Feb 14, 2025 · 1h 20m · news
Solly Solomou, Founder & CEO @ LADbible Group: From Penniless Shop Offices to Public Company | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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This interview features Solly Solomou, Founder and CEO of LADbible Group, discussing his entrepreneurial journey from bootstrapping a student recommendation site in a tiny office to leading a publicly traded, global digital media powerhouse. Solomou shares valuable insights on company culture, scaling business operations, navigating emerging technologies like AI, and balancing the demands of executive leadership with fatherhood.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 17.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.2 Guest teaching 3.1 Guest disagreement 1.7 Harry pushing back 3.8
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:06 Pushing back on safety nets vs creative pressure
Solly explicitly rejects Harry's suggestion that safety nets enable entrepreneurship, arguing instead that strict pressure and constraints are essential for creative output.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 52:57 Challenging government competence on tech regulationHarry aggressively rejects the premise that the UK government can effectively regulate AI, mocking economic statements and questioning regulatory capability.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 21:34 Educating on creator agency vs corporate careersSolly reframes Harry's assumption that top creators always prefer going solo, demonstrating how LADBible offers infrastructure, stability, and major brand access.
Harry holds his own ▶ 1:06:42 Calling out political question dodging on TikTokHarry directly calls out Solly for giving an elegant PR response about TikTok Shop rather than answering the direct question on whether TikTok should be banned.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome and First Podcast Appearance | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Harry welcomes Solly for his exclusive first podcast appearance. Solly comfortably shares his early childhood hustle selling sweets and clothes. | |
| The Leeds University Placement and the Safety Net of Mentorship | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Harry asks a direct question about whether Solly would have taken entrepreneurial risks without university safety nets. Solly notes he believes he would have naturally found his way to entrepreneurship regardless. | |
| Initial Funding, Bootstrapping, and the "Prison" Office | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | Harry presses bluntly on exact initial investment numbers. Solly details spending three to four thousand pounds on a prison-like office and maintaining profitability from day one due to ignoring VC existence. | |
| Finding the LADBible Facebook Page and the Mom-Funded Acquisition | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Harry interrupts to ask about the acquisition cost of LADBible and whether Solly was nervous. Solly explains using his mother's bank account to transfer the funds for the Facebook page. | |
| The Philosophy of Pressure: Do-or-Die vs. Safety Nets | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | Harry points out a contradiction between Solly's early safety net and his 'do-or-die' mindset. Solly reframes the point, arguing that creative constraint and extreme pressure produce the best entrepreneurial output. | |
| Scaling Traffic with Clever Work Experience Recruiting | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Harry questions if taking agency consulting deals sacrificed LADBible's core platform focus. Solly explains how consulting built foundational long-term relationships with global brands like Unilever. | |
| The "A-Ha" Moment: Stormzy, Kevin Hart, and Ice Cube's Rap Battle | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Harry challenges Solly on why top social creators would work for LADBible instead of staying independent. Solly educates him on how LADBible offers creators stability, platform reach, and brand partnerships. | |
| Vertical Expansion: SportBible, GamingBible, and the Betches Partnership | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Solly explains vertical expansion through tech tools and merging data with creative teams. Harry candidly admits his own major mistake of delaying YouTube strategy by eight years. | |
| US Expansion Strategy and the Pandemic Hiring Lessons | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Solly reflects on hiring too fast during the pandemic without prioritizing culture. Harry validates this experience by citing similar founder stories like Discord's rapid head-count expansion. | |
| Defining Company Culture and Growth Metaphors | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | Harry presents a provocative counter-opinion that talk around culture is secondary to raw momentum and success. Solly pushes back by defining real culture as shared ambition and continuous self-evolution. | |
| Corporate Values and the Foundational Role of Trust | 4 | 3 | 3 | 6 | Harry challenges whether modern workplace culture allows truly direct, non-woke communication without offending people. Solly emphasizes that high standards and mutual trust are necessary to operate at global scale. | |
| The Content Dilemma: Low-Production Authenticity vs. Premium Value | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Harry asks if low-fi creators like Sam Sulik invalidate high-production media teams. Solly clarifies that different audience contexts require varied levels of production quality. | |
| Generative AI and the Future of Entertainment | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Harry presents an economic worry that infinite AI content supply will destroy content discovery and value. Solly reframes AI positively as an efficiency enabler for creators rather than a threat. | |
| Wearables and the Obsoletion of the Smartphone | 6 | 4 | 4 | 8 | Harry fiercely mocks the UK government's ability to handle AI regulation, putting Solly on the spot politically. Solly carefully avoids the political trap, remaining diplomatic and optimistic. | |
| The Pandemic IPO Experience and Strategic Listing Decisions | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Harry challenges why LADBible chose to list in London given its massive US audience presence. Solly explains the capital benefits gained while leaving dual-listing open for the future. | |
| Advocating for UK Financial Reforms and Economic Growth | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Harry prompts Solly for economic advice to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Solly advocates unlocking pension funds and ISAs to stimulate UK tech innovation. | |
| London vs. Silicon Valley: Appeal for Tech Founders | 5 | 5 | 3 | 6 | Harry argues top founders no longer want to build in London due to economic friction. Solly pushes back using Dyson as an example of global success built out of the UK. | |
| TikTok Shop Potential and Parenting in the Digital Age | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7 | Harry asks directly whether TikTok should be banned. When Solly praises TikTok Shop commercial power, Harry explicitly calls him out for dodging the geopolitical question. | |
| The Carrot or the Donut: Curating the Social Media Feed | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Harry compares social media feeds to choosing carrots over donuts, arguing users control their own mental diet. Solly agrees and transitions into discussing Snap's youth demographic reach. | |
| Trading Positions: Strategic Buy and Short Analysis of Social Tech | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | Harry asks Solly to name social platforms to buy and short. When Solly considers shorting X, Harry warns against betting against Elon Musk, leading Solly to re-evaluate. | |
| The Hardest Part of Being a CEO | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Solly describes the hardest part of being CEO as navigating job evolution every year. The exchange remains collaborative and reflective. | |
| The Impact of Fatherhood on Leadership | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Solly opens up about how fatherhood humbles him daily. Harry follows up with light quick-fire questions regarding top consumer brands. | |
| Under the Bonnet of Disney | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Solly discusses wanting to see under the hood at Disney and his goal-focused mindset. Harry asks how fatherhood shifted his decision-making risk profile. | |
| Concluding Remarks and Thanks | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Harry thanks Solly for sharing his journey, and Solly expresses gratitude for his first podcast appearance. |
Statements from this episode (39)
Solomou would have started LADbible in the US if doing it over
“If I was to rewrite the script, I definitely would have started the business in the US.”
Solomou invested £3,000 to £4,000 to launch his initial business
“So straight away, I probably had to outlay about three, 4000 pounds to facilitate during the year in industry.”
Solly Solomou launched LADbible using takeaway box logo prints and direct local pitching
“I was utilizing the printer shop by getting these bugs printed off with the logo. Sending them all around the different takeaway companies. I was doing flyers, all of that kind of stuff. And then I was going around the cafes, bars, clubs, and selling them adve…”
Solomou bought the original LADbible Facebook page for low thousands
“So he's in the low thousands. I won't say specifically how much, but he's in the low thousands.”
LADbible Group has 500 employees and 500 million followers globally
“500 people across the UK, Ireland, the US five hundred million followers across all platforms.”
Solly Solomou: Lack of constraints ruins entrepreneurial creativity
“I believe entrepreneurs are creatives. At heart. And I think if you have too much to go up, if you have no constraint, that creative process is ruined. So for me, I believe in that pressure that creates the output.”
Solomou messaged Facebook's CTO on LinkedIn to restore deplatformed LADbible page
“We managed to get through to the CTO. So we spoke to the CTO at the time, who very kindly spoke, he didn't have to take the call, he took the call, and in fairness, a week later it was sorted.”
Solomou Used Accidental University Email Lists to Recruit Early LADbible Staff
“So what I did is I took all of those emails, Sent a note around saying, who would like to do some work experience? And I had a huge amount of applicants. So even in the early days where we had this office above the printer shop, I had like five people at a tim…”
LADbible's business model relies heavily on consultancy for major global brands
“Even our business model today has a big aspect of consultancy. So we work with Nike, Vodafone, Unilever, P and G, some of the biggest brands in the world.”
Solomou: 11% of the US population identifies as content creators
“I saw a statistic that said that 11% of the US population classify themselves as content creators.”
Stebbings: Waiting eight years to launch on YouTube was my biggest failure
“My biggest fail, honestly, is, and this is terrible, is we waited eight years to do YouTube, and that is criminal.”
Solomou: UK media strategies cannot simply be copied to succeed in the US
“So to go in there and think that you could just take the UK style and repeat it in the US, it is, is not, it's not gonna fly.”
Solomou: Hiring candidates lacking culture fit creates organizational chaos
“So for me, putting more emphasis on taking a little bit more time with hiring, being clear on what the culture is, and also accepting that maybe that person with that additional experience or that additional technical skillset, Is probably not the right person…”
Stebbings: Company culture is purely driven by business momentum and success
“The only thing that matters about culture is that you have momentum. You're moving forward and that you're successful. I've never met a really successful company with a shit culture.”
Stebbings: Revolut's culture thrives on performance and impending IPO momentum
“Revolut is a great example of that. It's not a fluffy culture, but the company is humming. The IPO is in sight and the culture is on fire.”
Harry Stebbings: Working longer hours drives success, time off does not
“Longer hours leads to more success. The harder you work, you just are, like, more likely to be successful. Some people disagree with that too. Oh, you're more strategic if you have more time off. Bullshit.”
Harry Stebbings: Most companies create ineffective, universally agreeable values
“Like, I think that's a massive problem, which is, like, people create values that no one can disagree with.”
Solomou: Low-production content weaves brands into culture without expensive TV ads
“That's a way in which you can weave brands into culture. In a way that doesn't necessarily need to be ridiculous production value, a TV advert.”
Solomou: Generative AI will compose 25-30% of future movie content
“So for us in an entertainment business, you can imagine a world where we're creating movies. And because of that democratization and the access to technology and using and embracing technology like that, the cost of creating a movie where maybe 25%, 30% of it …”
Stebbings: Infinite AI content supply will make discovery inherently harder
“I'm worried that AI will create an infinite supply of content. And what happens obviously if you, As an economist, which, you know, I'm not for sure but as a venture investor I proclaim to be one it reduces the cost reduces, like, price. Infinite supply will a…”
Solly Solomou: Wearables Will Replace Mobile Phones Within 10 to 20 Years
“Well, I guess, you know, from that perspective, I think, let's say, maybe 1015, 20 years, that's what we may be looking at. As wearables become more advanced, as you're able to put more processing power into smaller things, I believe that the phone will become…”
Stebbings: 20VC Team Cloned My Voice to Fool My Mother
“The team have used 11 Labs, an AI voice tool, to recreate my voice, and then call my mother, and you will not be able to know any difference”
LADbible Group reaches over 100 million audience members in the US
“So we have over a hundred million audience members out in the States, and we know that we've done the hard bit.”
Solomou: LADbible Group may consider a US dual listing as US operations expand
“That could be an option in the future. As we grow and build our US business, a dual listing might be the way to go, but we need to build on the success Of what we've started with the Betches business, and our organic business out there, and really continue to …”
Solomou: London Stock Exchange reforms will revitalize UK market investment
“I believe some of the steps that they're putting in place will certainly revitalize and rebuild some of that UK investment that maybe isn't there right now, and that is going into US markets and other places.”
Solomou: UK pension funds and ISAs hold underutilized growth capital
“There's a huge amount that is sat in ISAs, that is sat in low return pension funds that could be utilized to grow at higher rates, But also stimulate and encourage more innovation and more businesses in the UK market.”
Stebbings: Great developers and founders no longer want to build in London
“Now, I do not think that developers or great founders want to build businesses in London, and I would like to be changed my mind on, so.”
Solomou: Location is not a priority for early-stage founders focused on survival
“I think when you start a business, and this is just my personal experience, location, Isn't even on the mind. It's just survival or moving forward.”
Solomou: The US market offers 5 to 8 times more opportunity than the UK
“Would they be bigger in the States? Well, you're talking a three hundred million population country versus seventy million here. You're talking a market that in some ways is nearly, you know, five to eight times the sizes here in the UK. So you do have more op…”
Solomou: Traditional media market share dropped from 80% to 20%
“Traditional TV, newspapers, magazines, et cetera. The numbers speak for themselves. That market has gone from being 70, 80% of the market down to 20%.”
Solomou: TikTok Shop and social commerce will reach $1T within five years
“In the next five years or less, it's expected to be a one trillion market. The TikTok shop social commerce world overall is expected to be a one trillion market.”
Stebbings: Social media feeds are like diets and users control them
“I think people demonize social in the way that diet can be demonized. If you go on my TikTok, Instagram, you name it, there's protein recipes, there's inspirational talks from Tony Robbins, and Alain de Botton, and great thinkers there's baby videos, I think b…”
Solomou: Snapchat is the number one messaging platform for young demographics
“They are huge amongst the younger demographic. It's the number one messaging platform.”
Solomou: Snapchat will remain an innovative hub for Gen Z over 5-10 years
“I believe Snap is an interesting place over the next five to 10 years. Whether it can compete with the TikToks, and the Metas, and at this scale, I mean, these players are Huge. And we've seen what they've done in AI. We've seen what they're doing in e-commerc…”
Solomou: TikTok and Meta are top social platform buys
“I would say TikTok, I would buy. Meta, I would buy on their big bets that they've made.”
Solomou: All incumbent social tech giants including X will win
“I believe are all going to be winners. I don't think there's any of them that I would particularly show, including X on that basis. I've kind of taught myself, I've taught myself out of it now, but I just wouldn't.”
Solomou: Nike has lost its way, but retains deep brand equity
“No, I think it's a very, very special brand, and I believe it's lost its way, and sometimes businesses do, and we work with them. They want to understand Gen Z in a better way, and we're working with them on that basis. But I do not. I think it's got too much …”