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Founder@ Interview
Interview with Antonio Wedral
“The difference between greed and ambition is a greedy person desires things he isn’t prepared to work for.” I always think of this through anything I do — whether its a negotiation — or if I’m ever feeling bad when I take an hour break in the middle of a working day etc. I remind myself I’m working hard to fulfil my dreams, I’m not just thinking of my dreams. .” – Antonio Wedral
Today we feature Antonio Wedral, the founder at NOVOS. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
Antonio: Hi, I am Antonio, an alumnus of the business school at Anglia Ruskin University and co-founder of London-based eCommerce startup, NOVOS.
I have been inspired by my parents who ran a successful retail business in the erstwhile country of Yugoslavia – unfortunately, they had to shut down the business and flee to the UK in the 90s due to the war.
As I have always been passionate about retail and fashion, launching an eCom just seemed natural for me. Sam: I come from the deep valleys of wales.
After finishing my university in Cardiff, I moved to London to start my first job which soon became the launching pad for my first business, NOVOS, that I have co-founded with Antonio.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
Sam: Antonio and I met while working for a company in London. Actually, I hired Antonio for the company! I remember my first meeting (technically an interview) with Antonio. He was a young 22-year-old graduate who had also been a teenage Youtube star and worked odd jobs in retail.
As he got hired, we worked on several projects together while enjoying a great working relationship.
Half a year later, I left the agency to work for a popular furniture brand, as their SEO manager.
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I thought that would be last time I’d see Antonio, but as we were members of the same meetup and WhatsApp groups, we kept in touch. Shortly after, Antonio left the agency job to work for a fashion publication, and we began to have in-person lunch meetings.
While still in full-time employment, I launched an eCommerce store selling men’s fashion accessories as a side hustle.
It seemed natural to get Antonio involved as a part-owner due to his vast experience in retail and fashion. However, we ended up working on the idea together as co-founders — this marked the beginning of our first business together.
I’d advise that it is a good move to start a small project with someone to gauge their compatibility before diving into a big endeavour like running a company together — in my case, it wasn’t planned.
I took some freelance gigs to fund the marketing of our eCommerce store, but interestingly, the freelance work started to take off and become more regular.
One day, eating the smallest, most overpriced burger for lunch on a boat in Paddington, Antonio expressed his thoughts about expanding the freelancing into an actual agency. Initially,
I was against the idea due to previous bad experiences at my old agencies, and it seemed a very saturated industry. However, we started to build out the idea and came to an agreement around the business proposition and how we could stand out and differentiate in the saturated market.
Within six months, Antonio had quit his job and moved out of London to work on the agency full time.
I left made.com at the end of 2018 to work on the agency full time as we acquired more clients.
Within four years of meeting, including a year where we didn’t work together but kept in touch, we are now co-founders of an eCommerce agency that has worked with 100 eCom brands, employs a team of 20 very talented professionals, has won international awards and is set to clock £1 million in revenue.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
Our company, NOVOS, based in London (UK) is an eCommerce startup that helps accelerate the organic growth of eCommerce businesses through SEO, digital PR, content marketing and strategy support. We have been fortunate enough to work with over 100 global eCommerce brands including Bloom & Wild, Swyft, Simba Sleep and Diamonds Factory.
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
Sam: Our success story had begun when we met at my previous job but we hadn’t realized — never thought that we would become co-founders. As Antonio got hired at the agency I worked at, we worked on several projects together while enjoying a great working relationship.
Our big ‘aha’ moment came when Antonio was full time on the business & I was still at Made.com. The first instance was when we both were earning enough money that very nearly matched our full-time salaries, the next instant was when the workload was becoming a full-time job. I remember after I resigned I had a 3 month notice period during which I was taking my annual leave to work on the business.
I remember I met Antonio at the Hoxton, Shoreditch at around 10 am to work on the business and the day literally flew by as we had so much to talk about. I realised it was a real thing and we’d made the right choice
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
Antonio: Don’t get comfortable – but enjoy the ride. I try and take this through everything, because any time I’ve gotten too comfortable or confident in something, it’s shot me right back down. So now, I make sure I’m enjoying what I’m doing, but I never stop learning/striving to be better.
Sam: Just be you.
Do what you want to do and what you are good at. It’s very easy to start looking at people your age in specific roles or competing businesses that you think are doing better than you or you think you should be aspiring to be better. Learn from them for sure but always remember to do your own thing and just maximise the opportunities you are given in life.
Sam: How important and valuable your network is. Our networks helped us a lot when we started this business (and thank you to all of those who may be reading this who did help) but early on in my career I didn’t value it or make a conscious effort to build it up. Even when I did quit my job I’d think ‘i don’t have a network to leverage’ – turns out I did and I’m sure you do too!
Antonio: Just how many facets there are to running a business. It’s been fun learning along the way, but it would certainly have been nice to know more about entrepreneurship before we dived into it!
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
Antonio: The future + adult life isn’t as scary as it seems – surround yourself with the right people, and take a few risks, and you’ll be ok!
Sam: Probably what I just said to the last question 😀 I was certainly guilty of it in the past
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
Clickup for project and task management
G-suite for email and collaborative tools
Notion for keeping company wikis and processes
G-suite is pretty standard for business owners but we made an interesting switch from Asana to Clickup recently for project management and it has been a game-changer. The sheer amount of integrations that Clickup offers has made managing the workflow of our remote team quite effective.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
Sam: How important and valuable your network is. Our networks helped us a lot when we started this business (and thank you to all of those who may be reading this who did help) but early on in my career I didn’t value it or make a conscious effort to build it up.
Even when I did quit my job I’d think ‘i don’t have a network to leverage’ – turns out I did and I’m sure you do too!
Antonio: Just how many facets there are to running a business. It’s been fun learning along the way, but it would certainly have been nice to know more about entrepreneurship before we dived into it!
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
Antonio: I think winning 5 international awards last year has been our greatest achievement so far considering how young our company is.
Sam: Building up the team, we never thought this would be a 20-person agency but we’re so glad it is. It’s the best part of running an agency is to work with passionate, like-minded people who care.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
Sam: I’d like to do another agency in a new industry. 1 to prove to myself I can do it again, 2 to try a new industry outside of digital marketing which has been my career for nearly 10 years now. Plus because I just love agencies!
Antonio: I’d love to do an MBA and go on to teach and inspire the next generation of digital marketers at university one day in the future, but what is filled before then I’m not sure yet, as I think NOVOS has decades still ahead of it!
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
Antonio: One of my favourite quotes is by the famous Black British author, Habeeb Akande, “The difference between greed and ambition is a greedy person desires things he isn’t prepared to work for.”
I always think of this through anything I do — whether its a negotiation — or if I’m ever feeling bad when I take an hour break in the middle of a working day etc. I remind myself I’m working hard to fulfil my dreams, I’m not just thinking of my dreams.
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and NOVOS”
To learn more about NOVOS Visit http://thisisnovos.com/
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