Its five years since Ben first interviewed Fred Mills, founder of the B1M, and it is fair to say a lot has happened since then. The B1M YouTube channel now boasts over 1.5 million subscribers, which Fred says is the result of both hard work and good luck. “We've been lucky in many ways, but I think the harder I’ve worked the luckier I’ve got really. It's been a hard graft, I think people see the tip of the iceberg you know, it's awesome and it's amazing but if you imagine how hard it is and then times that by 50 - that's what it's like. It has been extremely difficult but we're over that tipping point now which is great”.

The B1M is now the world’s largest and most subscribed-to video platform for construction. Fred explains the mission statement behind the channel. “I am very mission focused, yes, we are media publishing company - we have a business model, but our mission is that we love construction, and we want the whole world to love it too and that's driven everything I've done from the videos we've made, to the staff we've hired, to decisions we've taken, to projects we’ve covered. It guides everything we do - that is the mission. I have a massive passion for this industry and I genuinely want billions of people on this planet to share that passion too because for too long people haven't realised just how impactful this industry is and how it underpins everything we do - from schools, to homes, to hospitals, to infrastructure, to how people feel when they wake up in the morning and how they go out in the day”.

Fred’s mission statement has been an important part of the B1M’s recent success. “I think having that kind of north star, that guiding mission behind everything you do has been great for us as a team, great for our ethos, but also really cool for engaging people and getting them to follow - it's not just cool videos about construction – there’s a genuine mission here and people really connect with that which is great.”

The B1M are always striving to improve their content and reach wider audiences. “We've massively increased our editorial integrity, editorial guidelines, values, all that kind of background stuff you don't see - the machine is a lot more perfected now. We've deliberately tried to take what is quite a sort of stuffy and closed away industry that most people don't know about and understand, and their only experience of it is noise, and dust, and hassle - and try to put it in a way that communicates just what it does to our world. It’s impact on climate change, it’s impact on other major social issues like housing, how it shapes society, transport infrastructure - all of that. We've tried to put it in a way that makes it relatable and connects to people and is the kind of stuff that if it was on TV you wouldn't turnover”.

Fred believes that by having a long term plan the B1M has been able to spread their mission statement and ultimately get more people interested in construction. “I think part of what has made the B1M so successful is that quite early on I worked out what I needed investment wise, support wise, team wise to have the infrastructure to always put out a video every single Wednesday of high quality and getting that in place early on was really important. I think it's one thing being passionate about what you do and loving what you do - which is critical, that's the most important thing because if you have that it shines through - but you need to build the communications and the publishing infrastructure to help get your message out to people who can actually see it, actually engage, and actually help it grow because if you don't do that you could be the most passionate person in the world but it won't actually get anywhere”.

With a team of 12 the B1M has been able to expand its reach, producing content in a number of different ways. “We do the main YouTube documentary or YouTube video every Wednesday 12 noon UK time and we'll put snippets of that across our social media, we also do what we call social media videos that are square format text stuff that go on some of the social platforms, we do articles on the website, we've done some webinar events this year, we’ve done physical events last year, physical premiere events of documentaries with panel discussions, we've done YouTube live streams, Facebook live streams - so yeah there’s a lot going on!”

More recently, Fred has had the opportunity to work with some major brands in the world of construction. “We’re doing a lot of work with big organisations in advance to have stuff ready to release around big news events - the Virgin Hyperloop is one of those. That stuffs been really cool and as we've kind of proven ourselves on all kinds of different projects with different higher and higher calibre people, we’ve been able to build trust with major brands”.

The meticulous approach of the B1M has allowed them to grow the channel successfully over the last 12 months and Fred has even bigger plans for 2021. “We are forensic with reviewing stuff and there are processes throughout video development, from idea, storyboard, scripts, edit, sign off, all that kind of stuff. We have 12 people working all together but we are expanding quite rapidly in 2021 which is cool, we're bringing on some new channels which is going to be interesting and we want to massively increase the production quality up to serious television ‘Netflix grade’ standards! So yeah, it's good we've got investment and backing to do that which is phenomenal. I feel kind of bad saying it because I am acutely aware of how tough the last 12 months have been for so many people in so many countries and we've had our fair share of that. In the main we've been very lucky, we've had some great people, we've had some great opportunities, we've gone over 200 million views, we hit 1 million subs, we've been listed in The Times, we got Richard Branson, it's been awesome and off the back of all that we’re now taking serious strives forward which is phenomenal”.