EE508 - Niall McGarry: Joe.ie, Fabric Social, and Selling to the World's Biggest Ad Agency

Niall, welcome to the pod.

Thanks for having me, Gary. It's a long time coming.

Hey. [laughs] It is. Good things are worth waiting for. This was one that I really was looking forward to genuinely for a long time. I've watched your journey from afar for a long time, so it's a genuine privilege to sit down opposite you.

Thank you very much, and likewise, congrats on everything you've done here with the Entrepreneur Experiment. Long may it continue.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Like, I know how challenging media can be-

Mm.

And you're a glutton for punishment.

Yeah. [laughs]

You're in, you're in the media business, and you keep going into it.

Yeah, yeah.

So you have just-- I think that's why it's so special to sit down with you today. You've just had a landmark moment in your career.

I have. I have, yeah. I've had a very good exit. Um, yeah, Fabric Social, um, business I started, uh, after the pandemic. It's kind of mad to think how time has elapsed since that kind of earth-shattering moment that we all lived through. But yeah, um, started Fabric Social, uh, in Ireland 2021, uh, UK 2022, and, uh, did a deal for it to be acquired, uh, over towards the end of 2025, and then signed and announced everything, uh, April 15th, and we're delighted to announce that we sold it to the largest, uh, advertising and marketing agency in the world, Publicis Group. So a really big accolade for me, and certainly one to, uh, as an entrepreneur, it doesn't really get better. To go into a category that you've no prior background in, create something that was in so demand that the biggest player in the, in the entire industry globally, uh, bought it was a, is a huge thing for me personally. Yeah, so delighted.

Congrats. It's, it's amazing to see that journey.

Yeah.

Like 2021 to 2025, end of 2025-

Yeah

... so just over four years.

Yeah.

That's quick.

It is quick, and I think enou- but ironically enough, a lot of the success actually came over two years because I had a thing, I think I put up on Instagram describing like Fabric's journey as like '22, '23, like the blade years where you're scrapping around for bits and pieces. We'd got a lot of Irish clients from the get-go, and essentially the offering of Fabric Social, for those who don't know, is, uh, is essentially running the social channels, Instagram, TikTok, primarily for, uh, brands and giving them fame and personality online. Um, so that was the kind of offering. Within that, there's tons more stuff. There's brilliant strategy needed, brilliant account management needed, brilliant production needed, and so on and so forth. But the premise of the business originally was, yeah, we'll make you famous on social. And, uh, tr- literally moved my family, made a decision to move my family to the UK. So started in Ireland in 2021, saw that if this is going to grow, I want to grow in the UK market because the opportunity there, the, the clients are bigger, the, the, the marketing budgets are s- you know, seriously more substantial. So made a difficult decision to move my family to the UK, uh, in 2022. When I say difficult, difficult just from a kind of a li- plugging out of one country and into another, having lived all my life in Ireland.

Mm