Special Guest: Andrew Michael
Intro.
Andrew Michael has a real passion for music. He loves to invest in music related projects, helping musicians and creatives to express themselves with a little more artistic and financial freedom. We spoke about his journey from wandering teenager to the upper echelons of banking. Here’s a story he shared about making the big decision to go it alone and how his mortgage lending knowledge, coupled with a few connections, gave him a lifeline.
Pressure.
I had a goal, I knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight. I actually got an investor in myself to help me invest in the company that I set up on the basis that I, you know, I’d come from at the time, 27 years of banking and having a salary there every single month, that I could rely on, it was always there.
Um, and all of a sudden, I was to the point where I was saying to myself, if you don’t make any money this month, you don’t get any money. And so it was a big step. You know? I got an investor. They gave me enough money that would last me for 12 months. So I had a 12 month runway that I had to get the business up and running set and making money.
Making money so I could live, within 12 months. And you’ll be surprised with that pressure on you. How quickly you can make it work.
Rejection.
It certainly focused me. Um, and so I think that’s why I’ve got these grey stripes in my beard! I’m surprised it’s not bigger. I’m surprised I don’t look like Santa! It did focus me. And again, that was my next step. The next stage of maturity, the next stage of entrepreneurial-ism the next stage of focus, drive, I have a mortgage, I have a wife, two children. I was doing it for all of us. It wasn’t just me.It was always in the kind of forefront of my mind. I jumped. No safety net. Well a 12 month safety net. And I guess I set up, I set up the business. The business is… was and is called Nine Lives Capital.
Originally, the plan was to almost mimic the bank and have my own cash that I could lend out to artists, to publishing companies, to record labels, whoever needed cash, to be able to borrow an advance against those future royalty incomes secured by their copyrights.
I spent probably the first three months going round to lenders saying, or funds or whoever it might be saying, you know, I’ve done this for many, many years. I’ve got a great track record, I’ve lent, hundreds of millions of pounds & dollars of, various different things. And you know, I’d like you to now give me a line of credit so I can lend it on and do exactly what I’ve always done.
Bite me.
And none of them bit. They were always like, 'You've always been in that cozy little banking environment where you know, it wasn't really you, it was the team around you', like, 'Yeah, we Love the idea, but you know, we now want you as an independent, to go and do it yourself, 'then' we'll invest'.
Yeah? With what money? This was probably the first… It was the first three months of setting it up. So latter end of 16. So I thought, okay, so this isn’t going to happen until I’ve got this independent track record. What do I do in the meantime? And it’s amazing how your, when you set up a company with a, with a goal in mind, how things change. Not necessarily to your overall goal, but there were always things, there were always like, roads, you know? Other alternative roads that pop up.
Mortgage?
I had a music guy that I’ve known for many years, ring me in that first three months and say, Andrew, I know that you don’t do mortgages, but you’re my finance guy. So any idea you could like help me and point me in the right direction as someone that could do a mortgage?
So I rang one of these banks that I’d been into. And I said, you know, I know that you guys have got a mortgage division. Um, can you assist a client? This is what he’s after. And you know, he’s got this house, this, this salary, this loan to value is looking to do this X, Y, and Z. And they said, yeah, absolutely. That fits our criteria perfectly, you know, introduce us. So I introduced. But I didn’t charge any fee. They did the mortgage and you know, thank you very much. That was great.
Two days later. Another guy rings me. Again, old client of mine, he knew my mobile from my banking days. Rang me and said, Andrew, I know this isn’t you, but I’m just about to buy a new house and I need a mortgage. Could you point me in the right direction? Then I was like, hold on? I missing sent a trick here! Two in the same week?
Um, and so I said, yeah, I can. give me 48 hours and I’ll introduce you to the right person. In that 48 hours, I rang every banker I knew in the city. Um, you guys do mortgages, do you pay introducer fees? Probably three or four of them said, yes.
48hrs to Lend.
So, I done the intro’d to one of them who I felt, you know, worked best, best rate, best product, that kind of thing, but I thought to myself, well, hold on a minute, rather than being a broker, why don’t I take myself out as a middleman and just become an introducer and I sign up or do a deal with a broker? They take all the, you know, they have all the regulation, they give all the advice, they go and find the best bank, the best rate, the best product. I just do the introduction and take a fee.
And within that 48 hours, I’d done a deal with a brokerage firm who I felt were great. I’d used them before, knew them. They were highly recommended from some other people that I’d rang around. Um, and I introduced my second guy to the broker. He found the mortgage for them. The mortgage was done. And I think I earned, I dunno, four or five thousand pounds for it. And I was like, there you go, there you go. There it is.
And so that was my first earnings from Nine Lives Capital. It was a mortgage intro! It was one of those things that kept me alive. You know, it helped my 12 months become kind of 18 months. And so, you know, I started doing that side of things. Introducing on the mortgage side, um, in the meantime, I’m still out there looking for, you know, opportunities for the music lending.
