Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Chris Parnell, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Kairos Group, the global gaming media group connecting businesses to gamers. While on a Business degree work placement with IBM, Chris realised as he says, ‘I never wanted to work for anybody, ever again’ - sounds familiar, doesn’t it – ‘I just hated being told what to do’. He’d already been creating content for the popular YouTube channel, Machinima Respawn, and together with childhood friend, Mike Craddock, a professional gamer and YouTuber competing in the Call of Duty franchise, Chris saw an opportunity. Dissatisfied with poorly filmed, inauthentic brand adverts on social media, Chris and Mike felt they could ask their gaming friends with large social media followings to promote the brands directly. Kairos, meaning in ancient Greek, I’m sure you’ll know this, ‘the right moment’, was founded by Chris and Mike in 2015 using 80 quid of Chris’ student tuition funds to launch the entire company. And by the way, that was their only funding until May this year. Kairos Group now sits over five brands with a team of over 115 social experts across the UK, Europe and the USA. And high profile client brands including KFC, Revolut and Porsche. It’s great to have you here.
Chris Parnell
Really, really good to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.
Elliot Moss
I meet many young people. You’re ridiculously young. I know that age is not important but you started this business at the tender age of about 21.
Chris Parnell
Yes, 21. The beginning of my final year of university so, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Did you finish the degree as well?
Chris Parnell
I did.
Elliot Moss
You did. Good man. Aston?
Chris Parnell
It was.
Elliot Moss
A fine, the fine place of Aston. And the gaming world, tell me first actually, Kairos, what does Kairos do, in your own words?
Chris Parnell
So, Kairos is a social media agency, a talent management group and also a creative business all at the same time. So we work with social media influencers, we do creative campaigns, data and insight strategy, all with a view to how do brands show up and create memorable moments on social media. And that’s really the crux of our business. We’re based in London, Manchester, New York, as you said around 140 people now around the world so, yeah, we’ve come a long way from my dorm room and Mike’s garden shed. It’s been a fun journey.
Elliot Moss
I mean we hear about dorm rooms and garden sheds and you know obviously I always think about a small business called Apple and then we’ve seen a number of films about that. What’s the reality like in those days, 21 years old, still studying and then here we are you know eight years later. What’s the reality of those first moments, those first steps of actually saying do you know what, I’m going to do this?
Chris Parnell
So, as you sort of said, I start the business with Mike with literally nothing. We sort of two guys from Nottinghamshire with a dream to come and make it big with the agency world and…
Elliot Moss
Was that really the dream then? I mean you just say it like it, you know, now, the way you just describe it, it’s perfect, you’ve got all the pieces but at that point were you going ‘I’m going to create an agency’?
Chris Parnell
It was, it originally started as a talent management business and then we obviously progressed into becoming an agency but we always had the same objective to build something that we’re proud of, like that’s Day 1 and now Day god knows what we’re on now, eight years later, it’s the same, it’s to build something we’re proud of and to do work that we’re proud to put out as well. To be honest around the beginning, it was, I did a Degree in Business Computing and IT so I had some understanding of business, some understanding of technology, built a website, the £80 was a template, it was a domain hosting and it was a business card template, to look professional and so I just built it from my dorm room, templated it out, made ourselves look professional and then yeah, got a business card that said ‘Chris Parnell, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer’ and eight years later, again, and here I am, so it’s the same.
Elliot Moss
And Day 2, what were you selling, Chris, to the world?
Chris Parnell
So, we were YouTubers ourselves, you know our friends were social media content creators, so we ultimately matched friends and brands, brands and friends, I guess, ultimately who were some of the largest content creators to promote their businesses and it was a simple case of we know that our friends want to work with the brands, we know the brands want to work with our friends, let’s make this happen and we then started representing social media influencers and navigating how do they ultimately secure commercial deals, we took a commission and yeah, we sort of grew and grew and we actually spent the first two years of the business with no staff, just me and Mike, living in our dorm room, garden sheds, just doing a really good job and then we thought actually, yeah, let’s make this into a real company, back in about 2017, so realistically we’ve only been growing since about 2017.
Elliot Moss
The bit with the, and the we you know we connected brands with friends, so you’re a 21 year old and then 22, 23 and so on and so forth, you say it as if it just happened, how does a band of two people with no track record, no credibility, winging it with business cards that make them look like they’re something, how do they get into the biggest brands in the world to convince them they should come and use the services of said company?
Chris Parnell
Err, a lot of luck, a lot of confidence in terms of what we were doing and I think as well like we saw at the time in 2015 when we started, influencer marketing was only just starting out, it wasn’t even really a, a thing, you know now influence marketing is the hot topic on the press, you know you look at Esports and gaming, it’s all these hot topics, we started actually before the wave even really happened so, when we were starting to talk to these brands about hey, our friends, content creators, who can promote your brand and they can put it on YouTube videos and Instagram posts and it was like wow, this amazing new thing which was not actually that surprising to us but to a lot of the brands we were speaking to back in 2015, it was a thing and again like we’ve grown the business through the waves of these things becoming so, so relevant and so popular because you know, we still are in the scheme of the agency world, a very small business but managing to cut through and we have since the beginning and we still intend to do now.
Elliot Moss
And that love of gaming that you both have, you still have it? You still, are you still on there or is it more like now you’re the professional who’s running a business which happens to be in the world of gaming?
Chris Parnell
I dabble occasionally. I got the new Call of Duty seven days ago or whatever it was so that’s, that’s the latest you know attention scoop but it’s attention scoop when the work day allows, which is not very regularly I’m afraid now.
Elliot Moss
But your days when you were a content creator and you look at, I went on and dabbled myself in Machinima Respawn, that’s how you say it, good. I mean it’s highly addictive, says me the 53 year old, recently the 53 year old, feeling even older now but it’s incredibly immersive, I mean it’s absolutely brilliant and I was, I was talking to my cousin who has been in the world of gaming for forty years and remembering the days when I was going and playing with new things, it’s, I mean it has just grown to a point where as I mentioned in the intro, it’s the largest and most valuable asset around in entertainment. Do you still feel connected to it in terms of where it’s going? Because I know your business has to adapt to trends, I mean do you ensure that your connectedness enables you to see and surf the trend that’s coming round the corner?
Chris Parnell
Good question, yeah. I mean, do we feel connected to it? I mean yes that’s the core pillar of our business, is ultimately helping brands to navigate what’s next, what are the new, most interesting forms of talking to consumers on social and you know why is gaming, why is livestreaming so addictive, so interesting, it’s the consumption of visual content but the ability to be able to talk one on one with somebody that you see as a famous individual, you know, you rewind to the era of you know people watching Tom Hanks movies, right, you know they would watch the movie and they would walk out the cinema and that’s it, they’ve got no interaction with the individual starring. I guess the way I see live streaming and content creation is that it’s a one on one interaction or arguably one on many but still, you ask a question in that chat, the content creator will reply to you and will ultimately interact back with you and have that dialogue. There’s also this cultural piece around individuals who are Gen Z who are Millennials and Gen Alpha as well, specifically with Gen Alpha, the Number 1 job that they want to be when they grow up is now an influencer so it’s kind of this cultural piece of they are the celebrities of tomorrow and if you can have a one on one interaction with the celebrities of tomorrow, that’s very powerful. How do we stay ahead of it? I mean, you know, we’ve hired some very smart people. Yes, we are the founders but the company would be nothing without the people that make it what it is today so some of the best creators and strategists etc.
Elliot Moss
I was going to ask you about that actually that you’re, you know employee number one, I mean number three if you include the two of you, how did you ensure that it began in the right place? Because that’s hard, again, you’re young, you’re quote/unquote ‘inexperienced’. What do you know? Well, if you’re you know sort of doing the business then who cares how old you were. How did you get that right and have you continued to get it right?
Chris Parnell
I think we started at the right time in terms of the way the market was moving, a 100%, I mean again before influencer marketing really flew in arguably 2017 onwards, before gaming and Esports became such a hot topic and I think you mentioned it’s bigger than film, well funnily enough it’s actually bigger than music and film combined, if you attach both industries, gaming is still bigger. So we are at the forefront of one of the hottest properties in the world and we are one of the biggest gaming agencies in the world and admittedly we’ve diversified outside of that and we now do bigger strategies for a number of very large FMCG brands around their social and creative and influencer, outside of gaming but it allows us to keep our finger on the pulse around what is next but I think it is, we still have that startup mentality of we always want to try and be ahead of our competitors, be ahead of what is coming from others in the industry so I think it’s really just that relentless pursuit of what is next and how to keep our clients ahead of that.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more from my Business Shaper today, it’s Chris Parnell, Co-Founder of the Kairos Group, they’re rather big in the world of gaming. He’ll be coming back in a couple of minutes. Right now though we’re going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions. They can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Mishcon de Reya and MDRx’s Tom Grogan talk about Web3.0, the next iteration of the internet and what businesses and individuals need to be thinking about when formulating their Web3 strategies and pursuing valuable, impactful projects.
You can of course find all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you like, by popping ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your podcast platform of choice. We’re so neutral here, aren’t we! My guest today is Chris Parnell, he’s the Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer – good title, made up from when he was 21 – of the Kairos Group, the global, gaming, media group. This desire to become an entrepreneur, this thing about saying I don’t want anyone, I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do. Were you a very rebellious young child, Chris? Is that where it really started and was it just articulated when you were at, you know a bit later on in your life?
Chris Parnell
Not necessarily, I mean I’m very privileged, I had a great upbringing, I’ve got amazing parents, love them very dearly and you know they’ve, I would say, raised me well but I sort of was following a very traditional path of you do your GCSEs, you do your A Level, you go to university, you get a job and you work in corporate and…
Elliot Moss
You’re describing my life. Stop it!
Chris Parnell
Well, yeah, that’s the route that I was originally take, right and hence the, you know two year degree, one year out in industry working with IBM, I was like I’m going to love this, it’s going to be great and yeah, didn’t love it quite so much. Had a bit of a problem around, you know, I thought I knew a lot about this world, this evolving industry of technology and creative and it was always hitting on the ceiling of you know levels above me.
Elliot Moss
Did you know a lot though, with hindsight, do you think?
Chris Parnell
Absolutely not, no. No, I was just a young, cocky 21 year old who thought, well 20 year old, who thought he knew a lot. But no, it was very much the case of just wanting that freedom to be able to express and try new things and you know learn and fail and adapt, which working in corporate didn’t really, in my opinion, allow so entrepreneurship was the sort of the next logical route.
Elliot Moss
And learning, failing and adapting eight years in, is that still your mantra?
Chris Parnell
Yeah, I mean we sort of take a message or sort of an approach I suppose of how do we make sure we do as many things as possible, learn from them and pick the ones that really work so if we try eight new things in a year, you know, seven of them might fail but one of them will stand out and will really accelerate us to become the biggest and the best in the industry and that’s what we’re trying to do and you know, as I said entrepreneurship wasn’t natural to me, I don’t come from an entrepreneurial family, it’s just been a process of learning and you know trying and make sure that I can be the best that I can be and learning from some great mentors as well.
Elliot Moss
Does it worry you that you’ll get good at spotting what may or may not work and then you’ll stop really pushing the edges because when you know nothing, nothing is off limits. When you start to know stuff, then you sort of go hold on a minute, ooh no, hold on, we tried that in 2021 and it didn’t quite work. Has that occurred to you on this journey?
Chris Parnell
I mean it’s easy to fall into what works and what’s safe, no doubt, and trust me I’ve seen that but we’re in an industry that’s moving so quickly, that’s adapting so much that you know new platforms are springing up and every day a new creator is ultimately starting their career on YouTube or Instagram or TikTok or whatever. To become competitive in what is a competitive industry, you know advertising is one of the most competitive industries in the world. To remain competitive we have to keep that mentality of, and I think it’s sort of Amazon’s policy of you know day one, right, it is kind of, and I think we’ve kind of tried to be not quite that extreme but an adaptation of that around how do we make sure that we are just trying all the time.
Elliot Moss
And does that give you energy or does it sort of sap it a bit because you know, I love to create and if I’m up for it then the day is full of creations and pushing it a bit and surprising and hearing surprising things and going that’s what we should do. On other days when I’m not so up for it, it’s like, it’s actually kind of exhausting because you go can’t we just stop for a bit? Have you had any of those, you know this is great but just for a little bit could we just not do anything?
Chris Parnell
Yes. Absolutely. And the fun fact is that the Kairos Group I believe at last count is around thirteen companies within our holdings company so, yes there’s evidence there around trying, failing, refocussing around that and it’s, it is difficult to sort of say, I mean I think that’s the historic track record of trying multiple different things but we have clearly found the three, four things that we do really well. One, agency. Two, talent. Three, media business. And four, we have an Esports team as well. So, we do a few different things but we do them well and but that you know, next year when the world stabilises a bit with the recession and you know inflation etc, hopefully I think we want to get back to really experimenting again but for now I think we’re fairly, fairly happy where we are.
Elliot Moss
He’s going to be at it again in 2024, watch out. Mike Craddock is your Co-Founder, he is not here, he’s very different to you, does that work really well? Is diversity a good thing in a tight partnership?
Chris Parnell
Yeah, I mean we are, to your point, the definition of polar opposites but I would say equally, ying and yang. There are clients that I work really well with, there are clients that Mike works really well with and you know sometimes there are clients we both work really well with but equally like I think when we started the business we start quite quickly understood what each other’s speciality or skillsets were. Mine was very commercial sales, I was very strong in terms of articulating a message to a new prospect and getting them bought into what we’re trying to do or what the vision for their business is. I’m not so great at the vision setting for the business, I’m not so great at the HR, the finance, that kind of thing so Mike is our CEO, he took that sort of burden for like a better word, I mean it is a burden to become the CEO of a business, especially on the growth trajectory that we’ve been on, and you know he's led it from the front on doing that and oversees multiple different departments, multiple different teams, I contribute and I input into that but I have my area that I’m very happy with which is commercial and I work, again, very, very closely with Mike about how that all comes together and we’ve just recently brought in a big new board director as well so, the three of us very actively contribute and collaborate to based on different skillsets.
Elliot Moss
I think it takes quite a lot of maturity to recognise what you’re good at and what you’re not and quite hard not to be jealous is the wrong word but you can kind of look at someone and go wow, they’re just really good at that, that makes me feel not so good. Doesn’t look like that’s happened to you. Is that a fair comment? I mean you feel like for it again, apologies, for a young person, you feel like you’ve got to a place which many people don’t get to. Do you think that’s the secret of the success of the business, or one of them, in that you identify that in yourself and you then enable the team around you to do exactly the same thing?
Chris Parnell
Yeah, I mean absolutely, I mean we’re very much in sort of the mindset of empowering the team to do what they are better at than us. There’s the old saying right, hire people that are better than you, it’s obvious as anything but you know we have an amazing Strategy Director, Mark Bellamy who is leading that strategy function, we have you know Ross Crump who’s leading our US team and he’s phenomenal in terms of creative and strategy and building that strategy for our New York team etc so, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a phase where I said why can’t I just be good at everything? Why can’t I just do absolutely everything in this business but you know eight years in, as I said you learn, you adapt, you evolve and that’s what I think I’ve sort of been through as well and it is a bit of a self-reflection piece as well.
Elliot Moss
You touched on something you’re good at which is this I guess what you would call sales, which is essentially contextualising a proposition so that a client buys it. Lots of people that go into business may have an instinct on how to do it but may not actually know how to actually sort of institutionalise it. Just give me a sense of how you manage to come up with a proposition which lands where you’re selling what you’ve got to a client and you’re giving the client what they need because is at the core of any growth strategy of any business but most businesses aren’t able to actually do that. Tell me what you do that makes that happen.
Chris Parnell
Honestly, it’s really hard to contextualise, it’s almost like secret source stuff right, it’s kind of like what makes you tick and how do you work and I think every single salesperson maybe would say a different thing but mine is really just listening. I don’t want to be the loudest voice in the room when I’m trying to ultimately sell, for like a better word, I want to understand what is the problem, what is the challenge, what is really going on in your business right now and how can we build something that is compelling for you. I don’t walk in with here’s the fifty things we can do for you, it’s social, it’s creative, it’s content, it’s all these amazing things that yes, we can do all those things but it’s more what is actually going on in their business, what do they want to do this year, next year and in three years’ time and then build something that they’re going to be interested in and on board with I guess.
Elliot Moss
And do you train people in this, Chris, I mean do they, or do they, do they through osmosis watch you at doing what you do and then just kind of learn themselves and get on with it?
Chris Parnell
It’s somewhat of both, I mean there is a bit of osmosis I would say, I mean we’ve had some very successful years in terms of commercial performance and growth and again, you know from £80 startup to where we are now and the team size we are and the number of offices etc, we’ve obviously demonstrated that we, I’d say we know what we’re talking about, right, and I think sales colleagues have learned from seeing that but equally I like to spend time with our sellers and work with them and nurture them and we have a brilliant 20.27 seller, Lewis Cardew. Again, he’s brought in some phenomenal, phenomenal clients this year and stuff that I didn’t even know about, he brought in and it’s amazing to see.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my final chat with my guest today, it’s Chris Parnell and we’ve also got some GoGo Penguin for you, that’s in just a moment.
Chris Parnell is my Business Shaper just for a few more minutes. The thing I get from you, you’re incredibly generous about your team, the way you, you know you literally, there’s a shout out for this one and all that. What would they say about you, Chris, because you’re very generous about them, how would they do you think if they were describing Chris, their leader, what sort of adjectives would they be using?
Chris Parnell
Err, I would say tenacious is probably the biggest thing and doesn’t know how to give up is the other thing and that’s the common trait of any seller, right, it is kind of the I will make sure that I speak to as many people as possible in the room and you know, get to know as many people in the room as I possible can do, as a way to ultimately form the relationships and I’d say I’m pretty good at building new, new relationships as well so, you know, tenacious, strong at building relationships and yeah, a really, doesn’t have that sort of stop or give up mentality, will always push for next and best and what’s, what’s to come.
Elliot Moss
I don’t get a big sense of ego either with you. Where does the, humility may be too big a word, I’m not saying you’re not humble but where does that lack of focus on your own ego come from? Is that something from the way you were brought up? Is that just knowing that you can’t do a bunch of stuff? What’s that about do you think?
Chris Parnell
I mean, yeah, again I had a phenomenal upbringing so I can maybe accredit some of it…
Elliot Moss
Your parents are going to love you after this by the way, literally I mean you are so in the will.
Chris Parnell
I hope so. I’ll see but, that’s a very good point, but…
Elliot Moss
Take a check afterwards.
Chris Parnell
Check afterwards, yeah, exactly. No, I think it’s, building the business you have your rises and your falls, right and we’ve had amazing years, we’ve had bad years and it really does humble you, it sort of makes you realise you are not king, you are not sort of overlord of everything and when the toughest moments happen, you really come together and you pull together as a team and you really try and get through them and you realise really it’s the company is not you, the company is not me, myself and I and Mike and that’s it, it’s, it’s about the people around you that you can lean into and go help us with this problem or this challenge or this thing, whatever it is and the businesses faces fifty challenges a day and they vary in different complexity and level of problematicness for the business and I’m very privileged to be around some great people who solve difficult challenges for our clients and put up really good work. I think every business owner has some level of an ego around I’m really proud of what I’ve built but I want to try and make sure that those around me are brought up with it as well.
Elliot Moss
And in terms of the building, you’ve got to this point, you’ve got this group, you’ve got some serious traction, some really big client names, what if I was chatting to you in three years or in five years, what would we be talking about, what would you have done by then do you reckon?
Chris Parnell
Well there’s some, there’s some very exciting news coming out at the end of the year which I’m unfortunately not able to say just yet but I would say that…
Elliot Moss
You almost heard it here first. Almost.
Chris Parnell
Almost.
Elliot Moss
Almost an exclusive. God that was close to being super exciting but he didn’t give it away.
Chris Parnell
Yeah, so eight years of, eight years of sort of tenacity has got us to this point and next we sort of take that rocket fuel to go to the next level and really expansion, bigger team, really cool new projects for clients that have just been signed off, so there’s a lot more to come, a lot more to come and…
Elliot Moss
Well his eyes have just lit up by the way so this is exciting.
Chris Parnell
Very exciting.
Elliot Moss
Funnily, you’d better look up the Kairos Group in the New Year. Listen, it’s been great talking to you, I’ve really enjoyed it and thank you and good luck with the next phase, it does sound like something big is in the offing. Just before I let you go, what’s your song choice and where have you chosen it?
Chris Parnell
It’s Nat King Cole, L-O-V-E and it sort of just rings to my childhood, it’s a movie that came out in 1998 called The Parent Trap and it is the opening sequence of said parent trap and it’s, I think I’ve watched that movie probably thirty times plus. I don’t know why, I don’t know why I love it so much, it’s just great and that is the opening, opening song.
Elliot Moss
L-O-V-E from Nat King Cole, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Chris Parnell. He talked about continuing to try multiple things, that is what the journey is about as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to try stuff. He talked about listening a lot as secret to his success in selling and I think that must be right. And finally, and I love this, he said you are not king, that admission that whilst things are going well, you may think it’s all down to you but actually, things are going to go badly sometimes as well and you’re not always in control. Really good stuff. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.