Jake Millar: life in the fast lane

At 22 years old, Jake Millar from Greymouth in the South Island has interviewed some of the most influential business people on the planet: The CEO of Fonterra, the CEO of Walmart, the CEO of Tesla, founders of billion-dollar startups, and godfather of entrepreneurs everywhere, Sir Richard Branson. He has interviewed around 500 people over the last four years. 

Jake sold his first business, Oompher, to the New Zealand Government at 19 years old. His second start-up, Unfiltered, has just celebrated its second birthday from New York, where Jake's now living as he launches into the States.

Jake has bottled his ability to get people to talk to him and turned it into a business. Unfiltered gives you access to the stories and wisdom of some of the world's most successful businessmen and women. Interviewed by Jake, they share what they've learned, inspiring others to achieve greatness. Each interview is about an hour-long, and is recorded on video. Jake's done around 500 of them, and they are all published on unfiltered.tv. 

Before he'd launched Unfiltered with his co-founder, Yuuki Ogino, Jake had secured commercial partnerships with Bayleys, Craigs Investments, Price Waterhouse Coopers.

In July this year, I went to Unfiltered Live, held at Auckland Museum. It was slick. Hundreds of people round the country came to hear Jake and other speakers such as the Prime Minister and Sir Graham Henry.

Dapper, neat, scrupulously organised, bespectacled, and always smiling, there's a touch of the #geekchic about Jake. But his old-school, gentlemanly manners give him an air of panache. Jake wraps up lots of information neatly and tightly in short spaces of time. He has got used to sharing the two-minute version of his story to promote Unfiltered. In an interview with an American TV channel that broadcasts live from the New York Stock Exchange, the presenters start off smiling politely at the rather young, earnest-looking fellow in front of them. But after a few minutes, their practiced, generic welcome is slightly askew, and their jaws hang a little loose.

A LOSS

When Jake was 15 years old, his father, Rod Miller, died in a plane crash over Fox Glacier, along with nine other people. Four of them were Jake's friends. Rod owned a sky-diving business. The crash occurred on the same day as the first earthquake hit Christchurch. John Key travelled across the South Island paying his respects to the victims and visiting affected families.
Afterwards, Jake wrote to the Prime Minister thanking him for coming to the crash site, and asking him for words of advice about his future. John Key responded with a personal and encouraging note, and visited the 15-year-old at his home in Greymouth. It was a bright moment amongst all that horror.

Jake says, " At seven years old, John Key lost his father, yet went on to achieve his dreams. I thought, 'If he can do it, so can I.' And I was inspired by the kindness and humanity he had shown in his leadership of our country at that awful time."

SCHOOL

From a young age, Jake has worked hard. "I set myself the goal of being head boy of Christchurch Boys' High School (CBHS) and head boy of Adams House. The two positions hadn't been held at the same time in 11 years." He achieved both those goals in 2012.

Whilst at school, Jake organised quite the line-up of speakers for assembly at CBHS: Rob Fyfe, then CEO of Air New Zealand, Rhys Darby from Flight of the Conchords, and Bill English, then Minister of Finance. Photos of baby-faced Jake honing his interviewing skills with these national heavyweights are shockingly recent. Rob Fyfe is now one of a few experienced CEOs who sit on the board of Unfiltered. He says "I have known Jake since he was 16, and he is one of the most inspiring young New Zealanders I have met in my business career.”

As he headed towards his final terms, Jake read Richard Branson's autobiography, Losing My Virginity. It ignited in him a passion for business. He could see how fun and exciting it was.

But career advice at school was woefully lacking. "You were asked what you thought you'd like to do, and were handed a few pamphlets. Where was the advice from someone who'd been there and done it? What was the best way to get started in a particular job? Where was the motivation to get out there and achieve great things? There wasn't any."

And so, turning down a $40,000 scholarship to study law at Otago University, Jake left school and founded his first business, Oompher. The product was what he had wanted a year earlier: careers advice – from the top of the pile. He interviewed people leading their industry, and invited them to share their wise words, asking questions like, 'What does it take to succeed in your industry?' The videos of the interview were published online. Within two months of launching, Jake started to negotiate with the Government who wanted to buy it. Six months later, in mid-2015, they did.

30-YEAR PLAN

If this all sounds very neat and well-thought-out, that's because it is. This isn't a series of lucky events. Jake plays the longest of games. He has a 30-year plan. That's pretty hard to fathom in our era of instant gratification. "Sir Michael Hill has a 30-year plan. He refers to it regularly. And he advised me to do the same. You have to think aspirationally to make your plan. I  thought about what it is that I wanted from life. Here's my list: family, fun, friends, finances, fortune (good health/luck), influence, and, above all else, total freedom. Whenever I need to make a decision in my life, I look at whether it will bring me closer to those goals. If it doesn't, then I say no."

RAISING CAPITAL

In 2016 he needed to raise $1.2 million to take Unfiltered to the States. "I was confident we'd be able to raise the funds, but I was humbled by the calibre of our investors. Many of them are friends I have made over the years." Some friends! Kevin Roberts, ex-CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi; and Sara Tetro, founder of 62 Models and Talent, are some of the A-list line-up of investors. Having them onboard creates a snowball effect: they bring in friends and contacts who are then willing to be interviewed for Unfiltered.

We meet Jake in between San Francisco and Fiji, and find out how he secures interviews with such big names, and commercial relationships without having launched his business. And what motivated such grit and drive.

Jenny: Happy birthday Unfiltered! Two years old in November. And now you have launched into America. How did it differ to your launch in New Zealand?

Jake: Probably the main thing is the size of the market. In New Zealand we are just four and a half million people. It's quite easy to target who you want and truly reach that market, whereas in America there are 320-odd million people, so it's hard reach them all. In America, we have repositioned our entire business. We have really focused on one very specific market as opposed to focusing on everyone. Also, we've targeted New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco at this stage, not the whole country. We've picked out places where we feel we are going to get the most traction.

Jenny: One of the most incredible things about Oompher and Unfiltered, is your ability to get people to come and talk to you. How have you done that?

Jake:  The main word is persistence. We just go, and go, and go, and go. When we reach out to new people to interview, whether it's Sir Richard Branson, or Ashton Kucher, or Sarah Blakely, we just hammer them. I know that sounds aggressive, but you have to be because there are so many journalists and media agencies competing for that attention. Quite often we'll follow someone up 15, 16, 17 times before we get the interview.

Jenny: How do you know when to stop?

Jake: It depends. If I am not getting a reply at all, then I'll probably carry on. If someone's not interested, they'll usually come back straight away and say so. So if they don't send that reply, then you can probably always push harder. A founder of a very successful and well-known company recently came back after four or five emails from us with a one-word response: 'no.' That was it. That's enough for us, we know he's not interested right now. But that doesn't mean I'll give up for the rest of my life.

Jenny: As well as being persistent, you need to be good at reading people, and likable. How did those attributes develop?

Jake: Growing up, I spent a lot of time around adults. My parents never got babysitters or went away on holiday together without my brother and me. We did everything together. So, if there was a dinner party, we would always be there. From about four or five years old. I don't think my parents ever went on holiday together when we were young. We were always together as a family, so I spent lots of time, listening to adults and watching how they react to each other.

Jenny: Oompher and Unfiltered are quite similar businesses. What made you start another so similar to Oompher?

Jake: I really wanted to build a valuable business, and Oompher had taught me lots of important lessons about target markets, product/market position, and how to commercialise a product. I knew I wanted to start another business, and I was tempted to start something completely different, like manufacturing or software. Unfiltered was similar to what I'd been doing, and I knew how hard it was to commercialise media. But I’d done about 30 interviews with people after Oompher – which I was passionate about – so I decided to give it a crack, and Unfiltered was born.

Jenny: Before you launched Unfiltered, you had some big names signed up as customers. How did you know, at 19 years old, how to pitch your idea to them?

Jake: Partly from experience with Oompher. Our business model was to get companies to sponsor the content, with their branding at the back of us as we filmed. A kind of traditional advertising model. Also, I really believed we were solving an important problem and would have an audience of young, aspiring entrepreneurs. I knew that market was really valuable to these companies.

The person who probably helped me the most was my accountant from PwC, Scott McLeaver. We ‘white-boarded’ the whole business, how it could make money, and what commercial partnerships might look like. He gave some great advice. As a teenager owning a new business, it was invaluable to get that kind of support.

Jenny: How do you make the cut to be interviewed on Unfiltered?

Jake: There aren’t really any criteria. We look at who's hot in the media, who our subscribers are pitching to us, saying, 'I want to learn from that person.' And we look at why they might be relevant: maybe they've sold or founded a company, or they are growing fast globally, or expanding internationally.

Equally, it could be someone in whom there's hardly any public interest, but we discover they have an amazing story. Brendan Lindsay from Cambridge would be perfect example. Prior to him selling Sistema Plastics for $660 million, nobody really knew who he was. He'd kept his story very private. He's very humble. We love breaking big stories like Brendan's.

Jenny: You’ve interviewed a number of people from the Bay and Waikato on Unfiltered. Chris Liddell, former CFO at Microsoft and General Motors, is from Matamata. Theresa Gattung, ex-CEO of Telecom, is from Rotorua. John Lord, founder of LivWell (Colorado's biggest, legal cannabis dealer), is from Te Awamutu. And of course, your good friend Nick Mowbray, co-CEO of Zuru Toys, who's from Tokoroa. What do you think it is about those provincial areas that's produced such successful people?

Jake: There are a huge number of really successful New Zealanders globally who are relatively unknown, here. I believe the CEO of Walmart USA, Greg Foran, is from Hamilton too. I think coming from a small town, you are always hustling, trying to get ahead. When you grow up in a big city, everything's there. When you come from a small place, there's always something to reach for. For instance, my journey started in Greymouth on the west coast of the South Island. From there I went to boarding school in Christchurch, then I moved to Auckland, and now New York. It's called step migration. People generally move from a smaller place to somewhere slightly bigger. If you are born in the big city, everything's there. You probably don't know what to aspire to next.

Jenny: You wrote a list of 21 things you'd learned at 21 years old, and said that friendships were one of the most important things in life. But you have also spoken about not seeking out friendships when you were at school. What changed?

Jake: At secondary school I was very goal-driven. That made me different from most of the boys there, and I felt they weren't very tolerant of people who did things differently. I liked playing badminton, wanted to become head boy, and wanted to start a business. But what was expected was to sit around in the common room, talking about rugby and cricket. When you are at school, there isn't really much you can do about that, because you are stuck in that environment.

That was one of the deciding factors in leaving and starting my own business. I knew that if I  studied law, I would end up in a law firm answering to a boss I might not like, trying to get further in my career with people I didn't really want to be spending time with. If you have your own business, you get to decide who you spend time with. I was able to start working with people I really liked, and start building the deep and meaningful relationships that were missing at school.

Jenny: Immigration to the Bay of Plenty is strong, and many of our imports are looking to run a national or global business from here. What advice can you give them?

Jake: Utilise technology in every way you can. Today it's possible to run a global business from any small marketplace. You need to attract the right talent, and be prepared to travel. Just remember, everything's possible.

Jenny: And finally, who was the hardest person to track down?

Jake: That would have to be Sir Richard Branson. He's a very difficult person to talk to, because so many people are trying to interview someone like him. When I finally got his email address, I sent him a personal letter, and he agreed to an interview. Even after that it took persistence to make sure it happened. Then, all of sudden, I was waiting in our studio and being told that Sir Richard had just arrived.

To see the rest of Jake's interview, giving his million-dollar advice for starting up a business, and talking about his friendship with ex-Warriors owner, Eric Watson, and his Lifeline fundraising dinner at the Coatesville mansion, watch below: