It's always exciting for me to introduce another podcaster on STIMY, and today’s guest has not one, but two highly successful podcasts:

Creator Lab: an entrepreneurship podcast & growth marketing consultancy
Not Investment Advice: a weekly business podcast covering the latest in business, tech & web 3

Bilal Zaidi has interviewed some of the world's best, including people like Jim Mckelvey, the billionaire co-founder of Square, Tim Urban from Wait But Why, Kat Cole, president of Athletic Greens, Daymond John from Shark Tank & Gary Vee.

Beyond entrepreneurship, he's interviewed a wide range of creators ranging from Hollywood actors, Emmy-winning performers, leading writers, billionaire investors & non-profit founders. He started his first company, an e-commerce business, aged 16 years old after selling sim cards, CDs & clothes at school & also an Arsenal Review blog that racked over 500,000 views. He later spent 7.5 years working at Google managing a $100mil+ business.

After meeting the founder of leading social enterprise, charity: water, Bilal left his job to join their leadership team full-time as their first-ever Director of Brand Partnerships, partnering with brands like Saint Laurent, J Crew, Amazon & 100+ others to raise money & awareness for clean water. To date, charity: water has helped almost 15mil+ people get access to clean drinking water in 29 countries.

Bilal is now a full-time entrepreneur & creator, working on several ventures as a podcaster, consultant & investor.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:40 Growing up in East London as a Pakistani British
6:52 Being a fan of Nars the rapper
7:42 Taking money seriously
9:47 Starting his first company, Street Vibes, as a student
12:49 Learning the art of selling from the vendors at London street markets
15:24 Running an Arsenal Review website with over 500,000 readers
18:44 Being headhunted by Google on LinkedIn
22:14 Almost turning down the opportunity to work at Google
23:25 Being seen as a drug dealer?!
25:37 Spending 7.5 years at Google
27:19 Shutting down a $300M company within Google
29:19 Getting out of his low period
32:16 Starting the Creator Lab podcast
36:43 How Bilal lands amazing guests
43:49 Focus on one platform
48:26 Landing podcast sponsorship deals
53:05 Milestones in Bilal’s podcasting journey
55:30 Meeting the Winklevoss twins
58:40 Interviewing Gary Vee
1:05:39 Jack Butcher - going from cold DMs to close friends
1:14:40 How much personality should you show?

🎙️Show notes/transcript for this episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/83

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WHO AM I:
I'm Ling Yah, a Malaysian lawyer & host/producer of the So This Is My Why, where I interview inspiring people about how they found their why, and their blueprint for turning that why into a reality. I’ve interviewed Olympians, Michelin-starred chefs, top entrepreneurs, VC founders, Hollywood actresses, and more.

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⌨️ I’d love to hear from you! Just leave a comment below or email me at sothisismywhy(at)gmail.com