Founders: Should YOU be CEO? Are You Sure?

0:03As the founder or leader of a scaling challenger brand, finding the right people to join your growing business can be much harder than you think. That's why we've teamed up with FMCG specialist recruitment consultancy, MKJ Ignite, to bring you the best people and recruitment insights from some of the most successful founders out there. And I feel like there are so many founders of businesses who are stuck in this like, stress hole of doing a job which is ultimately like an elite profession that people get good at over like 20-30 years and you've never really learned I know you can still have a founder-led business that's not founder run yeah and I think that's the sweet spot that I feel like we have hit you know you're on to something there I mean maybe people are saying this already but founder led not founder run yeah that's really strong isn't it yeah for sure because like running a business is fucking hard and if you haven't done it before is it can be really it's a pretty shit job and it's not for everybody yeah and also usually as a founder you're i mean not always but like you're jacked up on equity but you've taken salary cuts for the first whatever and often that carries on so like you're doing a high stress elite job getting paid what pittance yeah exactly yeah you can't necessarily like afford the the release outside the holidays if you eventually take holidays the nice side of being a founder isn't there plus you've got all the emotional stress of all of the risk that you've taken and the loans and you know is this going to work and we've already been doing it i mean you say you know for the first eight years you were working that hard eight years is a very very long time to get to six million you know yeah And now you have, now you feel like you're humming and you've got, and almost for people to hear out there, you know, it doesn't happen overnight.

1:56Yeah. And it's really hard. Yeah. And probably, I mean, I would say like if I had an operational kind of co-founder, that would have taken half the time. The challenge is, is that it's very, once you start on the journey, if you put someone in, you have to pay them properly. Yeah. And ultimately you can't afford to pay properly until you're at a certain level. But if you think about the major successes in FMCG of the last, whatever, five years, Huell put in James very early. Lucky Saint put in Emma within the first couple of years. I'm not sure the list is long. Perfect head. They brought Sharni in to do the sales piece so that they could do the other stuff.

2:39Yeah. It's great. I'm having a great time. And I'm very grateful to everyone who's helped build that machine. Good for you. What would you do differently? I mean, and I know there's probably loads of things, but if there was three things that you could say to people who were kind of struggling along eight years later, is it that get a co-founder early doors who knows how to do the yin to your yang? Yeah, I think it's so hard to get a co-founder in because like the early days, if you don't have them from the start, the early days are so tough that like you can almost force it and then you've just got very very high equity um compensated like employee but i do think bringing in at the very least like an extremely qualified overqualified number two let's call it in whatever if you're office of finance sales and marketing if you're whatever i think that's key and how do you part with the finance for that though so because that's the bit that i you know everyone I work with struggles with is, you know, well, we're only on 80 grand as founders, you know, or as a founder, and that's even a lot.

3:47But we need that to live. If I was to bring in that person, they might be, they might expect 120. How do you live with that? Well, ultimately, you just have to take the risk because it's like, if you think of the kind of, and this isn't, this isn't a classic life cycle of a brand, but like, if you look at the last 10 years the amount of money that's been raised to spend on marketing and spend on field sales people whatever just put that into an md or a coo or whatever the challenge is whether that works or not is almost binary it's like you get you get the right person and you behave appropriately around them or they're not like hiring a i don't know 35 grand sales exec is much lower risk than hiring a hundred.

4:34It has been gotten wrong many times, but less so for my life, but like there's loads of stories. Most, most founders, their first senior hire is wrong and it's an utter disaster. You've got to be okay with that stuff. You've got to be okay with the fact that you can't get it right all the time. Yeah. But also I suppose when you're looking ahead next 12 months, next 18 months, not you, but this is earlier on in the journey, there will be 40 grand mistakes. Yeah. You know, whether it's misproductions or whether it's too much packaging or whether it's a D-list or whether it's I decided to go for that senior hire and they weren't right.

5:08And then there's a payoff. You almost have to have that fat in your budget, don't you? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Or your emotional expectation, even if it's not in the budget. But, you know, that it's OK because it happens to everybody. And probably if you have the people around you that have kind of been on a similar journey, then they pay for themselves by like diverting you away from making certain decisions. Like half of those mistakes. I'm delighted to be partnering with MKJ Ignite an FMCG recruitment specialist who supports challenger brands just like yours MKJ Ignite has worked with some of the fastest growing brands in the industry including the likes of Real Superfoods, Purdy and Fig, Hunter and Gather, Lucky Saint and Untamed Recently I asked Director Immy Southwell to explain the real value that a specialist recruiter like MKJ Ignite can offer founders

6:00Stu Macdonald:So I think at MKJ Ignite we don't just place candidates So we really help founders build the teams that's going to really scale their business, which is pretty exciting. So we specialise in FMCG from grocery to e-commerce to multi-channel brands. And we really know what it takes to take them from a pre-revenue all the way to a 50 million and hopefully beyond. So we partnered with some of the UK's most exciting challenger brands. So the list is like Lucky Saint, True Start Coffee, Hunter and Gather, Real Superfoods. And we've really helped those businesses hire across sales, marketing, category and MPD.

6:41Stu Macdonald:So we really act as a true people partner, not just a recruiter, really helping businesses build the right teams to really hopefully fuel their next stage of growth. Honestly, besides the obvious value of having a deep network and tons of experience in recruitment, so much more time and effort goes into finding the right people than you might think. No matter what stage of the journey you're at, MKJ Ignite can help you find the right people for your marketing, e-commerce, sales or operations teams, whether that be at middle management or senior leadership roles. They have an extensive network of deep personal relationships in the space.

7:18And I think that's because they are really lovely, genuine people. So if you want to chat to Amy, Paul or Billy about all things recruitment, or indeed, if you just need a piece of advice, then please do reach out to them. There's a link in the show notes to book a no obligation chat or you can email them at info at mkj-ignite.co.uk. Thanks to MKJ Ignite for bringing us this nugget of brand growth value today. Don't forget to hit follow so you won't miss the next one.