I’ve been asking everyone to choose a question for my next interviewee. It was Sarah’s choice for your interview: With the company rebrand and you holding the keys, are you planning to rewrap the Squideo van with the new colours, details, etc. And does the van have a name?

Yes, I’m absolutely planning on getting rid of the old branding on the van. It's not great having the old branding on it. You might not know, but it's actually my personal van. It's not a company van, because Squideo doesn't really need a van to make videos. I use it for carting motorbikes down the country. And it's a bit of free advertising, or it would be if it was the right brand! But, yeah, absolutely planning on rewrapping it.

A wrap is something that is quite difficult to get off in the cold weather, so I'll probably do it when it gets a bit warmer early next year and get another wrap design to put on. It probably won't look as wild as the last one. Just over the back, because it's got nearly 200,000 miles on it now and it's sensitive. As for its name, it doesn't really have one. Old unreliable, or possibly the Squid Van. Yeah, Squid Van. I suppose that would be its name if I had to choose one.

I spoke to Ben in the first interview for the Back to the Beginning series about Squideo’s history and I want to get your side of the story too. How did you and Ben meet and when did you two decide to work together? A motorcycle accident was mentioned around the time Ben got back from Japan.

I actually met Ben the first day of school, so reception, which was absolutely ages ago [laughs], and yeah, we didn't really hit it off straight away. We sort of became friends in year two, and since then, yeah, we hit it off. We actually started working together in school. We used to go to a local supermarket that sells nearly out-of-date stuff and fill our rucksacks with it and sell that to people after PE for quite a lot more than we bought it. So we used to do that. We’ve done various other things, but I always remember that!

How has Squideo’s services changed since you originally launched as Fifty Squid?

The core service is still the same as it was when we first started Fifty Squid. We've just been striving to increase our production value whilst maintaining a level of efficiency that allows us to be competitive with pricing without compromising on the process and revisions and things like that. Squideo is something that's always evolving, even to this day. The service is the same, but things have come on a lot. We work with quite a lot of big brands now, whose demands are higher and the process has to evolve to meet these demands. 

As the Accounts Director, you’re responsible for bringing in new clients. What’s one of your favourite projects that you’ve worked on at Squideo?

I don't really have a favourite project that I've worked on, or at least brought in. I do like local stuff though. I'd like to think that we're reasonably well known, but because we’re remote and everything is done on the computer it's quite difficult (other than the van) to have a local presence in Hull. So when we do get a local project, it's nice to know that the word is out and people use us and things like that, so I suppose they would be the ones that I like getting in the most. 

The company went fully remote in 2020. What do you like about working remotely? And is there anything you miss about the old offices?

Because of COVID-19, Squideo was forced to go remote. If you'd asked me whether I wanted to work remotely before that, I would have said, no, absolutely not. But what it did was force us to tighten up our paper trails and the systems we use to communicate. They weren't there in the way they are now and it forced us to do better and become more efficient. In a way, I think it might even be detrimental to work in an office again. When people have these conversations face-to-face, there isn’t a paper trail and things can get mixed up. Now we can refer to Monday and Slack to figure out what has been done, and who needs to do what next.

So it does have its advantages. However, it's not social at all, and I always miss that part of it. People work differently, though, and some people do better in a social environment. I'm actually quite easily distracted, so I do tend to work better when I'm in my own space. So overall, I do miss working in an office, but I think we work a little bit better remotely. But I'm sure there are people in Squideo who wish we were in an office all the time.

I’ve talked to a couple of people about your office pets – Squidge (RIP) and Ink – but I’ve never asked: who’s idea was it to install a fish tank to begin with?

I can't actually remember whose idea it was. I think it was Ben's. We got this really, really s**t fish tank from Facebook Marketplace which was an absolute nightmare to maintain. I loved the idea of having fish in the office, but once we had fish in the office it was a nightmare. We had this idea to reduce the amount of cleaning we had to do – because fish excrete stuff which makes the tank very mucky – to get some little cleaning prawns and make a micro-ecosystem. In theory, the prawns look after the fish and the fish look after the prawns. It obviously didn’t work, since they all died. But we did try!

Now we don’t have any fish, unfortunately. Although for all of fish kind, they probably consider themselves very fortunate. 

Even though Squideo is now fully remote, we’ve been able to stay in touch as a team with our morning meetings, Slack chats and occasional meetups. The last staff outing was to The Deep. Where do you want to go next?

I don't think I'll be the only one who said this, but I'd love to do an escape room. I've never actually done one, but me and Ben did the Crystal Maze experience last weekend and it was absolutely awesome! There were elements of an escape room to it but yeah slightly different. So having done that and not done an escape room, I think that would be so a lot of fun. So, yeah, that would be on my list.

Ben had a wild suggestion of the Squid Squad taking the ferry to Amsterdam for the Christmas holidays, but Hannah would prefer a trip to Disney World. Callum favours Australia and Sarah chose Iceland. Ignoring cost, which international destination would you pick? Moto Grand Prix circuit, maybe?

I think I'd have to choose something that everybody would want to do. If we went to a race circuit, I think everybody would probably fall asleep. [I wouldn’t!] Okay maybe some people wouldn't, but, yeah. If cost weren’t an issue, I'd go back to Japan. I went before with Ben and I feel like there'll be something for everybody there. And you can just geek out massively if you wanted to. 

The first time we met in person, at the bowling alley, you mentioned going to Le Mans to see the race. What got you interested in motorcycles, cars and racing?

I did go see a car race in Le Mans, good memory! That was awesome. I'm just as equally a car nut as I am a bike nut. So, yeah, I actually started competing in carting, which is like go-karts, when I was six years old. And then it got to the point where the next natural progression from carting is switching to cars. But if you're going to race cars you need a massive infrastructure. You need trailers and things like that. And it was really expensive. Couldn't afford that! But one thing you can always do with a motorbike is get it in the back of the van. So, yeah, I moved over to bikes pretty early, probably when I was about 13, and then competed all the way up to 2015. I got to a semi-professional level, which was great. I enjoyed that. And now I just do it for a bit of fun. Still massively into it, but without the pressure.

You’re also known amongst the Squid Squad as a beer aficionado. I’m looking for three recommendations: the weirdest beer you’ve ever had (but not necessarily the worst); the best beer to drink during a spicy food challenge, and; the nicest cheapest beer you’ve tried.

Okay, beer! Here we go. I'll try to keep it short.

1. My favourite beer ever is one called Schlenkerla Rauchbier which is from a German brewery. It’s a smoked beer, so it's really like marmite, which is why it doubles as the weirdest choice! People absolutely love it and people absolutely hate it. It tastes like bacon, but it's a beer and it's absolutely phenomenal. They do all sorts of smoked beers at that brewery, all the way up to different levels of smokiness if you like. And the Rauchbier is one of the smokiest. So that would be my favourite.
2. The best beer to drink during a spicy food challenge. Hmm. I reckon something like a Vice beer. So something that is nice and creamy to counter the spice. Or I'd go completely the other way. And you can actually get ghost pepper beers if you want. So you could have the meal and the beer spicy at the same time and that would absolutely blow your head off!
3. I think my favourite cheapest beer if I had to recommend somewhere to go… the Lidl and Aldi stuff is pretty good if you want to spend between £1 and £2. I always go in there and buy whatever is new. There's a big craft beer movement at the moment, so everyone's doing a bit and it's not too bad compared to just a few years ago when you couldn't really get that sort of stuff anywhere.

So, yeah, I suppose that answers the question! And then some [laughs].

Check out our next post to hear from Squideo’s Marketing Executive, Emily Woodcock, in our final installation of Back to the Beginning.