Making Something From Nothing: Kola Tytler Of Dropout and HypeAnalyzer On How To Go From Idea To Launch
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
The hardest part is getting started: after the steps above, what’s left is overcoming the fear of failure. Wanting to start a business from abroad while studying medicine raised loads of eyebrows amongst those close to me, however I do have to say that many were supportive.
As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kola Tytler.
Kola Tytler is a 27-year-old versatile entrepreneur. In addition to his role as the CEO of his company, Kola is also a practising medical doctor in the NHS and a student at the University of Birmingham where he is currently completing his MBA.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
My pleasure. I was born in London to Nigerian immigrants and moved to Latina (a town near Rome, in Italy) before the age of 1. I grew up and spent most of my childhood there, other than a year in Crema (another small town near Milan, in northern Italy) between the age of 8 and 9, after which we returned to Latina. Growing up I was pretty much always a very curious kid with a strong love for reading and I really enjoyed going to school, which was reflected in a strong academic track record right until the end of high school. My passion for learning is something that defines me till today. Other interests that I developed included playing basketball, football as well as chess and video games (mostly sport ones). At the age of 16 I suffered a very-near fatal drowning accident which resulted in an intensive care stay (and a big scare for my parents!!!). Since then, I have made a life imperative of mine to live every day to the fullest. In the following 3 years I volunteered in foodbank, charity social and social centres before moving to the UK to study medicine at university.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Most people that know me well would agree that I have a very high level of self-confidence. I will quote late Kobe Bryant in saying that “If you don’t believe in yourself no one will do it for you”. I grew up in an environment where I quite regularly felt “different”, both physically and mentally, and this at times did result in me being at the receiving end of not-so-nice comments which had me questioning whether my inability to complete a task successfully was due to some innate characteristics. I naturally developed not only a relatively thick skin, but also the strength to accept that at times it is important to go past others’ comments and go ahead with what you believe is right.
I have several examples from my life on this, one that particularly resonates is from when we launched the YEEZY Mafia news outlet (2016) despite negative comments on it being a Twitter page focused on a single line of sneakers and a “waste of time” according to people I was close to at the time. We persevered due to the potential that we saw and today, although I am no longer involved, YEEZY Mafia is the world’s first (by traffic and social media following and engagement) news outlet for Kanye West’s line of sneakers. I got even worse feedback when talking about dropout in the months before we opened.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I regularly watch TED talks and find a lot of them inspiring, the one by Josh Luber (later founder of StockX, a unicorn that deals with streetwear exchange) pushed me into researching alternative assets for investment purposes. More than the content of the videos, I am interested in the communication styles and the way people are able to generate discussion by sharing their stories.
“Pursuit of Happiness”, starring Will and Jaden Smith, is one of my favourite movies. It pushed in me the idea that the purpose of life is to be happy and to really ask myself what is it that makes me happy. Everyone will have their view on this, but for me it is creating, organising and running projects that produce visible results. The scene at the basketball court in the movie about not letting ANYONE take away your passions and dreams accompanies most days of my life.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?
To me, the first step of translating the abstract (idea) into something tangible (a product or service) is to move away from the idea itself and start focusing on execution. There is a galaxy of distance between thought and action, theory and practice, ideas and execution. From my experience the best way of practically going about creating something is to think about the journey needed to achieve the realisation of the idea, break it down into smaller, manageable steps and critically question what problem may arise during each. It is definitely worth to discuss those with others and start thinking early about what team will be required. It is very rarely that an idea can be turned into something without a team. It is a good idea to think about how the process is best analysed, for me it is by drawing maps and flowchart and determining how necessary the completion of a step is in order to move onto the next, thus determining where to focus my and the team’s energies and resources.
Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?
As far as ideas go, in this day and age it is well possible that whatever one comes up with, has already been thought elsewhere. It is important to accept this early in the process and focus on what makes our idea better, more innovative or more convenient than what’s already out there. In terms of practically searching for similar existing options, one should of course search for similar keywords online, ensuring to look on social media as well as on relevant blogs and the common search engines (i.e Google, Bing, Duckduckgo). If nothing is found, one should also be realistic enough to ask themselves why no-one thought (or executed) it before and determine if we have the confidence and willingness to go as far as it takes to get things done.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?
The hardest part is getting started: after the steps above, what’s left is overcoming the fear of failure. Wanting to start a business from abroad while studying medicine raised loads of eyebrows amongst those close to me, however I do have to say that many were supportive.
It takes time: I am sure it is possible to create and generate overnight successes, however I equate creating a business to building a house rather than playing the lottery- while you may buy a single ticket, win and become instantly rich, the chances of this happening are so small that I would never recommend counting on it. On the other hand, building a house requires planning, choice of materials and finishes as well as of course strong fundamentals and inputs from several specialists. One should expect this to take time and appreciate that things may be slow and occasionally corrective measures may be required. Even though it took just some months for dropout to get national recognition and wide exposure, the work behind the concept and the operations dates back years. What we created is effectively the fruit of me and my business partners’ life experiences.
Team is integral part: no one can do it all. Even the most talented of painters and inventors needed help and feedback of others to get things done. For as much as we may love our idea, this can very easily lead us to tunnel vision and a struggle to identify flaws and bottlenecks. Having a team means that tasks can be delegated and a higher efficiency in operations which may be done at the same time by different people. In dropout we use a system where everyone can provide feedback on operations and then the responsible person of that process decides based on the comments.
Be ready for ups and downs: I have never heard of a business which is a complete smooth ride from start to end, being ready (mentally and practically) for when things go south is necessary. As the pandemic, especially the first wave, hit hard in northern Italy, we had to strengthen our e-commerce and digital presence to ensure the business remained viable despite closures.
The reward is unimaginable: seeing your idea grow and becoming a viable business is one of the best feelings I experienced (and still feel!). Overcoming challenges allows one to grow as a person and give a more positive outlook to life in general.
Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
I would recommend writing it down, our instinct is amazing however moments of inspiration may leave us for some time before the creative drive hits again. Once it is on paper/notepad/laptop/something retrievable, I would sleep on it for a day or two before starting with thinking about what the execution will entail and designing an overview of the required steps. I would then research online and via family and friends to see what or which of the mentioned steps makes the idea better than the most similar thing already existing. I would then move onto setting a goal (making social contribution? Becoming rich? Solving a world-wide problem?) and depending on that designing an initial operations plan, business plan, setting up a team etc
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
I would say this really depends on the specific project. Hiring such consultants early may mean following less of the creativity and spirit that gave birth to the idea and getting closer to the traditional business development models. I would say however that if one has a strong budget, it is likely to be beneficial to have feedback from someone with formal competence in project-building.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
As someone who started and ran a profitable business without any form of external funding (although we have recently completed our first round and are now VC-backed), I would say that it depends on the founders’ goals and vision of the product/service/company. The honest reason dropout was bootstrapped is that at the beginning we had what I now call a “business plan” and very little credentials for others to trust us with generating revenue (let alone profit). After having established the name as a strong brand and viable business, VC funds are invaluable in providing backing for faster and exponential growth. One thing I would definitely say is that one should treat VC money as if they were theirs and only think about going that route if ready to invest themselves. The reality is that also securing investment is a long process, full of technicalities and often needs some pre-commitment or kickstarting amount from friends and family anyway. Why would strangers back you if your own or those close to you don’t?
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I have attended several podcasts and panels and given several talks in schools in Italy as well as providing interviews for 3 dissertations on the topic of sneakers and streetwear resale. I think that sharing my experience is useful for young creatives who don’t know where/how to start developing their ideas or simply to motivate them to get going and getting started. I plan on getting involved more in charity work and promoting financial literacy amongst high school students in the future.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I am highly passionate about widening participation and giving platform to individuals from underprivileged (and underrepresented) backgrounds to set-up their own businesses. I think we need to do this slowly by introducing more financial education programs in schools. There are a lot of outstanding individuals out there with huge potential who could do a lot better than I did. I happened to have very high self-confidence and determination to supplement my vision, but I know that many struggle with barriers to their full capacity that we, as a society, can and need to do better to demolish.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I have had the privilege of meeting many of my inspirations already that this comes difficult, however if I had to pick one right now it would be Dan Gilbert. Mr Gilbert is an absolutely incredible entrepreneur, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, as well as Quicken Loans and, together with the previously mentioned Luber, StockX. Although covered in plenty of interviews and pieces, I would love to hear first-hand about the process of setting up teams and scaling innovative businesses.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Making Something From Nothing: Kola Tytler Of Dropout and HypeAnalyzer On How To Go From Idea To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
