👕Gymshark: Regent Street / hiring for the podcast
🌴 The case for Matt Hancock going in the Jungle
💼 Hiring for Jimmy's Jobs
📚Parenting Hell book review by Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe
🏋️ Guest announcement: Michelle Donelan - from WWE to Digital Secretary
Welcome to the 11 new subscribers. If you are new here, my name is Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser turned podcaster. I write this notebook on the most interesting things I have seen on the future of work, jobs, technology and politics.
Before we get cracking today, we are hiring for a producer AND a researcher / head of guest bookings - the latter is particularly well suited to someone looking for their first or second career job. Our first producer came as a result from this notebook - so thanks in advance!
🌴 The case for Matt Hancock going in the Jungle
Those of you living under a rock this week may have missed the news that Matt Hancock will be appearing in this year's ‘I’m A celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!’. Quite incredibly it led the news bulletins, so obsessed has our media come with political crisis (I wrote about this in May here)
Politicians going on reality TV isn't a new thing, Penny Mordaunt, Nadine Dorries and George Galloway have been on different shows.
Plenty has been written about why Matt Hancock shouldn’t go on, it’s parliamentary time, the country is in its biggest cost of living squeeze and at the start of the week he was vying to be Chair of Treasury Select Committee, a very weighty and serious role.
So let’s examine the case as to why he should appear.
All publicity is good publicity and I can imagine many more people tuning in than would have otherwise done so (even I will admit to watching the first episode now).
He says it’s a "powerful tool" to reach young people and that politicians need to "go where the people are" and he wants to raise awareness of dyslexia, a condition he himself has. To his credit he has been long passionate about it, I am also dyslexic and worked with him at No.10 on some of the things he was announcing.
I sort of gave up the idea of being a football journalist aged 18 because of my dyslexia diagnosis, which is ridiculous looking back (now I just write Substackas at a weekend 🤣🤣)
So if he can inspire even just a handful of dyslexic youngsters that they too can go onto be a politician and spend time eating exotic genitalia on prime time TV, will it have been worth it?
We know young people feel as disconnected as ever with politicians, finding them boring and unrelatable, so how strongly can we object when they decide to take on something like this to raise awareness and money for an admirable cause?
He has long gone into arenas politicians won’t in an attempt to humanise them, he appeared on Steve Bartlett’s podcast earlier this year and did a valiant effort to stick up for politicians as a group.
Matt is one of the brightest and ablest politicians of his generation, he has much to add to the public debate.
And so at its heart, I just cannot help but feel its all just a bit sad and has the very serious risk of becoming the defining image of him in the public’s mind, rather than one who was at the coalface of the response to the country’s pandemic response.
I’m a Celebrity is a seriously high wire act, you either come out being loved, loathed or abject humiliation.
Expectations are low across the media and Twitter, so I hope he comes out with some credibility at least for the sake of his kids and family, who have been through enough over the last couple of years.
👕Gymshark: Future of Retail and working in No.10
On the topic of connecting with a younger audience, we recently visited Gymshark’s new retail store on Regent Street. Gymshark of course are one of the major success stories of social media, having built the brand originally through influencer marketing.
The backstory of how I got to know Ben Francis, the founder was when I was at No.10, one of my jobs was scouting out the next wave of entrepreneurs so I asked around and a name that always cropped up was Ben Francis, I looked him and Gymshark up and I was impressed.
There were no TechCrunch articles claiming how much they’d raised, it was all boot strapped, which as Ben described on the Jimmy’s Jobs podcast last year makes them a ‘super unicorn’. You can check out the episode here
I invited him down to No.10 to join the PM’s scale-up and advisory council originally as a bit of a ‘wildcard’ candidate, it turned into a Goran Ivanisevic style wildcard as he was very impressive on the day. Now, 5 years later, Gymshark is worth £1.25b and they have just opened their first physical store on Regent street.
It was brilliant to be at the opening of the huge 18,000-square-foot space in the heart of Central London, which can double up as an amazing event space as well.
As always, they are pushing at the boundaries of what is possible in a traditional retail space. With Gymshark being an online-first company it's interesting to see a global brand move into retail after being focused online rather than the other way around.
Also on the bottom floor is the sweat room, with 30 fitness classes a week. So you can buy your gym wear and put it to use just a few steps away.
Ben did a round of media interviews to coincide with the launch, I was particularly struck by this piece by Emily Hawkins in City A.M. where he says he wants this to be the first of many stores and he said that the ‘IPO is not something we are looking at the moment’.
A year ago when Ben Francis and Noel Mack came on Jimmy’s Jobs podcast, they said that London was the most inspiring place to be in the world and that Apple was an north star brand for them. A year on, and they’ve now become neighbors on one of the world's most iconic shopping streets.
Check out the episode here if you want to know more about Ben and Noel - it is probably one of the best we have ever done on the show.
And, If you want a laugh, you can listen to me recount my attempt to give a business card to a member of the TikTok establishment, Cole Anderson on the latest episode on my newest podcast ‘The Shift with Eliza Filby’ where we talk about what’s been in the business media that week.
💼 Jimmy’s Jobs are hiring!
Things are scaling here at Jimmy’s Jobs with several high-profile guests and partnerships agreed upon for 2023, we are hiring for a producer and a researcher / head of guest bookings to help us scale even further in the next year.
Our first team member came from an introduction from this notebook, he started as an ‘associate’ in May 2021, and is now a full producer on the show.
We will have a lot of focus on your career and development, after all, it is a core tenet of what Jimmy’s Jobs is about.
It is four days a week, ideally Monday to Thursday, as we want you to have other creative projects you are working on, but there is flexibility in our approach.
Ultimately, we want you to be passionate about entrepreneurs and UK economy, and ‘skills are more important than experience, but neither are as important as mindset’.
The researcher is the more ‘entry level’ position, but we would still love some experience of UK technology / entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Job ads on LinkedIn below
Researcher / Head of guest bookings
Feel free to hit reply to this email with questions.
📚Parenting hell book review
Long-time subscribers will know about my love of the ‘parenting hell’ podcast. I am in the proper super-fan category. It's hosted by Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe. I started listening in the heady days of lockdown one, my wife had gone back to work and I was a stay at home dad to our six month old, from Downing Street to diapers as I sometimes say. It was partly listening to them and other podcasts which gave me the idea for Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future.
Listening to two comedians talk about the trials and tribulations of it all, was genuinely a massive support at the time. The blend and contrast of the hyperactive Rob Beckett and the permanently apprehensive Josh Widdicombe has meant it has soared to the top of the UK’s podcast chart, and is probably the most listened too.
Incredibly they create two podcasts every week, and have no patreon or paid for subscriber option.
Instead, they have a new book out of the same name and I as a superfan of the podcast, was slightly unsure if it would live up to expectations, think The Simpsons movie (and they say never meet your heroes)
However, despite my doubts, It was brilliant, they have absolutely nailed it.
The book paints the backstory of how they first met and the idea for the podcast with the original voice note. In a world where social media allows us to feel more connected to our favourite creators (or should that read characters) than ever, it was a chance to get more context around their lives with interviews from their parents and wives.
Overall I found the book incredibly funny, but there were incredibly deep and challenging moments there too with Josh talking about their miscarriage. In that way, the book also represents a major cultural shift with people opening up about such issues which would have seemed almost unthinkable a decade ago.
Chopping up successful content for new mediums can be a challenge. I listened to the book as an audiobook and it almost felt like a super polished, high-level podcast and was a really pleasant experience.
As an aside, they recently signed a deal with Spotify to produce shows exclusively for them, one of the first UK-based podcasts to do so, I look forward to attending their arena tour next year!
I listened to it on XigXag an audio platform designed to revolutionise audiobooks and we actually interviewed their founder, Kelli Fairbrother on Jimmy's Jobs last year you can hear how she left a career in the military to launch it check it out here.
🏋️ Guest Announcement: Michelle Donelan from wrestling to politics
Rising star, Michelle Donelan is not yet that well known to the public.
So I am excited to be interviewing, the new digital, culture, media and sport secretary for Jimmy’s Jobs in the next few weeks.
Prior to politics Michelle worked for World Wrestling Entertainment ….
Please send in your best wrestling / political related questions and do let us know if you would be interested taking out an Ad on this specific episode … think those that took our space on the Rishi episode at the beginning of the year are feeling pleased given how many extra listens that has had over the last two weeks!
Make sure you are subscribed to make sure you here about it.
Be More Frank
Absolutely brutal detail here from Harry Cole about Liz Truss leadership manoeuvrings during partygate scandal - his and James Heale’s book on Liz Truss is out imminently, I think it’ll be a pretty incredible read.
A great Christmas present for someone, do think about ordering through Tom Rowley’s backstory here, free UK delivery above £25
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Well it is possible thanks to our various partners.
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