Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett has said he built Diary of a CEO into one of the world鈥檚 biggest podcasts by embracing failure as a competitive advantage.
The Social Chain co-founder, who moved to Los Angeles earlier this year, is determined to be known for testing ideas rapidly, learning fast and embracing mistakes as part of the process.聽
He has a dedicated 鈥渇ailure team鈥�, led by a head of failure, whose goal is to increase the rate of experimentation, not the rate of success.聽
鈥淲e have a head of failure who leads that team鈥� and her primary objective is to increase the rate of failure,鈥� he explained in an interview with The Colin and Samir Show at Press Publish NYC.
鈥淣otice I鈥檓 not saying the rate of success.
鈥淵ou have to be less romantic about being right, and more romantic about winning.
鈥淭here should be nothing too small for an experiment. Sometimes when you look at small stones and turn them over, you find really big prizes.鈥�
The entrepreneur’s team has spent the past year experimenting with AI-generated episodes, producing retention graphs that are now indistinguishable from human-hosted shows.聽
He added: 鈥淚t took us about nine to 12 months to get to the point where if I showed you the retention graphs of two episodes – one human, one AI – you wouldn鈥檛 be able to tell the difference.
鈥淲hether you know it or not, professionally as a creator you are being disrupted right now.聽
鈥淭he only outstanding question is whether it鈥檚 you disrupting yourself or someone else.鈥�
He also shared the reasoning behind turning down massive offers, including one worth $100 million, describing it as a 鈥渉appiness trade鈥�.聽
He said: 鈥淚n terms of the offer that we received, I think we can beat it on our own and without putting 12 ads into the podcast.聽
鈥淲e can beat it by putting two ads into the podcast with our own in-house commercial team.鈥娐�
鈥淔ortunately, I come from a background where I was running businesses for the last 15 years, so I know how to build a team, run a commercial team.
鈥淭hese partners have their own incentives and they move at their own speed. No one鈥檚 gonna let me have a f***ing failure and experimentation team in the old world. Because I鈥檇 have to explain myself to people.聽
鈥淪o, the old world is set up a certain way, and sometimes it can be a gravitational force.鈥�
Watch the full interview below.