How My Dyslexia Became My Entrepreneurial Superpower

Sean Weisbrot: Euan Cameron is the founder and CEO of Willow. I haven't used it yet, but ... I love it because this is something that I've thought about for years, which is the fact that people try to hire based on a document, a cv. And oftentimes people that have potentially really great cultural fit for the company get tossed aside because you don't really have the time and energy to go through everyone's CV and then do research on every single person.

Sean Weisbrot: And so what they do is allow businesses to give every applicant an opportunity to create video responses to. interview questions so that they can get to know the person for who they are before they decide whether or not to continue in the hiring process. I think it's a fantastic business. So do investors because they have given them over a million pounds to date and they have several hundred paying customers.

Sean Weisbrot: So, it's a really exciting business to watch out for if you haven't heard of it yet, Willow And, so we'll hear more about Willow and. Yuan and the adversity that he goes through in trying to run his business with the dyslexia that he has. So, really excited to talk more with him, really excited to talk more with him about this.

Sean Weisbrot: so. Why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about yourself beyond what I've just said, and we'll go from there.

Euan Cameron: Well, I'm based in Scotland. I've got a background in marketing. so digital marketing is my background. I've been practicing digital marketing there for over 15 years, andin those 15 years I've always worked in startups.

Euan Cameron: So my background since I left university has always been working in growing scaling startups. across the uk, most, most recently, obviously Willow, but going back in time, worked for automotive startups. Worked for a whole bunch of different D two C brands, mostly in London and then arrived in Willow.

Euan Cameron: And it was through those previous startups that I got the passion and the excitement for building Willow. Which was, which was a great kind of. I think to come across, it was back in like 20 15, 20 16 that I discovered that, that there was a need for something like Willow and and then, through all those startups that I was building, discovered that this actually had, had some legs in it.

Euan Cameron: and then obviously outside of, outside of work and things, I do a lot of cycling around Scotland and I do a lot of traveling with my camera and I have a small family with a 3-year-old as well.

Sean Weisbrot: When did you realize? That you had dyslexia and did, were you aware that there was something different? In the way you processed information before you got the diagnosis or

Euan Cameron: the diagnosis was back in, in school. So when I was 16 or 17 years old was when I was diagnosed. but before that time, I was actually in school. Iwas actually very pure of all of my subjects and I was just struggling and, and kind of mumbling my way through the school years. so it was quite a tough, tough kind of education for me because I didn't excel in any subjects.

Euan Cameron: I, I could barely do a lot of the subjects, particularly the, the key ones that, maths and English and sciences, which, require you to retain a lot of information and, and, and that was how success was really defined in those subjects, and I really, really struggled with, with that.

Euan Cameron: but unfortunately before my diagnosis, I always just. I was assuming that I wasn't very good at school. and that was just me. And it was, it was really obviously disheartening for me. I was in all the lowest, the lowest classes for these, for these subjects. Sometimes my classes were just like two or three people in them.

Euan Cameron: and yeah, they weren't very fun. we were, we were learning the basics all the time. We tended to be given. extra time in the exams, but then extra time meant that you had to arrive early for exams and, and that meant, going into school earlier and you couldn't often get into school earlier.

Euan Cameron: So I never used the extra time. And then if I did, people always sort of looked at you funny and laughed and things, so I didn't use the extra time, a huge amount. and yeah, it was, it was a really rubbish, number of years in school. Then the diagnosis happened and it was, it was, the school had a specific person that was, that was sort of trained in, looking for learning difficulties and disabilities, and it was, when I was speaking to them, they said we should do it.

Euan Cameron: a test and see, because it sounds like, I think it was from English specifically, it sounds like you're really struggling with English and you can, barely write a, a sentence without making a mistake and you're 16 years old. so I did this test and the test eventually came back to say that I had dyslexia.

Euan Cameron: But unfortunately by the age of 16 in the Scottish education system, you pretty much. finished school, you've got another year, or two if you want to, to really drag that out. But, yeah, I kind of, I ended up going into a lot of arts, and kind of design classes by that point. So I like doing art and design in the final year of school.

Euan Cameron: I. because I could paint and draw on things, and I got, I, I got actually quite good grades in that. I got some A's and a pluses and things, which was great. And yeah, it was, it was a tough few years before that though, especially as you mentioned earlier, I didn't know that there was anything wrong. I. So I always just assumed it was me and you kind of, you blame yourself as well.

Euan Cameron: Right? I ended up blaming myself a lot and just thinking I'm really, really stupid and I can't learn anything and I'm never gonna be successful. And that was really, really killing me, especially in my school, because in my school there was a lot of drive and ambition and everyone was really kind of, there was, it was an, there was an interesting culture in my school where everyone, um. It was cool or popular, was really intelligent and, and I found that really quite unusual just for schools in general. but looking back, it was definitely quite a unique school in that sense. And because I obviously wasn't very intelligent, I was struggling in all my classes. I wasn't very popular or very cool.

Euan Cameron: and that, that was also really quite hard to deal with. for the sort of five or six years that I was in, in school. but yeah, that was, that was the diagnosis around the age of 16. And that was, that was great, obviously, because I could, I could actually label it. It was mostly labeling that allowed me to kind of move on with my life.

Euan Cameron: I was like, okay, cool. Now I know, if I could replay those, those five years of school before that, that would've been great. but by that point it was too late.

Sean Weisbrot: I was diagnosed with aDD at the age of six. My. My school saw that I had a lot of energy and it was difficult to calm me down. It was difficult to get me to focus and they, they thought there was something there. They didn't really know what it was. So they tested me for, like, they did an IQ test and what they found was, they're like, look, your son is really smart. But he also is extremely hyper, and because of that, he can't focus and be able to succeed in class. so they simultaneously wanted to put me in gifted classes like two days a week, but they also wanted to put me on Ritalin, which would help me with the focus.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, let me tell you that freaking Ritalin was horrible. It made me feel like a zombie. It made me not want to eat, and I think that it stunted my growth for sure. 'cause when I was younger, I was told that I would be five nine, which is about like 1 72, 1 73 centimeters, maybe 1 75. I'm only 1 65, right? I'm five six. And I know this because my dad's family is tall. And, we had, we had this special doctor that looks at your bone structure when you're growing and they're like, yeah, based on this, like, we could see how much space is left between your bones and all, all in all horrific experience to the point where I would like, pretend that I have stomach aches and I would like go lay on the couch before school and I would like just put the pill in the couch.

Sean Weisbrot: So after a few years we moved to another city. And they were getting ready to move the couch. They saw hundreds of pills fall out of the couch and they were pissed 'cause they were paying for those pills and I wasn't consuming them. So I would take them sometimes, but not other times. But I didn't like the feeling at all.

Sean Weisbrot: and so I, I guess for me it was the opposite experience where I was labeled in the opposite way and given extra opportunities. and yet I still found it difficult to focus in school. I found it difficult to succeed, because I felt like they were teaching everything way too slow. I felt like I could move a lot faster than everybody else.

Euan Cameron: That's an early diagnosis, isn't it? It's six years old. I don't, I don't know how early it is in the US but in the UK that would be quite young, which is a good thing, I think, right?

Sean Weisbrot: I think it's because of the IQ test. I think. I think at like 6, 7, 8, they just would want to test. Wanted to test people, but in the nineties they were as, they were also really heavily pushing pills on kids. and, and so that's one of the reasons why I don't like the pharmaceutical company because I feel like I was wronged, right. I didn't have the option to say no, you know? so once you kind of understood Right. You said you, you were able to label it. How did that change the way you saw yourself? How did that change the way you saw your life trajectory?

Sean Weisbrot: I know that you started a web design agency. I think that was maybe out of your enjoyment of art, as you were saying, as you got into 16, 17, 18. Why don't you talk a little about that.

Euan Cameron: When I got the label, I was. 16, 17 years old, I could actually read up on what the label meant. And that was really helpful. So I could do a lot of research and I read a lot about dyslexia and what that meant, and that was really helpful for me because I could quite quickly realize I. Hey, this isn't all bad news, and this is the coping mechanisms, and these are all the famous, important, clever people that have dyslexia and have been successful.

Euan Cameron: So you're not gonna be unsuccessful just because of this label. And there's all these like things that it opened up, it was just like a box of information I could suddenly go to and I could, like, this is all the things, all the resources. And it was amazing for me to be able to do that.

Euan Cameron: And quite quickly after that, maybe. Six to 12 months after getting the diagnosis, I could then start actually building on the strengths and playing on the strengths. Although it was difficult, I could start to identify what my strengths actually were and then use those to my advantage.

Euan Cameron: So, exactly like you just mentioned, I started when I was 17 years old, a web design agency. And that was, purely based on the fact that I could design on, on the screen, I could create things, which I loved doing. I loved creating things. I hated writing an essay, which was also creating, but I loved creating designs on the screen.

Euan Cameron: And I then got into photography as well. I was taking photos for the websites or I was designing art for the websites and things.

Euan Cameron: And yeah, it was, it was quite, an exciting transition from feeling really. unsuccessful and really unintelligent and, I also felt like I was getting held back by the school and stuff because I was in these, really low classes and then suddenly I'm like, holy shit, I've got this label.

Euan Cameron: I understand it. It's not the end of the world. And there's gotta be a path I can carve here to make it, make it work for me because all these other successful people have. Richard Branson was one of my keys. kind of people that I looked up to. I suppose I saw him write a lot of his autobiographies and stuff, and I just saw him as an example.

Euan Cameron: And, and I guess this is true of a lot of disabilities and things in general, you only need one or two role models like that to be able to kind of lift you up. And I think it's really important that people can identify these role models like that. He was a person that I caught onto and I was like. He can do it. Anyone can do it.

Euan Cameron: And, and that was, that was really interesting for me because I suddenly realized that I was different, but in a potentially good way.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm not sure there's any role models with a DD.

Euan Cameron: Oh really?

Sean Weisbrot: Maybe, maybe I'm wrong. We need to look. We need to

Euan Cameron: Have a look. Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. And at the time there wasn't really the internet. There, there wasn't really a way to learn about how to deal with it. I, there, there was no Wikipedia in the nineties to go, what the hell is a DD? And, and why do I have it? and, and all of that now, medication is one of the number one coping mechanisms for a DD, which I think is wrong, but. Is there no medication or anything that can make the symptoms easier or go away in dyslexia at all?

Euan Cameron: Not that I'm aware of. The most common roots of, of kind of cure or treatment are, are really, cognitive, cognitive behavioral therapy. So CBT, which can help you just kinda get over some of the, the real focus challenges.

Euan Cameron: It's similar in terms of a DD. When it comes to focus, it's hard to focus on, on words, on the page. It's hard to focus and organize things as well. So often, you'll struggle to imagine like a jigsaw, you'll struggle to put all the pieces into the right place. Even a very simple jigsaw, because there's just a lot moving, a lot going on, and you struggle to focus on each piece as an individual piece with all the, the, the content on the piece.

Euan Cameron: so that helps just focus and, and organize your life. People that have it worse than me also really struggle with organizing their day. So just like, you know. Getting outta bed, having a shower, going to work can be quite challenging. that wasn't the case for me so much and, and anything that I did do, just strengthened that.

Euan Cameron: So I really worked hard on organizing myself quite early on. Realizing that I. and, and probably like going back even before the diagnosis, I used to make huge lists of things to do each day. like I literally write down breakfast, put on clothes. I reallyenjoyed completing all these things.

Euan Cameron: It helped, helped me feel really structured. Otherwise, I just felt like, you often hear psychology, like a monkey sitting on your shoulder and going crazy. And you wanna tame that monkey. And that kind of organization of the list really helped me tame that wild, crazy monkey so that I could actually focus on what I needed to do.

Euan Cameron: and then the other. The other thing is just, using adaptive techniques. So for example, rather than reading black text on a white screen, you would typically flip your screen to be, for example, a purple background or yellow background and change the color of the text. It creates different contrasts and some people find those contrasts easier to focus on.

Euan Cameron: So typical. a person with dyslexia looking at white text, sorry, white background. Black text will find that all the words will float around the page and they'll really struggle to follow the lines, like left to right, left to right. and it makes reading really, really tiring. So a lot of coping mechanisms are actually changing the way that those words are presented, which is obviously a real benefit of computers as well.

Euan Cameron: When you go back to liking books and things. I remember in school they used to give out, like bits of paper, so acetate stuff that you would, bit of plastic you would put on the page. And that was supposed to help change the contrast as of the paper on the, on the textbook. But it didn't really work 'because they were terrible and they were really annoying.

Euan Cameron: And you had to change it each page to sort of flip the page and then stick this piece of acetate. And it was a nightmare. People also wore glasses, which were tinted, but then that resulted in, in a lot of it, bullying, I imagine, in skill. So I did not, I did not go down the glasses route. but yeah, trying to, trying to actually con consume the information on the page requires just some, some adaptive techniques.

Euan Cameron: There's a lot of, a lot of like plugins you can get for chrome browsers and things as well that will actually do that automatically with any website that you go on.

Sean Weisbrot: It's a very interesting experience you've had. I find a tremendous number of similarities. Actually for myself, I remember being 10, 11, 12 and making long lists of things to do on a piece of paper and carrying it around with me at school, at home, wherever I went, and I would cross off the things I needed to do.

Sean Weisbrot: Now, I do it on my phone and I will sometimes meditate, walk, stretch, and go to the gym. Like, I'll, I'll write this stuff down and I'll, I'll tick it off every day. Like, okay, I did this. and that also helps me to focus. I, I think. Maybe where the difference comes in on the aDD side from the dyslexia side is that my brain is so noisy that I, like, let's say I go into a room and I wanna take my vitamins for the day. For example, this morning I noticed that maybe there's only half a bottle left. And I wanna go, or I'm going on a trip soon. So I thought, I should count how many pills are in here and maybe, buy another bottle so that I've got it when I'm with, when I'm, I'm on the trip, right? So I went in there to do something.

Sean Weisbrot: I got sidetracked. I then started counting the pills before I finished the other vitamins I wanted to consume. And then I walked over to Amazon to look and see if I could buy it. I discovered that the brand isn't selling it anymore. So then I had to do research to see if there was another brand I could trust, right?

Sean Weisbrot: And so now 30 minutes have gone by and I still haven't finished the vitamins, right? That's what a DD is like. And so if you don't. Stay firm with yourself and have that to-do list, like, oh, I'm gonna take the pills. I know I need to look at how many pills I have left, but that has to be done later.

Sean Weisbrot: I've got other things I have to do. Right? If you don't stop yourself from letting these things distract you and sidetrack you, then it's impossible to get anything done in a day. And so these lists are really helpful. And so I keep a list on my phone. I keep my phone on me all the time, and so I'm constantly going through my list and adding things, and I'll move them around based on what's important, what I want to do next, and, and all of those tiny details. And I just try to recognize when. I am not focusing on when I'm getting sidetracked. and so, some of the best times for me are when my phone is on silent like this right now, I got one thing to do. It's the only thing I'm doing. I'm purpose per, I'm perfectly focused on it. And, and this is great.

Sean Weisbrot: Like, this is, it's not easy, but when I'm forced into a position where I can only do one thing at a time, then it's great. Otherwise there's 20 tabs open and I'm getting sidetracked doing research on this thing or that thing. and so it can be quite difficult to focus. and I do also, I've noticed sometimes that if I look at a screen for too long, I. I don't wanna read every word on the page. I find myself skipping around like, oh yeah, I think I know what they're gonna say. The rest, that sentence, I'm just gonna go to the next sentence. So I, I don't know if that has anything to do with dyslexia. Maybe I'm just presenting it or I'm, I'm experiencing it differently.

Sean Weisbrot: Or maybe there's a difference in the way a DD works and then dyslexia. 'cause I can't say things move around. I can't say things are. Sometimes things are difficult to process, but I can also sit and, like, for example, I've got this book I just bought 600 something pages. Like I can sit there for 30 minutes to an hour and I can read it. I may read a sentence twice over fire, like, feel like I didn't get the meaning. But generally reading is fine long term, but, or, or long, not long term. Generally reading is okay, but it can also present issues at times. So. Videos are great to handle that, getting, getting information presented to you, visually. So yeah, a very, very interesting experience so far. and so. Do you find that being dyslexic makes running a business harder or easier for you?

Euan Cameron: The obvious answer would be no, but the answer I've experienced is, yes, it does make it easier, and it's only because I've managed to cope and figure out how to handle the dyslexia, though I think if somebody diagnosed me last year. I'd like, oh shit. Like, it'd be really difficult, trying to figure it out. Trying to manage the dyslexia and the challenges that come with it and run a business should be really hard. but thankfully I've had a long time like you to kind of figure out and, and deal with this. Deal with all the problems that it brings and then also come up with solutions.

Euan Cameron: So yeah, the, the, the answer today is yes, it does. And I think the biggest thing probably for me, Sean, is the organization that it brings, the fact that I can organize a bit like you, you have to really, really focus, by really focusing and organizing stuff. I can, like, I can stack up an entire project planner for example.

Euan Cameron: I can consume it all and figure it all out. And I do like shorthand notes and stuff as well, which it helps again 'cause there's less words you don't have to read as much. but doing all of that and actually allowing me to really laser focus on the. On the challenge or, or the project at hand actually does allow, I think, me to deliver a more successful outcome for business.

Euan Cameron: A great example, I suppose, of that is that, if I'm briefing like a colleague or I'm briefing, a contractor or a freelancer on a project or. a new, a new campaign. For example, we wanna do marketing because my brain is so wired to be really organized, I end up delivering a really, really organized, clear, brief to the recipient.

Euan Cameron: I. sometimes, maybe too clear, but that's not a bad thing. where, I'll get feedback from people and they'll be like, you're the, the most clear, transparent client that I have or whatever I get that feedback from, from freelancers. And that's just because in my own head, I need to be, I can't, like, I can't for some reason deliver a short brief to someone.

Euan Cameron: I can't be like, oh, can you just, go and design that thing and put that here and that here. See you later. I needto know exactly how it's all gonna work and how it's gonna be laid out almost to the point where I can do it myself. and I do do, I do that quite a lot as well, where I'll just do the task myself multiple times first.

Euan Cameron: And people do say that you should do that, obviously in management, I think it's an important skill to be able to actually do the task before you delegate the task. So yeah, I do tend to run through that. But yeah, the, the, the ability to organize and coordinate, particularly in a startup, and I think. That's probably similar with you, that startups and small businesses, because they're so chaotic, your ability to focus and tame the chaos can actually be quite beneficial. Whereas other people without learning dis difficulties and, and Neurodivergence can't tame the chaos. They just feel like they're in chaos and they would rather escape the chaos.

Euan Cameron: But, for you and I, for example, we have no choice. So we're always kind of in there, in the chaotic mind. So it is a case of training it and, and honing in on those, those coping mechanisms.

Sean Weisbrot: Meditation has been extremely helpful every morning for almost the last 18, 19 years, in allowing me to calm my brain down a little bit, and that helps to start the day. But in the last year or so, I've discovered psilocybin, which other people would call magic mushrooms. when you take them at, in small doses, there's really strong mental health benefits. I'm microdosing today actually. And for someone with a chaotic mind. Mushrooms at a microdose level are the only thing I've ever experienced that quiet my brain down to a point where it is peaceful, and that is a fantastic way for me to manage my daily life. I don't know what other people. That don't have aDHD or dyslexia experience on a daily basis. Although, I did ask someone recently, I was like, how do you deal with like the noise in your head? And they're like, what noise? And I, I wasn't sure. I was like, are you, are you like not smart or is it just I am, I'm messed up.

Sean Weisbrot: Right? This is something that someone like myself just goes through and so when I microdose, I just have this really peaceful, quiet. inner voice, and I just find it's like, it's so easy to, to think and to plan. one of the things I, I don't know about you, but the noise and the speed at which my brain moves without the mushrooms, I feel like is detrimental to my sanity almost. It's like anxiety inducing at times because it's like, oh, you've got this thought and then this thought and this thought. It's like constantly racing. and especially with a DD. One of the, the issues I've faced with my startup was I would come up with an idea and, the team wants to go and do it, but before they even get started, I have another idea already, and another idea, and another idea, another idea, and they're like, your ideas are great. Go create a list and eventually we'll get to it and the next few years, right? It's like, we love what you, we, we love all your ideas, but we just can't implement them all. We don't have the money, we don't have the people, we don't have the energy. We just can't do it all. I don't know if you experienced something like that, but, yeah, I, I literally had a running list of like 200 features I wanted to include in the application. They're like, we just can't put this in an MVP. Sorry.

Euan Cameron: So there is a definite difference there then from aDD and dyslexia, which is that the chaos is not in any way anxiety inducing, at least for me. So the, the more the line more stops at just feeling. Unorganized and a bit shit about yourself. so I just feel like, it's almost like you can't grasp anything. like the, there's a lot of stuff moving around in your head. But it's not chaotically fast. It's just really hard to like, get hold of. and, and that's why you have to write the lists obviously because there's stuff in there that's pretty obvious that needs to be done. You like to pay a bill or whatever, or send this letter.

Euan Cameron: but even those small things, you're just gonna float around. And if you don't grasp and pin them down, then it just makes you feel a bit like, ugh, that's really annoying. This, This, this head of mine today is just making things float around everywhere and it's not very helpful. it's probably more, it's probably less anxiety juicing and more like almost depressingly annoying, to have, to have that kind of going on. I, yeah, I think that's really interesting that you've discovered mushrooms that I can't even imagine what that must've felt like having the peace all of a sudden in your head.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. So I was actually doing research for my mom who's had cognitive issues for the last few years. And, she's been on antidepressants for years. Finally, after two months I got her weaned off. She's been off of antidepressants for the first time in many years. It's been a few weeks now, finally, and, thankfully she feels a lot better with it. But, yeah, a year and a half ago I started doing research about them to see if I could help. Have heard of microdose instead of antidepressants because there's a very clear and known research that has shown, microdosing mushrooms can significantly help with or get rid of PTSD, stress, anxiety, depression. But I had no idea that it also would have this effect on me, this benefit that I get to experience.

Sean Weisbrot: So I did the research for many months and then finally came back to the States. 'cause I was in Asia at the time and was able to find it and, and then get my mom to try it. And, but first I had to try it on myself. And it was after I tried it on myself that I went, whoa, this is incredible. And it's not addictive. That's one of the things I really like about it. 'cause there's, I'll go back and forth, there'll be times where I'm like, yeah, I think I need this right now. And then there'll be times where my brain's like, nah, I don't need it. So like I, I took it for like five days a week and, five days on, two days off, or two months the very first time.

Sean Weisbrot: And then I didn't touch it for eight months and then I started to kind of feel like I wanted it again. And I did it for like. a month and then I stopped for five, six months. And, more recently I've been taking it four or five days a week for the last two months. And, it's been quite helpful. So, yeah, it is really helpful. I really wish I had mushrooms when I was with my ex-wife because I think our relationship would've probably been a lot better. 'cause I think part of the issue was that. My brain just moved so fast. It was difficult for her, I think, at times, to keep up and to feel like we were on the same page and, and having conversations with each other.

Sean Weisbrot: which is one of the issues I noticed when I have the aDD and no mushrooms for a period of time and my brain is racing, then conversations are difficult because like, as you see, I'm talking fast right now. It's like my brain is processing things much faster than my mouth can say them. And oftentimes it works in a way that like everyone else that is around me is thinking at a much slower pace.

Sean Weisbrot: And so I am way beyond where they are. When I finish saying something and they start to talk, I've already, like in my head, gone on two to three new topics, right? Like I've already gone through so many different things. And it's not to say that they're not intelligent, it's just to say that my brain is wired differently and sometimes annoyingly. So for me, and, and so that was an issue that I had in my relationship was that like, especially 'because she was a non-native speaker, she was quite fluent, but she was a non-native speaker of English, still. and, and that was I think hurt, not hurtful, but detrimental. in, in our ability to communicate with each other.

Sean Weisbrot: but also to be fair, I've had coffee this morning, so I imagine having a DD coffee and mushrooms and, and, and this is what this episode is for me. When we started you, I saw you drinking an espresso. How does the espresso work? Change your, the, the way your brain works, I guess, along throughout the day.

Euan Cameron: It's a terrible thing to do. So I basically shouldn't drink espresso, but I really like the taste and the smell of coffee. but it really doesn't help at all with anything. So yeah, I'd like to have one in the morning and then one around lunchtime. but it doesn't help us with dyslexia one bit. It just adds a lot of unnecessary stress and, and chaos to my brain.

Euan Cameron: But because I love it so much, I can't, I can't cut it out. Unfortunately. It's definitely not the right thing to be doing. You wanna have like no caffeine, no stimulants, no depressants, just neuro suppressants, just. Just water is, and, and chemicals as well. Any chemicals in your head. So I, I'll have like a diet Coke every day, obviously full of chemicals, but yeah. These are not, these are not great for dealing with any kind of neurodiverse issues.

Sean Weisbrot: I drink water all day.

Euan Cameron: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: I try to drink a few liters a day.

Euan Cameron: Yeah. Just because it's really important to

Sean Weisbrot: stay hydrated.

Euan Cameron: If you can cut the caffeine out and any kind of chemical soda drinks out, it does make you feel much better. I go through phases of doing that, but yeah, at the moment I'm definitely on a coffee. It's also not very helpful that it's very dark outside in Scotland at this time of year. Coffee kinda wakes you up a bit. It makes you feel a bit more awake. It's 3:00 PM here and it's almost pitch black outside.

Sean Weisbrot: What other things have we not kind of touched upon related to dyslexia and, and your company and things? That it's helping or hurting or, or anything else about dyslexia in general that we haven't really covered that you, that's interesting to you that you wanna talk about?

Euan Cameron: I think one of the interesting things I would love to talk about is just the impact of dyslexia and other neurodiverse issues when it comes to the hiring of people. So we, you spoke at the start about the fact that companies based their decisions on a piece of paper. And that piece of paper is, literally the, the deciding factor whether you get a job or not. And what's interesting about that when it comes to dyslexia in particular, is that dyslexia does not lend itself very well to writing.

Euan Cameron: pages about you. And writing them Well, dyslexia people tend to put in, you know the wrong word. They'll put in spelling mistakes, they'll struggle with the organization of the cv. The actual structure, typical CV is, has got a specific structure and if you don't follow that structure, then your CV typically goes in the B because it doesn't match everyone else's.

Euan Cameron: And I find all that stuff really quiet mind blowing because we're both on the call with. With issues with the way we learn and, and challenges and things, we're not alone. There's obviously hundreds of millions of people around the world with similar issues, and yet the traditional way of hiring is to ask for a couple of sheets of paper.

Euan Cameron: And for everyone's structure and format to be the same as each other. And that's how we'll base our decisions on whether we hire someone into our team or not. And I find that really unusual. So from a, from a dyslexic standpoint, I was really, really poor at writing CVS and really struggled with the, not so much the.

Euan Cameron: The content because I could use word processors and things. Thankfully, we both grew up with computers, but pre-computers, it would've been really difficult. Imagine if you were like a dyslexia kind of typewriter. Typewriter's not gonna tell you that you've put in the stakes or errors.

Euan Cameron: You're just gonna be typing away. And I really struggle with the structure more than anything though. So like, again, that really helps with the word processor. 'cause you can write a paragraph and go, nah, that's a really weird place to add that paragraph and just drag it into another place. That was really helpful.

Euan Cameron: And same with sentences, you can kind of just pull things around. So that kinda helped a bit with coping. But in general, the piece I struggled with personally was the structure of the CV and the order that I should present the information. Like I, I would open with some random thing about.

Euan Cameron: My background or something and then, everything, everything just seemed really jumbled and confusing. And if you were reading 10 cvs. The one that I gave you would stand out like a sore thumb and you would probably just go, nah, that's not for me. There's another nine here that are all very normal and standardized.

Euan Cameron: I find that really confusing though, and, and mind blowing it in 2023. We are still using the CV in, in a large number of organizations around the world. As, the hiring method. It's the default or the go-to hiring method for most organizations. Even those with really, intelligent forward thinking people and intelligent hiring teams, they still require CVS and resumes and cover letters to make decisions.

Euan Cameron: And that was where Willow really excited me when, when I came up with a concept, not only was this concept, relying on video and giving. People, opportunities to interview remotely, but it was also removing the need for the cv, which was a really limiting document for a lot of people around the world, particularly when it comes to things like, dyslexia, people that, perhaps struggle with the, the language even so, like, a lot of people struggle with, with, you know.

Euan Cameron: basic written language, if they don't learn it in school properly, or, perhaps it's to do with the, the structuring. Again, similar to dyslexia, there's other neurodiverse, challenges that struggle with the, the structuring of information and even getting information onto paper. And yet, organizations have that as their front door and they'll close the door on you if you don't, supply them with this piece of information, in the format they expect.

Euan Cameron: So. Yeah, Willow was really exciting 'cause it allows us to get away from CVS and just present people as they are. and they can do it over voice or video. So, if you don't wanna be on video, which some people don't, they can present themselves just purely on, on recorded audio, which again, removes a lot of those barriers that people have.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I like voices a lot. It. Whenever I'm talking to people in different chat applications, I love to send voice messages to the point that sometimes I annoy people. I'm like, look, just put it on two x. I don't care. Like, I'll send a one or two minute message multiple times. Be like, just, just listen to it, you know?

Sean Weisbrot: Oh, I can't listen right now. Sorry. I guess you're gonna have to wait. Otherwise, I'm gonna be writing you a paragraph and you probably don't wanna read the paragraph. So I think voice and video are much better for communication. Call me old fashioned. I like to see people face to face or, or, whether it's video or like I can shake their hand.

Sean Weisbrot: but yeah, I think it's great. I'm curious how long until after you, I. Started the company, you were able to start using Willow to hire your PE own people.

Euan Cameron: So three years ago, yesterday we launched Willow and we started hiring in October of that year, so October, 2020, and we hired our first sales employee with Willow, which was really cool.

Euan Cameron: So previously we'd only ever. Used it on freelancers and stuff, we kind of would put up like a designer job and Upwork and we would use Willow to screen those designers and filter those designers then. And that was a, that was actually more of a test for the platform than, than it was for the designers.

Euan Cameron: 'cause we were just using it because it was available. but it was really cool to be able to actually put it through its paces and use it for a full-time salesperson. so that was, yeah, sort of nine months after we launched, we could actually use it for our own people. And then obviously we've used it ever since.

Euan Cameron: We've got a team of 12 now. Everyone has been through Willow. We've done hundreds of our own interviews through Willow to get to those 12 people.

Sean Weisbrot: How does that affect the morale or the company culture for like, everyone that's, that's with you now, has been through it. They know the product as a user as well and as a team member, I.

Euan Cameron: When we look at salespeople, so salespeople that have come through from the Willow process, when they're then demoing to other customers, they can talk about it from firsthand experience, which is amazing. And what else is interesting about it is that everyone that has ever come through the Willow interview has had a positive experience.

Euan Cameron: And they also mirror everything that we set out to achieve without us obviously telling them. So they would be mentioning the flexibility, the fact that it was inclusive, the fact that it was fun and easy to use, and they could do it on any device and all that kinda stuff. All those, all those kinds of things that we baked into the platform.

Euan Cameron: You hear it firsthand from the, from the, the employees that end up using it, which is really cool. Great validation, and we can obviously use it ourselves as from a, from a recruiter point of view as well. So being able to use your, everyone says use your product every day. it's often not that easy to do depending on what you make, obviously.

Euan Cameron: but we're in a fortunate position that we can use it every day for real.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm excited to try it out in the future when I'm looking to start hiring people. Through the consulting company that I have, I'll be working with clients and one of the things that we'll be doing is workforce planning. And so, we can help them to go, alright, well we know that based on how you want your business to grow, we know that you need to hire this position or that position at this time.

Sean Weisbrot: And so, we could potentially use your platform and see how it is. I would love to try it, because I've been talking about this for years. I think it's something really interesting. So how can people follow up?