We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Geoff Walters. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Geoff below.

Geoff, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you share a story that illustrates an important or relevant lesson you learned in school?

In school, I was your typical nerd. I studied all the time and went to about 3 parties before the age of 18. Getting good grades was something that became part of my identity. I remember doing one history exam at the age of 14 and being bitterly disappointed with myself because I only got 7/10 instead of the usual 9 or 10. When I got into Cambridge University, I thought I had “made it” and the rest of my life would be smooth sailing from there.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. My early 20s were full of struggles, dead-end jobs and poor managers. I rapidly learned that the things I had been taught in school were either flat-out wrong, arbitrary, or just unhelpful. This was a massive blow to my ego at the time. I thought I had “done the right thing” by studying so much, but it turned out that I had wasted a lot of time and that time I had spent socialising was actually more valuable.

While painful, this ended up being a valuable lesson. I’ve spent the last decade reading voraciously and getting deep into the worlds of self-development and entrepreneurship. Honestly, I had to – I was so broken after my school experience that there was no other way for me to get ahead.

The business I run today, Universal Owl, was born out of the idea to create a new type of school system that teaches young people skills that they actually need day-to-day. So things like communication, nutrition, personal finance and philosophy. My aim is to be the guinea pig who tries out new skill sets from areas like these in my own life, discards what doesn’t work, and then shares what does work with other people.

Geoff, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I initially got into entrepreneurship out of desperation and frustration. I disliked working for other people, had 2 bad managers back to back, and didn’t want to become the sort of person who would complain all the time. At the time, I was reading quite a lot of Mark Manson content, and his articles in entrepreneurship sparked something in me. So I started creating a political social network while working in communications consulting, and left in summer 2013 to go full-time.

This business ended up failing, so over the next 2 years I tried 3 more startup ideas. I was head of marketing at an app that connects like-minded groups of people via the Tinder swipe-left / swipe-right principle. I learned quite a bit about psychology in therapy, so set up a Youtube channel and coaching business to share that with other people. And I also experimented with dropshipping for a while. None of these businesses succeeded financially, but they were all good learning experiences.

In 2015, I was back in therapy after the failure of my 4th business idea, and my therapist suggested that I become a content writer. I had studied languages, but didn’t really see myself as I writer, but I was broke, so gave it a shot. Within 6 months, I had so many clients that I decided to resurrect my old dream of becoming a business owner. So I hired a few writers, and ended up turning my content writing practice into a content marketing consulting business. I sold this business in 2019, as I noticed that my heart wasn’t really in it anymore.

I still do some marketing consulting today on the side to pay the bills, but my main business is called Universal Owl. We provide workshops that teach young people life skills through board games.

In the previous question, I shared about my interest in psychology and personal development, which came out of a largely unsatisfying school experience and childhood. I’ve also enjoyed games for my entire life and was previously a childhood chess prodigy.

So Universal Owl started off life as a blog about personal development. That was what my business partner and I knew, coming from a background in content marketing. From there, we pivoted to an online course business. Next, I had a dream about a self-development board game, which led us to actually printing that game and selling retail copies of it. And that led us in turn to our present model, which is selling workshops that teach life skills via the board game.

I’d love to say there was a master plan behind this journey, but it was really more about taking the next available step, pivoting frequently, and never giving up.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have many of these:

– The time I was looking for marketing side-gigs, fired off 100 applications in about 10 days, and didn’t get a single interview.
– The time I was down to my last 5 euros and spent the whole day phoning around my network to see who could help me out.
– The time I chose to start a new career as a freelance writer, despite being broke, having 4 failed businesses behind me, and having a network of risk-averse people who were telling me to get a job.
– The time I moved from Germany to Serbia for philosophical reasons, despite not knowing anyone in Serbia.

Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.

Yes, I sold my marketing consultancy business. I was actually planning on just closing it down, but I found a buyer from a Facebook group for entrepreneurs that I was part of. Main lessons learned:

– Do your due diligence. When you have a business to sell, lots of people will make various offers to you, often offers that you don’t fully understand from buyers you don’t fully know. Take as much time as you need to get to know them and their offer in detail. If they rush you, run for the hills. A good buyer knows that your business is your baby and you won’t part with it easily.
– Don’t accept the first offer you get. Be willing to negotiate. If the buyer isn’t willing to pay more, you might be able to get them to “pay” in services, or in referrals, or some other non-cash value.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.universalowl.com

Image Credits
Universal Owl, Geoff Walters, John Bardinelli