How 'Diary Of A CEO' Gets Made: Steven Bartlett Goes Behind The Scenes At FlightStory

We are

We are here at Flight Story and these are some of our studio sets.

The next step for us is turning all of these spaces into digital screens.

So, the show behind me is Paul Brunson's show, and the show over there is Davina McCall's show.

We've got another show behind you.

The Diary of a CEO is in another building.

But we're building out all of these sort of thematic sets that elevate the conversation.

And we think a lot about a lot of the details.

So we had about two months of debate just about the chair.

Because the chair has to represent the conversation, so on my show, which is kind of like having a difficult conversation with your parents about something.

The aesthetic we've chosen is a bit gothic, a bit cold, it's silver, it's steel, and the chairs are like kitchen table chairs that you're like very upright, not that comfortable.

But that is like having a conversation with your best friend over a coffee at home.

Okay, so we have been in this building only for a couple of months now.

So it's still being built as we speak.

But if I take you over here, this whole space will remain open.

And this is really kind of the launch pad.

The company's called Flight Story, so it's all themed around flight and innovation and speed.

I can actually show you some of the designs if you come over here.

So,

these are all the studios are going to look like.

These are the digital screens that I was talking about.

Where we currently have the Diary of a CEO studio like this.

It will eventually just be digital screens.

The outdoor area.

Is going to look a little bit like this.

Through there, we're going to have our own coffee shop with a barista.

And this is the entrance with the spaceman hanging from the roof.

And you should be able to speak to it, tell it who you are and who you're here to see.

You'll have a chat with the walls.

And the walls will let you into the building.

The best thing about this space.

If I do say so myself, is the rocket.

And I'll show you what I mean by the rocket.

So,

there will be a 25-foot rocket here coming up into this space with planets orbiting it.

And the planets that are orbiting it are all the companies within Flight Story.

Useless absurdity will define you more than useful practicality.

What I mean by that is it tends to be the case that the most absurd things a brand or company does.

Um, end up mattering more to cementing who that brand is than anything else that they do.

The thing that will be most memorable in our company.

Um, and the thing that will cement our brand the most.

Is if you, when you walk into this space, it feels different.

And you will not forget seeing a 25-foot rocket in the middle of an office with smoke coming out of the bottom of it.

So, and it's just cool, you know?

And I just, I think people don't put enough value on just like cool stuff.

This is one of our mezz floors.

Again, brand new.

We've got, I don't know, maybe 70 people up here, different teams.

But this is where a lot of the editors sit for our shows.

Editing clips, editing the long form episodes, editing across all social platforms as well.

We have over here the experimentation and failure team.

Who are constantly testing and experimenting.

Um, if I move a little bit further on.

We have some of our, I can tell by a lot of the stuff on their desks.

Even though they're not sat there.

We have the social team here and marketing team.

So producing social content, clips, etcetera.

Newsletters and all those kinds of things.

Here, see that there is an important thing.

This is the experimenter of the week trophy.

This trophy every week goes to the person that has failed the most.

Conducted the most experiments, tried the most things.

I've never won it.

So I think there's some funny business going on because talk about experimentation.

It was my idea.

And I've not won this thing once, so we are going to fix that at some point.

But this week it was deserved.

So we've got our finance teams here.

We've got the investment team here that are doing a lot of our investments and a lot of the companies in our fund.

Actually, this is quite important.

Let me show you this.

So,

this is a picture of Jamal Edwards.

Um, who was really important in my story.

He passed away three years ago.

I think at the age of 31 or 32.

But when I was in Manchester and I was 18 years old and I was dreaming about starting a business, he was the only young black man in the UK that hadn't come from money.

That I could see out there in the public who had really made a success of himself by building his own media company called SBTV.

And so when I was 18, 19, 20 years old, I was on Skype desperately trying to get Jamal's attention and desperately trying to ask him questions about business.

When I got further down the line in business, I reached out to him and we met up and I actually interviewed him on the Diary of a CEO.

And he gave me some incredible advice and I became great friends with him.

And then he passed away.

Really interesting that he, he sits in the office because he is part of the reason why the Diary of a CEO exists.

He's part of the reason why my career existed.

I don't think people understand how much of an impact he had on so many people's lives.

And I don't even think he realizes that.

Because a lot of them never got to tell him.

So rest in peace and thank you to Jamal Edwards.

In here, we have more of our teams.

So I sit over there in the corner with my private office team.

So like my chief of staff, my assistants and stuff like that.

And some of my investment team.

Finance teams here.

We run a speaking division as well.

So our speaking team sits there.

And what I mean by speaking team is, um, we put on a lot of events.

I do a lot of speaking.

But all of our other hosts on our shows do speaking as well.

So we have a team here that, um, organize those events and manage them, manage our speaking business.

Interestingly, you can see some drinks here.

These are all actually investments we've made.

This is the fastest growing, hashtag ad.

This is the fastest growing, um, tea brand in the UK.

Is he here?

Teddy?

It's called Perfect Ted.

He's, he's Teddy.

So it's named after him.

Very egotistical, right?

No, but it's, it's a great name.

It was these guys that in my second year of Dragon's Den that taught me that if you, what you should really be investing in is people with life force energy.

It's like the best way I can describe it.

Like people who have that thing that makes them move problems out the way.

Some people put problems in front of them.

Remarkable thing you see in business.

Like some people will say, no, we can't do it because.

And then there's this other group of people that will say, we can do it because.

And these guys, they have this energy where they just, I don't think anything can stop them.

So funnily enough, we, um, we have this survey that we send around to see, to check if someone's aligned to our culture.

And they scored almost perfect scores in terms of alignment with our current team.

So when we were thinking about which of our investments to move into the building, absolute no-brainer.

Um, because they have the same energy.

So another wonderful individual I shall introduce you to.

Are you nervous?

Because I'm bringing a camera around you.

Uh, yeah.

Are you?

Explain who you are, explain your story, explain, um, what you're doing here.

So,

uh, I'm Ukrainian refugee.

I arrived to the UK after full invasion.

And I set up a distribution company.

Uh, which represents Ukrainian brands and services and I help Ukrainian manufacturers and businesses to, uh, say, work in places.

Which is really important right now.

So, yeah, everything around this project to help my home country to survive.

We met on Dragon's Den where you pitched your business.

And I was so blown away.

In part by your business and the amazing products you have, but really more so by you as a person.

Because of your like unflinching determination and sense of like mission towards helping your country.

And so when I heard she was based in Huddersfield, and I, I felt that the best chance your business would have would be to be based in London and to have some space and a warehouse, etcetera.

She came and joined us in London and has been working here for how many months now?

Uh, third.

The third month she's been here now.

So, um, it's wonderful to have you here.

The office has gone out of fashion.

But what's come into fashion is community and bringing people together.

So you want people that are going to raise the bar.