Daniel Brookes: [00:00:00] Some leaders are always at the front, always pushing, and really kind of loud and busy.

That's not me. I like to sit back. I like to grow people, support people. I'd really give them what they need to be successful.

It's very easy to say, let go and let other people do the job. But you also need to understand that they're doing a good job. You have to be able to trust that they're delivering.

And you have to very quickly get behind those people that have your back, trust your vision and uh, we'll challenge you. But also do a fantastic job day to day.

If you choose the right people, then all of a sudden you feel like everything's amazing.

But that's because the people that are supporting you, and you are supporting, are also amazing.

The only way you can get through it, is to breathe through it.

The minute that you plunge into icy cold water, you forget to breathe. And you panic, and you stress, and that gets how you drown.

It's really important to be able to control your emotions, to write things down, to talk through things, talk about ideas. That works for me to call the emotions [00:01:00] and make me think more analytically.

Then often solutions pop up,

​I'll be thinking about. Okay, well how can I turn this into a 5 million 10 million pound business? How do you disrupt?

What are we doing differently here? How do we turn this into a multimillion power machine that prints money?

Leo: Welcome to the iGaming Leader Podcast, where we uncover the human side of some of the most inspirational leaders in our industry. I'm your host, Leo Judkins, and as an ex iGaming director term performance coach, I've worked with over 200 leaders from companies like Entain 3, 6, 5, flutter, and many more to help them build the habits to achieve sustainable high performance.

In these episodes, we share exactly what it takes for you to achieve the same. So with that being said, let's dive in.

Leo: Hey everybody. Welcome to the iGaming Leader Podcast. I'm here with, uh, Daniel Brooks, [00:02:00] who's either brilliant or completely mad. Probably both. Dual founder, hands-on CEO. He runs both Betcomply and Ridentify, uh, as the CEO. Hugely impressive man, and a very, uh, empathetic leader who tends to turn moments of crisis into opportunities for innovation. He's also a dad, has a strong sense of what it means to balance leadership with his personal life. And yeah. Daniel, thank you for joining. I've been really, uh, really excited to talk to you today.

Daniel Brookes: Very welcome. Thanks for having me.

Leo: Yeah, to talk about the first time we met, actually, that's where I wanted to start on a boat in Malta and I actually didn't really know what you did. Right? Because we, we just got to talking but mate, I was super impressed. You're clearly super experienced, very good listener, very empathetic. Very inspiring, I thought. And that was my first impression of you. But I'm really curious, like, how, how would you describe yourself as a leader?

Let's, let's start there.

Daniel Brookes: would say I'm a thoughtful leader. So what do I mean by that? Well. Some leaders [00:03:00] are always at the front, always pushing, and really kind of loud and busy, and everybody knows who they are, which is fantastic. And that's your quintessential leader. That's not me. I am an introvert, extrovert. I like to sit back.

Uh, I like to grow people, support people. You know, I, I, I, I'd really give them what they need to, to be, to be successful. I think in terms of being a leader, it's really important to, um, do everything that everyone else would do, but also know what to stop and when to go. So I try and I, I, I'd say I'm more of a mentor, leader than anything else.

Leo: I'd love to dive into that for a sec, because I think it's one of the hardest kind of pivots you make as a founder as well, right? When you, so on the one hand, definitely you need to get your hands dirty. You need to actually understand what the stuff is that's, that the business needs to go through and what, what needs to happen. Then that moment of letting go, right? That's, [00:04:00] for some people, that is so hard. Even if you are a mentor type of guy, or you are, you're really good at delegation. Think just kind of knowing when to pull back and go, alright, now I kind of, and I still stay involved a bit, but I'm not micromanaging here any more, is one of the hardest pieces.

And how, how's that gone for you, uh, in these businesses and maybe historically through, through your career?

Daniel Brookes: you know, I like to do things and I feel like I can do things quite well. So I kind of made a step quite a while ago now, and it was, um, ops director to COO and as an ops director, I still was quite hands-on, and I was busy, and I knew what was going on with all the teams and I had my head in all the detail, and I got to COO.

And I was finding myself doing the same thing. And I remember having a conversation with, you know, someone that I really respect. Uh, They are like, Danny, you can't do it. You need to lead from the top. You need to trust the team to be able to deliver. And that's a skill in itself. And [00:05:00] it took me a little while to really understand that skill because it's, it's difficult.

It's very easy to say, let go and let other people do the job. But you also need to understand that they're doing a good job. You have to be able to trust that they're delivering and some people won't deliver for you sometimes, and by stepping back you need to be able to quite quickly understand and, and trust your gut that they're not delivering just like the ones that are, are delivering or have the capability to do.

And you have to very quickly get behind those people that have your back, like trust your vision and uh, we'll challenge you, but also do a fantastic direct job day to day. That's the, the skill in it for me. It, it's, if you choose the right people, then all of a sudden you feel like, everything's amazing.

But that's because the people that are supporting you, and you are supporting, are also amazing.

Leo: uh, because even if you, if you have the right people, very often, I, I certainly did for very many, many, many years. I got in my own way where I thought, you know, ah, I [00:06:00] could still do it faster, or it's not exactly how I wanted it.

And, of course, the way it's. I want it in my head is not necessarily the best way, but that's kind of how you think about these things, right? So even if you've got really good people, they're obviously going to do it slightly differently, and it's obviously not going to have the same standards. You found that as you kind of grew from that director to C level to founding businesses, how, how, how, how's that gone for you?

Daniel Brookes: is difficult sometimes, 'cause you can go on a journey.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: So you, you provide that trust. People will say to you, well, I really wanna do this. I've got this idea, or I think we should, move in this direction. And you go, okay. And sometimes you can fi find yourself meandering, you know, round and round, and you know that it, you could just cut to the point, and sometimes you need to.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: So, I have got examples, you know, where, where someone's kind of done that meandering journey. I've left them to it, and it's taken 'em a little while. But finally they're doing something really good that I might not have got to if they didn't go on that journey. But I also have it quite regularly [00:07:00] where they're meandering, and it's still my job to say, you, you know, you, you're meandering.

Let me, let me talk to you and I, and I'll coax them through it. And show them where they need to be and how to get there. And. I wanna make it clear that if you ask someone about me, uh, they, they will say that I'll guide, but they'll also say I'm very straightforward.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: deadly honest with you as well.

Like I with a member of there is something that we need to change and there's a direction that we need to get to, it is very clear what, where we've got to get to, what's that star that got that, that north star that we want to hit. Then we can work through the points to be able to get there.

But the best way to do that is obviously for them to feel like that they're engaged in that process and also that they're delivering. Those steps. It is to ask the right questions as opposed to demand a, a solution.

Leo: it's the hard bit, isn't it, where sometimes, being too nice or being too polite, like, actually doesn't get you anywhere. It just makes the problem bigger.

Daniel Brookes: yes.

Leo: I mean, [00:08:00] from early on in your career, have you always been like that, Danny, or is that something that's changed over time that you've, or, or maybe learned from others in your career that you saw were managing you?

Uh, how did that form itself?

Daniel Brookes: I think in my early career I was managed really badly, well, I saw it done badly. And these were. Very low-key jobs. They were, hard work, customer support roles, KYC roles, retail roles, whatever I was doing as, as a young man. And, I think as a young person, I was. Had ideas, had thoughts, wanted to do different things.

I was very much boxed in and told you Do it this way. And it took me a couple of jobs. I mean, I, I was, I, I, I got fired a few times. As a young man before. Um, I realised that to be able to implement ideas and to be thoughtful and to improve things, I just needed to get my head down. For a few years, I'd do what I was told, even if it didn't make sense, until I climbed the ladder to a point where I can affect change.

So that really affected my [00:09:00] psyche as to how to do things. And it always made me realise, well, I, I don't want to be that type of manager. What I also saw, again, probably as a mid-manager, is our CEOs that were, extremely. Forceful and passionate in their vision that brought you along for the ride, and you wanted these.

Now there was a very specific journey to, to, to get to, to that, but you, you, you felt like you belonged in that space, and wanted to deliver whatever it is that, you know, the, the, the board or the business wanted to deliver at that time. Those type of leaders that were very clear and vision, and no, we're going to do this, but you wanted to please, they were I guess SMEs, so medium-sized business that had been funded maybe, you know, once or twice and really had a mission. And those people moved quickly. And they, and they iterated on, on, on, on their business.

That's how I culturally set up the businesses that I work in [00:10:00] now. It's speed of operations, it's iteration, it's being clear with each other while supporting the people in the business that can. Help it succeed and bringing them with you and eventually, you know, lifting everybody up. But it, it, it's that message.

We don't do things slowly. We're always in startup mode and yes, we have process startup doesn't mean just do anything however you want it to do. There's process to getting it done, but we move quickly. We don't have bureaucracy, and we push forward, and we make mistakes, and we learn from the mistakes.

Leo: love

Daniel Brookes: the, the people that can work in that way are the people that I tend to, collect around me.

Leo: Yeah. I really love that, uh, Danny, because it's such an important piece, kind of what you're saying there is, I think it's very true in operational roles where you're just told what to do and you just gotta do it. And that's not motivating at all. Right? The, the motivation comes from understanding why you're doing something and how that actually contributes to the bigger piece, right.

Which is the like the vision, whatever that is. [00:11:00] So. yeah, so, so, so you're talking about, um, kind of having people around you, you've been working with, uh, several people for, you know, for some time. The thing that struck me the most is, like, I speak to a lot of founders and. You know, founding a business is just that, that's a that's a different world of pain, right?

Something that most people, never come to realise, but it's, it's, uh, it's a whirlwind of emotion. There's a sort of ups and downs of, you know, like catastrophic managing. All these crazy things that you don't even think about beforehand. Done it twice at the same time, more or less. Right? So you're in the middle of two, two startups.

Like that's, that's just the next level. Crazy in my mind. So how, what, what happened there and how, like how did you get to, to this point where you,

Daniel Brookes: The buses came at the same time. So I've been pottering around with identify for a while. I knew to find, find a core, [00:12:00] Purpose for, an idea that I thought was great and initially that, that, that took me on a journey. So initially before the kind of AI NLP, wave, the recent one with large language models, I was trying to look at, language and using natural language processing or, ways to understand what people were saying in conversations.

And over the years, you know, that's taken me on a few different, kind of journeys, um, and opportunities, which has, uh, allowed us to expand. And I've got to a position with that business where it isn't a huge business, but it's, it's successful, and it generates income and I have a very strong team within it, people that I, I trust.

Yeah. And that's allowed me to focus on, on vision and be able to say, well, actually we're in stealth mode right now. A little, to be honest, where we're, we're building something, uh, we're still providing our services and we're releasing it. But I know that's on, that's go, that's ongoing. I,

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: I know what I need to do there to make it successful.

And that isn't me [00:13:00] sitting in front of my computer for nine hours a day. It's talking to the people and allowing people to know what they're doing too, to build and to develop what it needs to do. And, um, one day I was at, um. one of the events, it might have been SBC, and I got approached by two industry professionals that I know very well.

Mike DeGraff and Martin Hodges, And they told me, about what they wanted to do in terms of, consultancy, in, in compliance, and how they want it to be built on trust and integrity and how, in the industry we're comp, it's a compliance business, but. Sometimes they feel like that is lacking.

And they wanted to do something different in the space. Uh, I was instantly bought into that, that message. So it was more of a case of, okay, well, how can I help structure it? Strategy, you know, direction. But again, I've got Mike DeGraff and, and Martin Hodges and Lu is the ops director there working in that business.

Okay? They are highly competent people, you know, um, and what they need from me. [00:14:00] Is someone that they can talk to, discuss their ideas with, brainstorm, um, and develop it. And, and sometimes to say, no, let's do something different. Or actually, yeah, guys, you, you really go in the right direction. Carry on.

Everything's fine. So I'm not in the muck. I am c I'm CEO of those businesses, but I see myself more as a director in those businesses, mentoring and providing support for the team that I've built to deliver. And that's a model that you can repeat.

That that isn't me stuck in the mud with my head spinning all the time.

Sometimes it does, and you know, every business has its moments and, and you hope that you don't get too business at the moment. At the same time, ultimately these are scalable things, uh, and I'm, I'm always looking for, people that I want to work with that have an idea that I can support.

Leo: especially where they've come from, right? Their background, which we won't talk about, but like, I can see how that, um, has turned into something where they wanna be the opposite of that, and that really aligns [00:15:00] with your values as well. So that makes, makes a lot of sense.

And, but I'm sure like even if you're not stuck in the mother, you're not involved, like, I don't know, whatever, funding, cash flow, like all of those things, right? They, they weigh heavy, heavy on us. So. I mean, what, what, what have been some of the most, more difficult moments that you've had where maybe two things happened at the same time in two different businesses with, you know, two different groups of people?

What, what, what were some of the challenges that you faced there?

Daniel Brookes: Don't get me wrong, I, I, I talk about not being stuck in the mud, but, um, there's been many nights where I've woken up at two o'clock in the morning with my head spent thinking about all the different things that we need to juggle in the different businesses. I've had days when I've sat there and I've not really achieved much because I'm full of thoughts and worries, um, and stuff like that.

I've had times when, you know, cash flow's been tight. I've had to raise money very quickly, you know, to pay staff, in different businesses. I've had times when I've had what I thought was a large client. We've invested a lot of [00:16:00] money into them, into building a product, to recuperate that, who've last minute, let me down.

You know, all, all, all of these things have happened, which we all know, right as a small business, you spend a lot of time working on things and trying to develop, um, solutions. And as a small business, larger business, often forget the net effect of them not paying an invoice or, um.

Not renewing an agreement last minute, you know, without too many reasons what that causes to a business. And the only way you can get through it. You mentioned to me at the beginning that you boxed a little bit, one of the events is, is to breathe through it.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: Um, the minute that you choose another analogy, plunge into icy cold water, you forget to breathe and you panic and you stress.

Uh, and that gets how you drown. Um, it's really important to be able to control your emotions, um, take a pen and paper sometimes, um, to write things down, to talk through things, talk about ideas. Sometimes they can [00:17:00] be completely wrong with people at those moments. And that, uh, works for me to call, the emotions and make me think more analytically.

And when what you are thinking analytically and you are considering, then often solutions pop up,

Leo: because that's the thing, isn't it? Especially if it's a sm when it's a small business and it's yours and you've emotionally invested so much into it, then any sort of business decisions by others like almost affect, well, not almost, they affect you personally, right. And outside the emotion.

And then if it, if it also has financial consequences, then the burden is on your shoulders for how that might affect the business and everybody who works in there, who you've brought on your journey that you are now responsible for. So, um, so I love what you're saying. I was, I was talking to, um, max Meltzer podcast yesterday and, and we're talking about the same thing, journaling and, uh, and how he's used that. Is that, is that, that cope that as a coping [00:18:00] mechanism? Uh, Danny, is that something that you've, um, kind of discovered out of nowhere? Were you initially struggling with kind of how to let go of the stuff that perhaps you couldn't talk to anybody else about in the business? How, um, how did that kind of happen?

Daniel Brookes: Young man. I used to write a little bit, and I don't think I realised it at the time. I used to have, it was one of the first mobiles, like allowed you to, to write nicely. I don't think I realised it at the time, but I think even then it was a coping mechanism, um, a way to express. Yeah. Um, so I think I've always done it a little bit and I always found, even when I was studying, uh, I'd always write everything down and that's how I memorised things and thought about things.

So it is something that I've always done. But maybe it's become a little bit more thoughtful, as times progressed. So, yeah, just, just write, writing down, um, what it is that you're trying to achieve, what's happened and, and breaking it down allows me to. Fully comprehend what it is that, that [00:19:00] I'm trying to achieve.

I also, I, I love technology, so I also use, um, AI for that. So creating like, um, private specific GPTs where I can have a back and forth with someone that isn't, um, human, where I can kind of consider my ideas, think through them, um, just almost rationalise what I'm, I'm, I'm trying to achieve. So I, yeah, for me, that's, that's really important.

And I'm probably someone that from I talk about other people and bringing other people on, I'm not always the most open. You know, I can easily close down and, uh, compartmentalise things, uh, internally. And I might say, well, that's, that's to help others around me. You know, my, my partner and my children don't wanna know about my, struggles in the workplace.

If there is a struggle, you know, they wanna know about my joys in the workplace. They wanna see me happy. So that, um, natural tendency to push things down, writing and that, that, that's a channel, [00:20:00] isn't it? To,

Leo: Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: to that and, um, get that out.

Leo: that's super important. And I think it's, I mean, it's certainly something that most, um, CEOs,

Daniel Brookes: Yep.

Leo: are stuck with at any level, really. You know, the stuff that you can't really talk cashflow is a great example, right? If there's cashflow issues, who, who, are you gonna talk to? Not you, not your wife.

You probably heard you speak about it, speak about the business too much already. Not your friends don't own a business, don't get it. Certainly not your employees, because they're going to freak out that they're going to lose their job. So, so where do you leave that?

So journaling is one, one thing. Are there any other things that you do to kind of, people that you talk to or things that you do to help you with, um, opening up when your tendency is to close down?

Daniel Brookes: it is less about opening up and more about taking myself out of the situation. I go for walks, so I've got a beautiful lab, German Shepherd, and you know, I, I, if, if I am. Overthinking, or need some space. I, I'll go out for a long walk. I, I, I'll take the time [00:21:00] and, um, try and switch off, but also sometimes just move through the issues in a different environment.

You know, I, I love working from, um, this ability to be able to work from home or the office, you know, get so many benefits from being in different environments. I think though, sometimes you can get stuck in a certain place that can be just as easy behind your desk in an office, out, as in, in your, your, your, your office and home at home in, in, in the spare room.

But I, I just think that there's this tendency to really get tunnel vision by being in one place for too long. So. If anyone ever says to me, oh yeah, I'm just going for a walk and I'm having taken my meeting at the same time, like, I, I always say it gives you that ability to, consider things in a different way.

Leo: it's what we did here in jib as well, right? Just meeting in a coffee shop. It's nice and easy. Takes us away from the office. I think it's, um, yeah, it's really powerful. Hey, we talk about some of the challenges. Um, let's talk about the opposite part of that. Like maybe, actually, maybe it's [00:22:00] the same thing.

I don't know. What are some of what are, what, what's your proudest moments? What's something that you've really proud of? Maybe not necessarily what these business could be, but just throughout your career, what's the what's the moment when you think back that's made really proud? What's, what's that specific moment for you?

Daniel Brookes: There's been the moment where I felt freedom to be able to act. So when I wasn't really tied to my nine until five job and I had the opportunity to be able to build and develop things, that, that was a kind of eureka moment for me.

Yeah, it allowed me to really focus on, on what I was passionate about. So that's been massive. More recently in Be Comply, it's, we had certain KPIs and customers that we wanted to bring in, certain revenue figures that we wanted to bring in. And basically seeing the speed and execution of that, that, that's been, that, that's, that's been innate for me. And in Ridentify it's seen people coming through the ranks. Like, Daisy won't appreciate me saying this, but it's, it's seeing someone coming in, uh, like on a biz dev kind of, um, level and, uh, building, um, their own [00:23:00] kind of identity within the business. And I spoke about that meandering journey, which took a long time earlier on.

And then finally kind of starting to get to a point where, yeah, this is an excellent idea. So watching people del, uh, starting to really deliver like that, you know, and starting to really bring in their own revenue, uh, has been fantastic. I, I, I'm someone like. I love to get that big deal. Don't get me.

Like, I really love to get that big deal, but the, the kind of fireworks for me is when we've kind of achieved this, this vision and people are all bought into it, and we're all talking around the table and everybody's kind of aligned and we know we're doing well, and we know we're having that, that congratulate beer and saying, you know, well done.

We're going in the right direction. They're the, the moments that really stick in my mind,

Leo: It makes so much sense. It's never the finish line, right? It's kind of the, the journey. It's the run itself.

Daniel Brookes: Yeah. Yeah, that's really true.

Leo: Yeah, amazing, it makes a lot of sense and it, it's, it's cool that you, uh, like your proudest moments are all in, in the people.

So, so, so when you, like, one of the things you mentioned before is, [00:24:00] um, is that you made some really strong decisions under financial pressure. And, you know, the financial pressures, especially in a startup, any founder will know how hard that is. So tell me a bit, a little bit more about those moments where, you know, you genuinely thought like one or maybe even both businesses might not survive, and how did you deal with it?

Daniel Brookes: But I've had moments where I've been like, okay, well cash is coming in, in, in a week's time and I've got to pay the bills this week. You know, so you have like a shortfall or, or cap for instance. Um, and those moments are very scary because I think at the back of your mind, you know that you're going to get through it.

You know, solutions, but it's, um, it, it is really finding those, the those tho those, those solutions. And there's been times when I've been down the wrong path. I think I was doing a round table about this and I was talking about how we've identified, for example, I had this idea that people, operators in, in our [00:25:00] industry would want to be able to identify customer vulnerability in conversations, especially in regulated markets.

Um, all the initial feedback I got from that was like, yeah, that sounds amazing. That's really interesting. But ultimately. No one really wants to put the hand in the pocket when it comes down to the decision to be able to find that out and to be able to do that, because there are other uses for that cash, and these are mistakes that you make.

Big mistakes because you have a whole r and d team building that out, you know? Data scientists building that out. And you can see a little old me in the front talking to people about it, but they've got no idea. There's people working on those things, and even if it's a team of five to 10, they're on 60 grand each.

You know, it, it, it, there's a there's a burn rate there, right? There's a runway that you, that you, so kind of, it's, I find going through that, I then get into a position where you're like, actually, you know what? We're not getting traction here. We need to pivot.

Leo: Yep.

Daniel Brookes: You know, we [00:26:00] different. That's a very hard decision.

It's extremely brave to be able to do it. Be able to go, okay, no, this whole brainchild that you've done, this vision that you've sold everybody else on. Me, is it like, I've obviously raised capital and different things, so then going back and going, okay, well no, I need to change that. And you just go in a different direction.

Still gonna work, but we're going to utilise it differently. Is um. Really difficult and really brave. And people talk to me about that a lot. And they come up to me and they, they tell me about these, these things and kind of like how they're making decisions and then how well, um, it's not quite worked out, and, and how to change that, businesses you call it change management, but after, before you can do change management and you can pivot, you have to change yourself. It's obviously something that you know a lot about in terms of what you do with your coaching. Yeah. And for me, knowing and, and realising that a change was needed, that was probably more difficult for me, as a process than having to find an extra 20, 30,000 [00:27:00] pounds because we've got two weeks of, uh, before our next payment comes in.

Um, because that's mindset change.

Leo: Yeah. It's so difficult, right? I had, um, you know, Vladimir from g uh, Sonata Investment. He, I had him on the podcast and he was talking about how important it is just to get dollars through the door, right? Just, it doesn't even matter how much it is, just get someone to pay for the idea that you think is great, because just like you said, said Danny, right?

Like people will tell you amazing idea, amazing idea. But unless the hand actually goes into the pocket, it doesn't matter, right? I'd also like to talk about the opposite side of that. Believe that often as a small business, of the disadvantages is that you can actually pivot so quickly.

And let me just really explain that real quick. In, you are in a large business, right? Like the business gonna, you're going to stay a sports book forever, right? You're not gonna all of a sudden become, I don't know, like an operator or something. In a small business, the opposite, right? Like a speed boat instead of an oil [00:28:00] tanker.

You can, you can pivot like that, it also means that a lot of founders, they don't stay the journey for long enough to actually be known for the thing that they're going to be doing or the service that they're going to be delivering. So how do you balance that in, in an example like you've just had, right?

Where you've got this sunk cost fallacy, right? You've got all this sunk cost that you've, that you've already put in. There's a lot of opportunity cost there that you still think about. When is the decision that. Enough is enough. And now we've gotta pivot.

Daniel Brookes: let me unpack it, 'cause there's a few, there are a few different things that you said there. Okay. So I think the first thing is, at the beginning of the question, you, you noted that a larger entity, you wouldn't move from being a sports book to a telecom provider.

I don't think you do that as a, as a startup or an SME, either. So when developing, I used the example before of identifying, I talked about customer vulnerability. When I developed that, what was I developing? Well, I was developing a really, uh, amazing way to analyse conversational data, right? That that's what I was doing.

[00:29:00] Um, I was using specific tools to be able to do that, in a way that allowed me to, to scale it. I was building a front end. That provided data and analysis and interesting stuff. We do a lot of like for account managers and customer support, we do a lot of analysis of the agents and the account managers and how they're performing and what the customer cares about and stuff.

So when I moved into that, I wasn't completely rebuilding.

Leo: No.

Daniel Brookes: I was building, building different data models in the background. And I was creating new endpoints into my front end and to provide that. So it, it was a, a change of direction, but not a change of the, the business's identity is still core to it.

It's ident, it's, it's, it's data. It's data, it's conversations, and. I would rather look at when you say about how you kind of present that to you, to your customers. So, so they can see that, you know, uh, that can be difficult and obviously that comes [00:30:00] through communication and, and really excellent marketing.

But with me, I think it's more interesting to look at the different businesses.

Leo: Hmm.

Daniel Brookes: So how can. Daniel Brooks do all these different things. You must be spinning a lot of plates, you know, and, and if you spin a lot of plates, you drop

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: Right. You know, how, how can you be, um, doing all these, these things? That's the, the, the interesting part about how you explain that to people and how you get that across.

I'm a founder. That, that, that, that's what I am. I am a master at understanding, opportunity and what people need to be successful. Uh, I'm very good at understanding how my skill set can help someone else be successful and knowing where they, what, what they do well. Okay. And by doing that, this isn't the Daniel Brooks show.

You know, none of my businesses are, are, are about my face and, uh, uh, I'm me. [00:31:00] But ultimately I'm allowing other people to be successful because I'm good at understanding how to make things happen. That, that, that's really the message. If it was a business I'd be looking to put across, so whatever it is, that's your key core skill.

You focus in on that and make sure people understand, ah, if I need this skill, I go there. If I need this, go to this place.

Leo: It's about creating the environment, the surface area for it, right. The contact area for it. And

Yep.

yeah, you're right. It's not a full pivot. It's still within that same surface. So, great example. Uh, there, there, Danny, you've, um, one of the things, uh, I wrote down here is, uh, that you've written at that AI can't replace a fantastic agent, which I think is such a. Like some really interesting, an interesting concept, you know, you, you are in a business that provides AI driven player protection solutions. Where do you see that, where kind of the one, one area ends and the other starts? Because I think that [00:32:00] gray area is where a lot of people kinds of feel very unclear on, on where the handover is, if you will.

Daniel Brookes: So things will change.

Super quickly. If you look at the history of technology in the last 30, 40 years, um, if you think about the.com revolution, uh, can you imagine, you know, not having your phone or not having the internet now to be able to work like that sounds insane. But when these ideas came through, everyone was very scared about losing their jobs

Yeah.

And very scared about the new technology and what that might mean to them.

But. If you look at the numbers and the statistics that happen to hand, but the amount of jobs that have been created through new technology far outweighs the ones that were lost and we're going through a new type of revolution now with, um, with AI, and we're going to go on a very similar journey where things that we can't comprehend now will become, um.

Available very soon. I think it was Ellon Musk who was talking about his grok and how his newest situation is thinking at the same level, better than a PhD student. As someone who, or someone who's got a [00:33:00] PhD even and he's not using, get rid between the lines. Be able to, allow for you and I to be able to.

I've got like, you know, conversations. He's using it to be able to, for it to detect new technology and new opportunities and things that we haven't yet, which opens up a crazy world. So getting back to the, the point about how we use, um, AI today, we use it, as an assistant.

Leo: Hmm.

Daniel Brookes: So it's an assistive tool so it can think quicker than us.

It can pull data quicker than us. And it, amazing for that and we should use that and I do day to day to be able to give us a base, to give us information that we wouldn't have been able to do. What would've taken us time to be able to do, and for us as humans, as managers. To, to look at that data and analyse it and make decisions from it.

So in the world of customer support, yes, we have bots, and the bots are very good. And they can even plug into your backend and pull information. Like they, they do that. Um, but ultimately that bot can't answer [00:34:00] anything. So knowing when the handoff should go over to that person who's way very well-trained, who can look at that conversation, pull all that information straight away, because.

That's already been done. Either make a decision that's still what human beings are for and will be for, for quite some time. Yeah.

Leo: makes a lot of sense. It's, uh, like an escalation funnel almost, right? A filter funnel. So, hey, one of, one of the things that, uh, you spoke about, before this question was how you are great at identifying opportunities, creating the, creating the right environment for it, spotting it, enabling people to then take, take that opportunity by the horns and, and, and run with it, right? How do you do that when something goes wrong? How do you deal with that? Like, who do you, who do you call? Um, who do you lean on for advice? How, like, do you have mentors in your environment where you feel I need to talk this through before it actually materialises? How, how do you go through that?

Daniel Brookes: Absolutely. You, you need, uh, and if you don't have a mentor or coach, I'd [00:35:00] very much recommend that you find someone, um, who can, who you can speak to. So I've got, um, a couple, I've got, uh, Warren Jacobs who has set up a couple of businesses with, um, has been very successful, has a completely different way of thinking to me.

We work well together, but we're not alike. So he always has a different way of thinking and doing things and, you know, I like he does the same, he called me. We can have conversations about things. There's a gentleman, Vikas Shah MBE, who, you know, if some of the stuff he's done, he is a serial entrepreneur.

He also does a lot of interviewing, very famous people about very interesting subjects. And he's one of those people you do, you have conversations with somebody, you're just like, ah, I never thought of that. I have no idea. And it just makes you feel a little bit, um. like his light bulb gone off, but also a little bit like, wow, how did you think of that?

And I didn't. He's one of them. So basically you'll say something to him, go, ah, before this. I, you know, come up with ideas and concepts, or I can [00:36:00] introduce you to the right person. And both of these people you can talk through things with, know that it's not going to go anywhere. Know that when you maybe say something out of turn that you shouldn't have said, they're not going to judge you for it and give you time to calm down and, and, and do that.

So, yeah, having people around me like that is, um. It is key because there's not many people where you could, when you've had a really bad day in the office, you can really call up and won't either judge you silently or almost use it again, like use it, you know, uh, even if they don't mean to. So yeah, having that is amazing.

Leo: How did you find them? Like for anybody maybe listening, going, I need, I would love a mentor as well. How did, how did that, how did it materialise for you?

Daniel Brookes: So I think Warren was my boss, you know, point, so he owned a company and I was working there and it, it kind of very quickly escalated to all us doing business together. Now we do separate things. So we have control of different businesses, but he [00:37:00] focuses on one area, I focus somewhere else.

So there's um, a collection of interest. Um, yeah, and I think, uh, um, there's an organisation called TTIE, it's a collection of, um, entrepreneurs, around the world. And I think I went to one of their events, um, and I met him there. Um, and yeah, he's part of our kind of core group of people now is the chairman of Identify,

Leo: such an important thing to do, to be able to, to lean on experience and stuff that you can't see yourself. Right. Sometimes we, I always say, we're kinda stuck in our own bottle. We can't, can't read the label sitting on the inside. Right. So, so what are some things about your leadership that they see that you didn't see before? Do you have, uh, do you have examples of that? Uh, things that, you know, areas that you hadn't? Hadn't thought about on how you perhaps lead or perhaps decisions that you make.

Daniel Brookes: Yeah, I, I think that they would say that I am, I can move very quickly that's a key skill for me and something that's very been good in the past sometimes. They, uh, encourage me to [00:38:00] be a Thoughtful for a little bit older than I am and, and really, and, and, and consider, um, and consider, uh, some of those things.

I think Warren's, he's a people person in a different way as I am, to what I am. I'm a people person, as in like, I build very strong relationships with core people, a core group of people, um, that I wanna work with, that I want to be, you know, outside of work. I wanna be friends with that, you know, and, and they become people that I.

Very rarely let go of. He's very good. At fostering, um, those kinds of relationships as well, of course, but commercial relationships, long-term, day in, day out relationships like with, clients, investors, um, whoever that might be, and he's helped me a lot to develop. Skill, which is, it is slightly, it's slightly different, you know?

And, um, that's been something that, I've had to work on. Um, it's not always been the quickest and [00:39:00] easiest for me, So he's been really good like that. And yeah, with Vic as he's visionary, um, so I'll be thinking about, okay, well how can I turn this into a what, you know, 5 million, 10 million pound business.

I think that's really good, right? That some point seems to be, to me, aspirational. But he's more about how do you disrupt?

What are we doing differently here? How do we turn this into, you know, a multimillion power machine, that prints money and, you know, and, and he's really like, so, so it's not just about what's your differentiator in your area.

It's about really like, look at your whole time here. Um, how do you disrupt. You know, what already exists. It's is a completely different way of thinking. Uh, you know, and, and that's, that's something that I've learned a lot of from him. So all my ideas now, all the things I work on, um, sometimes I can drive the team crazy because okay, we can, we, we, we're doing well in one area, but I'm instantly thinking about, well, how do we grow that?

What can we do differently? What other markets are there? You know, [00:40:00] how do we turn this into. The, the absolute best it can possibly be

Leo: so difficult to do it by yourself, right? Unless you actually have to answer that question that somebody asks you, how do we kind of Grant Cardone start? How do we 10 x this? You know, it's, it's very difficult to, um, to answer that. What about you, your personal life, your wellbeing, your balance in life?

I mean, there's so much demands on your time and, uh, you've got a family as well. have you found that over time? Is that something that you've learned to prioritise more? Is it something you have to sacrifice over time? How, not only family, but also your own wellbeing, your health, you know, taking care of yourself.

How, how's that gone? It's something that I see a lot of founders struggle with, so I'd love to hear your take on it.

Daniel Brookes: In recent years, I've prioritised it a lot. So what, so it is, it's also understanding what you need. So for me, um, I, I was, um, maybe pleasing and trying to make everybody happy, like constantly in a home environment, you need someone that's going to make you happy, make you comfortable as well, [00:41:00] as much as you make them comfortable.

I think having that, first of all, helps a lot.

Yeah.

'cause it's someone you can really kind of rely on. I spend a lot of time with my kids, I find being with them relieves the stress of work. So yes, it's tiring with them when they're jumping on you at six 30 in the morning.

You know, no, I don't want to go swimming at 10:00 AM you know, on a, on a Saturday sometimes, but Works for me is a way of relieving stress. day-to-day stress from, from work. Um, gives me an outlet, uh, which, which I really enjoy. So people ask me all the time, like I, I get it a lot, where they're like, oh yeah, thinking about taking the holidays are okay.

And I even from like really seeing new people and I'm like. why are you even like looking at me like, you're guilty of that? Be proud to take a holiday. You know, you've earned it. Go and have some fun.

Spend time with your family. You come back stronger. So for me, no, I, I do try and have a work-life balance. I work hard and if you ask my partner, she'd say to you that, yeah, Danny's on his phone a lot at nighttime when I'm watching, when I'm watching TV. Yeah. Okay. I am, do you know what I mean? Like, I've got stuff to do, but, I do prioritise, um, being [00:42:00] around the family and, um, I do prioritise going on holiday and enjoying that.

I think it's really something that, works for me, um, for both work and personal life, doing that kind of thing.

Leo: yeah. Okay. A last question for you. So if you could go back to the, the Danny that first thought about starting to identify, what would you, what would you tell him? Um, maybe not to sacrifice or to prioritise

Daniel Brookes: Such a good question. Prioritise moving quickly, but knowing, have a concrete vision of what it's gonna look like. Prioritise your team, not just the people you're founding and working with, but also your developers.

Hmm.

Make sure they, they understand the mission and the vision that, for me, is essential.

If you try and start with technology, um, startup and you don't have the right engineering team, you're dead from day one.

Leo: Technical

Daniel Brookes: No chance.

Leo: yeah.

Daniel Brookes: So yeah, prioritise, spending time on, on the team, at all levels. Get that right. yeah. And then what would I sacrifice? [00:43:00] What would I think less about

I think it's, um, knowing when to, to stop. so everyone talks about really like making sure that you, you, you, you follow through and everything and you execute, but don't execute completely the wrong thing,

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: right? Don't let anybody tell you to follow your dreams and your vision.

If, if everything is, is saying no, Use those nos.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel Brookes: to, to, to, to align, realign. Don't be stubborn. Don't behead.

Leo: Thank you very much, mate. Fantastic. Uh, fantastic podcast. Thank you for sharing and uh, yeah, thank you for joining today.

Daniel Brookes: Thanks for having me.