Table of Contents
LADbible's Solly Solomou shares the raw journey from buying a Facebook page for thousands to building a global entertainment powerhouse worth millions.
Key Takeaways
- Started LADbible by purchasing an existing Facebook page for "low thousands" while still at university, using his mother's bank account for the transfer
- Built the business profitably from day one without understanding investment concepts - "all I knew was I had to make more money than I spent"
- Grew from a tiny office above a printer shop to 500 employees across UK, Ireland, and US with over 500 million followers
- Went public on London Stock Exchange during pandemic, raising £120 million while ringing the bell from his sofa via Zoom
- Believes his biggest mistake was waiting eight years to embrace YouTube and not starting in the US market first
- Acquired Betches media company to accelerate US expansion, learning that American audiences demand completely different content approaches
- Emphasizes culture and trust as critical factors - hiring too fast during pandemic taught him that technical skills without cultural fit creates chaos
- Predicts mobile phones will become "clunky items" replaced by seamless wearables within 10-15 years, similar to how we view car phones today
The Accidental Media Mogul's University Experiment
Here's the thing about Solly Solomou - he never set out to become a media mogul. The LADbible founder was just a kid who understood which sweets would sell at school and had a knack for negotiating bulk deals with newsagents. "I was the guy who understood exactly which sweets were going to sell and which ones weren't," he reflects, describing his early entrepreneurial instincts that started long before he knew what the word entrepreneur meant.
The path to building what would become a global entertainment empire began during his third year at University of Leeds. Instead of following the traditional route of picking a corporate placement, Solomou jumped at an unusual opportunity from Professor Nigel Lockit. "He said I've got this idea that I would like to potentially give people like you the opportunity to start your own business in a year industry would you be my guinea pig," Solomou recalls.
What seemed like the perfect safety net - university support, mentorship, and the option to return if things failed - actually taught him a crucial lesson about pressure and creativity. The initial concept wasn't even LADbible; it was an online community for rating bars, clubs, and cafes in Leeds. But sometimes the most important business decisions happen by accident.
The office space he rented tells you everything about those early days. "It was above a printer shop and it did look like a prison because it had like prison bars across it," he laughs. "But all in you paying about a grand a year for it." That £1,000 annual rent represented keeping costs brutally low while figuring out the fundamentals of business.
The Facebook Page That Changed Everything
In 2012, when Facebook hadn't even gone public yet and barely had a mobile app, Solomou stumbled across something that would transform his trajectory entirely. While exploring different marketing channels for his Leeds-based business - email marketing, TV, and magazines were all too expensive - he discovered a Facebook page called LADbible with half a million followers.
"Everyone was following this page called the LADbible and it had half a million people on it and I thought you know what this is interesting because mainly based around university students and it's got half a million people this could be a really interesting angle," he explains. The page was created by Alex Partridge, who now runs a successful ADHD podcast.
The negotiation and purchase process reveals just how raw and uncertain those early days were. After some back-and-forth, Partridge accepted an offer in the "low thousands" - Solomou won't reveal the exact amount, but it's clear this wasn't a massive sum. The transfer itself became a family affair when Solomou couldn't move the money from his own bank account. "For whatever reason and fair play to my mom I couldn't transfer that amount of money from my bank I don't know why I just couldn't and I used my mom's bank."
The moment after completing the purchase captures the terror and exhilaration of entrepreneurship perfectly: "I remember just laying there on my bed thinking what the hell have I just done what the hell have I just done I've just spent a huge amount of money... I was burning through maybe like 60 70% of the money that I'd saved up from previous endeavors."
Building the Content Machine Through Community
What's fascinating about LADbible's early growth is how Solomou solved the classic chicken-and-egg problem of audience versus content. He needed people consuming content and advertisers paying for access to those people. His solution involved everything from getting branded bags printed at the shop downstairs to wearing his grandfather's oversized suit to pitch local businesses.
"My granddad who's an important figure for me... he bought me this suit I think he always wanted me to go into business and it was a big suit like you know sort of drain pipes the kind of old school suit," Solomou remembers. "For the first couple of weeks wearing that suit to go and see the bars clubs cafes quite quickly I realized it probably wasn't a good idea."
The real breakthrough came from understanding that social media talent was scattered across the country, working in call centers and nightclubs, with no clear career path. "We all knew each other it was like a community so back then we were dming each other on Twitter we were chatting with each other on different messaging platforms," he explains. This was the early days when "Facebook was launched in 2004 YouTube was launched in 2005 Facebook had only just listed in 2012 and then what TikTok came in 2016 Snapchat 2014."
Solomou's strategy was simple but revolutionary: find these talented content creators and give them careers doing what they loved. "For us we brought them in and gave them a career and they loved it and they still love it lots of them still work for us today." This approach worked because the democratization of content creation hadn't yet reached the point where individual creators could easily monetize their skills independently.
The Art of Platform Expansion and Vertical Growth
One of the most telling moments in LADbible's journey happened in a Manchester hotel room with Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, and Stormzy. "We managed to get Ice Cube Kevin Hart and Stormzy who was not big at the time in a hotel room and doing a rap battle," Solomou recalls. "We had Kevin Hart and Stormzy doing a rap battle governed by Ice Cube the one and only and it absolutely went off."
This wasn't just a viral moment - it represented LADbible's understanding of how to create authentic content that resonated with their audience. The video hit 10 million views, but more importantly, it demonstrated the company's ability to bring together massive personalities for their brand. This was before Stormzy became huge, showing LADbible's knack for spotting rising talent.
The success of this approach led to systematic expansion into verticals like SportBible and GamingBible. But here's what most people get wrong about content expansion - it's not just about launching new channels and hoping they work. "First things first get the right people the people who are living and breathing those different passion points whether it's gaming sport tech whatever it may be," Solomou emphasizes.
Each vertical required deep cultural understanding, not just content creation skills. The team had to hire people who genuinely lived these communities, then empower them with technology and data tools that traditional media companies kept separate. "In a traditional world you'd have the creatives on one side of the room then you'd have the data people on the other side of the room and they would just put heads for us we very much encouraged and actually hired people who embraced creativity and data as one."
The results speak for themselves: "You know this a good thumbnail can be the difference between a million views or you know sort of a thousand views and really mastering that art and it's the same on every single platform."
Going Public During a Pandemic and Global Expansion
Three years ago, LADbible went public on the London Stock Exchange in one of the most surreal IPO experiences imaginable. "We were meant to go to the London Stock Exchange and for the whole pandemic madness that was going on we couldn't do that so I remember sitting on the sofa with my wife and little boy who I think he was about two years old at the time and ringing the bell on the sofa on this Zoom."
The company raised around £120 million, but the real motivation wasn't just capital - it was about accelerating their US expansion. "We have over 100 million audience members out in the states and we know that we've done the hard bit it's done about establishing the business and growing out there," Solomou explains.
The US market taught him crucial lessons about scale and cultural differences. "It's like a lot of countries in one massive country and each one has such a different culture," he reflects. The niche interests that barely register in the UK become massive markets in America. He gives a perfect example: "My brother has these old school cameras and I would never see anyone walking around in the UK one of these it's a niche we were walking around in New York and we saw like five people over the course of a week who had these same old school cameras."
This led to the acquisition of Betches, a media company focused on millennial and Gen Z women. The founders "are creatives as well as entrepreneurs they have their own podcast that they do together each of them is a celebrity a name in their own right." Learning from Betches has been crucial: "To go in there and think that you could just take the UK style and repeat it in the US it is not going to fly."
The Future of Content and Technology
Looking ahead, Solomou is bullish on AI and technology disruption, even as others worry about infinite content supply. "I'm an optimist so I'm excited," he says, pointing to practical applications already transforming their business: "There's some things like desk research that have just become way easier sub editing dude even like captions and coloring captions and stuff this used to take a lot of time."
One example particularly excites him: language translation and dubbing tools. "We actually turned one of our sports shows we got a sports show and we turned it with the Australian cricket captain into Hindi it got over 200,000 views in a day which was I thought pretty impressive."
His prediction for the next big technology shift centers on wearables replacing smartphones entirely. "Mobile phones they're going to be this clunky item that we carry around right now and look back on and go why did we hold that thing why did we do that we're going to have wearables that are going to make it way more seamless."
The parallel he draws is telling: "I guess it's a bit like car phones can you remember those... people would use car phones in a car and they thought it was the greatest thing ever." In 10-15 years, he believes we'll view our current smartphones the same way we now view those old car phones - as primitive, clunky technology we can't believe we ever used.
When it comes to platforms, his investment thesis is clear: he'd buy TikTok and Meta, while being more cautious about others. TikTok's e-commerce integration particularly impresses him: "That whole thing they want to be the next Amazon... those guys are two steps ahead they want to take on Amazon and they are paving the way."
The most profound insight comes when discussing being a father and CEO simultaneously - a question he says no one ever asks. "Before I had Alfie our first boy I would just roll the dice on every decision everything put it on the table no problem having Alfie made me think about things very differently." The responsibility of being a role model has made him more thoughtful about every action: "I often look at it through the lens of how would I feel if Alfie did that or Millie our daughter."
From a university experiment above a printer shop to a global entertainment powerhouse with half a billion followers, Solomou's journey proves that sometimes the most successful businesses emerge from pure necessity and relentless adaptation. His story isn't just about building a media company - it's about understanding culture, embracing change, and never losing sight of the fundamental truth that great content connects with people on an emotional level.
