, for graphics, DALL-E, for, you know, ChatGPT and all the other AI stuff. So there's, it's actually creating more jobs. And I kind of see it as sliding up the scale. So now we've got this sort of large language model to analyze the data. We no longer need someone to go through and read a spreadsheet. And summarize it, or perhaps to go through and say, oh, do me a favor, Arthur, will you just read through all those emails, those 60 emails, and just summarize them for you? You can ask ChatGPT or you can ask AI to do that. So I think we are— it's just gonna move us slightly up the more important scale. Sure, there are gonna be some people who lose their jobs, but they were probably at risk anyway by offshoring or finding someone who's slightly better at adding up. No offense to any accountants here.
Leanne ElliottIt's true. And I think my, my little take on that also— I'm loving— you can see, like, if we talked about kind of your world, like marketing and tech, what the podcast would be like. Well, that's why we get on so well, because I nerd out. We sound the same. It's like, oh my God, I'm this and then this and then this and this.
Al ElliottAnyway, sorry, do I need to cut some of that out?
Leanne ElliottNo, I think it was beautiful. I loved it. Um, but I think I agree. And I think it's my thing with, like, and the whole, you know, with the survey growth, like 40% professionals used it, 7% didn't tell their bosses. That just again highlights that there's just no trust between employees and bosses because they're gonna, you know, they're probably imagining they're gonna react badly. My point is, and you said this to me once, like, that the best people to hire are intelligent and lazy.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottBecause they're gonna find just that all that kind of stuff that can just be done quicker and just diverts their value-added time back to the business. I don't understand. I would be thrilled if my member of staff came back to me with that because It's like, brilliant. What else? What else can you do to make this world more effective and efficient and all that, you know?
Al ElliottSo what else you got, Leah?
Leanne ElliottWell, something else that I was reading, and I thought it was again topical into our conversation with Stella today. I was reading an article in Stylist magazine.
Al ElliottThat doesn't— I mean, looking at you, that doesn't seem like the kind of magazine for you. Just describe what you're wearing right now. She's, she's looking glamorous. She's looking lovely. This is obviously a joke.
Leanne ElliottI am shocked.
Al ElliottThis is obviously a joke. If you listen to us now, you'll know that it's just banter. I think she's beautiful and she's amazing. So you were learning how to be stylish in this magazine.
Leanne ElliottI don't want to play anymore.
Al ElliottCome on, come on, You're a professional broadcaster, you should be able to get through this.
Leanne ElliottSo there's an article, it caught my attention because it was, it was called Low Dopamine Mornings May Improve Wellbeing. Okay, so I thought, okay, interested. So I read through it and basically it's saying if you start your day with low stress, low stimulation activities, it helps you maintain clarity and focus throughout your day. Um, apparently it's been a popular lifestyle choice within the ADHD community for some time, basically because lower dopamine helps to curb hyperactivity and increase focus. So would you like to know some tips around having this low dopamine morning?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliott1, avoid your phone for at least an hour after waking up. Yeah, tricky. 2, wait for 90 minutes before having any caffeine.
Al ElliottRight, this sounds like a shit morning to me.
Leanne Elliott3, eat a high-protein breakfast.
Al ElliottOh, we do that.
Leanne Elliott4, complete a low-stress task like emptying the dishwasher. And 5, swap your early morning HIIT workouts or sprints or high-energy workouts for low-intensity workouts such as a walk or Pilates.
Al ElliottNow we do that. We do a walk with the dog every single morning. So that, I mean, to be fair, I have noticed that if you wake up and I go for a walk with the dog, when I come back, I feel feel like I've had a little bit of a break, apart from this morning when it was blowing a gale. It was like midwinter.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I don't know. I didn't know if this was maybe a challenge, Al. I think, I think the hour of not having my phone, I'd probably get into habit quite quickly. The 90 minutes before caffeine, I think it's gonna be hard. But yeah, what do you reckon? Do you want to do a little challenge for next week and we'll report back?
Al ElliottNope.
Leanne ElliottOkay then.
Al ElliottShall we move on to the show?
Leanne ElliottSo our very first founder that we are showcasing is Stella Smith, which you know is the founder and CEO of Perks. Now Stella describes herself always first and foremost, and I've seen this in every interview she's done, every article she's been featured in, she always describes herself first and foremost as a mum to her daughter and then as a founder and a CEO. So as we said, Perks is a technology platform and is on a mission to make wellbeing benefits affordable and accessible to everyone. But before we learn more about who Stella is today and what she's up to, let's look back at where it all started at just 16 years old, when she not only left school but also left home. She started a full-time job at McDonald's, um, and then a job at Midland Bank, which is now part of HSBC. She started as a data waste clerk, which is sorting checks. Gen Xs and young millennials listening, if you don't know what a Czech is, Google it. And then, and then she rose quickly through the ranks, ending up incredibly on the financial markets trading floor. She describes it as a fairy tale story.
Al ElliottI think a lot of leaders who start at the bottom and work their way up, they learn so much on the way up that it's just, you, you kind of have this different way of looking at the world. Like, I was speaking to an agency owner who started as an intern, now a CEO, and, and he just knows every single aspect of the business. So, I mean, Stella describes herself as being independent from the age of 11. So we had to ask, does she see this as a key trait for entrepreneurs? Being responsible for your own wellbeing. So, uh, making sure that you're fed and clothed and, you know, able to eat and everything else. I think having that from a young age certainly makes you more resilient. And I think that I, I don't even like to call myself an entrepreneur. It's one of those words that doesn't feel like it's me. Um, and I, I don't, uh, imposter syndrome, I don't have that, but it just doesn't feel like a— I, I think that you have to get out there and do it. and go to work in the morning, or many of us do. I'm very lucky, I've done well in life, and, and maybe that's a little changed now. But if you're going to get up and you're going to do something in the morning, you might as well do it to the best of your ability, because you have to be there. And, and so, I don't, I don't think of myself as entrepreneurial. I think of myself as trying to take, um, advantage of best opportunity, or making best of an opportunity that presents itself. And going to work every morning, to me, is an opportunity to do something.
Leanne ElliottWhen we were chatting to Stella, she was saying how her mum and dad always said she had the Midas touch, um, that, you know, that she was lucky whatever she touched turned to gold. And Stella gave us the example of how she bought, um, Banksy prints for £150 before Banksy was, well, Banksy. And she told everyone, you know, she told everyone she knew that this will be the next big thing, the next big artist. And some listened and apparently some didn't.
Al ElliottBut I think this— people who say they're lucky, this, this, this is one of my trigger words. Oh, you're lucky, you are. The fact is that Has Stella bought 100 prints and has 99 of them turned out to be worth the same as what they paid— she paid for them 20 years ago? If that's the case, then it's not luck. She's just been there in the right place. I think there's a whole thing. There's a fortuitous situation, and then there's blind luck. Winning the lottery is almost blind luck. You still have to buy a ticket. But I think that people who, who say, oh, she's lucky because she's done this— no, I think she was the right place. At the right time. And of course, to be in the right place at the right time, you've got to be literally be there and be up and ready to look for opportunities. So yes, seeing a Banksy or buying a Banksy for £150 is lucky, but working your way up from check sorter to the trading floor is not lucky. It's putting in the time and the work to ensure you're in that right place at the right time. So talking of stocks and shares, I asked Stella a bit more about what it's like to work in that kind of environment. I think working on a financial markets floor in your 20s, And you're talking, you know, unfortunately, you're talking 20 years ago now, 'cause I'm getting older, or at least 15 years ago.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottWhat an amazing experience, particularly from someone with the background that I have. I still get goosebumps in my stomach when I think about those times. I was incredibly senior, incredibly young age, and I had no fear. I didn't think anything of it. I was just doing the best I could do every day. So, you know, I watched on the— I worked at HBOS, And I'd worked at Lloyds prior, so I knew a lot of the characters at Lloyds when I moved across to HBOSS. Now, I watched people who had been working in the bank, that view that, you know, bankers are awful and everything, that's not true. You know, there might be a couple of baddies in every organisation, hopefully none in Perks. I've made sure of that. But, you know, you always get some that are not wonderful to work with, or wherever you go. I watched people who are good people that got up to earn livings for their families, Sit there, and they'd been in the bank a very long time, and I was watching the share price go on the screens, and I was their boss, you know, of some people who are much older than me. And I watched them not just watch their jobs go out the window, but I watched them watch all their savings, because they obviously had shares in the bank, go out the window too. And, you know, there were redundancies, and there were tough times. And I think that's a— I think you should always stand up for your team.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd so, I'm proud that I stood up for my team in those kinds of scenarios. And I had an amazing— what an amazing career. It just doesn't feel like it was mine, you know, just cool things that you've done. But I think that watching those difficulties, watching their troubles, learning compliance, learning regulation, it's not an exciting answer, but I was schooled in discipline and the discipline of operating a business very well from that backdrop. And of course, I had lots of fun, you know, on a trading floor. Have you ever been on a financial markets floor? In the olden days, and remember, this was foreign exchange, money markets, derivatives, this is not stocks and shares, but you would basically have 6 screens, even back then, you know, and they'd have 2 little phones on your desk, and they have, like, little light switches. So, a customer would come in, and they'd be shouting an order here, and you'd have something called a squawk box in front of you. And so, you'd get to press a button, or yell and scream across to get a price, and then you'd have to quickly, in your head, I mean, now it's almost machines. But back then, you'd do it in your head, and then check the machine, and then take the price back. It was incredibly fast. So, I think learning that fast pace, understanding that business can be painful, but we have to find the best in that pain. You know, there's the job of making people redundant, you know, because there's no jobs for the business. And how you make sure that when those people walk out, they get the best deal, and they're walking out with a smile as much as they can.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottThat's a big lesson to learn in your 20s that, you know, I think you, you learn responsibility. So underlining my thoughts, my rant before, Stella worked hard. She took advantage where she could and saved some cash when she could. But when it got tough, she stood up for people. Now, I'm a great believer in that how you do one thing is how you do everything. And people remember when you kind of go to bat for them. So this leads to opportunities. Now, opportunities don't always pan out, But Stella's clearly a nice person with great ethics. And at that point, she did have a little bit of money saved. So there were people coming to her saying, I'm looking to do this. And she did actually invest in some of those projects. Of course, it doesn't always turn out well. But the more people you can help, the more likely it's going to work, work out in the end. So this is what happened after the global financial crisis of 2008-09. I made some money. So effectively, when it got to 2008-09, in the crash, I got to stay at home for 2 years. And what happened was, when you become good at money, is people come to you. So, the reason it sounds so eclectic, you know, an ex-girlfriend invested in a nightclub, it wasn't the best idea, so I popped some money in and tried to help her out. Um, you know, my brother lives in Thailand, so you end up doing things around friends and family. So, not to set the world on fire, um, not to create, you know, the biggest, next biggest thing, more that there's an opportunity to employ and work with and make nice a nice life for those people that you love and care for. And I ended up with a number of little things. Um, I also now sit on some boards, so I sit on the board of a couple of charitable, uh, interests, and I sit on, um, a structured debt fund and some other things as well where I think I can add value. And I think, you know, I, I think you get to the point where if something presents itself and you can fit it in, in amongst the busy schedule, you can't help yourself.
Leanne ElliottSo as Stella explained, she started and built various businesses and employing others. And she was keen with that, with her team, to provide the, the type of health and well-being benefits that she'd become accustomed to in the corporate space. But she couldn't. The providers were catering for big organizations. They didn't want to look after the small guys. And to use Stella's own words, this got on her nerves. So she decided to do something about it, and in 2019 founded Perks on the belief that it is an injustice that well-being benefits should be reserved for only a small minority working in large corporates with big pockets. Her goal was to change this for good.
Al ElliottYeah, well, I think it's for everybody, um, it's the short answer, that doesn't have access to this stuff. So there's around 3.2 billion workers in the world, um, only 9% of them have access to workplace wellness. Um, so that's the kind of things when I worked in the big banking organisations where, you know, you're obviously given your pension and your pay here in the UK, but you are often given ancillary benefits, like, for example, private healthcare, or access to a gym, or access to counselling, or further support where that organisation puts it in place for you. Those that are excluded in that big number, a big proportion of those either work in smaller businesses or they're self-employed. The whole point of Perks was that I had a number of smaller businesses, and I'd worked in a large organisation, so I was just, well, want to look after my people. Let me get some of the stuff that I was given for my teams. And I couldn't, because the providers in the space didn't want to service that smaller party. It didn't make sort of efficient sense for them to do that. Cost, I'm assuming, is the driver, and inclination, because they were making plenty of money elsewhere. Any founder or entrepreneur is likely to be very familiar with this. Step 1 is you search for what you want. Step 2, you can't find it. Step 3, you search be thinking, surely it must exist. And so step 4, you build it yourself. But it's a hard problem. And of course, it's gonna be a hard problem because if it wasn't, it would have been solved before. I mean, how do you build one platform that solves wellbeing for everybody? And that was the conundrum that I was set with when I, I am not the epitome of health and wellbeing. You know, I'm definitely not. There's many in my team that are far healthier than I, if you were to Stella explained to us that she doesn't believe anyone is good at strategy, although you may have a gut feel for it.
Leanne ElliottInstead, she believes that mapping data makes strategy clearer. So that's what she did, starting with defining wellbeing.
Al ElliottSo essentially, um, we, uh, took it back to the dictionary definition, which is the state of being happy, healthy, or comfortable. So, whilst I don't know what's going to sort your wellbeing out individually, because I don't know you well enough to be able to say, oh, I think, Al, you know, I'd send him off to a spa for a massage, or he'd, you know, he'd love a lovely long walk, or he needs loads more vitamins. I don't know the answer to that. But what we can do, by the dictionary definition, happy, healthy, or comfortable, is work out the determinants of human happiness, the determinants of human health, and the determinants of humans being more comfortable. So, what we do at Perks is set up 5 channels, some big, broad subject matter that we think breaks that down. So, your health is your physical and mental health, your financial wellbeing, because there's a lot of impact on that to your physical and mental health, social interaction and family, learning, because there's a lot of science between learning, and then reward and recognition or motivation to do things. And what we do is we gather together lots of benefits and services under each of those topics, so there's something for everybody. So, I think, look, we tend We tend to win on price and product depth. So, let me give you a corporate answer to that, first of all. So, that 40-odd benefits and services at that price point, and we try and find the best of the best. We looked at all the different services we could find in the counseling space and tried to find suppliers that we think give us the best for the money. And best not just in terms of how much it costs, best in terms of the quality of the service, how responsive they are, and everything else. So I think in terms of product depth and breadth, we tend to, we tend to win versus our competition.
Leanne ElliottIt really is the impressive thing about Perks. As Stella says, there are over 40 benefits and they span health, wealth, education. They include on-demand GP services, discounted private health cover, counselling, mental health support, shopping discounts, skills training courses, and it's all delivered via a uniquely flexible, configurable, self-service platform.
Al ElliottSo, what we did was build a piece of technology that aggregates together all of those benefits and serves it up to either workers in smaller businesses, although we have now some very large customers as well, and for the individual worker. And what the platform does is it aggregates together all those benefits and services that don't relate to payroll. So, we've got 24/7 access to a doctor, 365 days a year. It's really Just for the doctor, it's worth it, especially having a 5-year-old. Um, you know, you can have— it's for everybody in your household that's of the same family and unlimited appointments. No cheaty bits, no extra charges. They can do prescriptions, they can give referrals back into the NHS or to private healthcare. So that's a, that's a great benefit. But alongside that, there's 24/7 counseling. Again, for everybody in the household aged over 16. There's different rules, obviously, once it gets to children and, and minors. Digital physio, virtual gym classes, discounted gyms, cashback off your everyday spend, which in cost of living crisis is really important. And basically, it's about 40 benefits and services, and you can use the app or you can use the desktop, and it's just £3.75 a month plus VAT. When Stella told me this, I was a bit like, that doesn't sound very expensive. And she kind of agreed. She said, yeah, I think that's one of our biggest problems is that it is cheap. And so people think it's cheap. It was inexpensive. I think it's cheap. So I said, how do you even get all that for like four quid a month? We've built an incredible piece of kit that means that I can serve that audience without having such high cost because I'm using technology to do it. And so what we're effectively doing is using technology to aggregate together all of those individual diverse people. So instead of having one business with seventy thousand workers, we are. We are one unit as Perks, the family, but we're an aggregation of all the individuals, all the SME businesses, which means that that gives me the fighting power to go and get good deals that I can then bring to that membership and audience to get them access to really important and meaningful stuff at the right price. And I think that our technology is what allows us to do that. You can actually custom Perks. So, even if you've just got 2 people in your team, you can go in, and you can click in, you can change the logo, so it's, I don't know, let's just say it's ABC Bakery Limited. I'm looking at a bakery opposite outside my window. Um, you can make it ABC Bakery Team Hub. Um, you can pick and choose from our benefits. You can add your own stuff onto the system as well. And to be able to do that for £3.75 a month per fluffy for each person is a, you know, that makes us very special, I think. I think this is what's so good about the modern tech stack, the stuff that 15 years ago, as Stella was going to say, is would have taken you £100,000 and a load of like hardware to launch, you can now do with £5 a month on Amazon AWS. But I do love this obsession with it being simple and just working. Now there's a guy called Arthur C. Clarke who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey back in the 1960s, and he's got a famous quote. I think he's got 3 laws, the Clarke Laws or something. This is one of those 3. I can't remember which one, which one it is. And he said, any sufficiently Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And that's what Stella and her team have done. Organizations that are technological, but, you know, they pay an agency to build technology. I have a technology team in-house. We do— I can do user journeys, wireframes. I could even write a functional spec, but my CTO would probably put red marks all over it these days because I haven't done one for a long time. You know, our technology starts on my bedroom wall, on my office wall with me drawing. My CTO then turns that into I think that's logical and gives me a hard time. We tend to row. And then we've got teams that deploy that technology. So, I think that's a major advantage of having something in your head that you then turn into a reality, is the ability to do that. And we started playing with technology, my CTO and I, back in 2010. And things that take you weeks to build now and cost this much money to do, back then would cost, you know, Tens of thousands of pounds and takes months and months and months. So, we understand technology, and therefore, my saying to my team is, we should solve everything with a magic wand. So, for example, in our cashback service, you know, we get money back on household spend. It's like, wouldn't it be cool if you could just do nothing, and it just magically appears? And instead of putting that on the kind of You know, well, that sounds difficult. We made it happen. So, we literally, you know, made it connect to online banking now with about 300 retailers. Um, that ability to solve, and with technology, and there's downsides to technology, but the upside to technology is if you can think it, if you can dream it, if you can articulate it, and you have the time, the money, and the inclination, then you can build it.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us by the way, Yeah, yeah. And the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes— the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Leanne ElliottThe audio destination for business professionals. Seamless.
Al ElliottSeamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, It is.
Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
Leanne ElliottDefinitely.
Al ElliottDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottI love that from the very start, Stella has always focused on the customers that she's serving. And as she says, you know, it's actually a really great coaching question, and I've heard it used with business leaders in terms of their team development, their business development. But I also think in terms of ideation, you know, if you had a magic wand, what, what are we fixing? What are we— what need are we answering with this? So unsurprisingly, what followed was an incredible story of growth. So just to recap, Perkx launched in the UK in January 2019 as the first self-serve, low-cost benefits platform for the self-employed and small and medium businesses. 12 months later, in January 2020, Perkx secured over £1 million in seed funding, and by June had successfully launched in Australia, onboarding its its first client within day one of launch. That same month, June 2020, Todd Rupert, the ex-CEO of T. Rowe Price Global Investment, joins the Perks board as a non-executive director, joining the chairman Dan Cobley, who you may have heard of, the ex-MD of Google UK. By June 2022, Perks raised £3 million in pre-Series A funding, um, and it's— yeah, it's working to achieve its goal of 1 million members by 2025. So, Al, I've got to wonder, is this another story of luck? Is it that Midas touch at work again?
Al ElliottI don't think so.
Leanne ElliottI don't think so either.
Al ElliottI think we work blooming hard. Um, there's a, you know, I, I do, uh, which is not very well-being. You know, this last weekend I worked 16 hours on Saturday and 9 hours on Sunday. I average 50 meetings a week. That is a sprint, not a jog, in terms of wanting to get our mission done. I think it's because we're very driven, but we have fun along the way. We make sure we account for— and that's me rather than all my team, otherwise I'm held up as some horror. Yeah, I think we've worked very hard. We've had to hack, like every young business, but we're here because— imagine if you're sitting on your hands and you thought you had a piece of technology that could change the outcome for millions of people, then, you know, we may fail. Um, we may not get it exactly right, but right now, live, we are getting it right, because there's 13,000 people that can have a doctor and a counsellor right this second. So, I'm very proud of my team. It's teamwork, it's hard work, it's graft, and I think it's technology capability in-house gives us an advantage to be nimble.
Leanne ElliottWe talk a lot on this podcast about leaders needing to, to provide a really clear reason, a clear purpose, work that has purpose and meaning, and providing that to their employees. I think this is a really, really great example, and not just one in terms of kind of that altruistic drive that Stella has, but clearly seeing a very big gap in the market and capitalizing on that with all the skills, knowledge, and experience that she's got. I want to— can I, can I join the team, please? Stella, employ me.
Al ElliottI think I totally agree. And I think that with a lot of businesses who start off, they, they're kind of, they're seeking this product market fit where people actually do want to buy the stuff. But they're also like, oh, well, we've got to make it profitable from day one. And I think what Stella's done brilliantly here is that she's gone, I've got a mission to help 13,000 people access stuff and medical care they wouldn't necessarily be able to get. So that's my mission. That's what gets me out of, you know, out of bed in in the morning, probably what gets her to go and raise capital to continue to do this. But then she's not daft. She doesn't sit there and go, oh, we've achieved our, achieved our goal. Isn't it lovely? Oh, we're losing a bit of money, but we'll go and gain that. No, no. She goes, right, the next 3 years, we're gonna make this profitable. Part of me in Perks has changed, I think, in the last 3 years, which is, you know, we get up in the morning and I'm looking at, you know, can I make this thing profitable so it's sustainable forever? You know, what's my gross margin? How long are my sales cycles? All the good stuff that you would do as a leader in a business that's growing. But at the same time, I've got— I think I can put doctors into areas in South Africa that have no affordable healthcare for sub-a-pound this year. And I think I can make a difference on, and I think my team can make a difference to that statement. And it's very odd as a character with my background that's kind of, you know, fought my way up, to then find yourself in a position where you actually think you can do something that's—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottIn real life, we have 13,000 customers that can access a doctor and a counsellor today, right now, this second, because Perks exists. And that's a different driver. And I've never, you know, I've always hopefully done the right thing by people, but I've never had that, it would be remiss for us not to move forward with it. That's how I feel about it now. And I think that's an interesting place to sit as a human being.
Leanne ElliottStella, please accept my resume in your email shortly after this episode airs.
Al ElliottAre you leaving me?
Leanne ElliottNo, but it's just so inspiring, isn't it, to see an organisation just, just have that, that marriage of, of kind of human drive and helping people and also building a great business where people want to work and, and will thrive, um, while also, you know, making some money along the way. But if you are one of our earlier listeners, you may remember us talking about The Deadly Arithmetic of Compassion. Do you remember this, Al?
Al ElliottI do, yeah. It was, um, a charity advert, was it, trying to raise donations?
Leanne ElliottThat's how it's, how it's applied, yeah, in the charity sector usually. So the story will focus on one person rather than the millions of people who might be starving. Um, and it's basically because our feeling systems can't count. Um, so, you know, it, it's, it's hard for us to empathize and, and feel compassion for 13,000 people. Um, so you might not be overly impressed with that statistic, 13,000 customers that, that Perks has helped so far. And, you know, Stella understands this as well, and she's keen to gather individual stories from customers to keep her focused and to energise her team.
Al ElliottWe basically had one gentleman that had been misdiagnosed, and it was a particular, you know, hard-to-discuss type one, and it was a, you know, a traumatic misdiagnosis. And I'm making sure I'm anonymizing this as I'm speaking, but it actually made me cry, so I'm giving you the one that made me cry. And Claire in my team was on the phone to this gentleman for an hour and a quarter. When I worked in the banks, if you didn't have, you know, 10, 20, 150 million, you didn't get to talk to me about your money. You know, I was very, very senior then. I'd like everyone who talks to Perks to feel like they're worth £100 million. Even though they pay us £3.75. So, if someone calls us, we take the time. There's a human being. And so, Claire spent, you know, not selling anything, not doing anything, but just listening. And Claire is not medically qualified, my head of customer. Normally, people would speak to the doctor of the house, but this chap just wanted to speak. And he wrote us a beautiful email some weeks later, and he basically said, you know, it's not that I don't have the ability to talk about this issue, it's just that I've been in agony for 9 months. I'm just saying the same thing to my friend. I can talk to my friends and family. He was in his 40s, but I'm just saying the same negative thing because I've got no outcome. And he said, I spoke to you. First of all, thank you for spending an hour and quarter on the phone to me. But secondly, I gave you £4.50 because he couldn't claim the VTAC back. It's just an individual person.
Leanne ElliottHmm.
Al ElliottYou gave me somebody to speak to on the same day, and I'm still speaking to them. Moreover, I'm standing here, and I got a referral from the GP that I also got for the same £4.50, and I've now got a prescription, and I've been, you know, diagnosed with X, and I've now got some medication that I'm about to get. So I think Perks must be divine intervention. That is an extreme example, which obviously touched the hearts of my team. Again, regular listeners will know that Leanne and I used to be in the Samaritans where we met, and so we know the power of just having someone who can just listen to you non-judgmentally, and that can make such a difference. But couple that with the fact that this gentleman had got an issue, and he— I don't know whether he had the money to solve it. I don't know whether he couldn't find the right people to solve it, but he just basically sent a fiver to Stella's company, and then the very next day he's got prescription in his hand and he's got this diagnosis. It's just, it's just incredible. And this brings me on to the other thing, is that when I first heard of Perks, I thought it was like a company So you had to be a company, you had to have employees. And I've seen lots of them like this. Well, not the same as Perkx, but I've seen lots of them like this where you do have this company kind of policy. But she's saying, no, you can just be individuals. You can literally just ring up and say, yeah, I'm just Joe Bloggs. Can I just give you a fiver and you can help me? And of course you can. So we go back to this idea of Stella solving her own problem. She's got a young daughter herself and an extended family, and they all get to enjoy the perks of Perkx. We have a very, um, Clear health crisis. I mean, we've had problems for a long time, and they're going to be here for a long time. I think Perks can play a small part in solving some of that for individuals in the sense that, you know, you can literally click on the app. And I have— I mean, I must have had 7 calls over Christmas from family or friends that were having issues and then signed up to Perks, and then they, you know, managed to see a doctor and get themselves sorted. So, I think the doctor, the counsellor, You know, that service. I often think, do you know, I tried the counseling myself. I've used a doctor 13 times for my daughter last year. I definitely got my £4.50 worth, right, in my— and I made my mum and dad pay for perks because it had to be good enough that they chose to pay for it, because I would obviously normally get stuff from my mum and dad. It needed to be of value enough that they would pay the money. But that counselling, when I tried the service, and it was amazing. And I guess I've always been, and this is very personal, I suppose, but I've always been of the mindset my problems aren't bad enough to have to go and talk to somebody about. I was actually, I got COVID very badly in the first round, and I became more, I mean, I was still wearing a mask when everyone had lost their mask because I got pneumonia twice. I was, you know, poorly, very poorly with it, and it was scary. And they gave me a couple of little extra I mean, I didn't do all the 6 sessions, so I'd probably, you know, fail my own part of it. But in those first 2 sessions, they gave me 2 little exercises that I still employ for other things now, and it solved it for me. Now, I would never have troubled anyone, because, you know, to be honest, wearing a mask for a bit extra a day, does that really hurt anyone, or me specifically? Not really. But it wasn't a good thing. And by having something that was affordable, I would never, you know, normally to pay for a counsellor, it'd be a reasonable amount of money, or you'd be on a very long waiting list. And yet, I could deal with my issues. So, I think that the counselling and doctor are very important, but I also think, and the gym discount's very popular, and the cashback is very popular. They're, oh, and digital physio. So, they're probably your top 5. I would say that resilience building is just as important as diagnosis and fix. So, you know, part of the issue when I was interviewed last week is, you know, we're talking about how you can alleviate pressure at diagnosis or fix point. I actually think that what Perks needs to do going forward And does already, but can do even better, is start with that resilience-building piece. Like, we've got a little bit that checks in on your mental health. Now, even if you're in a, in a great state, well, let's maintain that, let's improve that. Let's improve our physical health so that we, you know, there's, there's some horrific stats around preventable diseases and deaths. You know, I mean, I get to look at that stuff these days in my seat. Wouldn't it be cool if we could change that number a bit?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottAnd, and I, I think it would be good if we could focus in on that. So, top ones are Um, uh, doctor, counselor, um, gym, uh, discounts, cashback, and the digital physio.
Leanne ElliottI would say Stella raises a really interesting point there about trouble accessing, uh, counseling and mental health support, but particularly for, I guess, lower level or not as acute needs. Um, and I've experienced that myself. I tried to access, um, counseling when I got chewing gum from from the car park.
Al ElliottYou got run over in Wales?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottThis isn't funny.
Leanne ElliottIt isn't funny, but I got run over in a car park. I wasn't seriously hurt, but I, I just— anxiety really kind of kicked up from it. Um, but I, you know, the doctor was like, oh, I can, but it's going to be a 6-month waiting list. Um, I can give you anti-anxiety or antidepressants. I was like, I don't think it's medication bad, so I didn't do anything. Um, and then about 12 months later, do you remember we got carjacked on the way to Samaritan did, and a dude with a baseball bat nearly tried to kill us.
Al ElliottYeah, this is all true, by the way.
Leanne ElliottAll true. So unsurprisingly, after that, that triggered something a bit more in terms of my anxiety. And I started about— probably again another 6 months after that, I went to the doctors again to, you know, talk about some of these symptoms I was having because I didn't know if it was a virus as well because I was having lots of vertigo. And I said, you know what, this happened, maybe I need to speak to somebody. And remember, the nurse kind of said, oh, I don't know, that's head stuff, and did like the, you know, the curly—
Al ElliottOh wow.
Leanne ElliottThis would have been 2012.
Al ElliottSo 10 years ago.
Leanne Elliott10 years ago, yeah. So again, I didn't access it. And then about 6 months later, I had a panic attack so bad that I had to call an ambulance on the M56 in the northwest of England. England. So I can see how this— it's probably something that I could have, again, as Stella said, learned some of these, these coping strategies that might have helped me then curb this later escalation of what became quite acute anxiety. Um, so yeah, it is— it's a, it's, it's a problem that I empathize with. If you're thinking my mental health challenges aren't that bad, there are people with much worse challenges still on waiting lists. That is true, but if we address it a bit earlier, we can sometimes stop it progressing. And you know, as Stella says, this access shouldn't be reserved to the people that work for big corporations or can afford to pay for it themselves. So yeah, I think that's one of the really cool things about perks as well. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you might be listening going, this is really nice, and you might be losing complete focus on Stella's story and. I'm just thinking, pirkx sounds pretty awesome. I need this for my business. I need it for myself. Um, but as you said before, Al, is it all just a bit too good to be true? And I thought the same when I first came across pirkx back in, in 2020. Um, but as Stella explains, it's, it's really not too good to be true. The price point is made possible by once again understanding the data.
Al ElliottI'm supposed to use the word affordable, but it's cheap. Do you know why it's cheap? Because I built it for 64 massage therapists and 100 people I worked in the FS round. There needed to be enough money to get out of bed to do the job, and there needed to be the right price to pay, because I was, I was only going to be my own. There was no, I'm going to build this to be the next big thing. It was genuinely, I want to get this stuff, and it got on my nerves that I couldn't get it, because basically they were— they didn't want to look after us because we were the small guy. And obviously I've probably got a bit of a chip on my shoulder for standing up for the little guy, and, you know, or I don't know, but it irritated me. And I I think you could easily charge a lot more for Perks, but why should I? I think I need to get out of bed and do them. We're a high-volume, low-value business, and my job to make money is to go and do lots of it to make it successful. But, yeah, we get that too good to be true. In fact, I've even worked with behavioral scientists to look at the design to say, how can you make it feel like it's not too good to be true? Because it's such a cheap price point. But do you know how it works, how it's so cheap?
Leanne ElliottNo. No.
Al ElliottSo, it's really simple. Like, some of the benefits and services we build and deliver, so, it's the cost of my technology team to build Kudos, where you get to give high-fives, or Surveyphone. You know, we build a piece of technology, and it's the cost of hosting that, but once you've built it, you kind of really paid for it, you're just maintaining it, right, or making it better. For things like the doctors and the counselors, let's take the doctors, if we owned a gym, Together, and we had 10 running machines. This is the example I always use because I think it's the easiest way to visualize how the perks unit economics works, essentially. And we have 3,000 members. If everybody turns up at 10:00 AM tomorrow to use our 10 machines, we're screwed. We don't have a gym any longer. But there is lots of data to tell usage of GP services and counseling services. What times they happen, how often they happen, how many times an individual would, which gives you a dataset which will tell you, therefore, how many— in the gym analogy, how many machines you would need to service how many gym members. We have the same in our world that we know, broadly speaking, what kind of bank of doctors you would need or qualified counselors to service that audience. So, that means you don't need a doctor for every single member. So, that's how we essentially get the price point to where it is. This idea of overselling, the gyms use it, airlines use it, insurance company uses it. You know, even the bank we've seen recently with SVB, I think Silicon Valley Bank. Yeah, we've seen with that, that as soon as everyone wants all their money out at once, they're kind of a little bit screwed. So I have to be honest, the marketer in me still wants to create a tier that's 10 times more expensive just to make the standard tier look like an even bigger bargain. But it is interesting that Stella got a behavioral scientist in to have a look at Look this. Yeah. at it. And the lesson that personally I'm learning here is building Oblong and our podcast business up is that Stella's designed her life to be however she wants it. So if she wants to spend 16 hours on a Saturday because she's motivated to push this new feature, then she can. But she doesn't expect everyone to do this. For example, Aggie from her team, who we speak to quite a lot, she comes across the most happy and contented person in her work. And I can imagine that Aggie would be just as happy doing 8 hours or 16 hours. Having a happy team is exactly on brand for Perks, whose mission it is to help all employees be happy and healthy. I think, you know, we're all human, aren't we? We don't get everything. I was really grouchy with my daughter on Saturday because I'd worked, you know, a big week. And I did give her ice cream in the evening, which is totally not wellbeing, with sweeties on top and chocolate and strawberry sauce to make up for it. But, you know, we're We're not perfect, but what we can do is we can get up in the morning and at least try. And my team are an amazing team of triers. Like, I pick— part of our interview criteria is you have to be nice, which is a very subjective word to use, but, you know, the old-fashioned basics that, you know, look after your friends and family, make sure you go out of your way to support them, all of that stuff.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottFinally, I'm in charge, which means I can demand that. I don't have to wish for that anymore. In my company, we can make sure that every— I had a 20-year-old go and look at our global payment system. Why? Because I don't think we should be limited by age or experience. We sent him in to go and have the meetings with all the bigwigs that I should have been in, because you know what?
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottYou have to let people just fly. And I think that lifting the lid off, um, anyone can do anything if they really put their mind to it and they're blessed with the physical and mental capacity to be able to do it. Um, anybody can do anything, and, and, and I'm, I'm living proof of that in my head. Um, you know, McDonald's, no, no results, and, and living such a fairy tale of a, of a dream of a life.
Leanne ElliottThere are a couple of things I wanted to talk about there, Al, if that's okay, if you'll indulge me. Stella said there that she looks— one of her interview question criteria is if people are nice, which seems quite subjective. I'm sure you use objective measures, Stella. I'm not questioning your interviewing process. But did you know, and I've had this conversation with people before, they've gone, I'm not sure if they're right for a management position, they're just a bit too nice. And it's like, one of the things that the research has showed us consistently over and over again for decades Now is one of the main traits of being an effective transformational leader. So a leader that drives drives change and inspires purpose and action is being likable, and being likable is usually because you're nice. So I think actually that's a really great trait to to look for in people. And secondly as well, I can't imagine that Stella has. I mean, she mentioned there about the the twenty-year-old, so so firmly in Gen Z territory there. I can't imagine given her approach to empowering people, to providing opportunities for, for development and progression, and to stretch themselves and use their skills, I can't imagine that Stella or Perks has any problem either recruiting or engaging Gen Z.
Al ElliottI guess the, the biggest thing is, isn't it amazing what you can do with a collection of people? And I, I say this to my team, I was like, we created a noun. It's a noun. Um, and you know what, it was 7 people sitting on some laptops in their spare rooms or home offices, for those that were lucky enough to have them. And Dan is part of that story. How lucky are we to have— I had Ash in my team, who's in charge of our SEO, sit down with the ex-MD of Google UK and Ireland to get SEO tips. We've got a beautiful blend of people who know nothing but have the right attitude, willing to roll their sleeves up, And some amazing experience, intellect, characters that surround Perks. And, you know, the more people that can attach themselves to our mission, there is— even if it's just saying Perks is cool, have a look at it, so that somebody knows it's there, that's enough. Just that love and that energy will drive us a long way. And I think having characters like Darren and Todd Rupert, who is also non-executive on board, an incredibly human being, um, the knowledge, the experience, the intellect, insights, the guidance and counsel for me as a CEO. But it's not limited to them. You know, as shareholders, the criteria on joining Perksteam isn't just for the team. Our shareholders have to be nice to us, or we don't want them either. And our suppliers have to be nice, and niceness needs to be driven into their SLAs. And that's about doing the right thing and come back. So I think, yeah, the one thing is, is—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYou know, the people and energy that make something happen. I don't know, I'm every day bewildered and humbled by what's happened on our story. And I think if I could gift that little bit of magical feeling that we feel every morning to every little business that's standing there trying in a backdrop of economic uncertainty and difficulty and strife and troubles and omnicrises, I would give that little bit of magic.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottWhich is there's a, there's a will and a want and a joy in standing up and trying. And when it starts to work like Perks does and you actually help people, it feels amazing. Yes, yes, yes, yes. A million times yes. What is it? I get a bit carried away there.
Leanne ElliottNo, I like it. I'm the same. It's, it's just, it's so inspiring.
Al ElliottIt really is. And I think, look, there's— I've talked about this before on the pod. I'm sorry, I'm going to say it again, but Jim Rohn, The best way to get what you want is to help other people get what they want. And I think that's it. As soon as you sit there and go, I'm gonna be an affiliate marketer and I'm going to set up a website and I'm gonna use AI to write all the content because I wanna earn £20,000 a month, it might work, but you're gonna be bored shitless. And there's, there's no, there's nothing to it. But if you go, I am going to create this platform that will help, it's gonna solve the health crisis. That's basically what, what Perks is aiming for, isn't it? Yeah. Solving the health crisis and healthcare crisis. I just love it. I absolutely love it.
Leanne ElliottAbsolutely. And from a workplace culture perspective, even take away what Perks actually does, building a team with a clear vision of what their product can achieve, what it can deliver for their customers, whatever that product or who that customer is, giving them opportunities within their job role to be mentored, to learn new skills, to push themselves to use their strengths, um, and, and to really prioritize those relationships. We don't tolerate people that aren't nice. I love as well that Stella did say there that she does— that niceness feeds down to SLAs. So yeah, she, she's, she is making it objective and tangible and measurable. Um, but exactly right. And it isn't just about my staff, it's the same with shareholders, it's the same with suppliers, is it? And it sets this benchmark of acceptable behavior.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd anything below that is not tolerated. And, and as we know, that's my favourite definition of culture. Culture is defined by the worst behaviours tolerated. And you know, you know, that workplace culture in Perks, and you can hear it in the way Stella describes it, is, is just phenomenal because the behaviours that are promoted are, are intentional and they're nurtured and they're celebrated.
Al ElliottSo we only spent an hour with Stella, but we learned— there was like, we pulled out 5 possible lessons from the interview. I wanna spend a bit more time with Stella because I think she's really, really cool.
Leanne ElliottMe too.
Al ElliottYou sounded really sad when you said that, like it's never gonna happen.
Leanne ElliottI know, it's almost over.
Al ElliottMaybe meet her in real life. So these are the 5 lessons we picked out of that. Number 1 is stand up for your people. Your job as a leader should be removing obstacles so that they can create great work, not adding more work or making work more difficult or telling their parking in your parking space.
Leanne ElliottEmpathic concern, that's called, if you want the fancy word for it.
Al ElliottNice. See, I knew you'd have a word for it.
Leanne ElliottUm, yeah, number 2, and I think we said give them a reason to care, and the whole team— like, there cannot be one standard for the team, one standard for the CEO, one standard for the board. You're all that team together. And we know as well, from a culture perspective, from an engagement perspective, from a well-being perspective, if that belief, that same belief, isn't held by the board, there's no point in doing anything. But Perkx know exactly what they're doing. They know exactly what they're building, who it's for, and how it'll help.
Al ElliottNumber 3, ensure your service is congruent with your beliefs. Now, Stella could easily have targeted her ex-employers at the big banks and probably sold perks at 10 to 100 times the price she does. But she chose, intentionally chose, to help those who didn't have that kind of access to perks. I've made that pun a few times, haven't I? Can't get rid of that.
Leanne ElliottNo, but yes. And another— do you want me to throw another term at you there? What it is, it's preventing moral burnout. So moral burnout is basically when our, when our values are, are misaligned with our environment, um, and too long in that can, can lead to that cynicism that is one of the, the main components of burnout. Um, yeah, some people call it moral burnout. So there you go.
Al ElliottI'm just gonna follow it with my 4th lesson, which is my soapbox. Leanne's got a soapbox about culture. I've got Podcast about fucking luck. You can honestly—I wanted to create these t-shirts called with just called fuck luck on it, and I just wanted to just hand them out to people to to entrepreneurs. Anyway, so luck is a function of intention, work, and persistence. So to be in the right place at the right time, you've got to be somewhere that's got opportunity, and you have to stick with it. Otherwise, you've got no chance of being in the right place at the right time because you're gonna have to spend most of your. life being in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time.
Leanne ElliottHear, hear. I'm so with you. Like, it's, it's actually just putting yourself in the right place and just waiting around long enough for the time to be right. I think it's more— yeah, I'm with you. And I think finally, you know, design a life that makes you proud. You know, Stella, it sounds like she leaps out of bed every morning because she's doing what, what she loves. And it sounds like her team are the same. You know, the only thing that makes you happy about your job or business is the paycheck, then maybe think about a change. Not to say do the quitTok thing though. We might wanna be a bit more careful about that, but, you know, consider making a change.
Al ElliottYeah. So the whole, if you wanna quit on TikTok, you can do that if that's what you wanna do. But the fact is that you are the beginning of your career if you're a Gen Z. So just take some advice for a second from an old Gen X. You're at the beginning of your career. You've got so many skills that that we Gen Xers would love to have. We're not digital natives. We don't know how to take a picture. There's a great, there's a great thing, I think it was on Reddit or something, just 100 pictures where someone like me had tried to take a picture with a phone, and then someone who was 14 came along, took the phone off us, and took like an amazing picture just by turning it on its side and tapping things and turning the dials up and down. So you don't have to quit a job because it's hard. Just quit a job because of the workplace, but not the work.
Leanne ElliottYeah, and you know, it's absolutely well within your, your rights and probably a really great move for your career and your well-being to identify an organisation that resonates with you and matches your values. So, you know, go out there, find somebody like Stella who is making a difference. Go back to our coaches and mentoring episode and learn some tips on how to find a mentor. Um, yeah, you are at the beginning of your career and some of the decisions that you make now will have impact for years and years to come, which is probably why our little uncomfortableness around the older quit talk thing. But, you know, even for older millennials, even for Gen X, you know, you don't have to stay in a career that makes you unhappy. You know, you don't quit a job because it's hard. You quit because, you know, the workplace is just not the work you want to do. So, yeah, I'm feeling inspired. So should we hear some more life lessons from Stella?
Al ElliottI tend to stay out of touch, um, with what's happening in the world. You know, throughout my 20s, I was surrounded by Bloomberg Reuters screens. My PA at the time, you know, would have my newspapers lined up for when I hit my desk first thing in the morning. An insane amount of input. Um, I do have views. I think it's going to be difficult, uh, moving forward, but I've also got this You know, maybe it's as I've got older, um, I've always felt that I can't change the world, but I can change and impact the little bit around me. I can change my daughter's life, I can change my parents' life, my friends and my family. Onward, I found as I've got older, I can impact others' lives. You know, I've seen people come and join my teams and then go off with a lot more skill sets, and, you know, I think we've at least impacted or helped their trajectory, uh, go positively in another way. So, in terms of my view of the world, is the world is the world, and that's gonna keep happening around me. But the one thing I can influence and do is stand up and do the bit that I can affect. So, I think I'm very cognizant of, I can't help myself, you know, I went on to study and get some letters after my name. I love economics, but I try and keep my head in a space now that is focused on the bit that I can do, be cognizant of what's happening.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Al ElliottI think it's going to be a very difficult time. I mean, you've got, obviously, there's wars going on, there's crises. Economically, we're sitting in a position that, well, I think it's the first in a long— it's in a very long time. But what I've learned over my financial services career is you'll have opinions from many different people. The important thing as a human being is what you can do to impact that. I have views, but I don't think they're important. I think what's important for me, personally, is taking care of the people around me, and as far and wide as I can push that, with whatever backdrop surrounds us. I sit on another board, and it's around human rights. It's by a very impressive individual called Bobby Kenyon. He makes an amazing speech called The Ripples of Hope. And it really spoke to me, part of the reason why I sit and do that. And it's basically, um, and I'm not going to quote it because I'll get the quote wrong, but it's essentially that if you can make a small ripple, um, you can create a wave of change. And I, I subscribe to that. I'm living that right now. You know, a silly idea in my head in 2018, and there's real-life people being helped by it today. And that's not me. That's all the people, you know, it's, it's people getting excited about it, people, you know, People say, well, what can I do to help? It's like, well, do you know what, just let people know it's there. I don't mind whether people buy it or not, that's not the issue. The issue is at least know that you can get something that's affordable and you can do it. Not everybody can afford £4.50 a month, you know, that's still out of reach, but that's about as good as I can get it for now. Um, if I can replicate that in other countries, I think we're doing a good thing.
Leanne ElliottI love it so much. So before we wrap up, I mean, we can't have somebody like a founder, CEO, MD, uh, like Stella Smith and not give her the opportunity to, uh, pitch Perks to us. Although I think I'm sold.
Al ElliottWell, funnily enough, I signed up for it this morning.
Leanne ElliottDid you?
Al ElliottYeah, yeah.
Leanne ElliottHave we now got Perks?
Al ElliottWe've now got Perks.
Leanne ElliottAmazing. So we asked Stella, if anyone is listening, what is Perks and how can they access it?
Al ElliottI think any business and any business owners, and it sounds like you've got entrepreneurs, Business owners, it, you know, anything. It's not even that they need to go on and buy Perks, it's just that they know it's there and that it takes 3 minutes to do it. To set up Perks, I mean, all you need to do is send a one-line email, say to the team, obviously, if you're paying for it, put your card details in, bang, you're done. And so there's no hassle. So it's really that, it's just the messaging that it's really simple and sweet and you don't have to think because we'll do that thinking for you and just deliver it.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottIt's cheap as chips. And you can also cancel. I sound like I'm doing a sales pitch, because I think it's brilliant, but I have a massive bias. You know, we've made it so that you can just turn it off, because I think that my job, and my team's job, is that we make it good enough that you choose to stay. So, if you put it in place for your team, you don't like it next month, cancel it, because that's what you should be able to do. And I always find on technology, there's never a red button. You know, you get your delivery thing go wrong, you think, I'm never gonna use them again, and then you try and cancel it, but you can't find—
Leanne ElliottRight.
Al Elliottwhere you want to cancel it. So I have a big red button that says, if you don't like it, click here and you can end it, because it's our job to make something that's compelling enough for our customers to choose to stay.
Leanne ElliottIt really is that simple. Um, and I love that, you know, Stella's mission remains the same— to bring everybody access to affordable wellbeing benefits that improve health, wealth, and happiness. And remember, that's not just businesses, that as individuals as well. She thinks Perks is pretty wonderful. We think Perks is pretty wonderful. But if you're not convinced, follow Stella's advice: at least do something.
Al ElliottBut fundamentally, I think the big thing for small businesses is do something for your people, Perks or not. Um, I think Perks is wonderful, and, you know, depth and breadth of product, but put something in place that you've got an infrastructure to support your teams. And, you know, there's We're operating in an environment now where lots of people have lots of struggles. You know, there's the conversation around omnicrisis, you know, from COVID to, you know, today I have my daughter at home. There's a lot of strikes around, you know, cost of living, energy costs. There's a lot of things affecting people at the moment. And what we all learned from COVID is that to be at work, to do our, you know, whatever that work shape, size, or how, we need to be well. And so if you can put in place something in an affordable manner for your team to be well, the productivity, the being there, the doing what you need to do for your organization or your business, um, is important.
Leanne ElliottI think Stella summed it up perfectly there. If you want to find out more about Perkx and all the incredible benefits, and you can also request a demo as well, head over to perkx.com. That's pirkx.com. And remember, as I mentioned, Perkx offers packages for individuals and businesses. Um, and as Stella says, why should you miss out on the wellbeing benefits just because you work for yourself? Um, so yeah, you can also find Stella on LinkedIn, um, and more from Perkx on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Uh, we'll leave all the links in the show notes.
Al ElliottThank you for joining us For this special episode, which is the Founders Special. We're hoping to do every 4 or 5 weeks on the episode. If you've got someone who you think should be— we should be featuring, then just make sure it's something to do with workplace culture, and then just go into the show notes below. You'll see this email there, podcast@oblonghq.com, and you can nominate someone to be a potential guest.
Leanne ElliottYou absolutely can. If you want to connect with Al or I on the old LinkedIn or follow some of the posts We put up after each episode talking about the episode. Come follow us over on LinkedIn as well. All the links are in the show notes. And there's also going to be a very exciting announcement very, very soon. And I think we'll probably put it on LinkedIn before we put it on the podcast. So you probably do want to go and follow us and just see what that— see what that is. Oh, nice.
Al ElliottNicely done. Thank you. I think I'm becoming more psychologicalizing and you're becoming Right. We will see you next week then.
Leanne ElliottBye.
Al ElliottBye-bye.